“...I remember early fine autumn. August was with warm rains... Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled on the fields... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a big, all golden, dried up and thinned garden, I remember maple alleys, the delicate aroma of fallen leaves and - the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so pure, as if it were not there at all ... And the cool silence of the morning is broken only by the well-fed clucking of thrushes on coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming clatter of apples poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden one can see the road to the big hut strewn with straw.” Here live philistine gardeners who have rented a garden. “On holidays, there is a whole fair near the hut, and red dresses are constantly flashing behind the trees.” Everyone comes for apples. Boys in white slouchy shirts and short trousers, with white open heads, come up. They walk in twos and threes, finely pawing their bare feet, and squinting at a shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. There are many buyers, trade is brisk, and a consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful.
By night in the weather it becomes very cold and dewy. It's getting dark. And here's another smell: in the garden - a fire, and strongly pulls the fragrant smoke of cherry branches.
“" Vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year ". Village affairs are good if Antonovka is born: it means that bread is born too ... I remember a harvest year.
At early dawn, when the roosters are still crowing and the huts are smoking black, you used to open a window into a cool garden filled with a lilac fog, through which the morning sun shines brightly in some places ... and you run to wash yourself on the pond. The small foliage has almost completely flown from the coastal vines, and the branches show through in the turquoise sky. The water under the vines became clear, icy and as if heavy.”
The author describes the village and its inhabitants, buildings, lifestyle. We read further:
“I didn’t know serfdom and didn’t see it, but I remember I felt it at Aunt Anna Gerasimovna’s. You will drive into the courtyard and immediately feel that it is still quite alive here. The estate is small... Only the blackened human estate stands out for its size, or, better, for its length, from which the last Mohicans of the yard class look out - some dilapidated old men and women, a decrepit retired cook, similar to Don Quixote. All of them, when you drive into the yard, pull themselves up and bow low, low...
You will enter the house and first of all you will hear the smell of apples, and then others: old mahogany furniture, dried lime blossom, which has been on the windows since June ... In all rooms - in the servants' room, in the hall, in the living room - it is cool and gloomy: this is because the house is surrounded by a garden, and the upper glass of the windows is colored: blue and purple. Everywhere is silence and cleanliness, although it seems that armchairs, inlaid tables and mirrors in narrow and twisted gold frames have never moved. And then a cough is heard: an aunt comes out. It is small, but also, like everything around, strong. She has a large Persian shawl draped over her shoulders...”
“Since the end of September, our gardens and threshing floor have been empty, the weather, as usual, has changed dramatically. The wind tore and ruffled the trees for whole days, the rains watered them from morning to night. Sometimes in the evening, between the gloomy low clouds, the trembling golden light of the low sun made its way in the west; the air became pure and clear, and the sunlight shone dazzlingly between the foliage, between the branches, which moved like a living net and waved from the wind. The liquid blue sky shone coldly and brightly in the north above heavy lead clouds, and behind these clouds ridges of snowy mountains-clouds slowly floated out... and somehow hushed, resigned. But on the other hand, how beautiful it was when the clear weather came again, the transparent and cold days of early October, the farewell holiday of autumn! The preserved foliage will hang on the trees until the first winters. The black garden will shine through in the cold turquoise sky and dutifully wait for winter, warming itself in the sunshine.”
“When it happened to oversleep the hunt, the rest was especially pleasant. You wake up and lie in bed for a long time... You dress slowly, wander around the garden, you will find in the wet foliage an accidentally forgotten cold and wet apple, and for some reason it will seem unusually tasty, not at all like the others. Then you'll get down to books - grandfather's books in thick leather bindings, with gold stars on morocco spines. These books, resembling church breviaries, smell gloriously of their yellowed, thick, rough paper! Some kind of pleasant sour mold, old perfume... The notes in their margins are also good, large and with round soft strokes made with a goose pen... And you will involuntarily be carried away by the book itself. This is "The Philosopher Nobleman"... a story about how "the philosopher nobleman, having the time and ability to reason about what the mind of a person can ascend to, once received the desire to compose a plan of light in the spacious place of his village"...”
“The smell of Antonov apples disappears from the landowners' estates. Those days were so recent, and yet it seems to me that almost a whole century has passed since then. The old people died in Vyselki, Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseniy Semenych shot himself ... The kingdom of small estates, impoverished to beggary, is advancing. But this beggarly small-town life is also good! Here I see myself again in the village, a deep settled. The days are bluish, cloudy. In the morning I sit in the saddle and with one dog, with a gun and a horn, I leave for the field. The wind is ringing and buzzing in the muzzle of a gun, the wind is blowing strongly towards you, sometimes with dry snow. All day long I wander through the empty plains ... Hungry and chilly, I return to the estate at dusk, and it becomes so warm and gratifying in my soul when the lights of the Settlement flicker and pull from the estate with the smell of smoke, housing ... Sometimes some kind of a small-town neighbor and will take me away for a long time ... A good and small-town life!”
Bibliography
For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://www.litra.ru/
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
I remember the early fine autumn. August was with warm rains, as if on purpose for sowing, with rains at the very time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And "autumn and winter live well, if the water is calm and rainy on Lavrentiya." Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled on the fields. This is also a good sign: "There are a lot of nethers in Indian summer - vigorous autumn" ... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning ... I remember a big, all golden, dried up and thinned garden, I remember maple alleys, the delicate aroma of fallen leaves and - - the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so pure, as if it were not there at all, voices and the creak of carts are heard throughout the garden. These are tarkhans, philistine gardeners, who have hired peasants and pour apples in order to send them to the city at night - certainly on a night when it is so nice to lie on a cart, look at the starry sky, smell the tar in the fresh air and listen how carefully creaks in the dark a long convoy along high road. A peasant pouring apples eats them with a juicy crackle one after another, but such is the establishment - the tradesman will never cut him off, but will also say:
Vali, eat your fill - there's nothing to do! At the drain, everyone drinks honey.
And the cool silence of the morning is broken only by the well-fed clucking of thrushes on coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming clatter of apples poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden, the road to the big hut, strewn with straw, and the hut itself, near which the townspeople acquired a whole household over the summer, are far visible. There is a strong smell of apples everywhere, especially here. In the hut beds are arranged, there is a single-barreled gun, a green samovar, in the corner - dishes. Mats, boxes, all sorts of tattered belongings are lying around the hut, an earthen stove has been dug. At noon, a magnificent kulesh with lard is cooked on it, in the evening the samovar is heated, and in the garden, between the trees, bluish smoke spreads in a long strip. On holidays, the hut is a whole fair, and behind the trees red hats flash every minute. Lively odnodvorki girls in sundresses strongly smelling of paint are crowding, “masters” come in their beautiful and coarse, savage costumes, a young elder, pregnant, with a wide sleepy face and important, like a Kholmogory cow. On her head are "horns" - braids are placed on the sides of the crown and covered with several scarves, so that the head seems huge; legs, in half boots with horseshoes, stand stupidly and firmly; the sleeveless jacket is plush, the curtain is long, and the poneva is black-purple with brick-colored stripes and overlaid on the hem with a wide gold "groove" ...
Household butterfly!
the tradesman says of her, shaking his head.
- Now such people are being translated ...
And the boys in white slouchy shirts and short trousers, with open white heads, all fit. They walk in twos and threes, finely pawing their bare feet, and squinting at a shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. Buys, of course, one, because purchases are only for a penny or an egg, but there are many buyers, trade is brisk, and a consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful. Together with his brother, a burry, nimble half-idiot who lives with him "out of mercy", he trades with jokes, jokes, and even sometimes "touches" on the Tula harmonica. And until evening, people crowd in the garden, laughter and talk are heard near the hut, and sometimes the clatter of dancing ...
By night in the weather it becomes very cold and dewy. Breathing in the rye aroma of new straw and chaff on the threshing floor, you cheerfully walk home to dinner past the garden rampart. The voices in the village or the creaking of the gates resound through the icy dawn with unusual clarity. It's getting dark. And here is another smell: there is a fire in the garden, and it strongly pulls with fragrant smoke of cherry branches. In the dark, deep in the garden - fabulous picture: just in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone's black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony, move around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk through the apple trees. Either a black hand several arshins in size will lie down all over the tree, then two legs will be clearly drawn - two black pillars. And suddenly all this slips from the apple tree - and a shadow falls along the entire alley, from the hut to the very gate ...
Late at night, when the lights go out in the village, when the diamond constellation Stozhar is already shining high in the sky, you will once again run into the garden.
Rustling through dry foliage, like a blind man, you will reach the hut. There in the clearing a little lighter, and overhead it turns white Milky Way.
Is that you, bartender?
someone calls softly from the darkness.
ME: Are you still awake, Nikolai?
We can't sleep. And it must be too late? Look, there's a passenger train coming...
We listen for a long time and distinguish the trembling in the ground, the trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if already beyond the garden, the wheels are rapidly beating out the noisy beat of the wheel: rumbling and knocking, the train rushes ... closer, closer, louder and more angry .. And suddenly it starts to subside, to stall, as if sinking into the ground...
And where is your gun, Nikolai?
But next to the box, sir.
Throw up a heavy, like a crowbar, single-barreled shotgun and shoot with a flurry. A crimson flame with a deafening crackle will flash towards the sky, blind for a moment and extinguish the stars, and a cheerful echo will ring out and roll across the horizon, fading far, far away in the clear and sensitive air.
Wow, great!
the tradesman will say.
- Spend, spend, barchuk, otherwise it's just a disaster! Again, the whole muzzle on the shaft was shaken off ...
BUT black sky shooting stars draw with fiery stripes. For a long time you look into its dark blue depth, overflowing with constellations, until the earth floats under your feet. Then you will start up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, you will quickly run along the alley to the house ... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!
"A vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year." Rural affairs are good if Antonovka is born: it means that bread has also been born ... I remember a harvest year.
At early dawn, when the roosters are still crowing and the huts are smoking black, you used to open a window into a cool garden filled with a lilac fog, through which the morning sun shines brightly in some places, and you will run to wash your face. to the pond. The small foliage has almost completely flown from the coastal vines, and the branches show through in the turquoise sky. The water under the vines became clear, icy and as if heavy. She instantly drives away the night's laziness, and, having washed and having breakfast in the servants' room with hot potatoes and black bread with coarse raw salt, you feel with pleasure the slippery leather of the saddle under you, driving through Vyselki to hunt. Autumn is the time of patronal holidays, and the people at this time are tidied up, satisfied, the view of the village is not at all the same as at another time. If the year is fruitful and a whole golden city rises on the threshing floors, and geese rumble loudly and sharply in the morning on the river, then it’s not bad at all in the village. In addition, our Vyselki from time immemorial, since the time of my grandfather, were famous for "wealth". Old men and women lived in Vyselki for a very long time - the first sign of a rich village - and they were all tall, big and white as a harrier. You only hear, it happened: "Yes, - here Agafya waved her eighty-three years old!" -- or conversations like this:
And when will you die, Pankrat? Will you be a hundred years old?
How would you like to say, father?
How old are you, I ask!
I don't know, sir.
Do you remember Plato Apollonitch?
How, sir, father, I distinctly remember.
You see now. You must be at least a hundred.
The old man, who is standing in front of the master, stretched out, meekly and guiltily smiles. Well, they say, to do - guilty, healed. And he probably would have gotten even more rich if he hadn’t overate on Petrovka onions.
I also remember his old woman. Everyone used to sit on a bench, on the porch, bent over, shaking his head, panting, and holding onto the bench with his hands—everyone was thinking about something. "I bet about her good," the women said, because, however, she had a lot of "good" in her chests. And she doesn't seem to hear; blindly looks somewhere into the distance from under sadly raised eyebrows, shakes his head and seems to be trying to remember something. There was a big old woman, all kind of dark. Paneva - almost from the last century, chunks - deceased, neck - yellow and dried up, shirt with canine jambs is always white and white - "just put it in the coffin." And near the porch lay a large stone: she herself bought a shroud for her grave, as well as a shroud - an excellent shroud, with angels, with crosses and with a prayer printed around the edges.
The yards in Vyselki also matched the old people: brick, built by grandfathers. And the rich peasants - Savely, Ignat, Dron - had huts in two or three connections, because sharing in Vyselki was not yet fashionable. In such families, they kept bees, were proud of the gray-iron-coloured bityug stallion, and kept the estates in order. On the threshing floors thick and fat hemp-growers grew dark, barns and barns covered with hair stood in the dark; in punkas and barns there were iron doors, behind which canvases, spinning wheels, new short fur coats, typesetting harness, measures bound with copper hoops were stored. Crosses were burned on the gates and on the sledges. And I remember sometimes it seemed to me extremely tempting to be a peasant. When you used to ride through the village on a sunny morning, you kept thinking about how good it is to mow, thresh, sleep on the threshing floor in omets, and on a holiday to get up with the sun, under the thick and musical blasphemy from the village, wash yourself near the barrel and put on a clean suede shirt, the same trousers and indestructible boots with horseshoes. If, it was thought, to add to this a healthy and beautiful wife in festive attire, and a trip to mass, and then dinner at the bearded father-in-law, dinner with hot lamb on wooden plates and with rushes, with honeycomb and mash - it’s impossible to wish for more!
Even in my memory, the warehouse of the average noble life - very recently - had much in common with the warehouse of the rich peasant life in its homeliness and rural old-world prosperity. Such, for example, was the estate of Anna Gerasimovna's aunt, who lived about twelve versts from Vyselki. Until, it used to be, you get to this estate, it is already completely depleted. You have to walk with dogs in packs, and you don’t want to rush, it’s so much fun in an open field on a sunny and cool day! The terrain is flat and can be seen far away. The sky is light and so spacious and deep. The sun is shining from the side, and the road, rolled after the rains by carts, is oily and shines like rails. Fresh, lush green winters are scattered around in wide shoals. A hawk will fly up from somewhere in the clear air and freeze in one place, fluttering with sharp wings. And clearly visible run away into the clear distance telegraph poles, and their wires, like silver strings, glide along the slope of the clear sky. There are little cats sitting on them - completely black badges on music paper.
I. A. Bunin, "Antonov apples" ( summary follows) is a memory picture in which juicy autumn apples become the main actor, because without their suffocating aroma there would be no author himself. Why? Sounds, smells, random pictures, vivid images… It would seem that thousands, millions of them rush through life. Something is stored for a long time in memory and is gradually forgotten. Something passes without a trace, erased as if it never happened. And something stays with us forever. It inexplicably seeps through the thickness of our consciousness, penetrates deep and becomes an integral part of ourselves.
Summary “Antonov apples”, Bunin I. A.
Early fine autumn. It seemed like just yesterday it was August with its frequent warm rains. The peasants rejoiced, because when it rains on Lawrence, autumn and winter will be good. But time runs, and now a lot of cobwebs have appeared in the fields. The golden gardens thinned out, withered. The air is clean, transparent, as if it does not exist at all, and at the same time it is filled “to the top” with the smells of fallen leaves, honey and Antonov apples ... This is how Ivan Bunin begins his story.
"Antonov apples": the first memory.
The village of Vyselki, the estate of the author's aunt, where he liked to visit and spent his best years. The hubbub and the creak of carts in the garden: the harvest of autumn apples is in progress. Petty-bourgeois gardeners recruited peasants to pour apples and send them to the city. Work is in full swing, even though it is night outside. A cautious creak of a long convoy is heard, in the darkness here and there a juicy crack is heard - this is a man eating apples one after another. And no one stops him, on the contrary, the owners encourage this irrepressible appetite: “Vali, eat your fill, there’s nothing to do!” The thinned garden opens the way to a large hut - a real house with its own household. Everywhere incredibly smells of apples, but in this place - especially. During the day, people gather near the hut, and there is a brisk trade. There are just so many people here: single-dwelling girls in sarafans smelling of paint, and "masters" in beautiful and coarse costumes, and a young pregnant elder, boys in white shirts ... By evening, the fuss and noise subside. Cold and dewy. Crimson flames in the garden, fragrant smoke, cherry branches crackle ... “How good it is to live in the world!”
I. A. Bunin, “Antonov apples” (for a summary, read below): the second memory.
That year in the village of Vyselki was fruitful. As they said, if Antonovka is born, then there will be a lot of bread, and village affairs will be good. So they lived, from harvest to harvest, although it cannot be said that the peasants were poor, on the contrary, Vyselki were considered a rich land. The old men and women lived for a long time, which was the first sign of prosperity: Pankrat would already be a hundred years old, and Agafya was eighty-three years old. There were also houses in the village to match the old people: large, brick, two or three under one roof, because it was not customary to live separately. They kept bees, were proud of stallions, behind iron doors they kept new coats, canvases, spinning wheels, harnesses. I also remember the estate of aunt Anna Gerasimovna, which stood about twelve versts from Vyselki. In the middle of the yard was her house, around a linden tree, and then the famous apple orchard with nightingales and doves. It used to happen that you cross the threshold, and before other smells, the aroma of Antonov apples is felt. Everywhere is clean and tidy. A minute, another, a cough is heard: Anna Gerasimovna comes out, and immediately, under endless trials and gossip about antiquity and inheritance, treats appear. First, Antonov apples. And then a delicious lunch: boiled ham, pink with peas, marinades, turkey, stuffed chicken and strong sweet kvass. 
I. A. Bunin, “Antonov apples” (summary): third memory.
End of September. The weather is getting worse. It rains more and more often. You stand like this at the window. The street is empty and boring. The wind doesn't let up. It starts to rain. Quiet at first, then stronger, stronger and turns into a thick downpour with leaden darkness and a storm. An unsettling night is coming. The next morning after such a battle, the apple orchard is almost completely naked. Wet leaves all around. The surviving foliage, already quiet and resigned, will dangle on the trees until the first frost. Well, it's time to hunt! Usually by this time everyone was gathering at the estate of Arseny Semyonitch: hearty dinners, vodka, flushed, weather-beaten faces, lively talk about the upcoming hunt. They went out into the yard, and there the horn was already blowing, and a noisy gang of dogs howled in different voices. It happened - you oversleep, you miss the hunt, but the rest was no less pleasant. You lie in bed for a long time. All around is silence, which is broken only by the crackling of firewood in the stove. You dress slowly, go out into the wet garden, where you will definitely find a cold, wet Antonov apple that you accidentally dropped. Strange, but it seems unusually sweet and tasty, completely different from others. Later you take up the books.
Fourth memory.
The settlements were empty. Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseniy Semyonitch shot himself, and those village old men are gone. The aroma of Antonov apples is gradually disappearing from the once prosperous landowners' estates. But this poor small-town life is also good. In the deep autumn in the house they liked not to light a fire at dusk and to have quiet sincere conversations in the semi-darkness. Outside, frost-blackened leaves rustle under boots. Winter is coming, which means, as in the old days, small locals will come to each other, they will drink with their last money and disappear for days on end hunting in snowy fields, and in the evening they will sing to the guitar. 
I. A. Bunin, "Antonov apples", summary: conclusion
Antonov apples are the first link in an endless chain of memories. Behind him, other pictures invariably emerge, which, in turn, bring to the surface long-forgotten feelings and emotions, happy, tender, sometimes sad, and sometimes painful. Everything around is literally saturated with the juicy aroma of Antonov apples. But this is at the beginning of autumn, during the period of dawn and prosperity in the village. Then their smell gradually disappears, deep autumn sets in, the village becomes poorer. But life goes on, and perhaps this smell will soon be felt again above all others. Who knows?
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Antonov apples
... I remember early fine autumn. August was with warm rains, as if on purpose for sowing, with rains at the very time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And "autumn and winter live well, if the water is calm and raining on Lawrence." Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled on the fields. This is also a good sign: “There are a lot of nethers in Indian summer - vigorous autumn” ... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning ... I remember a big, all golden, dried up and thinned garden, I remember maple alleys, a delicate aroma of fallen leaves and - the smell of Antonov apples, the smell honey and autumn freshness. The air is so pure, as if it were not there at all, voices and the creak of carts are heard throughout the garden. These are tarkhans, philistine gardeners, who hired peasants and pour apples in order to send them to the city at night - certainly on a night when it is so nice to lie on a cart, look at the starry sky, smell tar in the fresh air and listen to the gentle creaking of in …
Hello dear reader. The book "Antonov apples" Ivan Alekseevich Bunin belongs to the category of those that are worth reading. The protagonist instantly causes approval and sympathy, you easily begin to imagine yourself not in his place and empathize with him. With a fast-paced and captivating storyline, the book keeps the reader in suspense from start to finish. Skillful and colorful illustration of nature, places of events often captivates with its indescribable beauty and charm. The ending is a bit long, but it is fully compensated by a completely unpredictable ending. The idea of the superiority of good over evil, light over darkness, with the obvious victory of the first and the defeat of the second, is visible at all times. The relevance of the issues taken as a basis can be classified as eternal, because as long as there are people, their relationships will always be complex and diverse. Thanks to the lively and dynamic language of narration, all visual images of the reader are filled with the whole gamut of colors and sounds. The intrigue is so intricate that, despite the clues encountered, it is incredibly difficult to guess the path that the plot will take. There is a desire to look at oneself, to compare oneself with the described events and situations, to embrace oneself with a different scope - to the whole distance and breadth of the soul. Soft irony along with comical situations are so harmoniously woven into the plot that they become an inseparable part of it. "Antonov apples" by Bunin Ivan Alekseevich you can read for free online an unlimited number of times, there is philosophy, history, psychology, tragedy, and humor ...
Bunin Ivan Alekseevich
Antonov apples
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Antonov apples
I remember the early fine autumn. August was with warm rains, as if on purpose for sowing, with rains at the very time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And "autumn and winter live well, if the water is calm and rainy on Lavrentiya." Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled on the fields. This is also a good sign: "There are a lot of nethers in Indian summer - vigorous autumn" ... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning ... I remember a big, all golden, dried up and thinned garden, I remember maple alleys, the delicate aroma of fallen leaves and - - the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so pure, as if it were not there at all, voices and the creak of carts are heard throughout the garden. These are tarkhans, philistine gardeners, who have hired peasants and pour apples in order to send them to the city at night - certainly on a night when it is so nice to lie on a cart, look at the starry sky, smell the tar in the fresh air and listen how carefully a long convoy creaks in the dark along the high road. A peasant pouring apples eats them with a juicy crackle one after another, but such is the establishment - the tradesman will never cut him off, but will also say:
Vali, eat your fill - there's nothing to do! At the drain, everyone drinks honey.
And the cool silence of the morning is broken only by the well-fed clucking of thrushes on coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming clatter of apples poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden, the road to the big hut, strewn with straw, and the hut itself, near which the townspeople acquired a whole household over the summer, are far visible. There is a strong smell of apples everywhere, especially here. In the hut beds are arranged, there is a single-barreled gun, a green samovar, in the corner - dishes. Mats, boxes, all sorts of tattered belongings are lying around the hut, an earthen stove has been dug. At noon, a magnificent kulesh with lard is cooked on it, in the evening the samovar is heated, and in the garden, between the trees, bluish smoke spreads in a long strip. On holidays, the hut is a whole fair, and behind the trees red hats flash every minute. Lively odnodvorki girls in sundresses strongly smelling of paint are crowding, “masters” come in their beautiful and coarse, savage costumes, a young elder, pregnant, with a wide sleepy face and important, like a Kholmogory cow. On her head are "horns" - braids are placed on the sides of the crown and covered with several scarves, so that the head seems huge; legs, in half boots with horseshoes, stand stupidly and firmly; the sleeveless jacket is plush, the curtain is long, and the poneva is black-purple with brick-colored stripes and overlaid on the hem with a wide gold "groove" ...
Household butterfly! the tradesman says of her, shaking his head. - Now such people are being translated ...
And the boys in white slouchy shirts and short trousers, with open white heads, all fit. They walk in twos and threes, finely pawing their bare feet, and squinting at a shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. Buys, of course, one, because purchases are only for a penny or an egg, but there are many buyers, trade is brisk, and a consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful. Together with his brother, a burry, nimble half-idiot who lives with him "out of mercy", he trades with jokes, jokes, and even sometimes "touches" on the Tula harmonica. And until evening, people crowd in the garden, laughter and talk are heard near the hut, and sometimes the clatter of dancing ...
By night in the weather it becomes very cold and dewy. Breathing in the rye aroma of new straw and chaff on the threshing floor, you cheerfully walk home to dinner past the garden rampart. The voices in the village or the creaking of the gates resound through the icy dawn with unusual clarity. It's getting dark. And here is another smell: there is a fire in the garden, and it strongly pulls with fragrant smoke of cherry branches. In the darkness, in the depths of the garden, a fabulous picture: just in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone's black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, move around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk through the apple trees. . Either a black hand several arshins in size will lie down all over the tree, then two legs will be clearly drawn - two black pillars. And suddenly all this slips from the apple tree - and a shadow falls along the entire alley, from the hut to the very gate ...
Late at night, when the lights go out in the village, when the diamond constellation Stozhar is already shining high in the sky, you will once again run into the garden.
Rustling through dry foliage, like a blind man, you will reach the hut. It is a little lighter in the clearing there, and the Milky Way is white overhead.
Is that you, bartender? someone calls softly from the darkness.
ME: Are you still awake, Nikolai?
We can't sleep. And it must be too late? Look, there's a passenger train coming...
We listen for a long time and distinguish the trembling in the ground, the trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if already beyond the garden, the wheels are rapidly beating out the noisy beat of the wheel: rumbling and knocking, the train rushes ... closer, closer, louder and more angry .. And suddenly it starts to subside, to stall, as if sinking into the ground...
And where is your gun, Nikolai?
But next to the box, sir.
Throw up a heavy, like a crowbar, single-barreled shotgun and shoot with a flurry. A crimson flame with a deafening crackle will flash towards the sky, blind for a moment and extinguish the stars, and a cheerful echo will ring out and roll across the horizon, fading far, far away in the clear and sensitive air.
Wow, great! the tradesman will say. - Spend, spend, barchuk, otherwise it's just a disaster! Again, the whole muzzle on the shaft was shaken off ...
And the black sky is drawn with fiery stripes of shooting stars. For a long time you look into its dark blue depth, overflowing with constellations, until the earth floats under your feet. Then you will start up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, you will quickly run along the alley to the house ... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!
"A vigorous Antonovka - for a merry year." Rural affairs are good if Antonovka is born: it means that bread has also been born ... I remember a harvest year.