Summary of “Yushka” Platonova
For a long time, in ancient times, there lived on our street an old-looking man. He worked in the smithy at the big Moscow road; he worked as an assistant assistant to the chief smith, because he could hardly see with his eyes and he had little strength in his hands. He carried water, sand and coal to the smithy, fanned the horn, held hot iron on the anvil with tongs, when the chief smith chained him, introduced the horse into the machine to forge it, and did all sorts of other work that needed to be done. His name was Yefim, but all people called him Yushka. He was short and thin; On his wrinkled face, instead of a mustache and beard, rare gray hair grew separately; His eyes were as white as a blind man’s, and there was always moisture in them, like unflaming tears.
Yushka lived in an apartment with the owner of the smithy, in the kitchen. In the morning he went to the smithy, and in the evening went back to the lodging for the night. The owner fed him for his work with
When Yushka went down the street to the forge early in the morning, the old people and the old women went up and said that Yoshka had already gone to work, it was time to get up and wake up the young ones. And in the evening, when Yushka was going to spend the night, people said that it was time to have supper and go to bed – and Yushka was already going to bed.
And small children and even those who became teenagers, they, when they saw the
“Yoshka’s coming!” Vaughan Yushka!
Children lifted dry branches from the ground, pebbles, a scrap of handfuls and threw in Yushka.
– Yushka! cried the children. – Are you really Yushka?
The old man did not answer the children and did not take offense at them; he walked as quietly as before, and did not cover his face, which fell pebbles and dirt.
The children were surprised at Yushka that he was alive, and he himself was not angry with them. And they again called to the old man:
“Yushka, are you true or not?”
Then the children again threw objects from the ground into it, ran up to him, touched him and pushed him, not understanding why he would not chase after them, as all great people do. The children did not know another such person, and they thought – was Yushka really alive? Having touched Yushka with his hands or striking him, they saw that he was solid and alive.
Then the children again pushed Yushka and threw clods of earth into it-let him get angry, since he really lives in the world. But Yushka walked and was silent. Then the children themselves began to be angry with Yushka. They were bored and unwell to play if Yushka was always silent, did not frighten them and did not chase them. And they pushed the old man even harder and shouted around him so that he would call them evil and cheer them up. Then they would run away from him and in fright, in joy they would again tease him from afar and call to him, fleeing then to hide in the twilight of the evening, in the shadow of houses, in the thickets of gardens and vegetable gardens. But Yushka did not touch them and did not answer them.
When the children did stop Yushka or hurt him, he told them:
– What do you, my dear, what are you, dear ones. You must love me. Why do you all need me. Wait, do not touch me, you hit me in the eye with the earth, I do not see.
The children did not hear or understand him. They still pushed Yushka and laughed at him. They were happy that you can do everything with him, whatever you want, and he does nothing to them.
Yushka was also happy. He knew why children laugh at him and torture him. He believed that children love him, that they need him, only they do not know how to love a person and do not know what to do for love, and therefore they torment him.
Father and mother’s houses reproached the children when they did not study well or did not listen to their parents: “You’ll be just like Yushka!” “You’ll grow up, and you’ll walk barefoot in the summer, and in thin boots in winter, and you’ll be tormented, and tea with sugar you will not drink, but one water! “
Adult elderly people, having met Yushka on the street, also sometimes offended him. In adult people there was an evil grief or resentment, or they were drunk, then their hearts filled with fierce rage. Seeing Yushka, going to the smithy or to the court for the night, an adult man said to him:
– What are you so blissful, unlike go here? What do you think is so special?
Yushka stopped, listened and was silent in return.
“Have you any words, or what?” You live simply and honestly, as I live, and secretly do not think! Tell me, will you live like this? You will not? Aha. Okay!
And after the conversation, during which Yushka was silent, the adult person was convinced that Yushka was to blame for everything, and immediately beat him. From the meekness of Yushka, an adult person came into embitterment and beat him more than he wanted at first, and in this evil he forgot his grief for a time.
Yushka spent a long time lying in the dust on the road. When he woke up, he got up himself, and sometimes the daughter of the owner of the smithy came after him, she raised him and took her with him.
“You’d better die, Yushka,” said the hostess. “Why do you live?”
Yushka looked at her with surprise. He did not understand why he should die when he was born to live.
“It was my father-mother who gave birth to me, their will was,” answered Yushka, “I can not die, and I help your father in the forge.”
“Another would be in your place, an assistant!”
“People love me, Dasha!”
“You have blood on your cheek now, and last week your ear was ripped apart, and you say the people love you.”
“He loves me without a clue,” Yushka says. – The heart in people is blind.
“Their hearts are blind, but their eyes are visible!” – Dasha said. “Go quickly, eh!” They love something to their heart, but they beat it by calculation.
“By calculation, they are angry with me, it’s true,” agreed Yushka. “They do not tell me to go to the street and the body is crippled.”
– Oh, you, Yushka, Yushka! sighed Dasha. “And you, father, you said, not yet old!”
“How old I am.” I’ve been breastfed since I was a child, I blundered it from an illness and became old.
For this illness, Yushka left his master every month for a month. He went on foot to a remote village far away, where he must have had relatives. Nobody knew who they were to him.
Even Yushka himself forgot, and in one summer he said that his widowed sister lives in the village, and in another, that there is a niece. Sometimes he said that he was going to the village, and in another, that to Moscow itself. And people thought that in the distant village lives Yushkin’s beloved daughter, the same is not evil and superfluous to people like his father.
In June or August, Yushka put on a knapsack with bread and left our city. On the way, he breathed the fragrance of herbs and forests, looked at the white clouds that were born in the sky, floating and dying in light air warmth, listened to the voice of the rivers mumbling on stone slips, and Yushka’s sick chest rested, he no longer felt his illness-consumption. Having gone far, where it was completely deserted, Yushka did not hide his love for living beings. He leaned toward the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to breathe on them, so that they did not deteriorate from his breathing, he stroked the bark in the trees and raised butterflies and beetles from the path, which fell dead, and peered into their faces for a long time, feeling orphaned. But live birds sang in the sky, dragonflies, beetles and hard-working grasshoppers made merry sounds in the grass, and so it was easy on Yushka’s soul,
On the way, Yushka was resting. He sat in the shade of a roadside tree and dozed in peace and warmth. Resting, having caught his breath in the field, he did not remember the illness and was walking happily farther, like a healthy man. Yushka was forty years old, but the disease had long tormented him and worn out before time, so he seemed old.
And so, every year Yuschka left the fields, forests and rivers to a village or to Moscow, where he was waiting for someone or no one, – nobody knew about this in the city.
A month later Yushka usually returned to the city and again worked from morning till evening in the smithy. He again began to live as before, and again the children and adults, residents of the street, mocked Yushka, reproached him for his unreasonable stupidity and tormented him.
Yushka lived quietly until the summer of next year, and in the summer he put on a knapsack by the shoulders, put money in a separate bag, earned and saved up for a year, only a hundred rubles, hanging that bag in his breast pocket and leaving unknown where and who to whom.
But year after year, Yushka became more and more weak, because the time of his life was going on and the chest sickness tormented his body and exhausted him. In one summer, when Yushka was already approaching the time to go to his distant village, he did not go anywhere. He wandered, as usual, in the evening, already darkly from the smithy to the host for the night. A merry passer-by, who knew Yushka, laughed at him:
“Why are you trampling on our land, God’s scarecrow!” If only I could die, maybe, it would be more fun without you, otherwise I’m afraid to miss it.
And here Yushka was angry in reply – it must have been the first time in his life.
– And what I have to you, what am I stopping you. I live by parents, I was born by law, I also need the whole world, like you, without me, too, so you can not.
The passer-by, not having listened to Yushka, became angry with him:
– Yes you that! What are you talking about? How dare you, me, with myself, to equate, the fool is worthless!
“I do not equal,” said Yushka, “but we are all equal if necessary.”
“Do not be wise to me!” the passer-by shouted. “I’ll take care of you!” I’m talking, I’ll learn you the mind!
Waving, the passerby pushed Yushka into the chest with force of anger, and he fell backwards.
“Rest,” said the passer-by and went home to drink tea.
After lying down, Yushka turned face down and did not move or rise again.
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