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The stories are combined into one cycle. The narration is told in the first person.

Khor and Kalinich

One day, while hunting in the Kaluga region, I met the local gentleman Polutkin. He loved hunting just like me. Polutkin made an offer to live on his estate. The road was long, so it was decided to stop by one of the landowner’s men, Khor. He was not at home. Khor lived in a separate house with six sons and was distinguished by his prosperity. In the morning we went hunting, taking with us the cheerful peasant Kalinich, without whom Polutkin could not imagine hunting. The next day I hunted alone. I went to stay with Khor. I stayed there for three days and learned that Khor and Kalinich were good friends. I became very attached to them, but I had to leave.

Ermolai and the miller's wife

I went hunting with my neighbor's serf Ermolai. He was quite carefree; Ermolai had few responsibilities. This hunter was married, but practically never appeared in his dilapidated hut. We hunted all day, and in the evening we decided to stop for the night in a mill. At night I woke up from a quiet conversation. Arina, who was a miller, talked with Ermolai. She told her story about how she served with Count Zverkov. His wife, having learned about Arina’s pregnancy from Petrushka’s footman, exiled the girl to the village. The footman himself was sent to become a soldier. In the village, Arina married a miller, and her child died.

Raspberry water

I went hunting again one August day. The heat made me thirsty, and I reached a source called “Raspberry Water”. Not far from the key I decided to lie down in the shade. Two old men were fishing nearby. One of them was Stepushka. Nothing was known about his past. Stepushka practically didn’t talk to anyone. The other fisherman was Mikhailo Savelyev. He was a freedman and served as a butler for a tradesman. I decided to talk to them. Savelyev talked about his former master, the count. Suddenly we saw a peasant walking. He was returning from Moscow, where he asked his master to reduce the rent that his now deceased son was paying for him. The master kicked him out. The traveler lamented that there was nothing more to take from him. After some time, we each went in our own direction.

County doctor

One day, returning home after a hunt, I felt sick. I stopped at a hotel, from where I sent for a doctor. He told me his story. One day he was called to the sick daughter of a landowner outside the city. The doctor arrived at the scene and saw a beautiful 20-year-old girl. The doctor was imbued with her situation and even experienced feelings. The doctor decided to stay until the patient got better. The family accepted him as one of their own. Gradually, the doctor realized that the girl could not cope with the disease. He spent the last three nights with her. The girl died. The doctor then married the daughter of a merchant with a good dowry.

My neighbor Radilov

Ermolai and I went hunting in the linden garden. As it turned out, its owner was a local landowner Radilov. When we met, he invited me to have dinner with him. The landowner lived with his mother and sister, his deceased wife. A week after lunch, news reached me that Radilov had left with his sister-in-law, leaving behind his elderly mother.

Odnodvorets Ovsyannikov

I met Ovsyannikov while visiting Radilov. Ovsyannikov was a representative of the old generation with the manners of a wealthy merchant. His neighbors showed him respect. Ovsyannikov lived with his wife, but without children. He was respected by his neighbors. When we met with him, we talked about hunting, about new noble morals, about another neighbor Stepan Komov. Then the Oryol landowner Franz Lejeune, who came to visit Ovsyannikov, joined us.

Lgov

One day Ermolai and I went to the village of Lgov to hunt game. On the large Lgov pond there were a large number of ducks We decided to take a boat from the village for greater convenience. On the way we met a young man, Vladimir. Along the way, I learned his story: the fellow traveler was a freedman, he communicated with us in very refined expressions. In Lgov we took a boat, albeit an old one, the cracks had to be covered with tow. We had a great time hunting, the boat was full of ducks. But as it turned out, the boat leaked. And suddenly it sank. We were able to leave the overgrown pond only in the late afternoon.

Bezhin meadow

While hunting in the Tula province, I got a little lost. Walking by the stars, I came to a wide meadow called Bezhin. There were fires burning on it, there were children there, they were herding horses in the night. I lay down from fatigue and began to listen to their conversation. One of them told about a brownie at a factory where the boy had to spend the night. Another admitted that he saw a mermaid in the trees in the forest. Some sound was suddenly heard from the direction of the thicket. A pack of dogs ran there, followed by one of the boys. When he returned, he said that there were wolves nearby. The conversations stopped only in the morning.

Kasyan with a beautiful sword

The coachman was driving me home one hot summer day. Ahead, the coachman saw a funeral procession, we hastened to overtake the convoy to avoid signs. But the cart broke down, and the procession reached us. Having reached the settlement, we changed the cart's axle. A local old man, Kasyan, agreed to take me to the hunting spot. The old man was considered by many to be a holy fool; he sometimes practiced herbal medicine. The hunt was not successful, we returned to the village and immediately went home with the coachman Erofey.

Mayor

Almost next door to my estate is the house of Arkady Pavlovich Penochkin, a young landowner and retired military man. He is distinguished by his special education among the local nobles. I don’t visit him often, because I don’t feel comfortable in his house. Once Penochkin, having learned that I was going to Ryabovo, decided to go with me. His goal was the village of Shipilovka, where the mayor Sofron, whom he praised, lived. When meeting him, the mayor complained to Penochkin about the lack of land and the increase in arrears. When I had already left them for Ryabov to hunt, I learned from a peasant friend that Shipilovka belonged to Penochkin only on paper, and the mayor was in charge.

Office

During my hunt, it started to rain coldly. And I had to stop in the nearest village. The largest house housed the headman's office. The chief clerk's name was Nikolai Eremeich. Instructions and orders for the mayor and headman passed through the office, but all the papers were signed by the owner of the village, Losnyakova. After a short sleep, I witnessed a quarrel between Nikolai Eremeich and paramedic Pavel. He accused the clerk of various obstacles to his marriage with his bride Tatyana. Later I learned that Losnyakova sent Tatyana into exile, and kept the clerk and paramedic with her.

Biryuk

In the evening he returned from another hunt. I took shelter from the bad weather under a wide bush. On the road I noticed a local forester who took me to his house. There I saw a 12-year-old girl and a baby in a cradle. The hut was very poor. People called the forester Biryuk. He had a broad figure and an unwavering face. It turned out that his wife ran away with someone else, leaving their small children. When the rain stopped, we went out into the yard. Suddenly the sound of an ax was heard in the forest, the forester ran there. Biryuk grabbed the wet man. I was ready to pay for Biryuk to let him go. And suddenly this stern man took pity and freed the frightened peasant.

Two landowners

I would like to introduce you to two landowners with whom I had the opportunity to hunt. The first, retired major Vyacheslav Khvalynsky. A kind but bad owner. Lives alone and tries not to remember the past. The other one, Mardarii Stegunov, on the contrary, has a cheerful disposition, although he also lives a bachelor’s life. Having visited them, I realized how different people are.

Death

With Ardalion Mikhailovich, my neighbor, we went hunting. He agreed on the condition that we stop by his Chaplygino estate. An oak forest was being cut down there, and we soon found ourselves at the site. There, quite unexpectedly, a falling tree crushed Maxim, who served as a contractor, to death. Death brought back my memories and brought up unpleasant feelings.

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Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

Notes of a Hunter

Khor and Kalinich

Anyone who happened to move from the Bolkhov district to Zhizdrinsky was probably struck by the sharp difference between the breed of people in the Oryol province and the Kaluga breed. The Oryol peasant is short, stooped, gloomy, looks from under his brows, lives in crappy aspen huts, goes to corvée, does not engage in trade, eats poorly, wears bast shoes; Kaluga obrok peasant lives in spacious pine huts, is tall, looks bold and cheerful, has a clean and white face, sells oil and tar, and wears boots on holidays. The Oryol village (we are talking about the eastern part of the Oryol province) is usually located among plowed fields, near a ravine, somehow turned into a dirty pond. Apart from a few willow trees, always ready to serve, and two or three skinny birches, you won’t see a tree for a mile around; hut is stuck to hut, the roofs are covered with rotten straw... The Kaluga village, on the contrary, is mostly surrounded by forest; the huts stand freer and straighter, covered with planks; the gates are tightly locked, the fence in the backyard is not scattered and does not fall out, does not invite every passing pig to visit... And it is better for the hunter in the Kaluga province. In the Oryol province, the last forests and areas will disappear in five years, and there are no traces of swamps; in Kaluga, on the contrary, the clearings stretch for hundreds, the swamps for dozens of miles, and the noble bird of the black grouse has not yet disappeared, there is a good-natured great snipe, and the busy partridge with its impetuous takeoff amuses and frightens the shooter and the dog.

While visiting the Zhizdra district as a hunter, I came across a field and met one Kaluga small landowner, Polutykin, a passionate hunter and, therefore, an excellent person. True, he had some weaknesses: for example, he wooed all the rich brides in the province and, having been refused his hand and his house, with a contrite heart he confided his grief to all his friends and acquaintances, and continued to send sour peaches to the brides’ parents as gifts. and other raw produce of his garden; loved to repeat the same joke, which, despite Mr. Polutykin’s respect for his merits, absolutely never made anyone laugh; praised the composition of Akim Nakhimov and the story Pinnu; stuttered; called his dog Astronomer; instead of however said anyway and started a French kitchen in his house, the secret of which, according to his cook, was a complete change in the natural taste of each dish: this artist’s meat tasted like fish, fish like mushrooms, pasta like gunpowder; but not a single carrot fell into the soup without taking the form of a rhombus or trapezoid. But with the exception of these few and insignificant shortcomings, Mr. Polutykin was, as already said, an excellent person.

On the very first day of my acquaintance with Mr. Polutykin, he invited me to his place for the night.

“It will be about five miles to me,” he added, “it’s a long walk; Let's go to Khor first. (The reader will allow me not to convey his stutter.)

-Who is Khor?

- And my man... He’s not far from here.

We went to see him. In the middle of the forest, in a cleared and developed clearing, stood the lonely estate of Khorya. It consisted of several pine log houses connected by fences; In front of the main hut there was a canopy supported by thin posts. We entered. We were met by a young guy, about twenty, tall and handsome.

- Ah, Fedya! Khor at home? - Mr. Polutykin asked him.

“No, Khor has gone to town,” answered the guy, smiling and showing a row of teeth white as snow. - Would you like to pawn the cart?

- Yes, brother, a cart. Bring us some kvass.

We entered the hut. Not a single Suzdal painting covered the clean log walls; in the corner in front of the heavy image, a lamp glowed in a silver frame; the linden table had recently been scraped and washed; there were no frisky Prussians wandering between the logs and along the window jambs, no brooding cockroaches hiding. A young guy soon appeared with a large white mug filled with good kvass, with a huge chunk of wheat bread and with a dozen pickles in a wooden bowl. He put all these supplies on the table, leaned against the door and began looking at us with a smile. Before we had time to finish our snack, the cart was already knocking in front of the porch. We went out. A boy of about fifteen, curly-haired and red-cheeked, sat as a coachman and had difficulty holding a well-fed piebald stallion. Around the cart stood about six young giants, very similar to each other and to Fedya. “All children of Khorya!” - Polutykin noted. “It’s all Ferrets,” said Fedya, who followed us out onto the porch, “and not all: Potap is in the forest, and Sidor has gone to the city with old Horem... Look, Vasya,” he continued, turning to the coachman, “in spirit Somchi: You are taking the master. Just be careful during the pushes: you’ll spoil the cart and disturb the master’s womb!” The rest of the Ferrets grinned at Fedya's antics. “Put in the Astronomer!” – Mr. Polutykin exclaimed solemnly. Fedya, not without pleasure, lifted the forcedly smiling dog into the air and placed it on the bottom of the cart. Vasya gave the reins to the horse. We drove off. “This is my office,” Mr. Polutykin suddenly told me, pointing to a small low house, “would you like to come in?” - “If you please.” “It’s been abolished now,” he noted, getting down, “but everything is worth seeing.” The office consisted of two empty rooms. The watchman, a crooked old man, came running from the backyard. “Hello, Minyaich,” said Mr. Polutykin, “where is the water?” The crooked old man disappeared and immediately returned with a bottle of water and two glasses. “Taste it,” Polutykin told me, “I have good, spring water.” We drank a glass each, and the old man bowed to us from the waist. “Well, now it seems we can go,” my new friend remarked. “In this office I sold four acres of forest to the merchant Alliluyev at a bargain price.” We got into the cart and half an hour later we were driving into the courtyard of the manor's house.

“Tell me, please,” I asked Polutykin at dinner, “why does Khor live separately from your other men?”

- But here’s why: he’s a smart guy. About twenty-five years ago his hut burned down; So he came to my late father and said: they say, let me, Nikolai Kuzmich, settle in your swamp in the forest. I will pay you a good rent. - “Why do you need to settle in a swamp?” - “Yes, that’s right; Only you, Father Nikolai Kuzmich, don’t use me for any work, but give me the rent you know.” - “Fifty rubles a year!” - “If you please.” - “Yes, I have no arrears, look!” - “It is known, without arrears...” So he settled in the swamp. From then on he was nicknamed Khorem.

- Well, did you get rich? – I asked.

- Got rich. Now he’s paying me a hundred rubles in rent, and I’ll probably throw in some extra. I’ve told him more than once: “Pay off, Khor, hey, pay off!..” And he, the beast, assures me that there is nothing; there is no money, they say... Yes, no matter how it is!..

The next day, immediately after tea, we went hunting again. Driving through the village, Mr. Polutykin ordered the coachman to stop at a low hut and loudly exclaimed: “Kalinich!” “Now, father, now,” a voice came from the yard, “I’m tying up my bast shoe.” We went at a walk; outside the village a man of about forty, tall, thin, with a small head bent back, caught up with us. It was Kalinich. I liked his good-natured dark face, marked here and there with rowan berries, at first sight. Kalinich (as I learned later) every day went hunting with the master, carried his bag, sometimes his gun, noticed where the bird landed, got water, picked strawberries, built huts, ran behind the droshky; Without him, Mr. Polutykin could not take a step. Kalinich was a man of the most cheerful, meek disposition, constantly sang in a low voice, looked carefree in all directions, spoke slightly through his nose, smiling, narrowed his light blue eyes and often took his thin, wedge-shaped beard with his hand. He did not walk quickly, but with long steps, lightly supporting himself with a long and thin stick. During the day he spoke to me more than once, served me without servility, but watched the master as if he were a child. When the unbearable midday heat forced us to seek shelter, he took us to his apiary, in the very depths of the forest. Kalinich opened a hut for us, hung with bunches of dry fragrant herbs, laid us down on fresh hay, and he put a kind of bag with a net on our heads, took a knife, a pot and a firebrand and went to the apiary to cut out honeycombs for us. We washed down the clear, warm honey with spring water and fell asleep to the monotonous buzz of bees and the chatty babble of leaves. “A light gust of wind woke me up... I opened my eyes and saw Kalinich: he was sitting on the threshold of the half-open door and was cutting out a spoon with a knife. I admired his face for a long time, meek and clear as the evening sky. Mr. Polutykin also woke up. We didn't get up right away. It is pleasant, after a long walk and deep sleep, to lie motionless on the hay: the body is luxuriating and languishing, the face glows with a slight heat, sweet laziness closes the eyes. Finally we got up and went wandering again until evening. At dinner I started talking again about Khor and Kalinich. “Kalinych is a kind man,” Mr. Polutykin told me, “a diligent and helpful man; However, the farm cannot be maintained in good order: I keep putting it off. Every day he goes hunting with me... What kind of farming is here - judge for yourself.” I agreed with him and we went to bed.

The next day, Mr. Polutykin was forced to go to the city on business with his neighbor Pichukov. Pichukov's neighbor plowed his land and flogged his own woman on the plowed soil. I went hunting alone and before evening I stopped by Khor. On the threshold of the hut, I was met by an old man - bald, short, broad-shouldered and stocky - Khor himself. I looked at this Khor with curiosity. The shape of his face was reminiscent of Socrates: the same high, knobby forehead, the same small eyes, the same snub nose. We entered the hut together. The same Fedya brought me milk and black bread. Khor sat down on a bench and, calmly stroking his curly beard, began a conversation with me. He seemed to feel his dignity, spoke and moved slowly, and occasionally chuckled from under his long mustache.

He and I talked about sowing, about the harvest, about peasant life... He seemed to agree with me; only then did I feel ashamed, and I felt that I was saying the wrong thing... So it came out somehow strange. Khor sometimes expressed himself wisely, probably out of caution... Here is a sample of our conversation:

“Listen, Khor,” I told him, “why don’t you pay off your master?”

- Why should I pay off? Now I know my master and I know my rent... our master is a good one.

“It’s still better to be free,” I remarked.

Khor looked at me from the side.

“We know,” he said.

- Well, why don’t you pay yourself off?

Khor shook his head.

- How, father, will you order to pay off?

- Well, that's enough, old man...

“Khor became a free man,” he continued in a low voice, as if to himself, “whoever lives without a beard is the greatest Khor.”

- And you shave your beard yourself.

-What about the beard? beard - grass: you can mow it.

- Well, so what?

- Oh, you know, Khor will get right into the merchants; Merchants have a good life, and even those have beards.

- What, you’re also involved in trade? – I asked him.

- We are trading little by little in oil and tar... Well, father, will you order the cart to be pawned?

“You are strong-tongued and a man of your own mind,” I thought.

“No,” I said out loud, “I don’t need a cart; Tomorrow I’ll go near your estate and, if you allow, I’ll stay overnight in your hay barn.

- Welcome. Will you be at peace in the barn? I will order the women to lay out a sheet and a pillow for you. Hey women! - he cried, getting up from his seat, - here, women! .. And you, Fedya, go with them. Women are stupid people.

A quarter of an hour later, Fedya took me to the barn with a lantern. I threw myself on the fragrant hay, the dog curled up at my feet; Fedya wished me good night, the door creaked and slammed shut. I couldn't sleep for quite a long time. The cow approached the door, breathed noisily once or twice, the dog growled at her with dignity; a pig passed by, grunting thoughtfully; a horse somewhere nearby began to chew hay and snort... I finally dozed off.

At dawn Fedya woke me up. I really liked this cheerful, lively guy; and, as far as I could notice, he was also a favorite of old Khor. They both teased each other quite amiably. The old man came out to meet me. Whether it was because I spent the night under his roof, or for some other reason, Khor treated me much more kindly than yesterday.

“The samovar is ready for you,” he told me with a smile, “let’s go have tea.”

We sat down near the table. A healthy woman, one of his daughters-in-law, brought a pot of milk. All his sons took turns entering the hut.

- What tall people you have! – I remarked to the old man.

“Yes,” he said, biting off a tiny piece of sugar, “it seems like they have nothing to complain about me and my old woman.”

- And everyone lives with you?

- All. They want to live that way.

- And are they all married?

“There’s one over there, he’s old, he won’t marry,” he answered, pointing to Fedya, who was still leaning against the door. - Vaska, he’s still young, he can wait a while.

- Why should I get married? - Fedya objected, - I feel good as it is. What do I need a wife for? Bark at her, or what?

- Well, you... I already know you! You wear silver rings... You should sniff around with the courtyard girls... “Come on, shameless ones!” – the old man continued, mimicking the maids. - I already know you, you little white-handed one!

- What’s good about a woman?

“Baba is a worker,” Khor noted importantly. - Baba is a man's servant.

- What do I need a worker for?

- Well, you like to rake in the heat with someone else’s hands. We know your brother.

- Well, marry me, if so. A? What! Why are you silent?

- Well, that's enough, that's enough, joker. See, you and I are bothering the master. Zhenya, I suppose... And you, father, don’t be angry: the little child, you see, hasn’t had time to gain some sense.

Fedya shook his head...

- Is Khor at home? - a familiar voice was heard behind the door, and Kalinich entered the hut with a bunch of wild strawberries in his hands, which he picked for his friend, Khorya. The old man greeted him cordially. I looked at Kalinich in amazement: I admit, I did not expect such “tenderness” from the man.

That day I went hunting four hours later than usual and spent the next three days with Khor. I was interested in my new acquaintances. I don’t know how I earned their trust, but they spoke to me casually. I enjoyed listening to them and watching them. The two friends were not at all alike. Khor was a positive, practical man, an administrative head, a rationalist; Kalinich, on the contrary, belonged to the number of idealists, romantics, enthusiastic and dreamy people. Khor understood reality, that is: he settled down, saved up some money, got along with the master and other authorities; Kalinich walked in bast shoes and managed to get by somehow. The polecat bred a large family, obedient and unanimous; Kalinich once had a wife, whom he was afraid of, but he had no children at all. Khor saw right through Mr. Polutykin; Kalinich was in awe of his master. Khor loved Kalinich and provided him with protection; Kalinich loved and respected Khor. Khor spoke little, chuckled and reasoned to himself; Kalinich explained himself eagerly, although he did not sing like a nightingale, like a lively factory man... But Kalinich was gifted with advantages that Khor himself recognized; for example: he spoke blood, fear, rabies, drove out worms; the bees were given to him, his hand was light. Khor, in front of me, asked him to bring the newly purchased horse into the stable, and Kalinich fulfilled the request of the old skeptic with conscientious importance. Kalinich stood closer to nature; The ferret is for people, for society; Kalinich did not like to reason and believed everything blindly; Khor even rose to the level of an ironic point of view on life. He saw a lot, knew a lot, and I learned a lot from him; for example: from his stories I learned that every summer, before mowing, a small cart of a special type appears in the villages. In this cart sits a man in a caftan and sells braids. For cash, he takes a ruble twenty-five kopecks - one and a half rubles in banknotes; in debt - three rubles and a ruble. All the men, of course, borrow from him. After two or three weeks he appears again and demands money. The man has just cut his oats, so he has something to pay with; he goes with the merchant to the tavern and pays there. Some landowners decided to buy the braids themselves with cash and give them out on credit to the peasants at the same price; but the men turned out to be dissatisfied and even fell into despondency; they were deprived of the pleasure of clicking the scythe, listening, turning it over in their hands and asking the roguish tradesman twenty times: “What, boy, isn’t the scythe too bad for you? “The same tricks happen when buying sickles, with the only difference being that here the women interfere in the matter and sometimes drive the seller himself to the point of having to beat them, for their own benefit. But women suffer most of all in this case. Suppliers of material to paper mills entrust the purchase of rags to special people who in other districts are called “eagles.” Such an “eagle” receives two hundred rubles in banknotes from the merchant and goes off to prey. But, contrary to the noble bird from which he received his name, he does not attack openly and boldly: on the contrary, the “eagle” resorts to cunning and cunning. He leaves his cart somewhere in the bushes near the village, and he himself goes around the backyards and backyards, like some kind of passer-by or just loitering. The women sense his approach and sneak towards him. A trade transaction is completed in a hurry. For a few copper pennies, the woman gives the “eagle” not only all unnecessary rags, but often even her husband’s shirt and her own paneva. IN Lately the women found it profitable to steal from themselves and sell hemp in this way, especially “habits” - an important expansion and improvement of the “eagles” industry! But the men, in turn, became alert and at the slightest suspicion, at one distant rumor about the appearance of an “eagle,” they quickly and quickly begin corrective and protective measures. And really, isn’t it a shame? It’s their job to sell hemp, and they definitely sell it - not in the city, you have to drag yourself to the city, but to visiting traders who, in the absence of a steelyard, count a pood of forty handfuls - and you know what a handful is and what a palm is Russian person, especially when he is “zealous”! – I, an inexperienced person and not “lived in the village” (as we say in Orel), have heard plenty of such stories. But Khor didn’t tell me everything; he himself asked me about many things. He found out that I had been abroad, and his curiosity flared up... Kalinich did not lag behind him; but Kalinich was more touched by descriptions of nature, mountains, waterfalls, extraordinary buildings, big cities; Khor was occupied with administrative and state issues. He went through everything in order: “What, they have it there just like we do, or otherwise?.. Well, tell me, father, how?..” - “Ah! oh, Lord, your will!” - Kalinich exclaimed during my story; Khor was silent, frowned his thick eyebrows and only occasionally noticed that “they say, this would not work for us, but this is good - this is order.” I cannot convey all his questions to you, and there is no need; but from our conversations I took away one conviction that readers probably do not expect - the conviction that Peter the Great was primarily a Russian man, Russian precisely in his transformations. The Russian man is so confident in his strength and strength that he is not averse to breaking himself; he pays little attention to his past and boldly looks forward. What is good is what he likes, what is reasonable is what you give him, but where it comes from is all the same to him. His common sense will readily make fun of the lean German mind; but the Germans, according to Khor, are a curious people, and he is ready to learn from them. Thanks to the exclusivity of his position, his actual independence, Khor talked to me about many things that you can’t turn out of someone else with a lever, or, as the men say, you can’t grind with a millstone. He really understood his position. While talking with Khorem, for the first time I heard the simple, intelligent speech of a Russian peasant. His knowledge was quite extensive in its own way, but he did not know how to read; Kalinich knew how. “This scoundrel was given a diploma,” noted Khor, “and his bees have never died.” - “Have you taught your children to read and write?” Khor was silent. “Fedya knows.” - “What about others?” - “Others don’t know.” - "And what?" The old man did not answer and changed the conversation. However, as smart as he was, there were many prejudices and prejudices behind him. For example, he despised the women from the depths of his soul, but in a merry hour he amused himself and mocked them. His wife, old and grumpy, did not leave the stove all day and grumbled and scolded incessantly; her sons did not pay attention to her, but she kept her daughters-in-law in the fear of God. No wonder in the Russian song the mother-in-law sings: “What a son you are to me, what a family man! You don’t beat your wife, you don’t beat your young woman...” Once I decided to stand up for my daughters-in-law, I tried to arouse Khor’s compassion; but he calmly objected to me that “you don’t want to deal with such... trifles, let the women quarrel... Separating them is worse, and it’s not worth getting your hands dirty.” Sometimes the evil old woman got down from the stove, called the yard dog out of the hallway, saying: “Here, here, little dog!” - and hit her on her thin back with a poker or stood under the canopy and “barked,” as Khor put it, at everyone passing by. She, however, was afraid of her husband and, at his order, retreated to her stove. But it was especially interesting to listen to Kalinich’s argument with Khorem when it came to Mr. Polutykin. “Don’t touch him, Khor,” said Kalinich. “Why doesn’t he make you boots?” - he objected. “Eka, boots!.. what do I need boots for? I’m a man...” - “Yes, I’m a man, and you see...” At this word, Khor raised his foot and showed Kalinich a boot, probably made from mammoth skin. “Oh, aren’t you our brother!” - answered Kalinich. “Well, at least he’d give him some sandals: after all, you go hunting with him; tea, whatever the day, then bast shoes.” - “He gives me some bast shoes.” - “Yes, last year I received a ten-kopeck piece.” Kalinich turned away with annoyance, and Khor burst into laughter, and his small eyes completely disappeared.

Kalinich sang quite pleasantly and played the balalaika. The ferret listened, listened to him, suddenly bent his head to the side and began to pull him up in a plaintive voice. He especially loved the song: “You are my share, share!” Fedya never missed an opportunity to make fun of his father. “Why, old man, are you so upset?” But Khor rested his cheek with his hand, closed his eyes and continued to complain about his lot... But at other times there was no more active person than him: he was always tinkering with something - repairing a cart, propping up a fence, revising harnesses. He, however, did not adhere to particular cleanliness and once responded to my comments that “the hut needs to smell like housing.”

“Look,” I objected to him, “how clean Kalinich’s apiary is.”

“The bees wouldn’t live, father,” he said with a sigh.

“What,” he asked me another time, “do you have your own patrimony?” - "Eat". - "Far away from here?" - “A hundred versts.” - “Why are you, father, living in your estate?” - “I live.” - “And more, tea, do you make a living with a gun?” - “Frankly, yes.” - “And you’re doing well, father; shoot black grouse for your health, and change the headman more often.”

On the fourth day, in the evening, Mr. Polutykin sent for me. I was sorry to part with the old man. I got into the cart with Kalinich. “Well, goodbye, Khor, be healthy,” I said... “Goodbye, Fedya.” - “Farewell, father, goodbye, don’t forget us.” We went; the dawn was just breaking. “The weather will be nice tomorrow,” I remarked, looking at the bright sky. “No, it’s going to rain,” Kalinich objected to me, “the ducks are splashing around, and the grass smells painfully.” We drove into the bushes. Kalinich sang in a low voice, bouncing on the beam, and kept looking and looking at the dawn...

The next day I left the hospitable shelter of Mr. Polutykin.

Khor and Kalinich

Anyone who happened to move from the Bolkhov district to Zhizdrinsky was probably struck by the sharp difference between the breed of people in the Oryol province and the Kaluga breed. The Oryol peasant is short, stooped, gloomy, looks from under his brows, lives in crappy aspen huts, goes to corvée, does not engage in trade, eats poorly, wears bast shoes; Kaluga obrok peasant lives in spacious pine huts, is tall, looks bold and cheerful, has a clean and white face, sells oil and tar, and wears boots on holidays. The Oryol village (we are talking about the eastern part of the Oryol province) is usually located among plowed fields, near a ravine, somehow turned into a dirty pond. Apart from a few willow trees, always ready to serve, and two or three skinny birches, you won’t see a tree for a mile around; hut is stuck to hut, the roofs are covered with rotten straw... The Kaluga village, on the contrary, is mostly surrounded by forest; the huts stand freer and straighter, covered with planks; the gates are tightly locked, the fence in the backyard is not scattered and does not fall out, does not invite every passing pig to visit... And it is better for the hunter in the Kaluga province. In the Oryol province, the last forests and areas will disappear in five years, and there are no traces of swamps; in Kaluga, on the contrary, the clearings stretch for hundreds, the swamps for dozens of miles, and the noble bird of the black grouse has not yet disappeared, there is a good-natured great snipe, and the busy partridge with its impetuous takeoff amuses and frightens the shooter and the dog.

While visiting the Zhizdra district as a hunter, I came across a field and met one Kaluga small landowner, Polutykin, a passionate hunter and, therefore, an excellent person. True, he had some weaknesses: for example, he wooed all the rich brides in the province and, having been refused his hand and his house, with a contrite heart he confided his grief to all his friends and acquaintances, and continued to send sour peaches to the brides’ parents as gifts. and other raw produce of his garden; loved to repeat the same joke, which, despite Mr. Polutykin’s respect for his merits, absolutely never made anyone laugh; praised the composition of Akim Nakhimov and the story Pinnu; stuttered; called his dog Astronomer; instead of however said anyway and started a French kitchen in his house, the secret of which, according to his cook, was a complete change in the natural taste of each dish: this artist’s meat tasted like fish, fish like mushrooms, pasta like gunpowder; but not a single carrot fell into the soup without taking the form of a rhombus or trapezoid. But with the exception of these few and insignificant shortcomings, Mr. Polutykin was, as already said, an excellent person.

On the very first day of my acquaintance with Mr. Polutykin, he invited me to his place for the night.

“It will be about five miles to me,” he added, “it’s a long walk; Let's go to Khor first. (The reader will allow me not to convey his stutter.)

-Who is Khor?

- And my man... He’s not far from here.

We went to see him. In the middle of the forest, in a cleared and developed clearing, stood the lonely estate of Khorya. It consisted of several pine log houses connected by fences; In front of the main hut there was a canopy supported by thin posts. We entered. We were met by a young guy, about twenty, tall and handsome.

- Ah, Fedya! Khor at home? - Mr. Polutykin asked him.

“No, Khor has gone to town,” answered the guy, smiling and showing a row of teeth white as snow. - Would you like to pawn the cart?

- Yes, brother, a cart. Bring us some kvass.

We entered the hut. Not a single Suzdal painting covered the clean log walls; in the corner in front of the heavy image, a lamp glowed in a silver frame; the linden table had recently been scraped and washed; there were no frisky Prussians wandering between the logs and along the window jambs, no brooding cockroaches hiding. The young guy soon appeared with a large white mug filled with good kvass, a huge slice of wheat bread and a dozen pickles in a wooden bowl. He put all these supplies on the table, leaned against the door and began looking at us with a smile. Before we had time to finish our snack, the cart was already knocking in front of the porch. We went out. A boy of about fifteen, curly-haired and red-cheeked, sat as a coachman and had difficulty holding a well-fed piebald stallion. Around the cart stood about six young giants, very similar to each other and to Fedya. “All children of Khorya!” - Polutykin noted. “It’s all Ferrets,” said Fedya, who followed us out onto the porch, “and not all: Potap is in the forest, and Sidor has gone to the city with old Horem... Look, Vasya,” he continued, turning to the coachman, “in spirit Somchi: You are taking the master. Just be careful during the pushes: you’ll spoil the cart and disturb the master’s womb!” The rest of the Ferrets grinned at Fedya's antics. “Put in the Astronomer!” – Mr. Polutykin exclaimed solemnly. Fedya, not without pleasure, lifted the forcedly smiling dog into the air and placed it on the bottom of the cart. Vasya gave the reins to the horse. We drove off. “This is my office,” Mr. Polutykin suddenly told me, pointing to a small low house, “would you like to come in?” - “If you please.” “It’s been abolished now,” he noted, getting down, “but everything is worth seeing.” The office consisted of two empty rooms. The watchman, a crooked old man, came running from the backyard. “Hello, Minyaich,” said Mr. Polutykin, “where is the water?” The crooked old man disappeared and immediately returned with a bottle of water and two glasses. “Taste it,” Polutykin told me, “I have good, spring water.” We drank a glass each, and the old man bowed to us from the waist. “Well, now it seems we can go,” my new friend remarked. “In this office I sold four acres of forest to the merchant Alliluyev at a bargain price.” We got into the cart and half an hour later we were driving into the courtyard of the manor's house.

“Tell me, please,” I asked Polutykin at dinner, “why does Khor live separately from your other men?”

- But here’s why: he’s a smart guy. About twenty-five years ago his hut burned down; So he came to my late father and said: they say, let me, Nikolai Kuzmich, settle in your swamp in the forest. I will pay you a good rent. - “Why do you need to settle in a swamp?” - “Yes, that’s right; Only you, Father Nikolai Kuzmich, don’t use me for any work, but give me the rent you know.” - “Fifty rubles a year!” - “If you please.” - “Yes, I have no arrears, look!” - “It is known, without arrears...” So he settled in the swamp. From then on he was nicknamed Khorem.

- Well, did you get rich? – I asked.

- Got rich. Now he’s paying me a hundred rubles in rent, and I’ll probably throw in some extra. I’ve told him more than once: “Pay off, Khor, hey, pay off!..” And he, the beast, assures me that there is nothing; there is no money, they say... Yes, no matter how it is!..

The next day, immediately after tea, we went hunting again. Driving through the village, Mr. Polutykin ordered the coachman to stop at a low hut and loudly exclaimed: “Kalinich!” “Now, father, now,” a voice came from the yard, “I’m tying up my bast shoe.” We went at a walk; outside the village a man of about forty, tall, thin, with a small head bent back, caught up with us. It was Kalinich. I liked his good-natured dark face, marked here and there with rowan berries, at first sight. Kalinich (as I learned later) every day went hunting with the master, carried his bag, sometimes his gun, noticed where the bird landed, got water, picked strawberries, built huts, ran behind the droshky; Without him, Mr. Polutykin could not take a step. Kalinich was a man of the most cheerful, meek disposition, constantly sang in a low voice, looked carefree in all directions, spoke slightly through his nose, smiling, narrowed his light blue eyes and often took his thin, wedge-shaped beard with his hand. He did not walk quickly, but with long steps, lightly supporting himself with a long and thin stick. During the day he spoke to me more than once, served me without servility, but watched the master as if he were a child. When the unbearable midday heat forced us to seek shelter, he took us to his apiary, in the very depths of the forest. Kalinich opened a hut for us, hung with bunches of dry fragrant herbs, laid us down on fresh hay, and he put a kind of bag with a net on our heads, took a knife, a pot and a firebrand and went to the apiary to cut out honeycombs for us. We washed down the clear, warm honey with spring water and fell asleep to the monotonous buzz of bees and the chatty babble of leaves. “A light gust of wind woke me up... I opened my eyes and saw Kalinich: he was sitting on the threshold of the half-open door and was cutting out a spoon with a knife. I admired his face for a long time, meek and clear as the evening sky. Mr. Polutykin also woke up. We didn't get up right away. It is pleasant, after a long walk and deep sleep, to lie motionless on the hay: the body is luxuriating and languishing, the face glows with a slight heat, sweet laziness closes the eyes. Finally we got up and went wandering again until evening. At dinner I started talking again about Khor and Kalinich. “Kalinych is a kind man,” Mr. Polutykin told me, “a diligent and helpful man; However, the farm cannot be maintained in good order: I keep putting it off. Every day he goes hunting with me... What kind of farming is here - judge for yourself.” I agreed with him and we went to bed.

The next day, Mr. Polutykin was forced to go to the city on business with his neighbor Pichukov. Pichukov's neighbor plowed his land and flogged his own woman on the plowed soil. I went hunting alone and before evening I stopped by Khor. On the threshold of the hut, I was met by an old man - bald, short, broad-shouldered and stocky - Khor himself. I looked at this Khor with curiosity. The shape of his face was reminiscent of Socrates: the same high, knobby forehead, the same small eyes, the same snub nose. We entered the hut together. The same Fedya brought me milk and black bread. Khor sat down on a bench and, calmly stroking his curly beard, began a conversation with me. He seemed to feel his dignity, spoke and moved slowly, and occasionally chuckled from under his long mustache.

He and I talked about sowing, about the harvest, about peasant life... He seemed to agree with me; only then did I feel ashamed, and I felt that I was saying the wrong thing... So it came out somehow strange. Khor sometimes expressed himself wisely, probably out of caution... Here is a sample of our conversation:

“Listen, Khor,” I told him, “why don’t you pay off your master?”

- Why should I pay off? Now I know my master and I know my rent... our master is a good one.

“It’s still better to be free,” I remarked.

Khor looked at me from the side.

“We know,” he said.

- Well, why don’t you pay yourself off?

Khor shook his head.

- How, father, will you order to pay off?

- Well, that's enough, old man...

“Khor became a free man,” he continued in a low voice, as if to himself, “whoever lives without a beard is the greatest Khor.”

- And you shave your beard yourself.

-What about the beard? beard - grass: you can mow it.

- Well, so what?

- Oh, you know, Khor will get right into the merchants; Merchants have a good life, and even those have beards.

- What, you’re also involved in trade? – I asked him.

- We are trading little by little in oil and tar... Well, father, will you order the cart to be pawned?

“You are strong-tongued and a man of your own mind,” I thought.

“No,” I said out loud, “I don’t need a cart; Tomorrow I’ll go near your estate and, if you allow, I’ll stay overnight in your hay barn.

- Welcome. Will you be at peace in the barn? I will order the women to lay out a sheet and a pillow for you. Hey women! - he cried, getting up from his seat, - here, women! .. And you, Fedya, go with them. Women are stupid people.

A quarter of an hour later, Fedya took me to the barn with a lantern. I threw myself on the fragrant hay, the dog curled up at my feet; Fedya wished me good night, the door creaked and slammed shut. I couldn't sleep for quite a long time. The cow approached the door, breathed noisily once or twice, the dog growled at her with dignity; a pig passed by, grunting thoughtfully; a horse somewhere nearby began to chew hay and snort... I finally dozed off.

At dawn Fedya woke me up. I really liked this cheerful, lively guy; and, as far as I could notice, he was also a favorite of old Khor. They both teased each other quite amiably. The old man came out to meet me. Whether it was because I spent the night under his roof, or for some other reason, Khor treated me much more kindly than yesterday.

“The samovar is ready for you,” he told me with a smile, “let’s go have tea.”

We sat down near the table. A healthy woman, one of his daughters-in-law, brought a pot of milk. All his sons took turns entering the hut.

- What tall people you have! – I remarked to the old man.

“Yes,” he said, biting off a tiny piece of sugar, “it seems like they have nothing to complain about me and my old woman.”

- And everyone lives with you?

- All. They want to live that way.

- And are they all married?

“There’s one over there, he’s old, he won’t marry,” he answered, pointing to Fedya, who was still leaning against the door. - Vaska, he’s still young, he can wait a while.

- Why should I get married? - Fedya objected, - I feel good as it is. What do I need a wife for? Bark at her, or what?

- Well, you... I already know you! You wear silver rings... You should sniff around with the courtyard girls... “Come on, shameless ones!” – the old man continued, mimicking the maids. - I already know you, you little white-handed one!

- What’s good about a woman?

“Baba is a worker,” Khor noted importantly. - Baba is a man's servant.

- What do I need a worker for?

- Well, you like to rake in the heat with someone else’s hands. We know your brother.

- Well, marry me, if so. A? What! Why are you silent?

- Well, that's enough, that's enough, joker. See, you and I are bothering the master. Zhenya, I suppose... And you, father, don’t be angry: the little child, you see, hasn’t had time to gain some sense.

Fedya shook his head...

- Is Khor at home? - a familiar voice was heard behind the door, and Kalinich entered the hut with a bunch of wild strawberries in his hands, which he picked for his friend, Khorya. The old man greeted him cordially. I looked at Kalinich in amazement: I admit, I did not expect such “tenderness” from the man.

That day I went hunting four hours later than usual and spent the next three days with Khor. I was interested in my new acquaintances. I don’t know how I earned their trust, but they spoke to me casually. I enjoyed listening to them and watching them. The two friends were not at all alike. Khor was a positive, practical man, an administrative head, a rationalist; Kalinich, on the contrary, belonged to the number of idealists, romantics, enthusiastic and dreamy people. Khor understood reality, that is: he settled down, saved up some money, got along with the master and other authorities; Kalinich walked in bast shoes and managed to get by somehow. The polecat bred a large family, obedient and unanimous; Kalinich once had a wife, whom he was afraid of, but he had no children at all. Khor saw right through Mr. Polutykin; Kalinich was in awe of his master. Khor loved Kalinich and provided him with protection; Kalinich loved and respected Khor. Khor spoke little, chuckled and reasoned to himself; Kalinich explained himself eagerly, although he did not sing like a nightingale, like a lively factory man... But Kalinich was gifted with advantages that Khor himself recognized; for example: he spoke blood, fear, rabies, drove out worms; the bees were given to him, his hand was light. Khor, in front of me, asked him to bring the newly purchased horse into the stable, and Kalinich fulfilled the request of the old skeptic with conscientious importance. Kalinich stood closer to nature; The ferret is for people, for society; Kalinich did not like to reason and believed everything blindly; Khor even rose to the level of an ironic point of view on life. He saw a lot, knew a lot, and I learned a lot from him; for example: from his stories I learned that every summer, before mowing, a small cart of a special type appears in the villages. In this cart sits a man in a caftan and sells braids. For cash, he takes a ruble twenty-five kopecks - one and a half rubles in banknotes; in debt - three rubles and a ruble. All the men, of course, borrow from him. After two or three weeks he appears again and demands money. The man has just cut his oats, so he has something to pay with; he goes with the merchant to the tavern and pays there. Some landowners decided to buy the braids themselves with cash and give them out on credit to the peasants at the same price; but the men turned out to be dissatisfied and even fell into despondency; they were deprived of the pleasure of clicking the scythe, listening, turning it over in their hands and asking the roguish tradesman twenty times: “What, boy, isn’t the scythe too bad for you? “The same tricks happen when buying sickles, with the only difference being that here the women interfere in the matter and sometimes drive the seller himself to the point of having to beat them, for their own benefit. But women suffer most of all in this case. Suppliers of material to paper mills entrust the purchase of rags to special people who in other districts are called “eagles.” Such an “eagle” receives two hundred rubles in banknotes from the merchant and goes off to prey. But, contrary to the noble bird from which he received his name, he does not attack openly and boldly: on the contrary, the “eagle” resorts to cunning and cunning. He leaves his cart somewhere in the bushes near the village, and he himself goes around the backyards and backyards, like some kind of passer-by or just loitering. The women sense his approach and sneak towards him. A trade transaction is completed in a hurry. For a few copper pennies, the woman gives the “eagle” not only all unnecessary rags, but often even her husband’s shirt and her own paneva. Recently, women have found it profitable to steal from themselves and sell hemp in this way, especially “habits” - an important expansion and improvement of the “eagles” industry! But the men, in turn, became alert and at the slightest suspicion, at one distant rumor about the appearance of an “eagle,” they quickly and quickly begin corrective and protective measures. And really, isn’t it a shame? It’s their job to sell hemp, and they definitely sell it - not in the city, you have to drag yourself to the city, but to visiting traders who, in the absence of a steelyard, count a pood of forty handfuls - and you know what a handful is and what a palm is Russian person, especially when he is “zealous”! – I, an inexperienced person and not “lived in the village” (as we say in Orel), have heard plenty of such stories. But Khor didn’t tell me everything; he himself asked me about many things. He found out that I had been abroad, and his curiosity flared up... Kalinich did not lag behind him; but Kalinich was more touched by descriptions of nature, mountains, waterfalls, extraordinary buildings, big cities; Khor was occupied with administrative and state issues. He went through everything in order: “What, they have it there just like we do, or otherwise?.. Well, tell me, father, how?..” - “Ah! oh, Lord, your will!” - Kalinich exclaimed during my story; Khor was silent, frowned his thick eyebrows and only occasionally noticed that “they say, this would not work for us, but this is good - this is order.” I cannot convey all his questions to you, and there is no need; but from our conversations I took away one conviction that readers probably do not expect - the conviction that Peter the Great was primarily a Russian man, Russian precisely in his transformations. The Russian man is so confident in his strength and strength that he is not averse to breaking himself; he pays little attention to his past and boldly looks forward. What is good is what he likes, what is reasonable is what you give him, but where it comes from is all the same to him. His common sense will readily make fun of the lean German mind; but the Germans, according to Khor, are a curious people, and he is ready to learn from them. Thanks to the exclusivity of his position, his actual independence, Khor talked to me about many things that you can’t turn out of someone else with a lever, or, as the men say, you can’t grind with a millstone. He really understood his position. While talking with Khorem, for the first time I heard the simple, intelligent speech of a Russian peasant. His knowledge was quite extensive in its own way, but he did not know how to read; Kalinich knew how. “This scoundrel was given a diploma,” noted Khor, “and his bees have never died.” - “Have you taught your children to read and write?” Khor was silent. “Fedya knows.” - “What about others?” - “Others don’t know.” - "And what?" The old man did not answer and changed the conversation. However, as smart as he was, there were many prejudices and prejudices behind him. For example, he despised the women from the depths of his soul, but in a merry hour he amused himself and mocked them. His wife, old and grumpy, did not leave the stove all day and grumbled and scolded incessantly; her sons did not pay attention to her, but she kept her daughters-in-law in the fear of God. No wonder in the Russian song the mother-in-law sings: “What a son you are to me, what a family man! You don’t beat your wife, you don’t beat your young woman...” Once I decided to stand up for my daughters-in-law, I tried to arouse Khor’s compassion; but he calmly objected to me that “you don’t want to deal with such... trifles, let the women quarrel... Separating them is worse, and it’s not worth getting your hands dirty.” Sometimes the evil old woman got down from the stove, called the yard dog out of the hallway, saying: “Here, here, little dog!” - and hit her on her thin back with a poker or stood under the canopy and “barked,” as Khor put it, at everyone passing by. She, however, was afraid of her husband and, at his order, retreated to her stove. But it was especially interesting to listen to Kalinich’s argument with Khorem when it came to Mr. Polutykin. “Don’t touch him, Khor,” said Kalinich. “Why doesn’t he make you boots?” - he objected. “Eka, boots!.. what do I need boots for? I’m a man...” - “Yes, I’m a man, and you see...” At this word, Khor raised his foot and showed Kalinich a boot, probably made from mammoth skin. “Oh, aren’t you our brother!” - answered Kalinich. “Well, at least he’d give him some sandals: after all, you go hunting with him; tea, whatever the day, then bast shoes.” - “He gives me some bast shoes.” - “Yes, last year I received a ten-kopeck piece.” Kalinich turned away with annoyance, and Khor burst into laughter, and his small eyes completely disappeared.

Kalinich sang quite pleasantly and played the balalaika. The ferret listened, listened to him, suddenly bent his head to the side and began to pull him up in a plaintive voice. He especially loved the song: “You are my share, share!” Fedya never missed an opportunity to make fun of his father. “Why, old man, are you so upset?” But Khor rested his cheek with his hand, closed his eyes and continued to complain about his lot... But at other times there was no more active person than him: he was always tinkering with something - repairing a cart, propping up a fence, revising harnesses. He, however, did not adhere to particular cleanliness and once responded to my comments that “the hut needs to smell like housing.”

“Look,” I objected to him, “how clean Kalinich’s apiary is.”

“The bees wouldn’t live, father,” he said with a sigh.

“What,” he asked me another time, “do you have your own patrimony?” - "Eat". - "Far away from here?" - “A hundred versts.” - “Why are you, father, living in your estate?” - “I live.” - “And more, tea, do you make a living with a gun?” - “Frankly, yes.” - “And you’re doing well, father; shoot black grouse for your health, and change the headman more often.”

On the fourth day, in the evening, Mr. Polutykin sent for me. I was sorry to part with the old man. I got into the cart with Kalinich. “Well, goodbye, Khor, be healthy,” I said... “Goodbye, Fedya.” - “Farewell, father, goodbye, don’t forget us.” We went; the dawn was just breaking. “The weather will be nice tomorrow,” I remarked, looking at the bright sky. “No, it’s going to rain,” Kalinich objected to me, “the ducks are splashing around, and the grass smells painfully.” We drove into the bushes. Kalinich sang in a low voice, bouncing on the beam, and kept looking and looking at the dawn...

The next day I left the hospitable shelter of Mr. Polutykin.

. “Square” are large continuous masses of bushes in the Oryol province; The Oryol dialect is generally distinguished by a multitude of original, sometimes very apt, sometimes quite ugly, words and phrases. – Note. auto

Books, like people, are different. It happens that you pick up a book, open it and start reading, line by line, you can’t stop, and a whole era opens up before you. With such books there are no historical references, documentaries, newspapers or reference books cannot compare. Pictures of nature and life, the main characters, their relationships - everything is literally imbued with the spirit of the times. Such works include Turgenev’s series of stories “Notes of a Hunter.”

When you start reading Ivan Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter,” you understand that the story “Khor and Kalinich” opens the collection and at the same time becomes the spiritual core of the entire series devoted to the topic of serfdom. Khor and Kalinich are two friends, two peasant characters, completely different from each other, but it is they who represent the true forces of the nation, which are ready to grow and develop. But there is one obstacle - serfdom. It is not only the common people who suffer from its harmful influence. Permissiveness and moral corruption of the nobility is another terrible consequence, the second link of one chain - serfdom, which has already taken the form of a national evil. This is exactly what the author is talking about, and his lyrical hero is a hunter who takes on a different appearance from story to story. Either he is a passionate hunter, as in the story “Bezhin Meadow”, then he is a simple wanderer - an outside observer, as in the story “Biryuk”, then his noble origin is also revealed. One thing does not change - its inner content: nobility, honesty, love of life, and, of course, love for Russian nature. In general, nature is another central character in the “Notes of a Hunter” series. In Turgenev's view, she is a real element, living according to her own laws, which are not always clear to us, mysterious and frightening. But at the same time, nature and man are two inseparable parts of each other.

You can download Turgenev’s book “Notes of a Hunter” in its entirety for free on our website. You can study the text online without registration.

« Notes of a Hunter" - a collection of stories by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, published in 1847-1851 in the magazine Sovremennik and published as a separate edition in 1852. Three stories were written and added by the author to the collection much later.

Researchers do not have a consensus on the genre of the works included in the book: they are called both essays and stories.

“Notes of a Hunter” is a series of stories by I.S. Turgenev about peasant life, published as a collection in 1852. Turgenev, in his stories, managed to show the beauty of the soul of a simple peasant man, and this became the writer’s main argument against the outrages of serfdom. Turgenev wrote the truth about peasant life, without embellishing it, and with this he opened a new world for readers - the peasant world. “Notes of a Hunter” reflects both the plight of the Russian people and the glorification of their talent and love of life.

History of creation and publication

Turgenev spent the summer and part of the autumn of 1846 in Spassky-Lutovinovo. The writer almost never touched his pen, but he hunted a lot; his constant companion was the huntsman of the Chern district Afanasy Alifanov. Having left for St. Petersburg in mid-October, the writer learned that changes had occurred at Sovremennik: the magazine was acquired by Nekrasov and Ivan Panaev. The new editors asked Turgenev to “fill the mixture department in the 1st issue.”

The story “Khor and Kalinich,” written for the first issue, was published in the January issue of Sovremennik (1847). The subtitle “From the Notes of a Hunter,” which gave the name to the entire cycle, was proposed by Panaev. At first, Turgenev did not clearly see the perspective of the future work: the “crystallization of the plan” proceeded gradually:

“The observations made by the writer during his stay in the village were so abundant that he later had enough material for several years of work, which resulted in a book that opened a new era in Russian literature. »

Summer of 1847 Turgenev and Belinsky left for Salzbrunn. There, work on “Notes of a Hunter” continued. When Turgenev I read the story “The Burmister” to my friends, Belinsky, according to the recollections of Annenkov, who was present in the room, reacted to one of the episodes with an emotional phrase: “What a bastard with delicate tastes!” This story was the only one under which the author indicated the place and time of writing: “Salzbrunn, in Silesia, July, 1847.”

In 1852, “Notes of a Hunter” was published as a separate book. An official of the censorship department, having carefully checked the proofs prepared for printing with the texts posted on the pages of Sovremennik, wrote in conclusion that “the content of the stories is the same everywhere,” after which he gave permission to publish the collection. The censor was later removed from office.

The book opens with the essay “Khor and Kalinich,” in which the author talks about two men he met in the Zhizdrinsky district of the Oryol province. One of them - Khor - after the fire, settled with his family far in the forest, lived in trade, regularly paid his master's rent, and was known as an “administrative head” and a “rationalist.” The idealist Kalinich, on the contrary, had his head in the clouds, was afraid even of his own wife, was in awe of the master, and had a meek disposition; at the same time, he could charm blood, relieve fears, and had power over bees. The narrator was very interested in his new acquaintances; he listened with pleasure to the conversations of people so different from each other.

The master allowed the careless hunter (“Yermolai and the Miller’s Wife”) to live anywhere on the condition that he would bring him two pairs of black grouse and partridges to his kitchen every month. The narrator had the opportunity to spend the night with Ermolai in the miller’s house. In his wife Arina Petrovna one could guess a courtyard woman; it turned out that she had lived in St. Petersburg for a long time, served as a maid in a rich house and was in good standing with the lady. When Arina asked the owners for permission to marry the footman Petrushka, the lady ordered the girl to have her hair cut and sent to the village. The local miller, having bought the beauty, took her as his wife.

A meeting with a doctor (“County Doctor”) allowed the author to write down a story of hopeless love. Arriving one day on a call to the house of a poor landowner, the doctor saw a girl with a fever. Attempts to save the patient were unsuccessful; Having spent all her last days with Alexandra Andreevna, the doctor, even years later, could not forget the desperate powerlessness that arises when you cannot hold someone else’s life in your hands.

The landowner Radilov (“My neighbor Radilov”) gave the impression of a man whose whole soul “went inside for a while.” For three years he was happily married. When his wife died from childbirth, his heart “as if turned to stone.” Now he lived with his mother and Olga, the sister of his late wife. Olga’s look, when the landowner shared his memories with the hunter, seemed strange: both compassion and jealousy were written on the girl’s face. A week later, the narrator learned that Radilov and his sister-in-law had left in an unknown direction.

The fate of an Oryol landowner named Lezhen (“Odnodvorets Ovsyanikov”) took a sharp turn during Patriotic War. Together with Napoleon's army, he entered Russia, but way back fell into the hands of Smolensk men, who decided to drown the “Frenchman” in an ice hole. Lezhen was saved by a landowner passing by: he was just looking for a music teacher for his daughters and French. Having rested and warmed up, the prisoner moved to another gentleman; in his house he fell in love with a young pupil, got married, entered the service and became a nobleman.

The kids, who went out at night to guard the herd (“Bezhin Meadow”), told stories about the brownie that lives in the factory until dawn; about the suburban carpenter Gavrila, who became sad after meeting a mermaid; about the crazy Akulina, “spoiled by a merman.” One of the teenagers, Pavel, went to fetch water, and upon his return reported that he heard the voice of Vasya, a boy who had drowned in the river. The guys decided that it was Bad sign. Soon Pavel died after falling from his horse.

A small nobleman (“Pyotr Petrovich Karataev”) took a liking to the serf girl Matryona, who belonged to the wealthy landowner Marya Ilyinichna. Attempts to buy the pretty singer led nowhere: the old lady, on the contrary, sent the “servant” to the steppe village. Having found the girl, Karataev arranged an escape for her. For several months the lovers were happy. The idyll ended after the landowner found out where the fugitive was hiding. Sent complaints to the police officer, Pyotr Petrovich began to get nervous. One day Matryona, realizing that peaceful life will not happen again, went to the lady and “gave herself away.”

Images of heroes

According to researchers, the peasants Khor and Kalinich are carriers of “the most typical features of the Russian national character.” The prototype of Khorya was a serf peasant, distinguished by his power, insight and “extraordinary cordiality.” He knew how to read and write, and when Turgenev sent him a story, “the old man reread it with pride.” Afanasy Fet also mentioned this peasant; in 1862, during a grouse hunt, he stopped at Khorya’s house and spent the night there:

“Interested in the poet’s masterful essay, I peered with great attention into the personality and home life of my owner. Khor is now over eighty, but his colossal figure and Herculean build are no match for summer. »

If Khor is “a positive, practical person,” then Kalinich is one of the romantics, “enthusiastic and dreamy people.” This is manifested in his caring attitude towards nature and soulful songs; when Kalinich began to sing, even the “pragmatist” Khor could not resist and, after a short pause, picked up the song.

Pyotr Petrovich Sokolov. Illustration from the 1890s for the story “Pyotr Petrovich Karataev.”

Arina, the heroine of the story “Yermolai and the Miller’s Wife,” does not try to evoke pity from the guests who stayed in her house in the evening. However, the narrator understands that both the landowner, who did not allow the girl to marry Petrusha, and the “hateful miller” who bought her, became the cause of bitter experiences for the woman.

For Matryona, a serf girl, the landowner’s love becomes a serious test (“Peter Petrovich Karataev”). Loving and pitying Karataev, she first decided to run away from the lady, and then returned to her. In this act of Matryona, who was trying to save Pyotr Petrovich from the prosecutions started by her mistress, researchers see “a feat of selflessness and selflessness.”

The essay “Bezhin Meadow” recorded folk poetic fictions about brownies, mermaids, and goblin; The author does not hide his surprise at the talent of peasant children, in whose oral histories legends and fairy tales heard from adults are harmoniously intertwined with impressions of nature. The voice of Yakov (“The Singers”) evoked an equally strong emotional response in the narrator: one could hear in it “passion, youth, strength, and some kind of fascinating, carefree, sad grief.”

Analysis of the series of stories “Notes of a Hunter”

Here is a complete picture of Russia, illuminated by the author’s loving, poetic attitude towards his native land, reflections on the present and future of its talented people. There are no scenes of torture here, but it is the everyday pictures of serf life that testify to the anti-human essence of everything social order. In this work, the author does not offer us bright plot moves with active action, but pays great attention to the portrait characteristics, manners, habits and tastes of the heroes. Although the overall plot is still present. The narrator makes a voyage across Russia, but its geography is very limited - this Oryol Region. He meets along the way various types people, as a result of which a picture of Russian life emerges. Turgenev attached great importance arrangement of stories in the book. This is how not a simple selection of thematically homogeneous stories appears, but a single work of art, within which the patterns of figurative interconnection of essays operate. " Notes of a Hunter” open with two thematic “phrases,” each of which includes three stories. First, variations on a folk theme are given - “Khor and Kalinich”, “Ermolai and the miller’s wife”, “Raspberry water”. The next three stories develop the theme of the ruined nobility - “The District Doctor”, “My Neighbor Radimov”, “Ovsyanikov’s Homesteader”. The following stories: “Lgov”, “Bezhin Meadow”, “Kasyan with Beautiful Swords“- they again develop the theme of the people, but in them the motives of the decaying harmful influence of serfdom on the souls of people appear and sound more and more insistently, this is especially felt in the essay “Lgov”. In the stories “The Burmister”, “The Office” and “Biryuk” the theme of the nobility is continued, but in a sharply updated version. In “Burmistra,” for example, a type of landowner of a new formation is presented, and the image of a lord’s servant is also given here. The “Office” gives curious results of the transfer of old noble business habits to new forms of public institutions and new types of office servants from the peasants. The essay “Biryuk” describes a strange, mysterious man who personifies the powerful elemental forces that still unconsciously roam in the soul of the Russian person. In the next eight stories, thematic phrases are mixed, and a kind of thematic diffusion occurs. However, at the very end of the cycle, the elegiac note of the two stories about the nobleman Tchertopkhanov gives way to folk theme in the essays “Living Relics” and “Knocking”. “Notes of a Hunter” depicts provincial Russia, but one can feel the deadening pressure of those spheres of life that weigh on the Russian province and dictate their terms and laws to it. The first story in this series is called “Khor and Kalinich.” The author-narrator meets the landowner Polutykin, a passionate hunter, who invites him to his estate, where he introduces him to his peasants, whom he values ​​quite highly. The first character is Khor, whose image is based on a certain type, quite common among the people. Khor was well acquainted with the practical side of the matter; common sense was visible in his actions and work. He is in the position of a serf, although he has the opportunity to pay off his master. His friend Kalinich is his complete opposite. He once had a wife, but now he lives alone. Hunting became the meaning of his life, giving him the opportunity to contact nature. The characters look at life differently, perceive different situations, even their manners are completely opposite. The author does not idealize the peasants. Turgenev saw in popular types people of common sense, whose tragedy lies in the fact that they cannot realize their talents and capabilities. Khor saw a lot, knew and understood the psychology of human relationships well. “While talking with Khorem, for the first time I heard the simple, intelligent speech of a Russian peasant.” But Khor could not read, and Kalinich could, but he was devoid of common sense. These opposites in real life do not contradict each other, but complement each other and thereby find a common language. Here the author acted as a mature master of folk storytelling, here the peculiar feudal pathos of the entire book was determined, depicting strong, courageous, bright folk characters, the existence of which turned serfdom into a shame and humiliation of Russia, into a social phenomenon incompatible with the national dignity of the Russian person. In the essay “Khor and Kalinich,” the character of the landowner Polutykin is sketched out only with light strokes, his passion for French cuisine is briefly reported, and the master’s office is also mentioned. But this element is by no means accidental. In the essay “The Office” similar French predilections are presented in the image of the landowner Foam, and the destructive consequences of this element are shown in the story “The Burmister”. This work mercilessly exposes the destructive economic consequences of the so-called civilizing activities of the elite. Their way of farming undermines the foundations of the peasant’s work on the land. The essay “Two Landowners,” for example, tells about the economic activities of one important St. Petersburg dignitary, who decided to sow all his fields with poppy seeds, “since it costs more than rye, so it is more profitable to sow it.” The activities of this dignitary echo the management of the land of the landowner Pantelei Eremeevich Tchertopkhanov, who began to rebuild the peasant huts according to a new plan. In addition, he ordered all his subjects to be numbered and each one had his number sewn on his collar. In such atrocities of a provincial landowner, other actions of an all-Russian, state scale are visible. Here the author hints at the activities of Arakcheev, the organizer of peasant military settlements. Gradually, the book develops an artistic idea about the absurdity of the centuries-old serfdom. For example, in the story “Ovsyanikov’s Homesteader,” the story of the transformation of the illiterate French drummer Lejeune into a music teacher, tutor, and then into a Russian nobleman is given. In "Notes of a Hunter" there are stories that gravitate towards satire, as they contain an anti-serfdom theme. For example, the story “Lgov” talks about a peasant nicknamed Suchok, who during his life served his masters as a coachman, fisherman, cook, actor in the home theater, and bartender Anton, although his real name was Kuzma. Having several names and nicknames, the personality turned out to be completely impersonal. Different destinies, combining and echoing others, participate in the creation of a monumental image of the serfdom, which has a disastrous effect on the life of the nation. This image complements and enhances nature. A lifeless landscape runs like a red thread throughout the book. For the first time he appears in the essay “Khor and Kalinich”, where the Oryol village located next to the ravine is mentioned. In the story “The Singers,” the village of Kolotovka is dissected by a terrible ravine right in the middle of the street. In the essay “Bezhin Meadow,” a lost hunter experiences a “terrible feeling” when he finds himself in a hollow that looks like a cauldron with shallow glasses. The image of a terrible place cursed by people appears repeatedly in the story. Landscapes of this kind concentrate centuries-old folk troubles and hardships associated with Russian serfdom. This work is devoid of patriarchal beauty, since it touches on the all-Russian social conflict, and also two national images of the world collide and argue with each other, two Russias - the official, deadening life, and the folk-peasant, living and poetic. In addition, all the heroes gravitate towards two different poles - dead or alive. Nature also plays an active role in creating a holistic image of living Russia. The best heroes of this work are not just depicted against the backdrop of nature, but also act as its continuation. In this way, the book achieves a poetic sense of the mutual connection of all living things: man, river, forest, steppe. The soul of this unity is the personality of the author, fused with the life of the people, with the deep layers of Russian culture. Nature here is not indifferent to man; on the contrary, she is very strict in her relations with him, since she takes revenge on him for being too unceremonious and rational intrusion into her secrets, as well as for being excessively bold and self-confident with her. The peculiarity of the national character is revealed in the story “Death”, which lists tragic stories about the death of the contractor Maxim, the peasant, the miller Vasil, the commoner-intellectual Avenir Sokoloumov, and the old landowner. But all these stories are united by one common motif: in the face of death, heart strings appear in a Russian person. All Russian people “die amazingly,” because in the hour of the last test they think not about themselves, but about others, about loved ones. This is the source of their courage and mental endurance. There is a lot that attracts the writer in Russian life, but there is also a lot that repels him. However, there is one quality in it that the author places very highly - it is democracy, friendliness, a living talent for mutual understanding, which was not exterminated from the people's environment, but, on the contrary, was sharpened by the centuries of serfdom, the severe trials of Russian history. There is another leitmotif in “Notes of a Hunter” - the musical talent of the Russian people, which was first stated in “The Choir and Kalinich”. Kalinich sings, and the businesslike Khor sings along with him. The song unites even such opposite natures in a general mood. The song is the beginning that brings people together in the joys and sorrows of life. In the essay “Raspberry Water,” the characters have common traits: they are all losers. And at the end of the essay, on the other side, an unfamiliar singer began to sing a sad song, which brings people together, since through individual destinies it leads to an all-Russian fate and thereby makes the heroes related to each other. In the story “Kasyan from the Beautiful Sword,” a mournful chant is heard among the fields, which calls for a journey, away from the land where untruth and evil reign, to the promised land, where all people live in contentment and justice. Jacob’s song from the story “The Singers” calls the heroes to the same country. Here, not only Jacob’s singing is poeticized, but also the spiritual connection that his song establishes in characters very different in position and origin. Yakov sang, but the souls of the people around him sang along with him. The entire Prytynny tavern lives by song. But Turgenev is a realist writer, so he will show how such an impulse is replaced by mental depression. What follows is a drunken evening, where Yakov and the whole world in the tavern become completely different. The collection contains stories imbued with special lyricism. For example, “Bezhin Meadow” is sharply different in elegance from other short stories in this cycle. The author pays a lot of attention here to the elements of nature. Towards evening, the traveler lost his way and decided to choose a place to stay for the night. He comes out to a fire burning near the river, near which peasant children are sitting, grazing their horses. The hunter witnesses their conversation. He is delighted with the folk stories with which he became acquainted. Kostya’s story about Gavril, a suburban carpenter who encountered a mermaid, is interesting. He went to meet her, but inner strength stopped him, he laid down the cross, after which she stopped laughing and began to cry, saying: “You will kill yourself until the end of your days.” Here satanic power is defeated by the sign of the cross, but it is capable of introducing sadness into a person. “Notes of a Hunter” ends with the essay “Forest and Steppe.” There are no heroes here, but there is a subtle lyrical description of the natural elements, the beauty of nature and human existence in it. These two opposites do not crowd or interfere, but mutually complement each other. Both the forest and the steppe delight the traveler; he likes them at the same time. Man must also fit harmoniously into nature. The essay is imbued with a life-affirming optimistic mood, since all this is important for the healthy existence of people. Thus, the central conflict of this book is complex and deep. Undoubtedly, social antagonisms are depicted here quite sharply. Of course, the burden of serfdom falls primarily on the shoulders of the peasant, because it is he who has to endure physical torture, hunger, poverty and spiritual humiliation. However, Turgenev looks at serfdom from a broader, national point of view, as a phenomenon painful at the same time for both the master and the peasant. He sharply condemns the cruel serf owners and sympathizes with those nobles who themselves were victims of the serfdom yoke. It is no coincidence that the singing of Yakov the Turk evokes a “heavy tear” from the eyes of the Wild Master. In Turgenev, not only peasants are endowed with nationally Russian traits; Some landowners who escaped the corrupting influence of serfdom are also Russian by nature. Pyotr Petrovich Karataev is no less a Russian person than the peasants. National character traits are also emphasized in Tchertopkhanov’s moral character. He is a landowner, but not a serf owner. Such is Tatyana Borisovna, a patriarchal landowner, but at the same time a simple creature, with a “straightforward, pure heart.” The author sees the living forces of the nation in both the peasant and noble environment. Admiring the poetic talent or, conversely, the efficiency of the Russian person, the writer comes to the conclusion that serfdom is contrary to national dignity, and all living Russia, not only peasant, but also noble, must take part in the fight against it.

Notes of a hunter. Summary

by chapter

Bezhin meadow

On a beautiful July day, one of those days when the weather settled for a long time, the narrator was hunting black grouse in the Chernsky district of the Tula province. He shot quite a lot of game, and when it began to get dark, he decided to return home, but got lost. The hunter wandered for quite a long time, meanwhile the night was approaching. He even tried to ask his hunting dog Dianka where he had wandered and where he was. “The smartest of four-legged creatures” was silent and just wagged her tail. Continuing to wander, the hunter found himself over a terrible abyss. The hill on which he was located descended into a sheer cliff. On the plain near the river, two lights were burning and glowing, and people were scurrying around them.

The narrator found out where he went. This. the place was known as Bezhina Meadows. The hunter went down and was going to ask people for an overnight stay near the fire. The dogs greeted him with an angry bark. Children's voices were heard near the lights, and the hunter answered the children from afar. They drove away the dogs, who were especially struck by Dianka's appearance, and the man approached the fire.

The hunter told the boys that he was lost and sat down by the fire. There were five boys sitting by the fire: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya.

Fedya was the oldest. He was about fourteen years old. He was a slender boy with bright eyes and a constant cheerful half-smile. He belonged, by all accounts, to a rich family, and went to the field for fun. Pavlusha was unprepossessing in appearance. But he spoke intelligently and directly, and there was strength in his voice. Ilyusha's face expressed dull, painful solicitude. It was as if he was squinting from the fire. He and Pavlusha were twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused curiosity with his thoughtful and sad gaze. Vanya was only seven years old, he was dozing on the matting.

The kids were talking about this and that, but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha and asked him, as if continuing an interrupted story, if Ilyusha had seen the brownie. Ilyusha replied that he didn’t see him, because he couldn’t be seen, but he heard him in the old factory, in the old factory. Under the brownie, boards cracked at night, a wheel could suddenly rattle, boilers and devices on which paper was made would move. Then the brownie seemed to go to the door and suddenly coughed and choked. The kids who were spending the night at the factory then fell down from fear and crawled under each other.

And Kostya told another story - about the suburban carpenter Gavril, who was sad all the time because he saw a mermaid in the forest. The mermaid laughed all the time and called the guy to her. But the Lord advised him, and Gavrila crossed himself. The mermaid burst into tears and disappeared, complaining that the man should not have been baptized. Now she will cry all the time, they say, but she also wished for him to kill himself until the end of his days. After these words, the evil spirit disappeared, and it became clear to Gavrila how to get out of the forest. But since then he has been sad.

The next story was Ilyushina. It was a story about how the huntsman Yermil picked up a white lamb from the grave of a drowned man, who bared his teeth at night and spoke to Yermil in a human voice.

Fedya continued the conversation with a story about the late master Ivan Ivanovich, who keeps walking the earth in a long-length caftan and looking for something. Grandfather Trofimych, who asked the dead man what he was looking for, Ivan Ivanovich replied that he was looking for a gap - grass. The grave presses him, and he wants to get out.

Ilyusha picked up the conversation and said that the deceased can be seen on parental Saturday if you sit on the porch of the church. But you can also see the living, whose turn to die this year. Grandma Ulyana saw Ivashka Fedoseev, the boy who died in the spring, and then herself. And from that day on, her soul barely holds on, even though she is still alive. Ilyusha also spoke about Trishka, an extraordinary man, the legends about whom were very similar to the legends about the Antichrist. The conversation turned to the merman, and from him to the fool Akulina, who had gone crazy since she tried to drown herself in the river.

The boy Vasya also drowned in the same river. His mother raked hay while her son played on the shore. The boy suddenly disappeared, only the cap floated on the water. His mother has been out of her mind since then.

Pavel came with a full pot of water in his hands and said that something was wrong, the brownie had called him. Fedya added at this news that the drowned Vasyatka called Pavel.

The hunter was gradually overcome by sleep, and he woke up only at dawn. All the boys slept near the fire. Only Pavel woke up and looked intently at the night guest, who nodded his head to him and walked along the river.

Unfortunately, Pavel died that same year: he fell from his horse and was killed.

Khor and Kalinich

The narrator meets the landowner Polutykin, a passionate hunter, who invites him to his estate. They go to spend the night with the peasant Khorya. Khor had a strong economy and had a practical mindset. He was Polutykin's serf, although he had the opportunity to pay off his master. But this was unprofitable for Khor, so he abandoned such thoughts.

Khor's manners are unhurried, he does not get down to business without thinking and calculating everything in advance, he does not think abstractly, and he is not haunted by dreams.

His friend Kalinich is the complete opposite. He once had a wife, whom he was very afraid of, but that was a long time ago. Now he lives alone and often accompanies Polutykin on hunts. This activity became the meaning of his life, as it gives him the opportunity to communicate with nature.

Khor and Kalinich are friends, despite the fact that they have different views on life. Kalinich, as an enthusiastic, dreamy person who does not really understand people, was in awe of the master. Khor saw right through Polutykin, so he treated him somewhat ironically.

Khor loved Kalinich and patronized him because he felt that he was wiser. And Kalinich, in turn, loved and respected Khor.

Khor knew how to hide his thoughts, be cunning, and spoke little. Kalinich explained himself passionately and enthusiastically. Kalinich was familiar with the secrets of nature, he could stop blood and charm fear. The practical Khor, who “stood closer to society, to people,” did not possess all these skills, while Kalinich was closer to nature.

Ermolai and the miller's wife

The narrator tells how one day he and the hunter Ermolai went on a “drag” - an evening hunt for woodcock.

He then introduces readers to Ermolai. “Yermolai was a strange kind of man: carefree, like a bird, quite talkative, absent-minded and awkward in appearance.” At the same time, “no one could compare with him in the art of catching fish in spring, in hollow water, getting crayfish with his hands, finding game by instinct, luring quails, hatching hawks, catching nightingales...”

After standing on the draft for about an hour, having killed two pairs of woodcocks, the narrator and Ermolai decided to spend the night at the nearest mill, but they were not allowed in, but were allowed to spend the night under an open canopy. The miller's wife Arina brought them food for dinner. It turned out that the narrator knows her former master, Mr. Zverkov, for whose wife Arina served as a maid. One day she asked the master for permission to marry the footman Petrushka. Zverkov and his wife considered themselves insulted by this request: the girl was exiled to the village, and the footman was sent to serve as a soldier. Arina later married a miller, who bought her.

Raspberry water

The action takes place in the heat of early August, when the narrator went hunting and went in the direction of a spring known as Raspberry Water.

Near the river he meets two old men fishing - Shumikhinsky's Stepushka and Mikhailo Savelyev, nicknamed Fog. What follows is a recounting of their life stories.

County doctor

One autumn, returning from a field away, the narrator caught a cold and fell ill. It happened in a county town, in a hotel. The doctor was called. The district doctor, Trifon Ivanovich, prescribed medicine and began to talk about how one day, while playing preference with a local judge, he was called to the house of an impoverished widow. She was a landowner who lived twenty miles from the city. A note from her said that her daughter was dying, and she asked the doctor to come as soon as possible.

Having arrived, the doctor began to provide medical care her daughter, Alexandra Andreevna, sick with fever. Trifon Ivanovich stayed with them for several days to care for the patient, feeling “a strong affection for her.” Despite all his efforts, the girl did not recover. One night, feeling that she would soon die, she confessed her love to the doctor. Three days later, Alexandra Andreevna died.

And the doctor then entered into a legal marriage, taking as his wife the merchant’s daughter Akulina, evil, but with a dowry of seven thousand.

Odnodvorets Ovsyanikov

Here the narrator introduces readers to Ovsyanikov, a man of the same estate. He was a plump, tall man, about seventy years old, with a face somewhat reminiscent of Krylov’s face, with a clear and intelligent gaze, with an important posture, measured speech and a slow gait. All his neighbors respected him extremely and considered it an honor to know him. Ovsyanikov lived alone with his wife in a cozy, neat house. He kept a small servant, dressed his people in Russian and called them workers. “He considered it a sin to sell bread - God’s gift, and in the year 40, during a general famine and terrible high prices, he distributed his entire supply to the surrounding landowners and peasants; The next year they gratefully paid him their debt in kind.” Ovsyanikov read only spiritual books. Neighbors often came to him for advice and help, asking him to judge and reconcile them.

One of Ovsyanikov’s neighbors was Franz Ivanovich Lezhen. In 1812 he went to Russia with Napoleon's army as a drummer. During the retreat, Lezhen fell into the hands of Smolensk men who wanted to drown him. A landowner passing by took pity on the Frenchman. He asked if he played the piano and brought him home as a teacher for His daughters. Two weeks later, Lejeune moved from this landowner to another, a rich and educated man, who fell in love with the Frenchman for his kind and cheerful disposition and married his pupil. Lejeune entered the service, became a nobleman, and in the end - a Russian landowner. He moved to live in Orel and made friends with Ovsyanikov.

Lgov

The narrator and Ermolai go to shoot ducks in Lgov, a large steppe village. Once at the river bank, they find the boat of the fisherman Kuzma, nicknamed Suchok. He was everything in his life: a Cossack, a coachman, a cook, a coffee shop worker, an actor, a postman, a gardener, a delivery driver, and now he is the master’s fisherman, who has been assigned to fish for seven years in a pond where there are no fish. He had several names and nicknames throughout his life.

Kasyan with a Beautiful Sword

The narrator returns from hunting on a sultry summer day. The axle of their cart's wheel breaks, and the coachman Erofey blames the funeral procession he met along the road for this. It is believed that meeting a dead person is a bad omen. The narrator learns that they are burying Martyn the carpenter, who died of fever. The coachman, meanwhile, suggests going to Yudiny settlement to get a new axle for the wheel there. At the outskirts, the narrator meets Kasyan, a dwarf of about fifty with a small, dark and wrinkled face, a sharp nose, brown, barely noticeable eyes and curly, thick black hair. His whole body was extremely frail and thin, and his gaze was strange and unusual.

Kasyan says that a new axle can be obtained from merchant clerks in an oak grove that is being cut down for sale, and agrees to accompany the hunter there. He decides to hunt in the grove. Kasyan asks to take him with him. After much wandering, the narrator manages to shoot only a corncrake.

“- Master, oh master! - Kasyan suddenly said in his sonorous voice.

I stood up in surprise; Until now he had barely answered my questions, otherwise he suddenly spoke.

- What do you want? - I asked.

- Well, why did you kill the bird? - he began, looking me straight in the face.

- How for what? Crake is game: you can eat it.

“That’s not why you killed him, master: you’ll eat him!” You killed him for your amusement."

Kasyan argues that it is a sin to kill any forest creature, but man is entitled to other food - bread and “tame creatures from the ancient fathers.” He says that “neither man nor creature can lie against death. Death does not run, and you cannot run away from it; Yes, she shouldn’t be helped..."

The narrator learns that Kasyan knows medicinal herbs well, at one time he went “to Simbirsk - the glorious city, and to Moscow itself - the golden domes; I went to the Oka-nurse, and to the Volga-mother.” “And I’m not the only sinner... there are many other peasants walking around in bast shoes, wandering around the world, looking for the truth... yes!.. But what about at home, huh? There is no justice in man - that’s what it is...”

The coachman Erofey considers Kasyan a holy fool and a stupid person, but admits that Kasyan cured him of scrofula. “God knows: he’s silent as a stump, then he suddenly speaks, and what he speaks, God knows. Is this manners? This is not manners. An incongruous person, as he is.”

Mayor

About fifteen verts from the narrator’s estate lives a young landowner - retired guards officer Arkady Pavlovich Penochkin. His house was built according to the plan of a French architect, people are dressed in English, and he runs the house with great success. Penochkin orders French books, but practically does not read them. He is considered one of the most educated nobles and eligible bachelors in the province. In winter he travels to St. Petersburg. The narrator is reluctant to visit him, but one day he has to spend the night at Penochkin’s estate. In the morning there was breakfast in the English style. Then they travel together to the village of Shipilovka, where they stay in the hut of the local mayor Sofron Yakovlevich. He answered all of Penochkin’s questions about affairs on the farm that everything was going very well thanks to the master’s orders. The next day, Penochkin, together with the narrator and the mayor Sofron, went to inspect the estate, where extraordinary order reigned. Then we went hunting in the forest, and when we returned, we went to look at a winnowing machine that had recently been ordered from Moscow.

Coming out of the barn, they saw two men, old and young, kneeling. They complained that they were completely tortured by the mayor, who had taken two of the old man’s sons as recruits, and was now taking away the third. He took the last cow from the yard and beat his wife. They claimed that the mayor was not the only one ruining them. But Penochkin did not listen to them.

Two hours later, the narrator was already in the village of Ryabov, where he talked with a peasant he knew, Anpadist, about the Shipilovsky peasants. He explained that Shipilovka is only listed as the master’s, but Sofron owns it as his property: the peasants around him owe him money, they work for him like farm laborers, and the mayor earns a living in land, horses, cattle, tar, oil, hemp, so he is very rich, but beats peasants. The men don’t complain to the master, because Penochkin doesn’t care: the main thing is that there are no arrears. And Sophron got annoyed with Antipas because he quarreled with him at the meeting, so now he is taking revenge on him.

Office

The action takes place in autumn. The hunter was wandering through the fields with a gun and suddenly saw a low hut in which an old watchman was sitting, who showed him the way. So the narrator ended up in the estate of Elena Nikolaevna Losnyakova, in the main master’s office, where the clerk Nikolai Eremeev manages. The narrator, being in the next room and pretending to be asleep, finds out

there is a lot of new information about him and about life on the estate.

Biryuk

The hunter was returning home alone, on a racing droshky. A thunderstorm was approaching, and suddenly the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly, in the darkness, with the flash of lightning, a tall figure stood near the droshky. The man demanded in a stern voice to identify himself and, upon hearing the answer, calmed down. He himself turned out to be a local forester and invited the hunter to wait out the rain in his hut. The forester took the horse by the bridle, and soon a small hut in a wide yard appeared before the hunter’s eyes. On the threshold they were met by a girl of about twelve, wearing a shirt with a belt around the hem, and with a lantern in her hand. The forester went to put the droshky under the shed, and the master entered the hut. Appalling poverty appeared before him. There was a child lying in the cradle, breathing heavily and rapidly. The girl rocked him, straightening the splinter with her left hand. The forester entered. The master thanked the forester and asked his name. He replied that his name was Thomas, nicknamed Biryuk.

The hunter looked at the forester with redoubled curiosity.

There were legends about Biryuk's honesty, incorruptibility and strength.

The master asked where the hostess was. The forester first answered that she had died, and then corrected herself, saying that she had run away with a passing tradesman, abandoning her barely born child.

Biryuk offered the master bread, but he said that he was not hungry. The forester went out into the yard and returned with the news that the thunderstorm was passing, and invited the guest to escort him out of the forest. He himself took the gun, explaining that they were cutting down a tree at Kobylye Verkh, they were playing pranks - he heard from the yard.

The master and the forester did not have time to get to the felling site. The hunter rushed to the place where the noise of the struggle was coming from, and saw the forester, who had tied the thief’s hands with a sash behind his back. The thief turned out to be a man in rags, with a long beard. The master mentally gave his word: to free the poor fellow at all costs. The man was seated on a bench, and there was dead silence in the house.

Suddenly the prisoner spoke and asked Foma Kuzmich, i.e. Biryuk, to free him. Foma was adamant, and after much arguing, the man issued threats against the forester. Biryuk stood up and, in a fit of anger, approached the man. He was afraid that they would beat him, and the master stood up for the prisoner. Biryuk told the master to leave behind, pulled the sash off the man’s elbows, pulled his cap over his eyes, grabbed him by the collar and pushed him out of the hut.

The master praised Biryuk, saying that he is a verbal fellow. The forester waved him off and only asked him not to tell anyone anything.

Then he accompanied the master and said goodbye to him at the edge of the forest.

Lebedyan

The narrator talks about how five years ago he came to Lebedyan at the very collapse of the fair. After lunch, he goes to the coffee shop, where they played billiards.

The next day he went to choose a horse for himself, looked at it for a long time, and finally bought it. But it turned out to be burnt and lame, and the seller refused to take it back.

Singers

The action takes place in the small village of Kolotovka. It tells about the competition between two singers from the people - Yakov Turk and a soldier from Zhizdra. The rower sang “in the highest falsetto,” his voice was “rather pleasant and sweet, although somewhat hoarse; he played and wiggled this voice like a top,<…>would fall silent and then suddenly pick up the same tune with some kind of rollicking, arrogant prowess. His transitions were sometimes quite bold, sometimes quite funny: they would bring a lot of pleasure to a connoisseur.”

Yakov “sang, completely forgetting both his opponent and all of us, but, apparently, lifted like a vigorous swimmer by the waves, by our silent, passionate fate. He sang, and from every sound of his voice there was a breath of something familiar and vastly wide, as if the familiar steppe was opening up<…>, going into endless distance."

“There was more than one path in the field,” Yakov sang, and everyone present felt terrified. In his voice there was genuine deep passion, and youth, and strength, and sweetness, and some kind of fascinatingly carefree, sad grief. “The Russian, truthful, ardent soul sounded and breathed in him and grabbed you by the heart, grabbed you right by its Russian strings.”

Having rested in the hayloft and leaving the village, the hunter decided to look into the window of the Prytynny tavern, where a few hours ago he had witnessed a wonderful singing. A “gay” and “motley” picture was presented to his eyes: “Everyone was drunk - everyone, starting with Yakov. He sat bare-chested on a bench and, humming in a hoarse voice some kind of dance, street song, lazily plucked the strings of his guitar...”

Moving away from the window, from which came the discordant sounds of tavern “fun,” the hunter quickly walked away from Kolotovka.

Petr Petrovich Karataev

The action took place in the autumn, on the road from Moskra to Tula, when the narrator sat for almost the whole day due to a lack of horses in the post house, where he met the small nobleman Pyotr Petrovich Karataev. Karataev tells the narrator his story. He is almost ruined - due to crop failures and his own inability to manage the farm, and now he is going to Moscow to serve. Then he remembers how he once fell in love with a beautiful serf girl, Matryona, and decided to buy her from her mistress. A relative of the lady received him and told him to call in two days. Having arrived at the specified time, Pyotr Petrovich learned that Matryona was being sent to a steppe village, since the lady did not want to sell the girl. Then Karataev went to the village where Matryona had been exiled, and took her to his place secretly, at night. So they lived for five months in joy and harmony.

But one day, while riding a sleigh, they went to the village of Matryona’s lady, where they were seen and recognized. The lady filed a complaint against Karataev that her runaway girl was living with him. The police officer arrived, but this time Pyotr Petrovich managed to buy himself off. However, he was not left alone. He got into debt, hid Matryona, but she, taking pity on Karataev, went and gave herself away.

A year after this meeting, the narrator arrived in Moscow, went into a coffee shop there, where he saw him coming out of the billiard room

Peter Petrovich. He said that he does not serve anywhere, his village was sold at auction, and he intends to remain in Moscow for the rest of his life.

Date

Tenderly loving Akulina comes to the grove on a date with the noble valet's spoiled valet and finds out that he is leaving with his master for St. Petersburg, possibly leaving her forever. Victor leaves without a hint of frustration or remorse, and the poor deceived girl indulges in inconsolable sobs.

Nature here is a subtle lyrical commentary on the girl’s painful, hopeless state: “... through the gloomy, although fresh smile of fading nature, the sad fear of the near winter seemed to creep in. High above me, heavily and sharply cutting through the air with its wings, a cautious raven flew by, turned its head, looked at me from the side, soared up and, cawing abruptly, disappeared behind the forest...”

Living relics

The narrator, together with Ermolai, goes for black grouse to Belevsky district. The rain did not stop since the morning. Then Ermolai suggested going to spend the night in Alekseevka - a farmstead that belonged to the narrator’s mother, the existence of which he had not previously suspected.

The next day he went to wander through the wild garden. Having reached the apiary, I saw a wicker shed, where lay a small figure that looked like a mummy. She turned out to be Lukerya, a former beauty. She told her story of how she fell off the porch seven years ago and started getting sick. Her body withered and she lost the ability to move. The gentlemen first tried to treat her, and then sent her to the village to stay with relatives. Here Lukerya was nicknamed “Living Relics”. She says about her current life that she is happy with everything: God sent the cross, which means he loves her. He says that he dreams: Christ; parents who bow to her and say that she atones for their sins with her suffering; death, which Lukerya begs to take her with him. The narrator refuses the offer to take her to the hospital - medical procedures do not help her, causing only unnecessary suffering. She asks the master to tell his mother to reduce the rent for the local peasants - their lands are poor, the harvests are bad.

A few weeks after their meeting, Lukerya died.