Malva m bitter summary. Some interesting essays
Gorky Maxim
A.M. Gorky
The sea laughed.
Under the light breeze of the sultry wind, it shuddered and, covered with small ripples, dazzlingly brightly reflecting the sun, smiled at the blue sky with thousands of silver smiles. In the deep space between the sea and the sky there was a merry lapping of the waves, running up one after another to the gently sloping shore of the sandy spit. This sound and the brilliance of the sun, reflected a thousand times by the ripples of the sea, harmoniously merged into a continuous movement, full of lively joy. The sun was happy that it shone; the sea by that which reflected its jubilant light.
The wind caressed the satin chest of the sea; the sun warmed her with its hot rays, and the sea, drowsily sighing under the gentle power of these caresses, saturated the hot air with the salty aroma of fumes. Greenish waves, running up to the yellow sand, dropped white foam on it, it melted on the hot sand with a soft sound, moistening it.
A narrow, long spit looked like a huge tower that had fallen from the shore into the sea. Piercing with a sharp spire into the boundless desert of water playing with the sun, it lost its foundation in the distance, where the sultry haze hid the earth. From there, with the wind, a heavy smell flew by, incomprehensible and insulting here, in the middle of a clear sea, under a blue, clear roof of the sky.
Wooden stakes were stuck into the sand of the spit, strewn with fish scales, and nets hung on them, casting a web of shadows from themselves. Several large boats and one small one stood in a row on the sand, the waves, running up to the shore, seemed to beckoning them to themselves. Hooks, oars, baskets and barrels were scattered randomly on the spit, among them stood a hut assembled from willow twigs, luboks and matting. In front of the entrance to it, felted boots stuck out on a knotty stick, soles pointing to the sky. And above all this chaos towered a long pole with a red rag at the end, fluttering from the wind.
In the shadow of one of the boats lay Vasily Legostev, a guard on the spit, the outpost of the Grebenshchikov fisheries. He lay on his chest and, supporting his head with the palms of his hands, stared intently into the distance of the sea, to a barely visible strip of coast. There, on the water, a small black dot flickered, and Vasily was pleased to see how it was getting larger, approaching him.
Squinting his eyes from the bright play of the sun's rays on the waves, he smiled contentedly: it was Malva. She will come, laugh, her breast will sway seductively, hug him with soft arms, kiss him and loudly, frightening the seagulls, will talk about the news there, on the shore. They will cook a good fish soup with her, drink vodka, lie on the sand, talking and lovingly indulging, then, when it gets dark, they will boil a kettle of tea, get drunk with delicious bagels and go to bed ... This happens every Sunday, every holiday in the week. Early in the morning he would take her ashore along the still sleepy sea, in the predawn fresh twilight. She, dozing, will sit in the stern, and he will row and look at her. She is funny at that time, funny and sweet, like a well-fed cat. Maybe she would slip off the bench into the bottom of the boat and sleep there, curled up in a ball. She often does this...
On this day, even the seagulls are exhausted by the heat. They sit in rows on the sand with open beaks and lowered wings, or they sway lazily on the waves without screams, without the usual predatory animation.
It seemed to Vasily that there was more than one Malva in the boat. Has Seryozhka become attached to her again? Vasily turned heavily on the sand, sat down and, covering his eyes with his palm, began to consider with anxiety in his heart who else was riding there? Malva sits at the stern and rules. The rower is not Seryozhka, he rows clumsily, Malva would not rule with Seryozhka.
Hey! Vasily shouted impatiently.
Seagulls on the sand trembled and alerted.
With whom you are?
There was laughter in response.
Devil! - Vasily cursed softly and spat. He really wanted to know who it was riding there; rolling up his cigarette, he stared stubbornly at the back of the rower's head and back. The resounding splash of water under the blows of the oars is heard in the air, the sand creaks under the bare feet of the sentry.
Who is with you? he shouted as he recognized the familiar smile on Malva's beautiful face.
But wait, you know! she replied with a laugh.
The rower turned to face the shore and, also laughing, looked at Vasily.
The guard frowned, remembering - who is this guy who seems to be familiar to him?
Hit harder! Malva commanded.
The boat with a swing almost halfway crawled onto the sand along with the wave and, swaying to one side, stood still, and the wave rolled back into the sea. The rower jumped ashore and said:
Hello father!
Jacob! Vassily exclaimed in a despondent voice, more astonished than delighted.
They hugged and kissed three times on the lips and cheeks; Surprise mixed with joy and embarrassment on Vasily's face.
That's what I'm looking at... and it's something, - my heart itches... Ah, you, - how are you? Come on! And I look - Seryozhka? No, I see, not Seryozhka! An is you!
Vasily stroked his beard with one hand, and waved in the air with the other. He wanted to look at Malva, but the smiling eyes of his son stared into his face, and he was embarrassed by their brilliance. The feeling of self-satisfaction for having such a healthy, handsome son struggled in him with a feeling of embarrassment at the presence of his mistress. He shifted from foot to foot, standing in front of Yakov, and one after another threw him questions, without waiting for an answer to them. Everything was somehow confused in his head, and he became especially unwell when the mocking words of Malva were heard:
Yes, you are not Yuli ... with joy! Take him to the hut and treat him...
He turned to her. A smile played on her lips, unfamiliar to him, and all of her - round, soft and fresh, as always, at the same time there was some kind of new, alien. She shifted her greenish eyes from father to son and gnawed watermelon seeds with her white, small teeth. Yakov, too, looked at them with a smile, and for several seconds unpleasant to Vasily, all three were silent.
I now! - Vasily suddenly hurried, moving towards the hut. - You are leaving from the sun, and I will get some water, I will go ... we will cook the fish soup! I'll feed you, Yakov, such an ear! You are right here ... make yourself comfortable, I'm right this minute ...
He grabbed a bowler hat from the ground near the hut, quickly went somewhere into the net and disappeared into the gray mass of their folds.
Malva and his son also went to the hut.
Well, good fellow, I delivered you to your father, - said Malva, looking askance at Yakov's stocky figure.
He turned to her his face in a curly dark blond beard and, flashing his eyes, said:
Yes, we arrived ... And it's good here - what a sea!
The wide sea ... Well, what, - has your father grown old?
There is nothing. I thought - he is grayer, but he still has a little gray hair ... And strong ...
How long, you say, have you not seen each other?
Five years, tea ... As he left the village - at that time I was seventeenth ...
UDC 882 (09)
MYTHOPOETICAL BASIS OF M. GORKY'S STORY "MALVA"
© 2009 V.A.Khanov
Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University
The article was received by the editors on 06/06/2009
The article reveals the mythopoetic basis of Gorky's story "Mallow". The connection between the image of Malva and the surrounding natural elements is established. The aspiration of the heroine to Christian spirituality is revealed. The connection of the writer with the spiritual folk culture is noted.
Key words: mythopoetic basis, mythologems, natural elements, allusive correlation, Christian spirituality.
One of the most important directions in modern Gorky studies is the desire to reveal the mythopoetic basis of M. Gorky's work. As L.A. Spiridonova rightly emphasizes, “the study of Gorky’s creative method actually begins anew. But even today it is clear that it is impossible to understand its evolution without studying the mythopoetic basis on which it was based. In particular, one of the masterpieces of Gorky's early work, the story "Malva", has a mythopoetic basis. In the story "Mallow" the writer draws a mighty endless sea, the sun shining over it, speaks of the warm earth, the rustle of sand, the cry of seagulls. The patterned fabric of the artistic canvas, colored with rich colors, attracts with its brightness and freshness. “The sun,” writes Gorky, “painted the sea in the vibrant colors of sunset, the greenish waves shone with purple and pearls.” "The divine source of light that creates life," the author calls the sun. Thus, in the story "Malva" mythologemes are tangibly present: the Earth is the mother, the Sun is God, Water (sea) is the basis of life.
Against the backdrop of a bright, impressive picture of the sea, embodying the elements, Gorky unfolds the love story of the guard of the fishery Vasily and the beautiful Malva. Important role Vasily's son Yakov and the tramp Sergey also play in the story. The heroine of the story, with all her affection for Vasily, looks at the connection with him very freely, because she values independence above all else. "I'm a nobody here," she declares. - Like a seagull, wherever I want, I will fly there! No one will block my way." As a result, the love story presented by Gorky is filled with dramatic content.
Khanov Veniamin Anatolievich, candidate philological sciences, Associate Professor, Department of Theory and Methods of Teaching Russian Literature. Email: [email protected] en
1 Spiridnova L.A. Mythopoetic basis of Gorky's artistic world // Maxim Gorky - an artist: problems, results and prospects of study. - Nizhny Novgorod: Publishing house of UNN, 2002. - S. 12.
eat. Natural, elemental beginnings collide in the story with a regulated society. Natural pantheism is opposed to Christian ethics and spirituality.
The natural element is embodied in the story by Malva and Sergey. Their connection with the natural world is emphasized persistently and somewhat straightforwardly. So, Malva, a beautiful woman with green eyes, laughing with a mysterious laugh, is constantly compared with the laughing sea, whose greenish waves shone in the sun. In addition, the name of the heroine - Malva - literally coincides with the name of a plant with large pink flowers. And it is no coincidence that when drawing a portrait of the heroine, Gorky repeatedly speaks of her bright pink blouse. The red-haired, freckled tramp Sergey is compared with the sun: "... a tall, bronze man in a thick hat of disheveled, fiery red hair." It is also characteristic that Sergey is wearing a “kumachka shirt”.
In "Malva" it is unusual that the "natural" heroes are opposed by people not from the city, but from the village, although a similar conflict was already outlined by Gorky in the earlier story "Chelkash". In the work under consideration, the village paradoxically becomes the embodiment not of the natural, but of the social principle. It is represented by Vasily and Yakov, father and son, who, according to mythological logic, entered into a single combat, in which youth wins, seeking to displace old age, push it back, from the free coast to a dark, wretched village.
The image of a free, beautiful sea smiling at the sun, and a bleak, oppressive village representing society, at first glance, fits into the traditional scheme: freedom / lack of freedom. It is no coincidence that in the depiction of the outhouse industry there is no talk of bosses, power structures, while the mean references to rural life are full of such details as punishments, floggings in the family, volosts, etc. Perhaps the most revealing in this respect is
News of Samara scientific center Russian Academy Nauk, vol. 11, 4 (3), 2009
ment - a contrasting, not direct, but extremely expressive juxtaposition of the beautiful Malva, proud, independent (her own lady), reacting with devilish laughter to the demand for obedience, and Vasily's wife - abandoned, aged early, pitiful, humiliated and tearfully asking, praying for Christ's sake. It would seem that all the accents are placed, the heroes are drawn into the magnetic field of the poles in accordance with the leading socio-cultural collision - freedom / lack of freedom. But Gorky departs from the usual solutions, introducing duality into the interpretation of both main members of the opposition - nature and society - through the introduction of Christian motives. As a result, the village ceases to be only a social organism that enslaves and disfigures human nature. She also acts as the guardian of traditional, Christian-colored morality.
After a skirmish with his son, Vasily is going through a crisis in many respects akin to transformations, revelations, familiar from hagiography, bringing spiritual cleansing. The father, endowed with a royal name (Basil - royal), suffers a humiliating defeat, he is helpless in front of his son and perceives this unfortunate fact as a retribution for sinfulness, that is, he evaluates what happened through the prism of traditional religious categories, much broader than socially significant motivations. As a result, Vasily passes a harsh sentence on himself, and at the same time on Malva: “Because of a woman who lives a crappy, shameful life! It was a sin for him, the old man, to get involved with her, forgetting about his wife and son ... And so the Lord, in his holy anger, reminded him, through his son, hit him on the heart with his just punishment. Having repented of the sin he had committed, Vasily found peace of mind, experienced enlightenment: “His voice seemed quieter than usual, and his face was also exactly new.”
But since the village remembers and preserves religious spirituality, divine commandments, then the nature that opposes it, located at the opposite pole, should, logically, be painted with the motives of demonism. And indeed, Malva in the story is called a witch, a devil, a snake, a devil. However, in Gorky this opposition, which completely fits within the framework of Christian religious mythology, develops into a different system of coordinates. The story emerges as follows. Two heroes are as close as possible to the poles: Yakov, who has just arrived from the village, and Sergey, a tramp who has broken out of society. But it is precisely in relation to these characters that the author's sympathies are very problematic. “The attention of the writer, - rightly notes T.V. Saskova, - moves to the center, to the border zone, where both worlds (pagan nature and the Christianized village) are closely intertwined.
act, coalesce" 2. At this intersection are Malva and Vasily. Each of them, embodying one of the principles, tries to master the opposite. With regard to Vasily, who escaped from the village to work, everything seems to be clear. On the seashore, in the vast expanses of his soul opened up and greedily breathed in the free air. But the spiritual crisis and voluntary departure back to one's own, albeit not free, but ethically justified world, on which lies the seal of holiness and the feat of self-denial, gives this character a heroic-lofty halo.
Mallow is beautiful, alluring with inner freedom, in many ways akin to a pagan goddess. Existence among the natural elements is completely organic for her. It is no coincidence that, revealing this image, the author resorts to a zoomorphic code, comparing the heroine with a fish, a cat, a bird, thus covering the entire vertical, all spheres of being - bottom, middle, top. “I look at you and see - you are not a cat, not a fish. and not a bird. And all this is in you, however. You don’t look like a woman, ”Sergei Malve says. But with all the co-nature of Malva with the elements, there is something that draws her into the orbit of Christian quests. This is spiritual restlessness, heart impulses to unknown, beyond. At a moment of crisis, when the heroine does not go to her lover, realizing that their relationship is at a breaking point, she reads a book about Alexei the Man of God. It turns out that the inner essence of this diabolically seductive and paganly free heroine contains a longing for Christian purity and holiness. Malva is trying to understand the deed of St. Alexei. Having told Yakov about the young man who left his rich parents, and then returned to them and lived in the yard with the dogs, without saying who he was, she quietly asked: “Why is he like that?”
Being among the expanses of water and sky, Malva still dreams of an unearthly other world, she is oppressed by the surrounding life. “I always want something,” she says, “But what? .. I don’t know. Sometimes I would get into a boat - and into the sea! Far away." Realizing to the best of his ability the unusual nature of Malva, Sergey calls her "holy fool". “She has a soul that doesn’t fit her body,” he says.
So, spiritual thirst, the desire for something bright is clearly inherent in Malva. But only after reading the "book" about Alexei the man of God, the heroine experiences purification. Turning to Yakov, she spoke in a “quiet, gentle voice”: “When I’m alone and quiet, I want to cry all the time. or to sing. I just don't know good songs, but
2 Saskova T.V. Gorky and the educational tradition (the story "Malva") // Maxim Gorky today: problems of aesthetics, philosophy, culture. - Nizhny Novgorod: Publishing house of UNN, 1996. - S. 101.
crying is embarrassing. Mallow is in many ways close to other Gorky's heroines: Marya from the story "On the Rafts" and Varenka Olesova from the work of the same name. All these images are correlated with the water element (river, sea), with the surrounding nature. Here is how, for example, a portrait of Varenka Olesova is drawn: “Varenka stood in front of him, waist-deep in water, with her head bowed, wringing out her wet hair with her hands. Her body is pink from the cold and the rays of the sun, and drops of water glistened on it like silver scales. The description of the heroine is largely associated with the image of nymphs. In Greek mythology, nymphs are the deities of nature, its life-giving and fruitful forces. They were depicted as beautiful naked or semi-naked girls. The main nymphs were considered water. According to ancient lexicographers, the word "nymph" means "source"3. Like Varenka Olesova, Malva turns out to be stronger and more significant than male characters. She has pride and independence. "Baba with pepper" calls her tramp Sergei. According to Vasily, this is a "glorious woman." But if, using the example of Varenka, Olesova Gorky showed the triumph in the life of natural principles, then using the example of the image of Malva, created later, the question of the presence of spirituality in a person is already being raised. After all, it is no coincidence that Malva, in a crisis situation, turns to the life of Alexei the man of God.
Revealing the mythological origins of the image of Malva, it can be assumed that one of the sources
This image is the life of Mary of Egypt (the writer told about his early acquaintance with this plot in the retelling of his grandmother in the story “Childhood”). True, this connection is not so obvious. Most likely here we can talk about allusion. But the very aspiration of the heroine to the high, spiritual is important. Malva, like many other heroes of Gorky, is looking for his "foothold". In her soul lives a dream of a different life. And in this regard, Gorky's recognition of his intentions in the considered period of creativity is very important. So, in one of the letters, addressing the addressee, he emphasizes: “Do you know what to write? Two stories: one about a man who went from top to bottom and down, in the mud, found - God! - another about a man who went from bottom to top and also found - God! And this God is one and the same! That's the problem. Although God is not everything. Above him is love for him. Striving for love...”4 Striving for love, and hence the desire for God, is inherent in Malva in one way or another. Thus, using the example of his heroine, Gorky holds the idea of the possibility of merging the pagan natural principle with evangelical spirituality. With all its complicity with the natural elements, Malva carries the dream of Christian purity and holiness.
3Myths of the peoples of the world. Encyclopedia in 2 vols. - T. 2. - M.: Council. Encyclopedia. 1988. - S. 219.
4Gorky M. Collected. cit.: In 30 vols. - T. 28. - M.: Khudozh. lit., 1954. - S. 125.
MYTHOPOETIC BASE OF M.GORKY"S STORY "MALLOW"
© 2009 V.A.Khanov° Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University
Mythopoetic base of M. Gorky "s story "Mallow" is revealed in the article. The connection of the image of Mallow with the surrounding natural element is established. The character"s tendency to Christian spirituality is discovered. The writer's connection with spiritual folk culture is noted.
Key words: mythopoetic base, mythologeme, natural element, allusive interrelationship, Christian spirituality.
Khanov Veniamin Anatolievich, Candidate of philological sciences, docent of the chair of theory and methods of teaching Russian philology. Email: [email protected] en
Mallow
The sea laughed.
Under the light breeze of the sultry wind, it shuddered and, covered with small ripples, dazzlingly brightly reflecting the sun, smiled at the blue sky with thousands of silver smiles. In the deep space between the sea and the sky there was a merry lapping of the waves, running up one after another to the gently sloping shore of the sandy spit. This sound and the brilliance of the sun, reflected a thousand times by the ripples of the sea, harmoniously merged into a continuous movement, full of lively joy. The sun was happy that it shone; the sea by that which reflected its jubilant light.
The wind caressed the satin chest of the sea; the sun warmed her with its hot rays, and the sea, drowsily sighing under the gentle power of these caresses, saturated the hot air with the salty aroma of fumes. Greenish waves, running up to the yellow sand, dropped white foam on it, it melted on the hot sand with a soft sound, moistening it.
A narrow, long spit looked like a huge tower that had fallen from the shore into the sea. Piercing with a sharp spire into the boundless desert of water playing with the sun, it lost its foundation in the distance, where the sultry haze hid the earth. From there, with the wind, a heavy smell flew in, incomprehensible and insulting here, in the middle of a clear sea, under a blue, clear roof of the sky.
In the sand of the spit, dotted with fish scales, wooden stakes were stuck, nets hung on them, casting a web of shadows from themselves. Several large boats and one small one stood in a row on the sand, the waves, running up to the shore, seemed to beckoning them to themselves. Hooks, oars, baskets and barrels were scattered randomly on the spit, among them stood a hut assembled from willow twigs, luboks and matting. In front of the entrance to it, felted boots stuck out on a knotty stick, soles pointing to the sky. And above all this chaos towered a long pole with a red rag at the end, fluttering from the wind.
In the shadow of one of the boats lay Vasily Legostev, a guard on the spit, the outpost of the Grebenshchikov fisheries. He lay on his chest and, supporting his head with the palms of his hands, stared intently into the distance of the sea, to a barely visible strip of coast. There, on the water, a small black dot flickered, and Vasily was pleased to see how it was getting bigger and bigger, approaching him.
Squinting his eyes from the bright play of the sun's rays on the waves, he smiled contentedly: it was Malva. She will come, laugh, her breast will sway seductively, hug him with soft arms, kiss him and loudly, frightening the seagulls, will talk about the news there, on the shore. They will cook a good fish soup with her, drink vodka, lie on the sand, talking and lovingly indulging, then, when it gets dark, they will boil a kettle of tea, get drunk with delicious bagels and go to bed ... This happens every Sunday, every holiday in the week. Early in the morning he would take her ashore along the still sleepy sea, in the predawn fresh twilight. She, dozing, will sit in the stern, and he will row and look at her. She is funny at that time, funny and sweet, like a well-fed cat. Maybe she would slip off the bench into the bottom of the boat and sleep there, curled up in a ball. She often does this...
On this day, even the seagulls are exhausted by the heat. They sit in rows on the sand with open beaks and lowered wings, or they sway lazily on the waves without screams, without the usual predatory animation.
It seemed to Vasily that there was more than one Malva in the boat. Has Seryozhka become attached to her again? Vasily turned heavily on the sand, sat down and, covering his eyes with his palm, began to consider with anxiety in his heart who else was riding there. Malva sits at the stern and rules. The rower is not Seryozhka, he rows clumsily, with Seryozhka, Malva would not rule.
- Hey! Vasily shouted impatiently.
Seagulls on the sand trembled and alerted.
- With whom you are?
There was laughter in response.
- Damn! Vasily cursed softly and spat.
He really wanted to know who it was riding there; rolling up his cigarette, he stared stubbornly at the back of the rower's head and back. The resounding splash of water under the blows of the oars is heard in the air, the sand creaks under the bare feet of the sentry.
- Who is with you? he shouted as he recognized an unfamiliar smile on Malva's beautiful face.
- Wait, you'll find out! she replied with a laugh.
The rower turned to face the shore and, also laughing, looked at Vasily.
The guard frowned, remembering - who is this guy who seemed to be familiar to him?
- Hit harder! Malva commanded.
The boat, with a swing almost halfway, crawled onto the sand along with the wave and, swaying to one side, stopped, and the wave rolled back into the sea. The rower jumped ashore and said:
- Hello, father!
- Jacob! Vassily exclaimed dejectedly, more astonished than delighted.
They hugged and kissed three times on the lips and cheeks; Surprise mixed with joy and embarrassment on Vasily's face.
- That's what I'm looking at ... and something is wrong - it - my heart itches ... Oh, you - how are you? Come on! And I look - Seryozhka? No, I see, not Seryozhka! An is you!
Vasily stroked his beard with one hand, and waved in the air with the other. He wanted to look at Malva, but the smiling eyes of his son stared into his face, and he was embarrassed by their brilliance. The feeling of self-satisfaction for having such a healthy, handsome son struggled in him with a feeling of embarrassment at the presence of his mistress. He shifted from foot to foot, standing in front of Yakov, and one after another threw him questions, without waiting for an answer to them. Everything was somehow confused in his head, and he became especially unwell when the mocking words of Malva were heard:
- Yes, you are not Yuli ... with joy! Take him to the hut and treat him ...
He turned to her. A smile played on her lips, unfamiliar to him, and all of it - round, soft and fresh, as always, at the same time there was some kind of new, alien. She shifted her greenish eyes from father to son and gnawed watermelon seeds with her white, small teeth. Yakov, too, looked at them with a smile, and for several seconds unpleasant to Vasily, all three were silent.
– I now! Vasily suddenly hurried, moving towards the hut. - You are leaving from the sun, and I will go get some water ... we will cook the fish soup! I'll feed you, Yakov, such an ear! You are right here ... settle down, I'm right this minute ...
He grabbed a bowler hat from the ground near the hut, quickly went somewhere into the net and disappeared into the gray mass of their folds.
Malva and his son also went to the hut.
“Well, good fellow, I delivered you to your father,” said Malva, looking askance at the stocky figure of Yakov.
He turned to her his face in a curly dark blond beard and, flashing his eyes, said:
- Yes, they arrived ... And it's good here - what a sea!
- The wide sea. Well, what, is your father very old?
- There is nothing. I thought - he is grayer, but he still has a little gray hair ... And strong ...
- How long, you say, you haven't seen each other for a long time?
- Five years, tea ... As he left the village - at that time I was seventeenth ...
They entered the hut, where it was stuffy, and the matting smelled of salted fish, and sat down there: Yakov on a thick stump of wood, Malva on a pile of sacks. Between them stood a barrel cut across, its bottom served as a table. Sitting down, they silently stared at each other.
“So you want to work here?” Malva asked.
- Yes, I don’t know ... If there is something, I will.
- We have it! Malva promised confidently, feeling him with her green, mysteriously narrowed eyes.
He did not look at her, wiping his sweaty face with the sleeve of his shirt.
Suddenly she laughed.
- Did your mother, tea, orders and bows to your father sent with you?
Yakov looked at her, frowned, and said curtly:
- It is known ... But what?
- Nothing!
Yakov did not like her laugh, as if it were teasing him. The guy turned away from this woman and remembered the instructions of his mother.
Escorting him to the outskirts of the village, she leaned on the fence and spoke quickly, blinking her dry eyes frequently:
- Tell him, Yasha ... For Christ's sake, tell him ... Father, they say! .. Mother is one, they say, there ... five years have passed, and she is still alone! He's getting old, they say! .. tell him, Yakovushka, for God's sake. Soon the mother will be an old woman ... all alone, alone! Everything is at work. For Christ's sake, tell him...
And she silently wept, hiding her face in her apron.
Then Yakov did not feel sorry for her, but now he felt sorry for her ... Glancing at Malva, he sternly raised his eyebrows.
- Here I am! - Vasily exclaimed, appearing in a hut with a fish in one hand and a knife in the other.
He had already overcome his embarrassment, hiding it deep inside himself, and now he looked at them calmly, only in his movements there was an uncharacteristic fussiness.
“Now I’ll light a fire ... and I’ll come to you ... we’ll talk!” Ah, Jacob, huh?
And he again left the hut.
Malva, without ceasing to gnaw seeds, unceremoniously looked at Yakov, and he tried not to look at her, although he really wanted to.
Then, as the silence stifled him, he said aloud:
- And I left a knapsack in the boat - go get it!
Leisurely getting up from his seat, he went out, Vasily appeared in his place in the hut and, leaning towards Malva, spoke hastily and angrily:
“Well, why did you come with him?” What will I tell him about you? Who are you to me?
- I've arrived, and that's it! Malva said shortly.
- Oh, you ... incongruous woman! How will I be now? How right in his eyes and that ... right away? .. My wife is at home! Mother to him ... You should have figured it out!
- I really need to think! I'm afraid of him, right? Ali you? she asked, narrowing her green eyes dismissively. - And how you spun in front of him just now! That was funny to me!
- It's funny to you! And how will I?
“And you should have thought about it earlier!”
- Yes, I knew, or something, that he would suddenly be thrown here from the sea like that?
The sand creaked under Yakov's feet, and they broke off their conversation. Yakov brought a light knapsack, threw it into a corner, and looked sideways, with unkind eyes, at the woman.
She enthusiastically clicked the seeds, and Vasily sat down on a stump, rubbed his knees with his hands and spoke with a smile:
“So you, then, have appeared ... how did you think of it?”
- Yes, so ... We wrote to you ...
- When? I didn't receive any letter!
- Well? And we wrote...
- Apparently, the letter was lost, - Vasily was upset. - Look at you, damn it ... huh? When needed, it was lost ...
“So you don’t know our business?” Yakov asked, looking incredulously at his father.
- Yes, from where? I didn't receive a letter!
Then Yakov told him that their horse had fallen, they had eaten all the bread at the beginning of February; there were no earnings. There was also not enough hay, the cow almost died of hunger. We made our way somehow until April, and then we decided this way: after plowing, Yakov should go to his father, to work, for three months. They wrote to him about this, and then they sold three sheep, bought bread and hay, and now Yakov arrived.
- That's it! Vasily exclaimed. - So-so ... And ... how are you ... I sent you money ...
- Is the money big? The hut was being repaired... Marya was given in marriage... I bought a plow... After all, five years... time has passed!
- Yes! Not enough, right? Such a thing ... But my ear will run away! “He got up and went out.
Squatting down in front of the fire, over which hung a boiling kettle, throwing foam into the fire, Vasily thought. Everything that his son told him did not particularly touch him, but gave rise to an unpleasant feeling in him towards his wife and Yakov. How much money he sent them over five years, but they still failed to cope with the economy. If not for Malva, he would have said something to Jacob. Arbitrarily, without his father's permission, he left the village - he was smart enough for this - but he could not cope with the household! The household, which Vasily, living to this day a pleasant and easy life, very rarely remembered, now suddenly reminded him of himself, as of a bottomless pit, where he had thrown money for five years, as something superfluous in his life, not needed. to him. He sighed, stirring his ear with the spoon.
In the glare of the sun, the small yellowish fire of the fire was miserable, pale. Blue, transparent wisps of smoke stretched from the fire to the sea, towards the spray of the waves. Vasily watched them and thought that now it would be worse for him to live, not so freely. Probably, Yakov already guessed who this Malva was ...
And she was sitting in a hut, embarrassing the guy with fervent, defiant eyes, in which, without disappearing, a smile played.
- Tea, come on, did you leave your bride in the village? she suddenly said, looking into Yakov's face.
“Maybe he did,” he replied reluctantly.
- Pretty, isn't it? she asked casually.
Jacob was silent.
- Why are you silent? .. Better than me, or not?
He looked into her face, not wanting it. Her cheeks were swarthy, full, her lips juicy, half-opened with a perky smile, they trembled. The pink chintz sweater sat on her somehow especially deftly, outlining her round shoulders and high, elastic breasts. But he did not like her slyly narrowed, green, laughing eyes.
– Why do you say that? - Sighing, he said in a pleading voice, although he wanted to speak sternly to her.
- How should I speak? she laughed.
“And you’re laughing too… why?”
- I'm laughing at you...
- Well, what am I to you? he asked offendedly, and lowered his eyes again under her gaze.
She didn't answer.
Yakov guessed who she was to his father, and this prevented him from speaking freely with her. The conjecture did not impress him: he had heard that people indulge in seasonal trades, and he understood that it would be difficult for such a healthy man like his father to live so long without a woman. But still awkward in front of her, and in front of her father. Then he remembered his mother - a weary, grouchy woman who worked there, in the village, tirelessly ...
- The ear is ready! - announced Vasily, appearing in the hut. - Get the spoons, Malva!
Jacob looked at his father and thought:
“It can be seen that he often sees her, if she knows where the spoons are!”
Taking the spoons, she said that she should go and wash them, and that she had vodka in the stern of the boat.
Father and son looked after her and, left alone, were silent.
- How did you meet her? Vasily asked.
- And I asked about you in the office, and she was there ... And she said: "Why, he says, walk on the sand, we'll go in a boat, I'll also go to him." Here we have arrived.
- Yes, but ... And I used to think: “What is Yakov like now?”
The son smiled good-naturedly in the face of his father, and this smile gave Vasily courage.
- A ... nothing wench something?
“Nothing,” Yakov said vaguely, blinking his eyes.
- There's nothing you can do about it, my brother! Vasily exclaimed, waving his hands. - I suffered at first - I can’t! Habit... I'm a married man. Again, she will mend the clothes and other things ... And in general ... ehma! From a woman, as from death, you will not go anywhere! he sincerely finished his explanation.
- Me, what? Yakov said. It's your business, I'm not your judge.
And I thought to myself:
“I’ll fix such pants for you ...”
“Again, I’m only forty-five years old ... There is not much expense for her, she’s not my wife ...” said Vasily.
“Of course,” Yakov agreed and thought: “That’s all, tea, ruffles his pocket!”
Malva came with a bottle of vodka and a bunch of pretzels in her hands; sat down to eat an ear. They ate in silence, sucking on the bones loudly and spitting them out of their mouths on the sand towards the door. Jacob ate a lot and greedily; Malva must have liked this: she smiled affectionately, watching his tanned cheeks puff out, wet large lips moving quickly. Vasily ate poorly, but he tried to show that he was very busy eating - he needed this in order to think over his attitude towards them without interference, imperceptibly for his son and Malva.
The gentle music of the waves was interrupted by the predatory cries of seagulls. The heat became less burning, sometimes a cool stream of air saturated with the smell of the sea flew into the hut.
After the delicious fish soup and vodka, Yakov's eyes went blank. He began to smile stupidly, hiccup, yawn, and looked at Malva in such a way that Vasily found it necessary to tell him:
- You lie down here, Yashutka, until tea ... and then we will wake you up.
“That’s possible, oh…” Yakov agreed, falling onto the coolies. - And ... where are you going? Haha!
Vasily, embarrassed by his laughter, hurried out, and Malva pursed her lips, knitted her eyebrows and answered Yakov:
Where we go is none of your business! What are you? You are still our god - bya! There you are, boy!
- I? Okay! Yakov exclaimed after her. “Pa-aagodi… I’ll show you!” Look what are you...
He grumbled some more and fell asleep with a drunken, satiated smile on his flushed face.
Vasily stuck three hooks into the sand, connected their upper ends, threw matting over them and, having arranged a shadow in this way, lay down in it, throwing his hands behind his head, looking at the sky. When Malva sank down on the sand next to him, he turned his face to her, and she saw in him resentment and discontent.
- What - a little happy son, then? she asked, laughing.
- There he is ... laughing at me ... because of you! .. - Vasily said sullenly.
- Well? Because of me? she wondered slyly.
– But how?
- Oh, you pitiful! What now? Do not go to you, or what? a? Well, I won't!
- Look, what a witch! Vasily reproached her. - Oh, you people! He laughs, you too ... and you are the closest to me! Why are you laughing? Damn! He turned away from her and fell silent.
Malva, hugging her knees with her arms, gently shook her body, looking at the sparkling, cheerful sea with her green eyes, and smiled one of those triumphant smiles that a woman who understands the power of her beauty has so many.
The sailboat glided across the water like a large, clumsy bird with gray wings. It was far from the shore and went even further, to where the sea and the sky merged into a blue infinity.
- Why are you keeping silent? Vasily asked.
“I think so,” Malva said.
– What is it about?
- So, - she moved her eyebrows and, after a pause, added: - Your son is a good guy ...
– What about you? Vasily exclaimed jealously.
- Not much...
- You look! He gave her a stern look full of suspicion. - You're not stupid! Although I am meek, but don't tease me - yes!
He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists as he continued:
- Today, as soon as you arrived, you started playing something ... I still don’t understand this ... well, look, I’ll understand, it will be wrong for you! And you have such smiles ... and all that ... I also know how to deal with your sister ...
“And you, Vasya, don’t scare me ...” she asked indifferently and without looking at him.
- That's it! don't joke...
- Don't be afraid...
“I’ll give you a thrashing if you start spoiling ...” Vasily threatened, embittered.
- Are you going to hit? She turned to him, looking with curiosity into his excited face.
What kind of a countess are you? And I will sigh...
- Yes, I'm your wife, or what? Malva asked intelligibly and calmly and, without waiting for an answer, she continued: “Accustomed to beating your wife for no reason at all, do you think the same with me?” Oh no. I am my own mistress, and I am not afraid of anyone. And you're out there - you're afraid of your son: just now, as you whistled in front of him - shame! And you threaten me!
She shook her head contemptuously and fell silent. Her cold, dismissive words quelled Vassily's bitterness. Never before had he seen her so beautiful.
“She broke up, croaked ...” he said, both angry and admiring her.
“And I’ll tell you one more thing. You boasted to Seryozhka that I can’t live without you, like without bread! You shouldn't do it... Maybe I don't love you and I don't go to you, but I love only this place... - She waved her hand widely around her. “Maybe I like that it’s empty here—the sea and the sky, and there are no vile people. And what are you here - it doesn’t matter to me ... It’s like paying for a place ... If I had an earring - I would go to him, your son would be - I’ll go to him ... And even better, if you weren’t there at all ... you pissed me off!. If I want with my beauty - I will always choose a man for myself, what I need, I will choose ...
- Here is kaa-a-k?! Vasily hissed fiercely and suddenly grabbed her by the throat. - So that's what?
He shook her, but she did not fight back, although her face turned red and her eyes filled with blood. She simply put both of her hands on his hand, which was pressing on her throat, and stared hard into his face.
“So what do you have in there?” Vasily croaked, getting more and more furious. - A - was silent, the skin ... a - hugged ... a - caresses me ... I'll give you one!
He bent her to the ground and relished hitting her neck once, twice, with heavy blows from a tightly clenched fist. It was pleasant to him when the fist fell with a swing on her elastic neck.
- On ... What, a snake? .. - he asked her triumphantly and threw it away from him.
Without gasping, silent and calm, she fell on her back, disheveled, red, and yet beautiful. Her green eyes looked at him from under her lashes with cold hatred. But he, panting with excitement and pleasantly satisfied with the outcome of his anger, did not see her look, and when he looked at her triumphantly, she smiled. Her full lips trembled, her eyes lit up, her cheeks dimpled. Vasily looked at her in astonishment.
- What are you - damn! He tugged roughly at her arm and yelled.
– Vaska!.. Did you beat me? she asked in a whisper.
- Well, who is it? Without understanding anything, he looked at her and did not know what to do. Shouldn't you hit her again? But there was no longer any malice in him, and his hand did not rise against her.
“So you love me?” she asked again, and her whisper made him feel hot.
"All right," he said sullenly. - Do you really need it!
“But I thought that you no longer love me ... I think: “Now my son has come to him ... he will drive me away ...”
She laughed a strange, too loud laugh.
- Fool! Vasily said, also smiling involuntarily. - Son - what kind of a usher is he to me?
He felt ashamed in front of her and felt sorry for her, but, remembering her words, he spoke sternly:
- The son has nothing to do with it ... And that I hit you - it's my own fault, why did you tease?
“But I did it on purpose,” she tortured you ... - And she pressed her shoulder against him.
- Tried! What to torture? Here's what I tried.
- Nothing! - Malva said confidently, screwing up her eyes, - I'm not angry - did you beat me lovingly? And I’ll pay you for this…” She looked straight at him and, lowering her voice, repeated: “Oh, how I’ll cry!
Vasily in these words heard a promise that was pleasant to him, it sweetly excited; smiling, he asked:
- And how? .. Come on ?!
“You’ll see,” Malva said calmly, but her lips trembled.
- Oh, my dear! Vasily exclaimed, tightly squeezing her in the hands of a lover. - Do you know how I beat you - you became dearer to me! Right! More dear ... or how?
Seagulls hovered over them. A gentle wind from the sea brought splashes of waves almost to their feet, and the irrepressible laughter of the sea still sounded ...
- Oh, our business! - Vasily sighed freely, thoughtfully caressing the woman clinging to him. - And how everything is arranged in the world: what is sinful is also sweet. You don’t understand anything ... but sometimes I will think about life - it will even become scary! Especially at night ... you can’t sleep when ... You look: the sea is in front of you, the sky above you, it’s dark all around, it’s creepy ... and you’re here alone! And then you will become so small, small for yourself ... The earth under you is shaking, and there is no one on it except you. Even if you were at that time ... after all, two ...
Malva, closing her eyes, lay on his knees and was silent. Vassily's coarse but kindly face, brown from sun and wind, leaned over her, his large faded beard tickling her neck. The woman did not move, only her chest heaved high and even. Vasily's eyes either wandered into the sea or rested on this chest close to him. He began to kiss her on the lips, slowly, smacking her loudly, as if he were eating hot and greasy porridge.
They spent three hours like this; when the sun began to descend into the sea, Vasily said in a dull voice:
- Well, I'll go to boil tea ... soon the guest will wake up!
The mallow moved aside with a lazy movement of a cat that had grown limp, he reluctantly got up and went to the hut. The woman, raising her eyelashes a little, looked after him and sighed, as people sigh, throwing off the burden that has tired them.
Then the three of them sat around the fire and drank tea. The sun painted the sea in the vibrant colors of the sunset, the greenish waves shone with purple and pearls.
Vasily, sipping tea from a white clay mug, asked his son about the village, he himself remembered it. Malva, without interfering, listened to their slow speeches.
- Live, therefore, peasants?
- They live, after all ... - answered Yakov.
– How much does our brother need? Izba, and plenty of bread, and a glass of vodka on the holiday ... But even that is not there ... Would I have gone here if I could feed myself at home? In the village I am my own master, everyone equal person and here is the servant...
- But here it is more satisfying and the work is easier ...
Well, don't say that either! It happens that all the bones ache. Again, here you work for someone else, and there you work for yourself.
“And you’ll earn more,” Yakov objected calmly.
Inwardly, Vasily agreed with his son's arguments: in the village, both life and work are harder than here, but for some reason he did not want Yakov to know this. And he said sternly:
- Did you count the earnings here? In the countryside brother...
“Like in a pit: both dark and cramped,” Malva chuckled. - And especially the woman's life - only tears.
“Indian life is the same everywhere ... and the light is the same everywhere, the sun alone!” Vasily frowned, looking at her.
- Well, you're lying! she exclaimed, brightening up. - I don’t want to live in the village, but I have to get married. And a married woman is an eternal slave: reap and spin, go after cattle and give birth to children ... What remains for her herself? Some husband beatings and swearing ...
“Not all beatings,” Vasily interrupted her.
“And here I am a draw,” she said, not listening to him. - Like a seagull, wherever I want, I will fly there! No one will block my way. Nobody will touch me!
- And how will it touch? Vasily asked, smiling in a reminiscent tone.
Well, I'll pay! she said softly, and her glowing eyes went out.
Vasily laughed indulgently.
Yakov, when their conversation broke off, said, sighing thoughtfully:
And there seems to be no end to this sea.
All three silently looked out into the desert before them.
“If all this were earth!” Yakov exclaimed, waving his arm wide. - Yes, black earth would be! Yes, open up!
- Wow! Vasily laughed good-naturedly, looking approvingly into his son's face, which even turned red from the strength of the expressed desire. He was pleased to hear love for the land in his son's words, and he thought that this love, perhaps soon and urgently, would call Yakov back to the village from the temptations of free fishing life. And he will stay here with Malva - and everything will go on as before ...
- Well, Yakov, you said it well! This is what the peasant should do. The peasant is grounded and strong: as long as he is on it - he is alive, he fell off her - he disappeared! A peasant without land is like a tree without a root: it is good for work, but it cannot live long - it rots! And there is no forest beauty in it - gnawed, trimmed, invisible! .. It was you, Yakov, who said very good words.
The sea, taking the sun into its bowels, met him with the friendly music of the splashing of the waves, decorated with its farewell rays in marvelous, rich colors. The divine source of life-creating light said goodbye to the sea with the eloquent harmony of its colors, in order to wake up the sleepy earth with the joyful brilliance of the rays of sunrise far from the three people who were following it.
- My soul melts when I watch the sun go down, really, by golly! Vasily Malve said.
She said nothing. Yakov's blue eyes smiled as they wandered into the distance of the sea. For a long time, all three looked thoughtfully to where the last minutes of the day were dying out. The coals of a fire smoldered before them. Behind the night spread its shadows across the sky. The yellow sand darkened, the seagulls disappeared - everything around became quiet, dreamy and gentle ... And even the restless waves, running up on the sand of the spit, did not sound as cheerful and noisy as during the day.
- Why am I sitting? Malva said. - Need to go.
Vasily shuddered and looked at his son.
- Where to hurry? he muttered unhappily. - Wait, - here the month will rise ...
- What is a month? I'm not afraid anyway - it's not the first time I've left here at night!
Yakov glanced at his father and screwed up his eyes to hide his grin; then he looked at Malva—she was also looking at him—and he felt embarrassed.
- Well! Go! - allowed Vasily, dissatisfied and boring.
She got up, said goodbye, and walked slowly along the bank of the spit; the waves, rolling under her feet, seemed to be flirting with her. Stars tremblingly flashed in the sky - its golden flowers. The bright blouse of Malva, moving away from Vasily and his son, who followed her with their eyes, faded in the dusk.
My dear ... hurry up!
Yes-ah! Cling to my chest!
- Look you! Sings! Jacob chuckled.
She was to their eyes only a gray spot in the dusk.
Don't pity my breasts,
Two white swans!
“So, you didn’t cope with the economy there?” Vasily's stern voice rang out.
Yakov, perplexed, looked at him and assumed his former pose.
Drowning in the noise of the waves, separate, torn words of a fervent song reached their ears:
…Ah… can’t sleep
... alone ... this night!
- Hot! - Vasily exclaimed sadly, fiddling on the sand. - Night after all ... but it's hot! What a damn side...
“It’s sand… it got warm in a day…” Yakov said, turning away and as if stammering.
– What are you doing?.. Are you laughing at all? his father asked sternly.
- I? Jacob asked innocently. - What is it?
- That's it, they say, there would be absolutely nothing ...
They fell silent.
And through the noise of the waves, something like sighs or quiet, affectionately calling cries reached them.
Two weeks passed, Sunday came again, and again Vasily Legostev, lying on the sand near his hut, looked at the sea, waiting for Malva. And the desert sea laughed, playing with the reflected sun, and legions of waves were born to run up onto the sand, throw the foam of their manes on it, roll back into the sea and melt in it. Everything was the same as fourteen days ago. Only Vasily, who had previously expected his mistress with calm confidence, was now looking forward to her. She wasn't there last Sunday - she should be today! He had no doubt that she would come, but he wanted to see her sooner. Yakov will not interfere today: on the third day he came for a net, along with other workers, and said that on Sunday morning he would go to the city to buy shirts for himself. He hired himself out to the bands for fifteen rubles a month, had already gone fishing several times, and now looked brisk and merry. He, like all workers, smelled of salted fish, and, like everyone else, he was dirty and tattered. Vasily sighed at the thought of his son.
“How could he survive here ... He will be spoiled ... then, perhaps, he will not want to go back to the village ... And I myself will have to ...”
Apart from the seagulls, there was no one in the sea. Where it was separated from the sky by a thin strip of sandy shore, small black dots sometimes appeared on this strip, moved along it and disappeared. But there was still no boat, although the rays of the sun were already falling into the sea almost vertically. At this time, Malva had been here for a long time.
Two seagulls grapple in the air and fight so that feathers fly from them. Fierce cries tear up the cheerful song of the waves, so constant, so harmoniously merged with the solemn silence of the radiant sky, that it seems to be the sound of the joyful play of the sun's rays on the plain of the sea. Seagulls fall into the water, beat each other, screaming furiously from pain and anger, and again rise into the air, chasing each other ... And their friends - a whole flock - as if not seeing this struggle, greedily catch fish, tumbling in a greenish, transparent playing water.
The sea is deserted. Did not appear in it there, far by the shore, familiar dark spot…
- You're not eating? Vasily said out loud. - Well, it is not necessary! How did you think...
And he spat contemptuously towards the shore.
The sea laughed.
Vasily got up and went to the hut, intending to cook dinner for himself, but felt that he did not feel like eating, returned to his old place and lay down there again.
“If only Seryozhka would come! he mentally exclaimed and forced himself to think of Seryozhka. - It's Poison Boy. It is necessary to laugh at everyone, climbs on everyone with fists. Healthy, literate, experienced ... but a drunkard. It’s fun with him ... Women do not have a soul in him, and although he has recently appeared, everyone is running after him. Only Malva keeps at a distance from him ... He doesn’t go here. What an ugly wench! Maybe she was angry with him for hitting her? Is this new to her? Tea, how they beat ... others! Yes, and now he will ask her ... "
So, thinking about his son, now about Seryozhka, and most of all about Malva, Vasily fiddled on the sand and waited. The restless mood imperceptibly degenerated in him into a dark, suspicious thought, but he did not want to dwell on it. And, hiding his suspicion from himself, he spent the time until evening, either getting up and walking around on the sand, or lying down again. The sea had already darkened, but he was still looking at its distance, waiting for the boat.
Malva did not come that day.
Going to bed, Vasily dejectedly scolded his service, which did not allow him to go ashore, and falling asleep, he often jumped up - through his slumber he heard that oars were splashing somewhere far away. Then he put his hand with a visor to his eyes and looked into the dark, muddy sea. On the shore, in the fishery, two fires were burning, but there was no one in the sea.
- All right, witch! he threatened. And then he fell into a deep sleep.
Here's what happened in the field that day.
Yakov got up early in the morning, when the sun was not yet so hot and a cheerful freshness blew from the sea. He went out of the hut to the sea to wash himself and, going to the shore, he saw Malva. She was sitting at the stern of the longboat moored to the shore, and, putting her bare legs overboard, combing her wet hair.
Yakov stopped and began to look at her with curious eyes.
A cotton blouse, not buttoned on the chest, came down from one shoulder, and the shoulder was so white, delicious.
Waves pounded into the stern of the boat. Mallow now rose above the sea, then fell so low that her bare legs almost touched the water.
- Swimming, right? Yakov shouted.
She turned her face towards him, glanced at him briefly, and combing her hair again, answered:
- I swam ... Why did you get up early?
"You've been before...
“What kind of example am I to you?”
Jacob was silent.
- You will live in my manner - it will be difficult for you to wear your head! - she said.
- O? Look how scary you are! - Yakov grinned and, squatting down, began to wash.
Scooping handfuls of water, he splashed it on his face and grunted, feeling the freshness. Then, wiping himself with the hem of his shirt, he asked Malva:
- Why are you scaring me all?
“And why are you staring at me?”
Yakov did not remember looking at her more than at other fishing women, but now he suddenly said to her:
- Yes, if you ... look how rich!
- When your father recognizes these habits of yours - he will beat your neck!
She slyly and fervently looked into his face.
Yakov laughed and climbed onto the longboat. Again, he did not understand what manners she was talking about, but if she spoke, it meant that he was looking at her vigilantly.
He felt good, happy.
- And what about the father? - he said, walking towards her along the side of the longboat. - What are you - bought it, or what?
Sitting down next to her, he stared at her bare shoulder, her half-naked breasts, at her whole figure - fresh and strong, smelling of the sea.
- There you are - what a beluga! he exclaimed admiringly, examining her in detail.
- Not about you! she said curtly, not looking at him, not adjusting her revealing costume.
Jacob sighed.
The sea stretched out before them in the rays of the morning sun. Small playful waves, born of the gentle breath of the wind, quietly beat against the side. Far away in the sea, like a scar on his satin chest, a scythe could be seen. From it, a pole pierced into the soft background of the blue sky with a thin line, and one could see how the rag fluttered in the wind.
- Yes, boy! Malva spoke, not looking at Yakov. - I am tasty, but not about you ... And I have not been bought by anyone, and I am not subject to your father. I live by myself… But don’t bother me, because I don’t want to stand between you and Vasily… I don’t want quarrels and various squabbles… Got it?
- What am I? Jacob was amazed. "I'm not touching you...
"Don't you dare touch me!" Malva said.
She said it in such a way, with such disdain for Yakov, that both man and man were offended in him. A fervent, almost evil feeling swept over him, his eyes flashed.
- O? I dare not? he exclaimed, moving towards her.
- Don't you dare!
- W-well? How about the throne?
– What will happen?
- And I will give you a blow on the back of the head, and you will tumble into the water.
- Come on, give it!
- A - touch!
He looked at her with burning eyes and suddenly grabbed her tightly from the side with strong paws, squeezing her chest and back. From the touch of her body, hot and strong, he flared up all over and his throat constricted from some kind of suffocation.
- Here! Well… hit! Well?
- Let go, Yashka! she said calmly, making no attempt to free herself from his trembling hands.
- Did you want it on the back of your head?
- Let go! Look, it will be bad!
“Well… don’t scare me!” Oh you ... raspberries!
He clung to her and pressed his thick lips into her ruddy cheek.
She laughed fervently, grabbed Yakov tightly by the hands, and suddenly, with a strong movement of her whole body, rushed forward. In each other's arms, they fell into the water in a heavy mass and disappeared in the foam and spray. Then Yakov's wet head with a frightened face appeared on the agitated water, and Malva emerged next to it. Yakov, desperately waving his arms, broke the water around him, howled and growled, and Malva swam around him with a loud laugh, splashing handfuls of salt water in his face, diving, dodging the wide strokes of his paws.
- Crap! Yakov shouted, snorting. - I'll drown! It will! .. By God ... I will drown! Water ... bitter ... Oh, you ... sinking!
But she had already left him and, raking her hands like a man, swam to the shore. There, deftly climbing back onto the boat, she stood at the stern and, laughing, looked at Yakov, who hastily swam up to her. Wet clothes, sticking to her body, outlined his forms from knees to shoulders, and Yakov, swimming up to the boat and clutching it with his hand, stared with greedy eyes at this almost naked woman, who was laughing merrily at him.
- Well, get out, seal! - she said through laughter and, kneeling down, gave him one hand, and the other leaned on the side of the boat.
Yakov seized her hand and exclaimed with animation:
- Well ... Now hold on! I'm r-buying you!..
He pulled her towards him, standing shoulder-deep in water; the waves ran over his head and, crashing against the boat, sprayed into Malva's face. She screwed up her eyes, laughed, and suddenly, with a shriek, jumped into the water, knocking Yakov off his feet with the weight of her body.
And again they began to play like two big fish in the greenish water, splashing at each other and screeching, snorting, diving.
The sun, laughing, looked at them, and the glass in the windows of the fishing buildings also laughed, reflecting the sun. The water roared, broken by their strong hands, the gulls, alarmed by this fuss of people, with piercing cries rushed over their heads, disappearing under the onslaught of waves from the distance of the sea ...
Finally, tired and swallowed of water, they climbed ashore and sat down in the sun to rest.
- Pah! Yakov spat, frowning. - Well, the water is crappy! That's it and a lot of it!
- There are a lot of trashy things in the world, guys, for example, - how many fathers! Malva laughed, squeezing water out of her hair...
Her hair was dark, and though not long, it was thick and curly.
“That’s why you fell in love with the old man,” Yakov grinned maliciously, pushing her in the side with his elbow.
“An old man is better than a young one.
- If the father is good, then the son is even better ...
- Look you! Where did you learn to brag?
- Girls in the village often told me that I was not a bad guy at all.
Do girls understand? And you ask me...
- What about you? Ali is not a girl?
She looked hard at him; he laughed wickedly. Then she suddenly became serious and said to him with a heart:
- She was, but once she gave birth!
“It’s complicated, but it’s not okay,” said Yakov and burst out laughing.
- Fool! - Malva sharply threw him and turned away from him.
Yakov grew shy and fell silent, pursing his lips.
For half an hour they were both silent, turning towards the sun so that it would dry their wet clothes more quickly.
In the barracks—long, dirty sheds with one-pitched roofs—workers were waking up. From a distance, they all looked alike - ragged, shaggy, barefoot ... Their hoarse voices reached the shore, someone knocked on the bottom of an empty barrel, muffled blows flew, as if a big drum rumbled. Two women cursed shrillly, a dog barked.
“Wake up,” said Yakov. - But I wanted to go to the city early today ... and so I spoiled you ...
“I won’t be good,” she said, half jokingly, half seriously.
- Why are you scaring me? Jacob chuckled in surprise.
“But you will see how your father…
This reminder of his father suddenly made him angry.
- What is father? Well? he exclaimed rudely. - Father! I’m not small myself… What an importance… It’s not the order here… I’m not blind, I see… He’s not a righteous man himself… he doesn’t embarrass himself here… Well, don’t touch me either.
She looked him in the face mockingly and asked with curiosity:
- Don't touch you? And what are you going to do?
- I? He puffed out his cheeks and puffed out his chest, as if he were lifting a weight. - I something? I can do a lot! I was quite blown with clean air, the rustic dust was blown off me.
– Quickly! Malva exclaimed mockingly.
- And what? I'll take it and take you away from your father.
- W-well? Really?
- Am I afraid?
- Yes, uh?
“That’s what you mean,” Yakov said excitedly and ardently, “don’t tease me!” I... look!
- What? she asked calmly.
- Nothing!
He turned away from her and fell silent, having the appearance of a daring and self-confident guy.
- And you are perky! The clerk has a little black kitten, have you seen it? So he's just like you. It barks from a distance, promises to bite, but if you come close, it will turn its tail and run!
- Well, okay! Yakov exclaimed, embittered. - You wait! You will see what I am, you will see!
And she laughed in his face.
A tall, wiry, bronze man in a thick cap of disheveled fiery red hair was walking towards them, slowly gait and swaying his body. His kumach shirt without a belt was torn on his back almost to the collar, and so that its sleeves would not slip from his hands, he rolled them up to his shoulders. Pants were a collection of various holes, his feet were bare. On his face, thickly dotted with freckles, large blue eyes shone boldly, his nose, wide and turned up, gave his whole figure a recklessly impudent look. Coming up to them, he stopped and, shining in the sun with his body, peeping out of the countless holes of his suit, sniffed loudly, stared at them inquiringly with his eyes and made a funny face.
“Yesterday Seryozhka drank a little, and today in Seryozhka’s pocket it’s like in a bottomless basket… Give me a two-kopeck loan!” I still won't give up...
Yakov laughed good-naturedly at his brisk speech, and Malva grinned, looking at his skinned figure.
- Give it to me, damn it! I'll marry you for two kopecks - do you want?
- Oh, you fool! Are you a pop? Jacob laughed.
- Fool! I lived in Uglich with a priest as a janitor... Give me two kopecks!
- I don't want to get married! Jacob refused.
- Anyway - give it! I won’t tell your father that you’re whining for his thieves,” Seryozhka insisted, licking his dry, chapped lips with his tongue.
- Lie, so he will believe you ...
- I'll lie, so believe! - Seryozhka promised, - and he will blow you up - oh how!
- Not afraid! Jacob chuckled.
- Well, then I'll blow it myself! - Seryozhka calmly declared, narrowing his eyes.
Yakov felt sorry for the two-kopeck piece, but he was already warned that there was no need to mess with Seryozhka, but rather to satisfy his claims. He will not require much, and if you do not give him, he will set up some dirty trick during work or beat him for no reason at all. Jacob, remembering these instructions, sighed and reached into his pocket.
- Like this! - Seryozhka encouraged him, sinking onto the sand next to him. - Always listen to me, you will be smart. And you,” he turned to Malva, “will you marry me soon?” Hurry up, I won't wait long.
– You are tattered… Seize the holes first, then we’ll talk, – Malva answered.
Seryozhka critically looked at his holes and shook his head.
“And you better give me your skirt.”
- So! Malva said and laughed.
- A right! Give - is there any old one?
- Yes, you buy yourself pants, - advised Malva.
- Well, I'd rather drink money ...
- Better! Yakov laughed, holding four nickels in his hand.
– But how? The priest told me that a person should not take care of his own skin, but of his soul. My soul demands vodka, not pants. Give me money! Well, now I'll have a drink ... But I'll tell my father about you anyway.
– Speak! Yakov waved his hand and winked slyly at Malva, pushing her on the shoulder.
Seryozhka noticed this, spat and also promised:
- And I won’t forget to blow you up ... As soon as free time will be - I will give such a scrap!
- Yes, for what? Jacob asked anxiously.
“I already know… Well, are you going to marry me soon?” - Seryozhka turned to Malva.
“But you tell me what we are going to do and how we live, then I’ll think about it,” she said seriously.
Seryozhka looked at the sea, screwing up his eyes, and licking his lips, he explained:
“We won’t do anything, we’ll walk!”
- Where can we get it?
- Well, - Seryozhka waved his hand, - you, exactly my mother, argue. What and how? Do I know what and how? I'm going to have a drink...
He got up and walked away from them, accompanied by a strange smile of Malva and a hostile look from the guy.
- Look what a commander! - said Yakov, when Seryozhka had gone far from them. - In our village, such a boyfriend would be quickly pacified ... They would give him a good thrashing - that's all ... But here they are afraid ...
Malva looked at him and said through her teeth:
- Oh, you pig! You understand his value!
– What do you understand? The price of such a piglet for a bunch, and even then - when there are a hundred of them in a bunch.
- Too! Malva exclaimed mockingly. - This is the price for you ... And he ... has been everywhere, has gone through the whole earth and is not afraid of anyone ...
- And who am I afraid of? Jacob asked bravely.
She did not answer him, thoughtfully following the play of the waves that ran up to the shore, swaying the heavy longboat. The mast swayed from side to side, the stern, rising and falling into the water, flapping against it. The sound was loud and annoying, as if the longboat wanted to break away from the shore, go into the wide, free sea, and he was angry with the rope that was holding him.
- Well, why don't you leave? Malva asked Yakov.
- Where do I go? he replied.
I wanted to go to the city...
- Will not go!
- Well, go to your father.
- Are you going too?
- Well, neither do I.
“Are you going to hang around me all day?” Malva asked calmly.
“It doesn’t hurt that I need you ...” Yakov answered with resentment, got up and left her.
But he was wrong in saying that he did not need her. It got boring without her. A strange feeling was born in him after a conversation with her: a vague protest against his father, a muffled dissatisfaction with him. It didn’t happen yesterday, and it didn’t happen today until the meeting with Malva… And now it seemed that his father was interfering with him, although he was there, far out to sea, on this strip of sand, barely visible to the eye… Then it seemed to him that Malva was afraid of his father. And if she were not afraid, it would have been completely different for him with her.
He wandered around the fishery, examining people. There, in the shade of the barracks, Seryozhka sits on a barrel and, strumming on the balalaika, sings, making funny faces:
Mr. mountains-rod-vaoy!
Be polite to me...
Take me to the unit
So that I don't fall into the dirt ...
He is surrounded by twenty people of the same ragamuffins, from everyone - like from everything here - it smells of salted fish, saltpeter. Four women, ugly and dirty, sitting on the sand, drink tea, pouring it from a large tin teapot. But some worker, despite the morning, is already drunk, fiddling on the sand, trying to get on his feet and falling again. Somewhere, a woman is crying, squealing, the sounds of a broken harmonica are heard, and fish scales glisten everywhere.
At noon, Yakov found himself a shady place among a pile of empty barrels, lay down there and slept until evening, and when he woke up, he again began to wander around the fishery, feeling a vague attraction somewhere.
After walking for two hours, he found Malva far from the mine, under a bunch of young willows. She lay on her side and, holding some disheveled book in her hands, looked towards him, smiling.
- Look where are you! he said, sitting down next to her.
- Have you been looking for me for a long time? she asked confidently.
- Did I look for you? Yakov exclaimed, suddenly realizing that this was true: he was looking for her. And, in disbelief, the boy shook his head.
- Are you literate? she asked him.
- Competent ... yes, it's bad, I forgot everything ...
- And I, too - badly ... Did you study at school?
- In the zemstvo.
“And I taught myself…
- Right ... In Astrakhan, the lawyer was a cook; his son taught me to read.
- So, not by herself ... - Yakov explained.
She looked at him and asked again:
- To me? No… what is there?
- And I - I love it - so I begged the clerk's wife for a book and I'm reading ...
- About what?
- About Alexei, the man of God.
And, thoughtfully telling him about how the young man - the son of rich and important parents - left them and from his happiness, and then returned to them, poor and ragged, lived in their yard with the dogs, not telling them until his death Who is he, - Malva quietly asked Yakov:
- Why is he like that?
- Who knows him? Jacob answered indifferently.
Mounds of sand, swept by wind and waves, surrounded them. From afar came a dull, dark noise - it was noisy in the fishery. The sun was setting, a pinkish reflection of its rays lay on the sand. The miserable willow bushes slightly trembled with their poor foliage under a light wind from the sea. Malva was silent, listening to something.
- Why didn’t you go there today ... to the spit?
– What about you?
Yakov glanced askance at the woman with greedy eyes, wondering how he could tell her what he needed.
- I, when I'm alone and quiet ... I want to cry ... Or sing. Only I don’t know good songs, but it’s a shame to cry ...
“What about you,” he said in a dull voice, moving towards her, but not looking at her, “you listen to what I tell you ... I am a young guy ...
- And stupid, stupid! Malva said with conviction, shaking her head.
“Well, let him be stupid,” Yakov exclaimed with annoyance. Is intelligence needed here? Stupid - and okay! But what I will say - you want with me ...
- I don't want to!
- Nothing!
“Don’t be stupid…” He carefully took her by the shoulders. - Can you imagine...
- Go away, Yashka! she said sternly, shaking off his hand. – Went!
He stood up and looked around.
- Well ... if you are like that - I don't give a damn! There are many of you here… Do you think you are better than others?
"You're a puppy," she said calmly, rising to her feet and brushing the sand off her dress.
And they went side by side to fish. We walked slowly because our feet got stuck in the sand.
Yakov rudely persuaded her to give in to his desire, she calmly laughed and answered him with sharp words.
Suddenly, when they were already near the fishing barracks, he stopped and grabbed her by the shoulder.
"But you're deliberately setting me on fire!?" Why are you doing this? I'm for you - look!
- Get off me, I say! - she wriggled out from under his arm and went, and Seryozhka appeared from around the corner of the barracks to meet her and, shaking his shaggy, fiery head, said ominously:
- Walked? Okay!
- Go to hell, all of you! Malva shouted angrily.
And Yakov stopped in front of Seryozhka and looked sullenly at him. There were ten paces between them.
Seryozhka stared into Yakov's eyes. After standing like that for a minute, like two sheep, ready to crack their foreheads against each other, they silently parted in different directions.
The sea was calm and red from sunset; there was a muffled noise above the fishery, and a drunken female voice stood out in relief from it, hysterically shouting out ridiculous words:
... Ta-agarga, matagarga,
M-my mother!
D-drunk, beaten
Disheveled-ah!
And these words, nasty as wood lice, scattered across the fishery, saturated with the smell of saltpeter and rotten fish, scattered, offending the music of the waves.
In the gentle brilliance of the morning dawn, the distance of the sea calmly dozed, reflecting mother-of-pearl clouds. Half-asleep fishermen fumbled on the spit, packing gear into the longboat.
The gray mass of the net crawled along the sand onto the boat and folded into a heap at the bottom of it.
Seryozhka, as always, without a hat, half-naked, standing at the stern, hurried the fishermen in a hoarse, hungover voice. The wind played with the shreds of his shirt and the red swirls of his hair.
- Basil! Where are the green oars? someone shouted.
Vasily, gloomy as an October day, was laying the seine in the longboat, and Seryozhka looked at his bent back and licked his lips - a sign of his desire to get drunk.
- Do you have vodka? - he asked.
“Yes,” said Vasily in a dull voice.
- Well, then I won’t go ... I’ll stay at the dry wing.
- Ready! - shouted from the scythe.
- Get off, come on! - Seryozhka commanded, leaving the longboat. - Go ... I'll stay here. Look - bring in wider, do not confuse! Yes, put it evenly - do not tie loops! ..
The boat was pushed into the water, the fishermen climbed into it from the sides and, having dismantled the oars, raised them into the air, ready to hit the water.
The oars fell in unison into the waves, and the barge rushed forward into the wide plain of illumined water.
- Two! - commanded the helmsman, and, like paws giant tortoise, the oars rose to the sides ... - One! .. Two! ..
Five remained on the shore near the dry wing of the seine: Seryozhka, Vasily and three more. One of them sank down on the sand and said:
- Get some more sleep...
Two of them followed suit, and three bodies in dirty rags crouched in the sand.
- Weren't you on Sunday? Vasily asked Seryozhka, going with him to the hut.
- You couldn't...
- Was he drunk?
“No, I followed your son and his stepmother,” Seryozhka said calmly.
- Found care! Vasily smiled wryly. “They are little guys, right?
- Worse ... One is a fool, the other is a holy fool ...
- Is it Malva the holy fool? Vasily asked, and his eyes flashed with anger. – Has it been like this for a long time?
- She, brother, has a soul that does not fit her body ...
“She has a mean soul.
Seryozhka squinted at him and snorted contemptuously.
- Vile! Oh, you ... earth-eaters blunt-nosed! You can't understand a damn thing... If only the woman's tits were fat, you don't need her character... But a man's character is everything... without a woman's character, bread without salt. Can you enjoy a balalaika that has no strings? Male!..
- Look at what speeches you drank yesterday! .. - Vasily stung him.
He really wanted to ask where and how he saw Seryozhka Yakov and Malva yesterday, but he was ashamed.
Arriving at the hut, he poured Seryozhka a tea glass of vodka, hoping that after such a portion Seryozhka would immediately get tipsy and tell him about them himself.
But Seryozhka drank, grunted, and, brightening up all over, sat down in the door of the hut, stretching and yawning.
- If you drink, you will swallow fire! .. - he said.
- Well, you drink! Vasily exclaimed, amazed at the speed with which Seryozhka swallowed the vodka.
- I can ... - nodded the tramp with a red head and, wiping his wet mustache with his palm, spoke instructively: - I can, brother! I do everything quickly and directly. No twists - go straight and that's it! Where you go is all the same! From the ground, except to the ground, you can’t jump anywhere ...
- Did you want to go to the Caucasus? Vasily asked, quietly moving towards his goal ...
- I'll leave when I want. When I want, - I'm right - one-one and ... ready! Or in my opinion it happened, or I’ll fill a bump on my forehead ... Simple!
- What's easier! It seems like you live without a head ...
Seryozhka squinted mockingly at Vasily.
- And you are smart! How many times have you been flogged in the parish?
Vasily looked at him and was silent.
“But it’s good that your superiors drive the mind from back to front with rods ... Oh, you! Well, what can you do with your head? And where will you go with her? And what can you think of? That's it! And I'm straight without a head, and no more! And, probably, I will be further than you, - the tramp said boastfully.
- This is - perhaps! .. - Vasily grinned. - You will reach Siberia ...
The earring laughed heartily.
He did not get drunk, contrary to Vasily's expectation, and that made him angry. It was a pity for him to bring another glass, and in a sober state you will not achieve anything from Seryozhka ... But the tramp himself helped him out.
“Why don’t you ask about Malva?”
- What about me? - Vasily drawled indifferently, shuddering from some foreboding.
“After all, she wasn’t here on Sunday ... Ask how she lived these days ... Tea, you’re jealous, you old devil!”
- A lot of them! - Vasily waved his hand dismissively ...
- A lot of them! - mimicked Seryozhka. - Oh, you, the village of Lykov's wild landowner! Give you honey, give you tar - everything will be kulaga for you ...
Are you praising her? To marry, or what, did you come? So I myself have adopted her for a long time, - Vasily said mockingly.
Seryozhka examined him, paused, and began to say weightily to Vasily, putting his hand on his shoulder:
“I know she lives with you. I didn’t interfere with you in this - you shouldn’t have ... But now this Yashka, your son, is spinning around her - blow him red-hot! Do you hear? Otherwise, I’ll blow it myself ... You’re a good man ... an oaken fool ... I didn’t interfere with you, and you remember that ...
- Wow! Are you following her too? Vasily asked dully.
- Too! If only I knew that, too, - I would have knocked all of you out of my way and - the end ... Otherwise - where do I need it?
"So why are you confused?" Vasily asked suspiciously.
The earring must have been struck by this simple question.
He looked wide-eyed at Vasily and laughed.
- Why am I confused? Yes - the devil knows what ... So, - she is a woman ... sort of ... with pepper ... I like it ... Or maybe I feel sorry for her, or something ...
Vasily looked at him incredulously, but he felt that Seryozhka was speaking sincerely, from the heart.
- If only she was an untouched girl - well, you can still regret it. And so - something wonderful!
Seryozhka was silent, watching how the barge far out to sea turned its bow to the shore, describing a wide arc. Seryozhka's eyes looked open, his face was kind and simple.
Vasily softened, looking at him.
- And you're right, she's a nice woman ... only a spinner! .. Yashka? Well, I'll ask him! Look, puppy!
“I don’t like him…” said Seryozhka.
- And he flirts with her? Vasily asked through gritted teeth, smoothing his beard.
- He, - you'll see - will enter between you like a wedge, - Seryozhka said confidently.
In the distance of the sea, a pink fan of the rays of sunrise flared up. Through the noise of the waves from the sea, a faint cry flew from the longboat:
- Lead-and! ..
- Get up guys! Hey! To the net! - Seryozha commanded.
And soon they, all five, were already choosing their edge of the seine. A long rope, elastic as a string, stretched out of the water to the shore, and the fishermen, lashing the straps over it, grunting, dragged the rope.
And the other side of the seine was led to the shore by a boat, sliding along the waves.
The sun, magnificent and bright, was rising over the sea.
“If you see Yakov, tell him to visit me tomorrow,” Vasily Seryozhka asked.
The launch landed on the shore, and, jumping off it onto the sand, the fishermen pulled their wing of the seine. The two groups gradually approached each other, and the seine floats, jumping on the water, formed a regular semicircle.
Late in the evening of that day, when the workers at the field had supper, Malva, tired and thoughtful, sat on a wrecked boat, turned upside down, and looked at the sea, dressed in dusk. There, far away, a fire sparkled; Malva knew that this was a fire lit by Vasily. Lonely, as if lost in the dark distance of the sea, the fire flared up brightly, then died out, as if exhausted. Malva was sad to look at this red dot, lost in the desert, weakly trembling in the restless roar of the waves.
– What about you? she asked without looking at him.
- Curious.
He paused, looking at her, rolled up a cigarette, lit a cigarette, and sat astride the boat. Then he said kindly:
- You are a wonderful woman: either you run away from everyone, then you almost hang on everyone’s neck.
- Is it for you, or what, I'm hanging? she asked indifferently.
- Not to me, but to Yashka.
- Are you envious?
- Mm ... Let's talk straight, to your liking? - Seryozhka offered, hitting her on the shoulder. She sat sideways to him, and he did not see her face when she briefly threw out to him:
- Speak.
- Did you leave Vasily, or what?
“I don’t know,” she replied after a pause. - And why do you need it?
- Yes - so ...
I'm angry with him now.
- For what?
- Beat me!
- W-well? .. Is it him? Did you give it to him? Ay-yay!
The earring was amazed. He peered into her face from the side and smacked his lips ironically.
“If she wanted to, she wouldn’t have given herself,” she objected with a heart.
– So what are you?
- She did not want.
- Strong, so you love a cat? - Seryozhka said mockingly and doused her with the smoke of his cigarette. - Well, business! I thought you weren't one of those...
“I don’t love you,” she said again indifferently, waving her hand away from the smoke.
- You're lying, come on?
- Why should I lie? she asked, and Seryozhka realized from her voice that there really was no reason for her to lie.
“And if you don’t love him, how can you let him beat you?” he asked seriously.
– Do I know? What are you up to?
“Wonderful!” Seryozhka said, shaking his head.
Both of them were silent for a long time.
The night was drawing near. Shadows cast across the sea from clouds moving slowly across the sky. Waves sounded.
Vasily's fire on the spit went out, but Malva was still looking there. And Seryozha was looking at her.
- Listen! - he said. – Do you know what you want?
- If only I knew! – with a deep sigh, Malva answered very quietly.
“I always want something,” Malva said thoughtfully. - Why? .. I don’t know. Sometimes I would sit in a boat - and into the sea! Far-oh! And to never see people again. And sometimes it would turn every person like that and let it go like a top around itself. I would look at him and laugh. Either I feel sorry for everyone, and most of all - for myself, then I would have beaten all the people. And then I would have myself ... a terrible death ... And it makes me sad and fun ... But people are all kind of oak.
“The people are rotten,” Seryozhka agreed. - That's what I look at you and see - you are not a cat, not a fish ... and not a bird ... And all this is in you, however ... You do not look like women.
- And thank God! Malva smiled.
From behind a ridge of sand mounds, to their left, the moon appeared, dousing the sea with a silver sheen. Big, meek, she slowly floated up the blue vault of the sky, the bright brilliance of the stars paled and melted in her even, dreamy light.
Malva smiled.
- And ... you know? .. Sometimes it seems to me - that if the barracks were set on fire at night - that would be a commotion!
- Which! - Seryozhka exclaimed with admiration and suddenly pushed her on the shoulder. - You know what ... I'll teach you - let's play a funny thing! Want?
- Well? Malva asked with interest.
- You provoked this Yashka great?
"It's on fire," she laughed.
- Stray him with his father! By God! It will be funny... They will grab like bears... You warm up the old man, and this one too... And then we will let them down on each other... huh?
Go to book page
Malva turned to him and looked intently at his red, cheerfully smiling face. Illuminated by the moon, it seemed less colorful than during the day, in the light of the sun. There was no sign of malice on him—nothing but a good-natured and slightly mischievous smile.
Why don't you love them? Malva asked suspiciously.
- Me? .. Vasily - nothing, a good man. And Yashka is rubbish. You see, I don't like all men... bastards! They will pretend to be orphans - they give them bread and that's it! .. They have a zemstvo, and it does everything for them ... They have a farm, land, cattle ... I served as a coachman for a zemstvo doctor, I had seen enough of them ... then I wandered a lot. You used to come to the village, ask for bread - chop you! Who are you, what are you, give me your passport... They beat you how many times... Sometimes they take you for a horse thief, sometimes just like that... They imprison you in the cold... They whine and pretend, but they can live: they have a clue - land. What am I against them?
- Aren't you a man? Malva interrupted him, listening attentively to his speech.
- I'm a tradesman! - Seryozhka denied with some pride. - The city of Uglich is a tradesman.
“And I am from Pavlish,” Malva said thoughtfully.
“There is no one for me to intercede!” And the men ... they, devils, can live. They have the Zemstvo and all that.
- And what is the zemstvo? Malva asked.
- What? And the devil knows what! It’s set for the peasants, their council ... Spit on it ... You talk about business - arrange a skirmish for them, huh? After all, nothing will come of this - they will only fight! .. Didn't Vasily beat you? Well, let his own son compensate him for your beatings.
- And what? Malva smiled. - It would be nice...
“Think about it… isn’t it nice to watch people break each other’s ribs because of you?” Because of your words alone? .. You moved your tongue once or twice and - you're done!
Seryozhka told her for a long time, with enthusiasm, about the charm of her role. He was both joking and serious at the same time.
- Oh, if I were a beautiful woman! I would make such a mess in this world! he exclaimed in conclusion, grabbed his head in his hands, squeezed it tightly, screwed up his eyes, and fell silent.
The moon was already high in the sky when they parted. Without them, the beauty of the night has increased. Now only the immeasurable, solemn sea, silvered by the moon, and the blue, star-studded sky, remained. There were also mounds of sand, willow bushes among them, and two long, dirty buildings on the sand, like huge, roughly knocked together coffins. But all this was pitiful and insignificant in the face of the sea, and the stars that looked at it shone coldly.
Father and son were sitting in a hut opposite each other, drinking vodka. The son brought vodka so that it would not be boring to sit with his father and to appease him. Seryozhka told Yakov that his father was angry with him for Malva, and Malva threatened to beat her half to death; that Malva knows about this threat and therefore does not surrender to him, Yakov. The earring laughed at him.
- He will give you for your tricks! It will pull off the ears so much that they will be an arshin in size! You better stay out of his sight!
The taunts of the red-haired, unpleasant man engendered in Yakov a sharp malice towards his father. And then Malva hesitates and, looking at him now fervently, now sadly, strengthens his desire to possess her to the point of pain ...
And here Yakov, having come to his father, looks at him as at a stone in the middle of his road - at a stone that cannot be jumped over and cannot be bypassed. But, feeling that he was not in the least afraid of his father, Yakov confidently looked into his gloomy, angry eyes, as if saying to him:
"Well, touch it?!"
They had already drunk twice, but they had not yet said anything to each other, except for a few insignificant words about the life of the trade. One on one in the middle of the sea, they accumulated bitterness against each other, and both knew that it would soon flare up, burn them.
The matting of the hut rustled in the wind, the lubok tapped against each other, the red rag at the end of the pole murmured something. All these sounds were timid and like a distant whisper, incoherently, hesitantly asking for something.
- What, Seryozhka drinks everything? Vasily asked sullenly.
“He drinks, drunk every evening,” the son answered, pouring more vodka.
– He will disappear… Here it is, a free life… without fear!.. And you will be the same…
Jacob answered shortly:
- I won't do that!
- You will not?! – furrowing his eyebrows, said Vasily. - I know what I'm saying ... How long have you been living here? The third month has gone, soon it will be necessary to go home, but how much money will you carry? He angrily splashed vodka from a cup into his mouth and, gathering his beard in his hand, pulled it so that his head shook.
“In such a short time, much cannot be obtained here,” Yakov answered reasonably.
- And if so, then there is nothing for you to play pranks here: go to the village!
Jacob chuckled softly.
- Why are you twisting your face? - Vasily exclaimed menacingly, embittered by the calmness of his son. - Father says, and you laugh! Look, isn't it too early to start going free? I wouldn't bridle you...
Yakov poured vodka and drank it. Rude nit-picking offended him, but he braced himself, not wanting to speak as he thought and wanted to, so as not to infuriate his father. He was a little shy before his gaze, which glittered sternly and harshly.
And Vasily, seeing that his son drank alone, without pouring for him, became even more furious.
- Your father tells you - go home, and you show him laughter? Ask for a calculation on Saturday and ... march to the village! Do you hear?
- Will not go! Yakov said firmly and stubbornly shook his head.
- Is that how it is? Vasily roared and, leaning his hands on the barrel, got up from his seat. - Am I telling you or not? What are you, a dog, growling against your father? Forgot what I can do to you? Have you forgotten?
His lips were trembling, his face was twisted by convulsions; two veins bulged at the temples.
It's not your job to teach me! I'm going to shatter...
Yakov dodged his father's hand, raised above his head, and, clenching his teeth, declared:
- Don't touch me... This is not a village.
– Shut up! I am everywhere to you - father! ..
“You can’t flog here in the volost, it’s not here, the volost,” Yakov grinned right in his face and also slowly got up.
Vasily, with bloodshot eyes, stretched his neck forward, clenched his fists and breathed hot breath mixed with the smell of vodka into his son's face; and Yakov leaned back and vigilantly followed with a sullen gaze every movement of his father, ready to repel the blows, outwardly calm, but covered in a hot sweat. Between them was a barrel that served them as a table.
- I won't spit it out? Vasily asked hoarsely, arching his back like a cat ready to jump.
- Here - everyone is equal ... You are a worker - and so am I.
- Won something?
- Well, how? Why are you mad at me? Do you think I don't understand? You yourself first...
Vasily growled and waved his hand so quickly that Yakov did not have time to dodge. The blow hit him on the head; he staggered and bared his teeth at the brutal face of his father, who had already raised his hand again.
- Look! he warned him, clenching his fists.
- I'll look at you!
- Drop it, please!
– Aha… you!.. you are the father?.. the father?.. the father?..
It was cramped for them here, at their feet a sack of salt, an overturned barrel, a stump were confused.
Fighting off the blows with his fists, Yakov, pale and sweaty, with clenched teeth and a wolfish look, slowly retreated in front of his father, and he walked at him, savagely waving his fists, blind in his anger, somehow suddenly and strangely disheveled - as if bristled like a furious boar.
- Leave me alone - it will be - drop it! - Yakov said, ominously and calmly, leaving the door of the hut to freedom.
The father growled and climbed on him, but only his son's fists met his blows.
- Look how you ... look ... - Yakov teased him, realizing himself more dexterous.
“Wait… s-stop…”
But Jacob jumped sideways and rushed to run to the sea. Vasily set off after him, bowing his head and stretching his arms forward, but he stumbled over something and fell on the sand with his chest. He quickly rose to his knees and sat down, resting his hands on the sand. He was completely exhausted by this fuss and howled sadly from a burning feeling of unsatisfied resentment, from the bitter consciousness of his weakness ...
- Damn you! he croaked, stretching his neck towards Yakov and spitting foam of fury from his trembling lips.
Yakov leaned against the boat and looked sharply at it, rubbing his bruised head with his hand. One sleeve of his shirt was torn off and hung by a thread, the collar was also torn, his white sweaty chest glistened in the sun, as if greased. He now felt contempt for his father; he considered him stronger, and, looking at his father, disheveled and miserable, sitting on the sand and shaking his fists at him, he smiled the condescending, insulting smile of the strong to the weak.
“Cursed be you from me… forever!”
Vasily shouted a curse so loudly that Yakov involuntarily looked back into the distance of the sea, to the fishery, as if he thought that this cry of impotence would be heard there.
But there were only waves and sun. Then he spat aside and said:
- Shout! .. Whom will you annoy? For myself only ... And if it happened to us, I’ll say this ...
- Shut up! .. Get out of sight ... go away! Vasily shouted.
“I won’t go to the village… I’ll spend the winter here…” Yakov said, never ceasing to follow his father’s movements. “I’m better here, I understand that, I’m not a fool.” It's easier here ... There you would have ruled over me as you wanted, but here - take a bite!
He showed his father the fig and laughed, not loudly, but so that Vassily, furious again, jumped to his feet and, seizing an oar, rushed to him, shouting hoarsely:
- Father? Father something? I will kill...
But when he, blind in his fury, jumped up to the boat, Yakov was already far away from him. He ran, and the torn sleeve of his shirt rushed through the air after him.
Vasily threw an oar at him, it did not fly, and the peasant, again exhausted, fell into the boat with his chest and scratched the tree with his nails, looking at his son, and he shouted to him from afar:
- I would be ashamed! Gray-haired already, and - because of the woman - so brutalized ... Oh, you! And I’m not going back to the village… Go there yourself… there’s nothing for you to do here…
- Yashka! Be quiet! - drowning out his cry, roared Vasily. - Yashka! I'll kill you... Go away!
Jacob walked slowly.
With dull, mad eyes, the father watched him go. Here he became shorter, his legs, as it were, drowned in the sand ... he went into him to the waist ... to the shoulders ... with his head. He is gone… But a minute later, a little farther than the place where he disappeared, his head, shoulders, then his whole body appeared again… He has become smaller now… He turned around and looks here and shouts something.
- Cursed you! Cursed, damned! - Vasily answered the cry of his son. He waved his hand, went again and ... again disappeared behind a mound of sand.
Vasily looked in that direction for a long time, until his back ached from the uncomfortable position in which he was reclining, leaning against the boat. Broken, he got to his feet and staggered from the aching pain in his bones. The belt slipped under his armpits; he untied it with wooden fingers, raised it to his eyes, and threw it on the sand. Then he went to the hut and, stopping in front of a depression in the sand, remembered that at that place he fell and that if he had not fallen, he would have caught his son. Everything was scattered in the hut. Vasily looked around for a bottle of vodka and, finding it between the sacks, picked it up. The cork sat tightly in the throat of the bottle, the vodka did not spill. Vasily slowly dug out the cork and, putting the throat of the bottle into his mouth, was thirsty. But the glass hit his teeth, and vodka poured from his mouth onto his beard, onto his chest.
Vasily's head was noisy, his heart was heavy, his back was aching with aching pain.
- I am old, however! .. - he said aloud and sank down on the sand at the entrance to the hut.
Before him was the sea. The waves were laughing, as always noisy, playful. Vasily looked at the water for a long time and remembered the greedy words of his son:
“If it were all earth! Yes, black earth would be! Let it open up!"
A bitter feeling came over the man. He rubbed his chest hard, looked around him, and took a deep breath. His head drooped low and his back bent as if a weight had been laid on it. His throat constricted from choking attacks. Vasily cleared his throat, crossed himself, looking at the sky. A heavy thought came over him.
... For the fact that he, for the sake of a walking woman, left his wife, with whom he lived in honest labor for more than a decade and a half, the Lord punished him with the rebellion of his son. Yes, Lord!
His son abused him, pulled him painfully by the heart ... It is not enough to kill him because he so hardened the soul of his father! Because of which? Because of a woman living a crappy, shameful life!.. It was a sin for him, the old man, to mess with her, forgetting about his wife and son...
And so the Lord, in his holy anger, reminded him, through his son, hit him on the heart with his just punishment ... So, Lord! ..
Vassily sat bent over, made the sign of the cross, and blinked his eyes frequently, brushing away the tears that blinded him with his eyelashes.
The sun was sinking into the sea. A crimson dawn was quietly fading in the sky. Rushed from the silent distance warm wind into the man's wet face. Immersed in thoughts of repentance, he sat for the time being, until he fell asleep.
A day after the quarrel with his father, Yakov, with a party of workers, went on a barge under the tow of a steamer, thirty versts from the fishery, to catch sturgeon. He returned to the fishery five days later alone, in a boat under sail - he was sent for grubs. He arrived at noon, when the workers, having had lunch, were resting. It was unbearably hot, the hot sand burned the legs, and the scales and bones of the fish pricked them. Yakov walked cautiously towards the barracks and scolded himself for not putting on his boots. He was too lazy to return to the launch, besides, he was in a hurry to eat something and see Malva. During the boring time spent at sea, he often thought of her. He now wanted to know if she had seen his father and what he had said to her... Maybe he had beaten her? Beating her is not harmful - it will be more peaceful! And it’s painfully fervent and brisk she is ...
The field was quiet and deserted. The windows in the barracks were open, and those big wooden boxes, too, seemed to be languishing in the heat. In the clerk's office, hidden between the barracks, a child was screaming over the top. From behind a pile of barrels, someone's quiet voices could be heard.
Yakov boldly walked towards them: it seemed to him that he heard the speech of Malva. But, going up to the barrels and looking beyond them, he stepped back and, frowning, stood.
Behind the barrels, in their shade, lay chest up, throwing his arms under his head, the red-haired Seryozhka. On one side of him sat his father, and on the other, Malva.
Jacob thought about his father:
“Why is he here? Did he really transfer to fishing from his calm position in order to be closer to Malva, and not let him near her? Ah, damn! If only his mother knew all these actions of his! .. Should I go to them or not?
- So! .. - said Seryozhka. - So, goodbye? Well, what! Go dig the ground...
Jacob blinked happily.
“I’m going…” said the father.
Then Jacob boldly stepped forward and greeted:
- Honest company!
Father glanced at him briefly and turned away, Malva did not even blink an eyebrow, but Seryozhka twitched his foot and said in a thick voice:
Malva laughed softly.
- Hot! Jacob said as he sat down.
Vasily looked at him again.
“And I’m waiting for you, Yakov,” he said.
“I’m out for grub…” he said and asked Seryozhka for some tobacco for a cigarette.
“No tobacco from me for you, you fool,” said Seryozhka, not moving.
“I’m going home, Yakov,” Vasily said impressively, picking the sand with his finger.
- What is it? The son looked at him innocently.
“Well, will you… stay?”
- Yes, I'll stay ... What should the two of us do at home?
“Well… I won't say anything. As you wish... not small! Only you… remember that I won't last long. Maybe I will live, but I don’t know how to work ... I have lost the habit of tea from the earth ... So you remember, you have a mother there.
It must have been difficult for him to speak: the words somehow got stuck in his teeth. He stroked his beard, and his hand trembled.
Malva looked at him intently. Seryozhka narrowed one eye, and made the other round and fixed it in Yakov's face. Yakov was full of joy and, afraid to betray it, was silent, looking at his feet.
“Don’t forget about your mother ... Look, you are the only one with her,” Vasily said.
– What is there? - said Yakov, shivering. - I know.
- All right, if you know! .. - looking at him incredulously, his father said. - I'm just saying - do not forget, they say.
Vasily took a deep breath. All four were silent for several minutes. Then Malva said:
- They'll be calling soon...
- Well, I'll go! .. - Vasily announced, rising to his feet. And everyone else followed him.
- Farewell, Sergey ... If you happen to be on the Volga - maybe you will look in? .. Simbirsk district, the village of Mazlo, Nikolo-Lykovskaya volost ...
“All right,” said Seryozhka, shook his hand and, without letting go of his sinewy paw, overgrown with red hair, looked with a smile into his sad and serious face.
“Lykovo-Nikolskoye is a big village… It is known far away, and we are four versts from it,” Vasily explained.
- Well, well ... I'll wander - if there is a chance ...
- Goodbye!
- Farewell, dear man!
Farewell, Malva! Vassily said dully, not looking at her.
She slowly wiped her lips with her sleeve and, throwing her white arms around his shoulders, kissed him three times silently and seriously on his cheeks and lips.
He was embarrassed and mumbled something indistinctly. Yakov tilted his head to hide his grin, and Seryozhka yawned lightly, looking up at the sky.
“It will be hot for you,” he said.
- Nothing ... Well, goodbye, Yakov!
- Goodbye!
They stood facing each other, not knowing what to do. The sad word "farewell", which sounded so often and monotonously in the air in those seconds, awakened in Yakov's soul a warm feeling for his father, but he did not know how to express it: to hug his father, as Malva did, or to shake his hand, like Seryozhka ? And Vasily was offended by the indecision expressed in the pose and on the face of his son, and he also felt something close to shame before Yakov. This feeling was evoked in him by memories of the scene on the spit and the kisses of Malva.
So remember your mother! Vasily finally said.
– Come on! - Jacob exclaimed with a warm smile. “Don’t bother yourself… but I’m already!”
And he shook his head.
- Well ... and that's it! Live here, God forbid... do not remember dashingly... So, Serega, I buried the bowler hat in the sand, under the stern, by the green boat.
- And what does he need a bowler hat for? Jacob asked quickly.
- He was appointed to my place ... There, on the scythe! Vasily explained.
Yakov looked at Seryozhka, looked at Malva and lowered his head, hiding the joyful gleam in his eyes.
- Farewell, brothers ... I'm coming!
Vasily bowed to them and went. Malva moved after him.
I'll take you a little...
Seryozhka lay down on the sand and grabbed Yakov by the leg, who was also about to step after Malva.
- Whoa! Where?
- Wait a minute! Let it go…” Yakov rushed.
But Seryozhka grabbed him by the other leg.
- Sit with me...
- Yes, uh! What are you fooling?
- I'm not fooling ... And you sit down!
Jacob sat up, gritting his teeth.
– What do you want?
- Wait a minute! You shut up, and I'll think, then I'll say ...
He menacingly looked at the guy with his impudent eyes, and Yakov submitted to him ...
Malva and Vasily walked in silence for some time. She looked sideways into his face, and her eyes shone strangely. And Vasily frowned sullenly and was silent. Their feet got stuck in the sand, and they walked slowly.
He looked at her and immediately turned away.
“But I deliberately quarreled with you with Yashka ... You could live here without quarreling,” she said calmly and evenly.
– Why is it you? - after a pause, asked Vasily.
– I don’t know… Yes!
She shrugged, smiling.
- Did a good job! Oh you! he scolded her in an angry voice.
She said nothing.
“You will ruin my boyfriend, completely ruin it!” Ehma! You are a witch, a witch... you are not afraid of God... you have no shame... what are you doing?
- And what to do? she asked him. Either anxiety or annoyance sounded in her question.
- What? Oh, you! .. - Vasily exclaimed, flashing with sharp anger towards her.
He passionately wanted to hit her, knock her down under his feet and trample her into the sand, kicking her chest and face with his boots. He clenched his fist and looked back.
There, by the barrels, stood the figures of Yakov and Seryozhka, and their faces were turned towards him.
- Go away, go away! I would crush you...
He was almost whispering curses in her face. His eyes were bloodshot, his beard was trembling, and his hands involuntarily reached for her hair, which had fallen out from under the handkerchief.
She looked at him calmly with her green eyes.
“Kill me you, you slut!” Wait... you'll fly in again... they'll break your head!
She smiled, paused, and then, sighing deeply, threw out to him:
- Well, that's enough ... Farewell!
And, abruptly turning around, she went back.
Vassily growled after her and gritted his teeth. And Malva walked and kept trying to get with her feet into the clear deep footprints of Vasily, imprinted in the sand, and, hitting this mark, she diligently rubbed it with her foot. So she slowly walked up to the barrels, where Seryozhka met her with a question:
- Well, did you?
She nodded her head at him and sat down next to him. Yakov looked at her and smiled affectionately, moving his lips as if he were whispering something only he could hear.
- What - spent, it became a pity? - Seryozhka asked her again with the words of the song.
- When are you going there, on the spit? she answered with a question, nodding her head at the sea.
- In the evening.
- And I'm with you…
- Important! .. I love this ...
- And I'll go! – resolutely declared Yakov.
- Who is calling you? asked Seryozhka, screwing up his eyes.
There was a rattling sound of a broken bell - a call to work. Sounds hurried through the air, one after another, and died in the cheerful rustle of the waves.
- But she will call! - said Yakov, defiantly looking at Malva.
- I? What do I need you for? she wondered.
“Let’s talk straight, Yashka! ..” Sergey said sternly, rising to his feet. - If you pester her, I will beat you to the ground! If you lay a finger on it, I'll kill you like a fly! I'll slap on the head - and you're not in the world! I have it simple!
His whole face, his whole figure, and his knotty hands reaching for Yakov's throat spoke very convincingly of how simple all this was for him.
Yakov took a step back and said stifledly:
- Wait a minute! After all, she herself...
- Tsyts - and that's it! What are you? It’s not for you, dog, to eat a lamb: say thank you if they give you bones to gnaw ... Well? .. What are you staring at?
Yakov looked at Malva. Her green eyes grinned into his face with an insulting, humiliating smile, and she clung to Seryozhka's side so affectionately that Yakov broke into a sweat.
They left him next to each other and, stepping back a little, both laughed loudly. Yakov firmly pressed his right foot into the sand and froze in a tense pose, breathing heavily.
In the distance, along the yellow, dead waves of sand, a small, dark human figure was moving; to her right, a cheerful, mighty sea sparkled in the sun, and to her left, right up to the horizon, lay the sands - monotonous, dull, deserted. Yakov looked at the lonely man and, blinking his eyes full of resentment and bewilderment, rubbed his chest hard with both hands...
Mallow
Maksim Gorky
Gorky Maxim
A.M. Gorky
The sea laughed.
Under the light breeze of the sultry wind, it shuddered and, covered with small ripples, dazzlingly brightly reflecting the sun, smiled at the blue sky with thousands of silver smiles. In the deep space between the sea and the sky there was a merry lapping of the waves, running up one after another to the gently sloping shore of the sandy spit. This sound and the brilliance of the sun, reflected a thousand times by the ripples of the sea, harmoniously merged into a continuous movement, full of lively joy. The sun was happy that it shone; the sea by that which reflected its jubilant light.
The wind caressed the satin chest of the sea; the sun warmed her with its hot rays, and the sea, drowsily sighing under the gentle power of these caresses, saturated the hot air with the salty aroma of fumes. Greenish waves, running up to the yellow sand, dropped white foam on it, it melted on the hot sand with a soft sound, moistening it.
A narrow, long spit looked like a huge tower that had fallen from the shore into the sea. Piercing with a sharp spire into the boundless desert of water playing with the sun, it lost its foundation in the distance, where the sultry haze hid the earth. From there, with the wind, a heavy smell flew by, incomprehensible and insulting here, in the middle of a clear sea, under a blue, clear roof of the sky.
Wooden stakes were stuck into the sand of the spit, strewn with fish scales, and nets hung on them, casting a web of shadows from themselves. Several large boats and one small one stood in a row on the sand, the waves, running up to the shore, seemed to beckoning them to themselves. Hooks, oars, baskets and barrels were scattered randomly on the spit, among them stood a hut assembled from willow twigs, luboks and matting. In front of the entrance to it, felted boots stuck out on a knotty stick, soles pointing to the sky. And above all this chaos towered a long pole with a red rag at the end, fluttering from the wind.
In the shadow of one of the boats lay Vasily Legostev, a guard on the spit, the outpost of the Grebenshchikov fisheries. He lay on his chest and, supporting his head with the palms of his hands, stared intently into the distance of the sea, to a barely visible strip of coast. There, on the water, a small black dot flickered, and Vasily was pleased to see how it was getting larger, approaching him.
Squinting his eyes from the bright play of the sun's rays on the waves, he smiled contentedly: it was Malva. She will come, laugh, her breast will sway seductively, hug him with soft arms, kiss him and loudly, frightening the seagulls, will talk about the news there, on the shore. They will cook a good fish soup with her, drink vodka, lie on the sand, talking and lovingly indulging, then, when it gets dark, they will boil a kettle of tea, get drunk with delicious bagels and go to bed ... This happens every Sunday, every holiday in the week. Early in the morning he would take her ashore along the still sleepy sea, in the predawn fresh twilight. She, dozing, will sit in the stern, and he will row and look at her. She is funny at that time, funny and sweet, like a well-fed cat. Maybe she would slip off the bench into the bottom of the boat and sleep there, curled up in a ball. She often does this...
On this day, even the seagulls are exhausted by the heat. They sit in rows on the sand with open beaks and lowered wings, or they sway lazily on the waves without screams, without the usual predatory animation.
It seemed to Vasily that there was more than one Malva in the boat. Has Seryozhka become attached to her again? Vasily turned heavily on the sand, sat down and, covering his eyes with his palm, began to consider with anxiety in his heart who else was riding there? Malva sits at the stern and rules. The rower is not Seryozhka, he rows clumsily, Malva would not rule with Seryozhka.
Hey! Vasily shouted impatiently.
Seagulls on the sand trembled and alerted.
With whom you are?
There was laughter in response.
Devil! - Vasily cursed softly and spat. He really wanted to know who it was riding there; rolling up his cigarette, he stared stubbornly at the back of the rower's head and back. The resounding splash of water under the blows of the oars is heard in the air, the sand creaks under the bare feet of the sentry.
Who is with you? he shouted as he recognized the familiar smile on Malva's beautiful face.
But wait, you know! she replied with a laugh.
The rower turned to face the shore and, also laughing, looked at Vasily.
The guard frowned, remembering - who is this guy who seems to be familiar to him?
Hit harder! Malva commanded.
The boat with a swing almost halfway crawled onto the sand along with the wave and, swaying to one side, stood still, and the wave rolled back into the sea. The rower jumped ashore and said:
Hello father!
Jacob! Vassily exclaimed in a despondent voice, more astonished than delighted.
They hugged and kissed three times on the lips and cheeks; Surprise mixed with joy and embarrassment on Vasily's face.
That's what I'm looking at... and it's something, - my heart itches... Ah, you, - how are you? Come on! And I look - Seryozhka? No, I see, not Seryozhka! An is you!
Vasily stroked his beard with one hand, and waved in the air with the other. He wanted to look at Malva, but the smiling eyes of his son stared into his face, and he was embarrassed by their brilliance. The feeling of self-satisfaction for having such a healthy, handsome son struggled in him with a feeling of embarrassment at the presence of his mistress. He shifted from foot to foot, standing in front of Yakov, and one after another threw him questions, without waiting for an answer to them. Everything was somehow confused in his head, and he became especially unwell when the mocking words of Malva were heard:
Yes, you are not Yuli ... with joy! Take him to the hut and treat him...
He turned to her. A smile played on her lips, unfamiliar to him, and all of her - round, soft and fresh, as always, at the same time there was some kind of new, alien. She shifted her greenish eyes from father to son and gnawed watermelon seeds with her white, small teeth. Yakov, too, looked at them with a smile, and for several seconds unpleasant to Vasily, all three were silent.
I now! - Vasily suddenly hurried, moving towards the hut. - You are leaving from the sun, and I will get some water, I will go ... we will cook the fish soup! I'll feed you, Yakov, such an ear! You are right here ... make yourself comfortable, I'm right this minute ...
He grabbed a bowler hat from the ground near the hut, quickly went somewhere into the net and disappeared into the gray mass of their folds.
Malva and his son also went to the hut.
Well, good fellow, I delivered you to your father, - said Malva, looking askance at Yakov's stocky figure.
He turned to her his face in a curly dark blond beard and, flashing his eyes, said:
Yes, we arrived ... And it's good here - what a sea!
The wide sea ... Well, what, - has your father grown old?
There is nothing. I thought - he is grayer, but he still has a little gray hair ... And strong ...
How long, you say, have you not seen each other?
Five years, tea ... As he left the village - at that time I was seventeenth ...
They entered the hut, where it was stuffy, and the matting smelled of salted fish, and sat down there: Yakov - on a thick stump of a tree, Malva - on a pile of sacks. Between them stood a barrel cut across, its bottom served as a table. Sitting down, they silently stared at each other.
So, do you want to work here? Malva asked.
Yes, I don’t know ... If there is something, I will.
We have! - Malva promised confidently, feeling him with her green, mysteriously narrowed eyes.
He did not look at her, wiping his sweaty face with the sleeve of his shirt.
Suddenly she laughed.
Mother, tea, father orders and bows with you sent?
Yakov looked at her, frowned, and said curtly:
It is known... But what?
Nothing!
Yakov did not like her laugh, as if he were teasing him. The guy turned away from this woman and remembered the instructions of his mother.
Escorting him to the outskirts of the village, she leaned on the fence and spoke quickly, blinking her dry eyes frequently:
Tell him, Yasha ... For Christ's sake, tell him - father, they say! .. There is only one mother, they say, there ... five years have passed, and she is all alone! He's getting old, they say! .. tell him, Yakovushka, for God's sake. Soon the mother will be an old woman ... all alone, alone! Everything is at work. For Christ's sake, tell him...
And she silently wept, hiding her face in her apron.
Then Yakov did not feel sorry for her, but now he felt sorry for her... Glancing at Malva, he raised his eyebrows sternly.
Here I am! - Vasily exclaimed, appearing in a hut with a fish in one hand and a knife in the other.
He had already overcome his embarrassment, hiding it deep inside himself, and now he looked at them calmly, only in his movements there was an uncharacteristic fussiness.
Now I'll light a fire ... and I'll come to you ... we'll talk! Ah, Jacob, huh?
And he again left the hut.
Malva, without ceasing to gnaw seeds, unceremoniously looked at Yakov, and he tried not to look at her, although he really wanted to.
Then, as the silence stifled him, he said aloud:
And I left my knapsack in the boat - go get it!
Leisurely getting up from his seat, he went out, Vasily appeared in his place in the hut and, leaning towards Malva, spoke hastily and angrily:
Well, why did you come with him? What will I tell him about you? Who are you to me?
Arrived, and that's it! Malva said shortly.
Oh, you ... incongruous woman! How will I be now? So right in his eyes and that's it ... right away? .. My wife is at home! Mother to him ... You should have figured it out!
I really need to think! I'm afraid of him, right? Ali you? she asked, narrowing her green eyes dismissively. - And how you just now spun in front of him! That was funny to me!
It's funny to you! And how will I?
And you would have thought about it before!
Yes, I knew, or something, that he would suddenly be thrown out of the sea here?
The sand creaked under Yakov's feet, and they broke off their conversation. Yakov brought a light knapsack, threw it into a corner, and looked sideways, with unkind eyes, at the woman.
She enthusiastically clicked the seeds, and Vasily sat down on a stump, rubbed his knees with his hands and spoke with a smile:
So, that means you came... how did you think of that?
Yes, so ... We wrote to you ...
When? I didn't receive any letter!
Well? And we wrote...
Apparently, the letter was lost, - Vasily was upset. - Look at you, damn it ... huh? When needed, it was lost...
So you don't know our business? asked Yakov, looking incredulously at his father.
Yes, from where? I didn't receive a letter!
Then Yakov told him that their horse had fallen, they had eaten all the bread at the beginning of February; there were no earnings. There was also not enough hay, the cow almost died of hunger. We made our way somehow until April, and then we decided this way: after plowing, Yakov should go to his father, to work, for three months. They wrote to him about this, and then they sold three sheep, bought bread and hay, and now Yakov arrived.
That's it! Vasily exclaimed. - So-so ... Ah ... how are you ... I sent you money ...
Is money big? The hut was being repaired... Marya was given in marriage... I bought a plow... After all, five years... time has passed!
Yeah! Not enough, right? Such a thing ... But my ear will run away! - He got up and went out.
Squatting down in front of the fire, over which hung a boiling kettle, throwing foam into the fire, Vasily thought. Everything that his son told him did not particularly touch him, but gave rise to an unpleasant feeling in him towards his wife and Yakov. How much money he sent them over five years, but they still failed to cope with the economy. If not for Malva, he would have said something to Jacob. Arbitrarily, without his father's permission, he left the village - he was smart enough for this - but he could not cope with the household! The household, which Vasily, living to this day a pleasant and easy life, very rarely remembered, now suddenly reminded him of himself, as of a bottomless pit, where he had thrown money for five years, as something superfluous in his life, not needed. to him. He sighed, stirring his ear with the spoon.
In the glare of the sun, the small yellowish fire of the fire was miserable, pale. Blue, transparent wisps of smoke stretched from the fire to the sea, towards the spray of the waves. Vasily watched them and thought that now it would be worse for him to live, not so freely. Probably, Yakov already guessed who this Malva was...
And she was sitting in a hut, embarrassing the guy with fervent, defiant eyes, in which, without disappearing, a smile played.
Tea, come on, did you leave your bride in the village? she suddenly said, looking into Yakov's face.
Maybe he left, - he reluctantly replied.
Beautiful, isn't it? she asked casually.
Jacob was silent.
Why are you silent? .. Better than me, or not?
He looked into her face, not wanting it. Her cheeks were swarthy, full, her lips were juicy, half-opened with a perky smile, they trembled. The pink chintz sweater sat on her somehow especially deftly, outlining her round shoulders and high, elastic breasts. But he did not like her slyly narrowed, green, laughing eyes.
Why are you talking like that? - Sighing, he said in a pleading voice, although he wanted to speak sternly to her.
How should one speak? she laughed.
And you laugh too... why?
Laughing at you...
Well, what am I to you? - offended he asked and again lowered his eyes under her gaze.
She didn't answer.
Yakov guessed who she was to his father, and this prevented him from speaking freely with her. The conjecture did not impress him: he had heard that people indulge in seasonal trades, and he understood that it would be difficult for such a healthy man like his father to live so long without a woman. But still awkward in front of her and in front of her father. Then he remembered his mother - a weary, grouchy woman who worked there, in the village, tirelessly ...
Ear ready! - announced Vasily, appearing in the hut. - Get out the spoons, Malva!
Jacob looked at his father and thought:
"It can be seen that he often has it, if he knows where the spoons are!"
Taking the spoons, she said that she should go and wash them, and that she had vodka in the stern of the boat.
Father and son looked after her and, left alone, were silent.
How did you meet her? - asked Vasily.
And I asked about you in the office, and she was there ... And she said: "Why, he says, walk on the sand, we'll go in a boat, I'll also go to him." Here we have arrived.
Yes... And I used to think: "What is Yakov like now?"
The son smiled good-naturedly in the face of his father, and this smile gave Vasily courage.
Ah ... nothing wench something?
Nothing,” Yakov said vaguely, blinking his eyes.
There's nothing you can do about it, my brother! Vasily exclaimed, waving his hands. - I suffered at first - I can not! Habit... I'm a married man. Again, she will fix the clothes and other things ... And in general ... ehma! From a woman, as from death, you will not go anywhere! he sincerely finished his explanation.
M. Gorky's story "Malva" tells about a man who left to work as a caretaker of a sea spit in order to earn a living. This man's name is Vasily. The author introduces him to the reader as a healthy and vigorous "village" peasant who has become lazy because the work of a caretaker for a sea spit does not present any particular difficulties and litigation experienced by village people.
Vasily got used to the spit so much that he got himself a mistress named Malva. M. Gorky describes this woman as a strong, interesting woman of high stature with curly hair. Either from unstressed work, or whether it really is so, but Vasily fell in love with Malva. They had their day - Sunday. On this day they drank vodka, rested and ate bagels with tea.
But the whole "ideal" life of Vasily on the sea spit flies into hell when his son comes to him. A dispute arises between the son and father, who will get Malva, since Vasily's son, Yashka, liked her.
Men think about it all: behavior, speech and attitudes. How does a woman act in this situation? Malva decides to "set" the father on his son. As a result, she succeeds and the men enter into a fight.
The result of the whole story is as follows: Vasily leaves the spit, Yashka remains on it. But Malva does not stay with Vasily's son, but chooses Seryozhka, a local drinking man.
After reading this story, a lot of thoughts come to mind. For example, why did Vasily and Yashka decide a dispute about a woman that both like that way? Why did Malva do this? And, in the end, why didn't Yashka leave for his father?
In my opinion, the author deliberately leaves such questions to the reader. So that he could reason, think about how he himself would act in such a situation. I think the end of the story is very interesting and instructive. An excellent proverb fits here: “If you chase two hares, you won’t catch one.” So is Vasily. He wanted the family to be well-fed and far away, and for his mistress to be at his side and obey him. But in life, alas, everything does not happen at once. Very often a person has to make a choice. And not always this choice brings satisfaction.
This story can teach the reader that any person has to make a choice. Whether it is not particularly significant or the most important, but the choice always has to be made. And it is very difficult to bear responsibility for the decision made, but it is necessary. It is the situation of choice that makes a person responsible and independent as a person.
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