On the one hundred and eighty-fourth kilometer from Moscow along the Ryazan railway, “from the good half a year after that train slowed down, almost as if to a touch.” The passengers clung to the windows, wanting to see the reason only the machinists knew about. * In the summer of 1956, the author-narrator Ignatich returned from hot Kazakhstan to Russia, he did not exactly determine where he would go, he was not expected anywhere. “A year before the events described, he could do only the most unskilled work, even an electrician would not take him to decent construction, and he” wanted itelstvovat “. Now he entered the Vladimir Oblon in an unskilled manner and asked if a mathematics teacher was needed in the very backwoods. Such a statement surprised officials very much, because everyone wanted to work closer to the city. He was given direction in the High Field, a place where, besides the beautiful name, nothing was, our hero refused this work, it was necessary
to eat something. Then they proposed to go to the station Toroproduct. An unpretentious village consisted of barracks and houses, the forest was not in sight. The place is rather dull, but it was not necessary to choose. After spending the night at the station, Ignatich learned about the existence of the nearest village of Talnevo, and then went Chaslitsy, Ovintsy, Spudni, Shevertney, standing off the railroad. It interested our hero, he decided to find accommodation here. Soon it turned out that this is not so easy. And although the teacher – lodger profitable: in excess of payment for the apartment the school promised him a peat car for the winter, – the cottages were overcrowded. And only on the outskirts, he found a hideous shelter at Matryona. Her house is big, but dilapidated and not well-groomed, “it was built long ago and soundly, for a large family, but now there lived a single woman of about sixty. “The hostess was unwell, she lay on the stove, complaining of a” black affliction. ” Matryona did not show much joy at the sight of the tenant, and he immediately realized
that he was destined to settle there. The hostess spent most of the time on the stove, giving the best place to numerous ficuses. The guest was given a place by the window, where he put a cot, a table, books, fenced off by ficuses from the main space. In the hut, in addition to Matryona Vasilyevna, there was also a lame cat and mice and cockroaches who fled from her behind wallpaper, pasted in several layers. The resident soon became accustomed to living in Matrenina’s hut. The hostess got up at four o’clock in the morning, milked a goat and cooked potatoes in three pots: herself, a goat and a guest. The food was monotonous: “Kartov peeling, or a cardboard soup (the so-called everything in the village) or a porridge of barley. “The resident was also pleased with this, because life taught him not to eat to find the meaning of existence.” In that fall, Matryona had a lot of grievances. A “new pension law” came out, and her neighbors urged her to seek a pension that she “did not deserve,” since she worked for twenty-five years on a collective farm, not for money, but for workdays. Now there was a patient, but was not considered an invalid for the same reason. And the pension had to be worked for the husband, that is, for the loss of the breadwinner. “But my husband was not fifteen years, since the beginning of the war, and it was not easy to get now those certificates from different places about his” older “(work experience) and how much he received there.” These certificates had to be rewritten several times, corrected, transferred to the office, and he was twenty kilometers from Talnova, the village council – for ten kilometers in the other direction, and the village council – in an hour’s walk to the third side. Walking fruitlessly for two months, the old woman was exhausted, complained of oppression. After senseless walking, she took up work: she dug kartov, or went after peat and returned tired and enlightened. “The resident, Ignatich, was wondering if the peat machine the school had allocated would not be enough.” Matryona assured me that three cars are needed for the winter. peat was not relying, but was caught and judged on stealing. “The kolkhoz chairman walked around the village, looked into his eyes with demanding and turbid or simple-heartedness, and talked about anything except fuel, because he himself stocked up. We did not expect winter.” And as the wood was stolen from the master earlier, peat was now being stolen from the trust. Over time it was possible to carry a bag in pood two, which was enough for one breeze. On the day Matryona walked five or six times, hiding the stolen peat, so that they would not take it away. Often a patrol would catch a woman at the entrance to the village or search the courtyards, but winter would inevitably come, forcing people to overcome fear. Watching Matryona, Ignatich noticed that her day was filled with many deeds. She wore peat, dug kartov, stored cowberries for the winter, hay for goats, had to mow along uncomfortable swamps, as the collective farm cut the land for the disabled, although for fifteen hundred hectares it was necessary to work on a collective farm that did not have enough hands. for collective farm work, she did not refuse, obediently agreed, learning about the time of collection, and the neighbors also often called Matryona to help him dig potatoes or plow the garden. “The old woman was leaving her business and was going to help the next applicant. And she did it for free, considering it her duty. She also lost her fuss when she had to feed goat herders once a month and a half. Matryona went to the village and was wasted on products that she herself did not eat: canned fish, butter, sugar. Mistresses laid out each other, trying to feed the shepherds better, because “throughout the village they will be cheated if they do not.” At times, the mistress of the house was lying down, then she lay, hardly moving, not wanting anything but rest. Masha, a close friend from the young year-olds, but Matryona got up, walked slowly, then began to move more alive, she told Ignatich that she was strong and courageous in her youth, but now she was afraid of the fire, but more all – trains. for the winter Matryona Vasilyevna’s life was adjusted. They began to pay her a pension of eighty rubles and the school for a guest a hundred rubles. Neighbors envied her. And Matryona, sewing two hundred rubles for her funeral in a lining of her coat, said: “Manenko and I have quietly seen, Ignatich.” Even the relatives appeared – three sisters, who had previously been afraid that Matryona would ask for help. a guest, and he to her. ” They lived without ceremony, without bothering each other with questions. Over time, Ignatich himself told of himself that he had spent a long time in prison, “she silently nodded a tin, as she suspected before.” He also learned that she had married 1atrena before the revolution, “and immediately into this hut.” She had six children, but all died in childhood. Matryona’s husband did not return from the war, went missing. There was a pupil of Cyrus. Once, after returning from school, Ignatic found in the house of a tall black old man, whose face was completely overgrown with a black beard. It was Matryona’s brother-in-law, Thaddeus Mironovich, who came to ask for his negligent son, Grigoryev Anton, a pupil of the eighth grade “g.” In the evening, Matryona Vasilievna told that in her youth she almost married Faddei Mironovich, he was the first to marry, before Yefim. was nineteen, and he was twenty-three years old, but the German war broke out, Thaddeus was taken to the front, and Matryona waited for him for three years, but there was not a single news: they married Efim on Petrov’s day (July 12), and on the Pokrov (October 14) “Thaddeus returned from Hungarian captivity. ” If it were not for his brother, he would have killed Thaddeus and Yefim and Matren. And later he said: “I’ll look for you.” He brought the “second Matryon” to the new hut. Thaddeus often beat his wife, and she often ran to complain to Matryona Vasilyevna. And it would seem, about what Thaddeyu regret. He gave birth to his wife six children, all survived. Matryona Vasilievna, the children died before they reached the age of three months “a portion (spoilage) in me!” She said with conviction: for years, in 1941 they did not take Thaddeus to the front because of blindness, and Yefim left and went missing. Matryona Vasilyevna at the “second Matryona” younger daughter Cyrus and ten years raised her, married to the machinist in Cherusti. “Suffering from ailments and tea (expecting) a near death, at the same time Matryona announced her will: a separate log cabin. after her death to inherit Kire. She did not say anything about the hut. Three more of her sisters were tagging to get this cottage. “Shortly after this intimate revelation, Cyrus came from Cyricus, old Thaddeus was worried, that young people in the worms are offered a plot of land for the construction of a house, here Matrens’ upper room was needed. “Thaddeus caught fire on this site in the worms.” Matryona did not sleep for two nights, it was not easy for her to decide “to break the roof under which she lived for forty years, for Matryona it was the end of her life all” . And on one of the February days, Thaddeus appeared with his five sons, “and knocked on five axes.” While the men were breaking the hut, the women were preparing for the day of samogon loading, the machinist-in-law came from Cherusti with a tractor driver, but the weather changed drastically, “two weeks did not happen was given to the tractor broken room. ” During this time, very passed Matryona. The sisters scolded that she had given up the room, the cat had disappeared somewhere, life had changed. Finally the road was established, a tractor arrived with a huge sled, hastily shot down the second. The dispute began, how to carry them – separately or together. Thaddeus and the engineer-in-law were afraid that the tractor would not pull two sledges, and the tractor driver did not want to do two trips. He did not have time to make them during the night, and by the morning the tractor should stand in the garage. Having loaded the upper room, the men sat down at the table, but for a little while – the darkness made me hurry. After the men, Matryona jumped out, complaining that there was not enough of one tractor: “And what did not you have to spare two? One tractor would fall sick – another pulled up. And now what will be the news of God! “Matryona did not return in an hour or four, and at four in the morning the four men knocked on the hut and entered the uniforms of the railwaymen. The arrivals asked if the workers and the tractor driver drank before leaving. in the kitchen, and “they themselves with annoyance noticed that there was no drinking (in the hut – Author).” Only leaving, one of the railwaymen grunted, that “turned them all. You will not. Yes, the twenty-first fast came off the rail, so it would be. “Masha, a friend of Matryona, who came with them, told them that the tractor with the first sledge had crossed the crossing, and the second self-made ones were stuck, as the cable that pulled them pulled out. the second sleigh, the tractor driver and the son of Thaddeus got on with the rope, Matryona started to help them. “The driver watched the train not come down from the witches, but then the shunting locomotive without lights was fired, and he crumpled all three,” the tractor was mutilated, the sleigh splashed, , and the locomotives are both on one side. ” The locomotive was not heard, the tractor was working. Engineers survived and immediately rushed to brak early, barely had time. Witnesses fled. Kira’s husband almost hanged himself – he was taken out of the loop: his aunt died because of him and his wife’s brother, then went to surrender to the authorities. And it’s just right not to go to jail, but to put it in a psychiatric hospital. 3 The remains of Matryona were brought in the sack in the morning. Her three sisters came, seized the property, locked the chest, cried, reproaching Matryona that she was dead, allowing her to break the upper room, not listening to them. An ancient old woman approached the coffin and said sternly: “There are two riddles in the world: how I was born – I do not remember how I die – I do not know.” Kira went insane from the grave of the adoptive mother to her brother’s grave, and her husband awaits trial. and the management of the road itself was to blame for not being guarded by the brisk crossing, that the locomotive “rally” was going without lights, so they wanted to put everything on the booze, and when it did not work, to hush up the court. For three days there was a repair of the frustrated paths, the freezing workers burned the donkey logs, Thaddeus rushed to save the remains of the room, he did not grieve over the son he had killed and once his beloved woman. Gathering relatives, he through three villages in a detour drove up the room to his yard. In the morning they buried the dead at the crossing. After the funeral, Thaddeus came, took orders with Matren’s sisters about the property. He was allocated besides the upper room – a barn where the goat lived, and the entire inner fence. He took everything with his sons to his yard. Izbut Matryona was beaten up, Ignatich moved to the sister-in-law of Matryona, who tried in every possible way to humiliate Matryona, saying that she helped everyone with disinterestedness, was witty and dirty. And only then did the image of Matryona, with whom he lived side by side, without understanding it, surfaced before the narrator. “She did not chase after buying a thing, did not try to buy things and then save them more than her life, did not chase dresses that embellished the freaks and villains. Not understood and not appreciated, she was that same righteous person, without whom a village does not stand. Neither city. Neither the whole earth is ours. 1959
