Ivan Ivanovich’s glorious bekesha is an excellent gdz. The story of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich

Ivan Ivanovich has a nice bekesha! excellent! And what smiles! Wow, what an abyss! blue with frost! I bet God knows what if anyone has these! Take a look at them, for God’s sake, especially if he starts talking to someone, look from the side: what a gluttony this is! It’s impossible to describe: velvet! silver! fire! Oh my God! Nicholas the Wonderworker, saint of God! Why don’t I have such a bekesha! He sewed it back when Agafia Fedoseevna did not go to Kyiv. Do you know Agafia Fedoseevna? the one who bit off the assessor's ear.

A wonderful person, Ivan Ivanovich! What a house he has in Mirgorod! Around it on all sides there is a canopy on oak pillars, under the canopy there are benches everywhere. Ivan Ivanovich, when it gets too hot, will take off his bekesha and underwear, he will remain in only his shirt and rest under the canopy and watch what is happening in the yard and on the street. What apple and pear trees he has right next to his windows! Just open the window and the branches burst into the room. This is all in front of the house; But look what he has in his garden! What's not there! Plums, cherries, sweet cherries, all kinds of vegetable gardens, sunflowers, cucumbers, melons, pods, even a threshing floor and a forge.

A wonderful person, Ivan Ivanovich! He loves melons very much. This is his favorite food. As soon as he has dined and goes out under the canopy in his shirt, he now orders Gapka to bring two melons. And he will cut it himself, collect the seeds in a special piece of paper and start eating. Then he orders Gapka to bring an inkwell and, with his own hand, makes an inscription over a piece of paper with seeds: “This melon was eaten on such and such a date.” If there was any guest, then: “such and such took part.”

The late judge of Mirgorod always admired Ivan Ivanovich’s house. Yes, the house is very nice. I like that there are canopies and canopies attached to it on all sides, so that if you look at it from a distance, you can only see the roofs, planted one on top of the other, which is very similar to a plate filled with pancakes, or even better, like sponges growing on tree. However, the roofs are all covered with an outline; a willow, an oak and two apple trees leaned on them with their spreading branches. Small windows with carved whitewashed shutters flicker between the trees and even run out onto the street.

A wonderful person, Ivan Ivanovich! The Poltava commissar knows him too! Dorosh Tarasovich Pukhivochka, when he travels from Khorol, he always stops by to see him. And Archpriest Father Peter, who lives in Koliberd, when he has about five guests, always says that he doesn’t know anyone who fulfilled his Christian duty and knew how to live like Ivan Ivanovich.

God, how time flies! already then more than ten years had passed since he was widowed. He had no children. Gapka has children and they often run around the yard. Ivan Ivanovich always gives each of them either a bagel, or a piece of melon, or a pear. Gapka carries the keys to the closets and cellars; Ivan Ivanovich keeps the key to the large chest that is in his bedroom and to the middle chest and does not like to let anyone in there. Gapka, a healthy girl, wears a spare tire, with fresh calves and cheeks.

And what a pious man Ivan Ivanovich is! Every Sunday he puts on a bekesha and goes to church. Having entered it, Ivan Ivanovich, bowing in all directions, usually sits on the wing and plays his bass very well. When the service is over, Ivan Ivanovich cannot bear it so as not to bypass all the beggars. He might not have wanted to do such a boring task if his natural kindness had not prompted him to do so.

- Great, heaven! - he usually said, having found the most crippled woman, in a tattered dress sewn from patches. -Where are you from, poor thing?

“Lady, I came from the farm: I haven’t drunk or eaten for three days, my own children kicked me out.

- Poor little head, why did you come here?

- And so, sir, ask for alms, if anyone will give you some bread.

- Hm! Well, do you really want bread? - Ivan Ivanovich usually asked.

- How can you not want to! hungry as a dog.

- Hm! - Ivan Ivanovich usually answered. - So maybe you want meat too?

- Yes, whatever your mercy gives, I will be happy with everything.

- Hm! Is meat better than bread?

- Where can a hungry person sort things out? Anything you wish is fine.

At the same time, the old woman usually extended her hand.

“Well, go with God,” said Ivan Ivanovich. - Why are you standing there? I'm not hitting you! - and, having addressed such questions to another, to a third, he finally returns home or goes to drink a glass of vodka at his neighbor Ivan Nikiforovich, or at the judge, or at the mayor's office.

Ivan Ivanovich loves it very much if someone gives him a gift or a present. He really likes it.

Ivan Nikiforovich is also a very good person. His yard is near the yard of Ivan Ivanovich. They are such friends with each other as the world has never produced. Anton Prokofievich Pupopuz, who still wears a brown frock coat with blue sleeves and dines on Sundays with the judge, used to say that the devil himself tied Ivan Nikiforovich and Ivan Ivanovich with a rope. Where one goes, the other follows.

Ivan Nikiforovich was never married. Although they said that he got married, this is a complete lie. I know Ivan Nikiforovich very well and I can say that he did not even have the intention of getting married. Where does all this gossip come from? So, as it was said, Ivan Nikiforovich was born with his tail back. But this invention is so absurd and at the same time vile and indecent that I do not even consider it necessary to refute it before enlightened readers, who, without any doubt, know that only witches, and then very few, have back tails, which, however, belong more to the female gender than to the male gender.

The story of how I quarreledIvanIvanovich With Ivan Nikiforovich (Nikolai Gogol)

IVAN IVANOVICH AND IVAN NIKIFOROVICH

Ivan Ivanovich has a nice bekesha! excellent! And what smushki! Wow, what an abyss! blue with frost! I bet God knows what if anyone has these! Take a look at them, for God’s sake, especially if he starts talking to someone, look from the side: what a gluttony this is! It’s impossible to describe: velvet! silver! fire! Oh my God! Nicholas the Wonderworker, saint of God! Why don’t I have such a bekesha! He sewed it back when Agafia Fedoseevna did not go to Kyiv. Do you know Agafia Fedoseevna? the one who bit off the assessor's ear. A wonderful person, Ivan Ivanovich! What a house he has in Mirgorod! Around it on all sides there is a canopy on oak pillars, under the canopy there are benches everywhere. Ivan Ivanovich, when it gets too hot, will take off his bekesha and underwear, he will remain in only his shirt and rest under the canopy and watch what is happening in the yard and on the street. What apple and pear trees he has right next to his windows! Just open the window and the branches burst into the room. This is all in front of the house; But look what he has in his garden! What's not there! Plums, cherries, sweet cherries, all kinds of vegetable gardens, sunflowers, cucumbers, melons, pods, even a threshing floor and a forge. A wonderful person, Ivan Ivanovich! He loves melons very much. This is his favorite food. As soon as he has dined and goes out under the canopy in his shirt, he now orders Gapka to bring two melons. And he will cut it himself, collect the seeds in a special piece of paper and start eating. Then he orders Gapka to bring an inkwell and, with his own hand, makes an inscription over the piece of paper with the seeds: “This melon was eaten on such and such a date.” If there was any guest, then: “such and such took part.” The late judge of Mirgorod always admired Ivan Ivanovich’s house. Yes, the house is very nice. I like that there are canopies and canopies attached to it on all sides, so that if you look at it from a distance, you can only see the roofs, planted one on top of the other, which is very similar to a plate filled with pancakes, or even better, like sponges growing on tree. However, the roofs are all covered outline; a willow, an oak and two apple trees leaned on them with their spreading branches. Small windows with carved whitewashed shutters flicker between the trees and even run out onto the street. A wonderful person, Ivan Ivanovich! The Poltava commissar knows him too! Dorosh Tarasovich Pukhivochka, when he travels from Khorol, he always stops by to see him. And Archpriest Father Peter, who lives in Koliberd, when he has about five guests, always says that he doesn’t know anyone who fulfilled his Christian duty and knew how to live like Ivan Ivanovich.

And Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol did not know, did not know, and in a nightmare he could not have dreamed that not two landowners would quarrel, but two countries, one of which would be Russia, not knowing that part of it would become a completely unfriendly state, Ukraine.

"Aren’t you, Rus, like a brisk, unstoppable troika, rushing along? The road beneath you smokes, the bridges rattle, everything falls behind and is left behind. The contemplator, amazed by God's miracle, stopped: was this lightning thrown from the sky? What does this terrifying movement mean? and what kind of unknown power is contained in these horses, unknown to the light? Oh, horses, horses, what kind of horses! Are there whirlwinds in your manes? Is there a sensitive ear burning in every vein of yours? They heard a familiar song from above, together and at once tensed their copper breasts and, almost without touching the ground with their hooves, turned into just elongated lines flying through the air, and all inspired by God rushes!.. Rus', where are you rushing? Give an answer. Doesn't give an answer. The bell rings with a wonderful ringing; The air, torn into pieces, thunders and becomes the wind; “everything that is on earth flies past, and, looking sideways, other peoples and states step aside and give way to it.”

Gogol's story “How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich” was a prominent element of the educational program of the USSR. Among other things, a good film was made based on the story.

How was this story presented to Soviet schoolchildren? It turns out that Gogol “for the first time in Russian literature he so brightly and mercilessly ridiculed the narrow-mindedness and vulgarity, the baseness and stupidity of the ordinary landowners.”

“The description of the estates, the appearance of the TWO IVANS, their inner world is given in a satirical way. The heroes appear before us in the most disgusting form. The author admires Ivan Ivanovich's bekeshes (bekes, not a person) and his house, and then concludes: “Ivan Ivanovich is a wonderful person!” We understand how little it is to be a good person.”

Etc. and so on.

Meanwhile, the story of Gogol (undoubtedly a man of genius) is only now being revealed in its full breadth. Until recently, Russians did not understand him correctly, not seeing that this was an evil, but very accurate caricature of the Ukrainians, whom Gogol, being a Russian writer, hated to the point of vomiting.

This is a very strange blindness, because Gogol not only did not disguise the anti-Ukrainian character of this work, but emphasized it in every possible way.

His Ivan Ivanovich is not just Ivan Ivanovich, but Ivan Ivanovich Pererepenko, and Ivan Nikiforovich is not just Ivan Nikiforovich, but Ivan Nikiforovich Dovgochkhun. And they live not just anywhere, but in the very center of Ukraine - in the Poltava province, in the city of Mirgorod.

All the characters in the story are Ukrainians with idiotic surnames and idiotic behavior.

The film emphasizes the social affiliation of the Ukrainian “landowners”, so they are dressed more in St. Petersburg fashion, and of a later time.

Although there are Ukrainian types.
The story begins with a description of Bekesha Pererepenko. But what is bekesha? This is nothing more than the Polish and Ukrainian name for a short fur coat, which in turn comes from the wadded caftan of the Magyars, borrowed by the Poles (and from their hands by the Russians).

That is, the beginning of Gogol’s story sounds like this:

“Nice embroidered shirt from Ivan Ivanovich! excellent! And what a collar trim! Wow, what a collar! Beetroot, with frost! I bet God knows what if anyone has one! For God's sake, look at him - especially if he starts talking to someone - look from the side: what kind of gluttony is this! It’s impossible to describe: velvet! silver! fire! Oh my God! Nicholas the Wonderworker, saint of God! Why don’t I have such embroidery! He sewed it back when Agafia Fedoseevna did not go to Kyiv. Do you know Agafia Fedoseevna? the same one who bit off the assessor’s ear.”

(I probably took a bite on the Maidan.)

Secondly, it should be noted that Pererepenko and Dovgochkhun are not nobles at all. That is, they are nobles, but fake, which Gogol constantly emphasizes.

They have no education, they are alien to spiritual interests. Ivan Ivanovich regularly reads the same book with the title torn off - like Chichikov’s servant Petrushka. But he enjoys feeding pigs and turkeys, and also carving bowls and spoons from wood. Pererepenko considers the proof of his noble origin, to which he refers in writing, to be a baptismal record in a book kept in the church, and the limit of learning for him is the seminary. Finally, it turns out that Pererepenko’s father was a priest, who left him “land holdings” - a plot within the town of Mirgorod, where one building is red (all the rest are Ukrainian mud huts), and the main decoration is a huge puddle in the center where pigs splash. True, the roof of the only city building is unpainted, because... The Ukrainians stole the drying oil needed for painting and ate it with onions.

The same calico "nobleman" Dovgochkhun is Pererepenka's neighbor, differing from him in greater rudeness and, so to speak, primitiveness - to the point that he walks around his site in his "natural form".

Actually, these Pererepenko and Dovgochkhun are the Adam and Eve of Ukraine, from whom millions of modern Svidomo came. The real nobles in Ukraine were either Poles or Russians. If a person spoke a peasant dialect, he was not cultured, and he had one way - either to rise to the top and become a man (Pole or Russian), or to drink away the social advance and return to a primitive state.

Also interesting is the description of the conflict between Ukrainian “friends”, which led to a deadly quarrel.

Pererepenko saw that Dovgochkhun had an old broken gun and began to beg for it. He himself did not need a gun; he based his begging on the thesis that his neighbor did not need it. When Dovgochkhun refused to give up the gun, Pererepenko offered not to buy it, but to exchange it for a pig - which, you see, is more than typical.

Diplomatic negotiations between the two boors led to self-entanglement out of nowhere, then Ukrainian idiocy began (neighbors began to harass each other with petty nagging and teasing), then the idiocy turned into Ukrainian sabotage when Pererepenko cut down the damned Muscovite’s goose barn at night, and ended in Ukrainian cowardice and meanness , when, frightened by the consequences of an “act of sabotage,” the dirty trickster, according to Gogol, “decided to run like a hare” and wrote a denunciation or “pozov” in Polish (in Russian it sounds like a medical “urge”) against his friend, with whom he had been inseparable for 20 years. to satisfy physiological needs).

It is characteristic that the neighbor came to the same brilliant idea and on the same day wrote a denunciation himself. In denunciations towards each other, Ukrainians ask the authorities for crazy reprisals: Pererepenko asks to put Dovgochkhun in shackles and put in prison, and Dovgochkhun begs to do the same in relation to Pererepenko, and also to “smear with barbarians” (in Polish “to beat with whips”) ") and sent to Siberia for hard labor.

Next, the matter takes a Ukrainian turn. Firstly, the pig that Pererepenko offered in exchange for a gun climbs into a public place and eats Dovgochkhun’s “poz”. After this, the mayor extorts a bribe from Pererepenko and, satisfied with the patriarchal solution to the issue, tries to reconcile the neighbors. But it was not there. Inspired by Agafya Fedoseevna (whose reincarnation, in my opinion, is Mrs. Nuland), Dovgochkhun decides to give the matter a political overtones and, using the services of a hired political strategist, writes a “call” to the public office, where he accuses officials of colluding with the specially sent pig Pererepenka and on the basis This threat demands that the case be set in motion and the neighbor be imprisoned.

Further, the noble duel of the Ukrainian nobles continues for 12 years, they “bring” the Karbovanites to court on both sides, and the dispute between economic entities continues forever. At the end of the story, Gogol describes the slushy weather and sighs, “It’s boring in this world, gentlemen.” This is, of course, a metaphysical generalization, but against the backdrop of a precise geographical reference.

So, what is the Ukrainian character in brief according to Gogol?

A Ukrainian is a rude person who lives exclusively by material interests. A person is judged by his material manifestations and goes no further than that. Clothing (“bekesha”) is of great importance. Natural rudeness, uncleanliness and rudeness are covered up by the haberdashery learned from the Poles, which is so absurd against the backdrop of hopeless stupidity and cruelty that Ukrainian “Europeanness” produces a diametrically opposite effect (“what’s the matter with me?”). Pererepenko was mortally offended by the “gander”, while against the backdrop of a dialogue consisting of boorish exchanges of pleasantries and boorish claims, the notorious “gander” was almost a compliment, and in general his interlocutor was conducting a conversation NAKED.

The illustrator of the story did not dare to depict the author's intention literally.
The Ukrainian is characterized by pathological callousness and cruelty, which turns into a direct clinic. A complete inability to understand the emotional movements and interests of other people turns into direct mockery and sadism. Because the conversation with the victim itself is interesting and funny for a Ukrainian. Her poking with the hook causes him to orgasm.

It is in this story that Gogol cites the ideal dialogue of a Ukrainian sadist:

“When the service is over, Pererepenko cannot bear to avoid all the beggars. He might not have wanted to do such a boring task if his natural kindness had not prompted him to do so.
- Great, heavens! (i.e., a beggar) - he usually said, having found the most crippled woman, in a tattered dress sewn from patches. -Where are you from, poor thing?
- I, lady, came from the farm: for the third day I didn’t drink or eat, my own children kicked me out.
- Poor little head, why did you come here?
- And so, sir, ask for alms, if anyone will give you some bread.
- Hm! Well, do you really want bread? - Ivan Ivanovich usually asked.
- How can you not want to! hungry as a dog.
- Hm! - Ivan Ivanovich usually answered. - So maybe you want meat too?
- Yes, whatever your mercy gives, I will be happy with everything.
- Hm! Is meat better than bread?
- Where can a hungry person sort it out? Anything you wish is fine.
At the same time, the old woman usually extended her hand.
“Well, go with God,” said Ivan Ivanovich. - Why are you standing there? I'm not hitting you! - and, having addressed such questions to another, to a third, he finally returns home or goes to drink a glass of vodka at his neighbor Ivan Nikiforovich, or at the judge, or at the mayor's office.
Ivan Ivanovich loves it very much if someone gives him a gift or a present. He really likes it."

The subtle mental organization of a sadist leads to constant conflicts and deadly grievances, in which the instigator outwardly unexpectedly begins to behave more like a masochist. In skirmishes, the Ukrainian is cowardly, acts on the sly, and in general the motivation for his social activity is not anger or the desire to restore violated justice, but cowardice. He is prone to frustration, leading to a hysterical and obviously unsuccessful “initiative” - primarily denunciation. Denunciation itself, as a rule, leads to self-incrimination, because the masochistic nature of the Ukrainian turns any denunciation into self-incrimination.

Gogol meticulously writes out the “urges” of Pererepenko and Dovgovchun; both denunciations are legal documents sufficient to initiate criminal proceedings against the informers themselves. Everything is written there in the style:

“A bastard, a scoundrel, a thief, the son of a whore brazenly called me a “gander,” I demand that the slanderer and foul-mouthed man be shackled, since the murderer wants to burn me alive!”

You can imagine the difference between clearing communal areas in Moscow or Kyiv in the 1930s. In Moscow, the informer solemnly entered the vacated room, and in Kyiv he found himself on the next bunk with his neighbor:

“As a conscientious Soviet person who has a letter of commendation from Comrade Trotsky, I inform you that citizen Dovgochhun is a seasoned Japanese spy.”

In Kyiv 2015 we again hear the same roulades:

“Your Excellency, the honorable Pan-American Ambassador, being an officer of the Soviet regiment that shot down your reconnaissance pilot in 1983, I hasten to report that I am ready to show the points of the most effective delivery of thermonuclear strikes in the area of ​​compact residence of the Colorados and their larvae.”

The Ukrainian quickly gets into a social clinch and can never get out of it even with active outside help. This is a one-button tanker with "forward and backward". If “back and forth” is no longer possible, “left and right” will never happen. "Missing."

An extremely important and even defining feature of the Ukrainian is social fictitiousness. A Ukrainian is necessarily appointed by someone (and it is clear by whom - a Russian or a Pole) to a position that is internally alien to him and leads his life into performance and cosplay. Both Pererepenko and Dovgochkhun are acting. landowners. They have never served, they were inscribed in the rank of nobility by the will of the supreme power, they will introduce the lifestyle of urban inhabitants, and, if by city we mean the same fictitious settlement “Mirgorod”, which is essentially a village.

It is not difficult to notice that all these features were preserved over the next 200 years in pristine purity and even intensified. In my opinion, this happened not only because Gogol managed to so accurately capture the national character of the Ukrainians, but because he did this during the period of its inception, and then the lateral and intermittent culture of Ukrainianism went into series through the efforts of world strategists. So Gogol himself unwittingly turned out to be one of the architects of the Ukrainian character - for his work became the cornerstone of the “original” Ukrainian culture. Although, if you look at it, Gogol is interested in the ethnographic types of the southern Russian people, but what they can transform into when fixing and strengthening natural features terrifies him.

Has it ever occurred to you that the mayor in “The Inspector General” is a Ukrainian with a Polish patriarchal ambition, and the only Russians in this Little Russian splendor are a semi-foreigner for the local Khlestakov, as well as his servant, plus the addressee of his message, Tryapichkin?
In turn, Gogol’s “The Inspector General” is not a caricature of Russia or the Russian hinterland, it is an image of an independent Ukraine turned into an absolute fiction. Khlestakov came (apparently to the same Mirgorod) from St. Petersburg. He could previously come from Warsaw in the form of Khlestakovsky, now he, in the form of Khlestman or Khlestow, comes from Berlin or Washington, and the endless Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, Zemlyaniki, Rastakovsky and other Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky cookies are eaten from his hands. And next to it is Derzhimord’s golden eagle. In action. "Guardian".

I think that over the past two years, Russian self-awareness among the people itself has taken a huge step forward. Firstly, the Russians finally saw the Ukrainians, whom they had good-naturedly ignored for a hundred years at lunchtime, and secondly, they suddenly realized that, in comparison with a very similar people, they had surprisingly good qualities: pity, compassion, tolerance, desire come to the rescue, forbearance, disgust for crazy reprisals and sadism.

This is exactly what happens among the people, when aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces shout on the phone from Kyiv and Kharkov at their Moscow, Rostov or Novosibirsk relatives:

Well, there you are, quilted jackets, bastards! May you die! Why are there no money transfers? Have you prepared a place in the hospital? I have a vava - I’ll come to treat you. Well, what are you silent? Reply! I'm not hitting you!

Oh, hang in there. We'll send you a parcel soon and hand over the money - as soon as possible. Come and stay with us for treatment.

And they wipe away the tears themselves:

Poor Kolya, Lena, Sasha (and they’re on the phone: I’m not Sasha to you, you quilted jacket, but Oyleiksyander!!!). It's nothing, it's a disease. They are told on TV, but they believe it.

No, not on TV. And the Russians think it’s on TV. And this is good. For there will be no conflicts with the Perepenki and Dovgochhuns. This is as ridiculous as a conflict with a pig or a puddle. And nice people will serve themselves. Already started. They pile up in the mud, children and grandchildren will curse Drafts to the seventh generation.

Ukrainians have no children. This is an intermental and criminal state of mind, and criminals are not allowed to have children. It is no coincidence that the Ukrainian word “baistryuk” entered the Russian language. Neither Pererepenko nor Dovgochkhun have children, and it’s even worse than not. The widowed Pererepenko gave birth to a dozen bastards, whom he considers servants, and Gogol describes the personal life of Dovgovchun as follows:

“Ivan Nikiforovich was never married. Although they said that he got married, this is a complete lie. I know Ivan Nikiforovich very well and I can say that he did not even have the intention of getting married. Where does all this gossip come from? So, as it was said, Ivan Nikiforovich was born with his tail back. But this invention is so absurd and at the same time vile and indecent that I do not even consider it necessary to refute it before enlightened readers, who, without any doubt, know that only witches, and then very few, have back tails, which, however, belong more to the female sex than to the male sex.”

In general, from Gogol’s point of view, these are not people.

Undoubtedly, in the era described there were few such unique people; we were talking about the life of inter-minor settlements on the sidelines of Russian urban civilization. Therefore, Gogol describes everything quite detachedly, his sarcasm, so to speak, is complacent and melancholic. This also explains the good-natured carelessness of the central authorities towards the morals of the Poltava or Volyn hinterland. If a person has already left the village culture, but has not yet acquired an urban culture, he is obviously in the stage of social molting, which lasts one or two generations. Everything will overgrow and form on its own.

Only “of course” it didn’t work out, because Ukraine and Russia itself were taken into circulation in the 20th century. In Russia, the phase of transition from rural to urban culture has somehow slipped through. And in Ukraine they were stuck in the vestibule, like Dovgochkhun in the doorway of a government office. And now they live in this vestibule (in tents, sheds, dugouts, trenches). And they will live for a long time. Caste. Just not the rulers of the Aryans, as it seems to them in the imagination inflamed by the Poles, but peasants, who, instead of integrating into city life, decided to build village ghettos in the middle of the cities - with flower beds, chicken coops and goose sheds.

Ukrainians will not build a new way of life unprecedented in the world, but will be severely injured. In general, we have already started.

You are going the right way, comrades. "About the European Way." There is a city there, you definitely need to get there.

Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich

Ivan Ivanovich has a nice bekesha! excellent! And what smiles [
]! Wow, what an abyss! blue with frost! I bet God knows what if anyone has these! Take a look at them, for God’s sake, especially if he starts talking to someone, look from the side: what a gluttony this is! It’s impossible to describe: velvet! silver! fire! Oh my God! Nicholas the Wonderworker, saint of God! Why don’t I have such a bekesha! He sewed it back when Agafia Fedoseevna did not go to Kyiv. Do you know Agafia Fedoseevna? the one who bit off the assessor's ear.

A wonderful person, Ivan Ivanovich! What a house he has in Mirgorod! Around it on all sides there is a canopy on oak pillars, under the canopy there are benches everywhere. Ivan Ivanovich, when it gets too hot, will take off his bekesha and underwear, he will remain in only his shirt and rest under the canopy and watch what is happening in the yard and on the street. What apple and pear trees he has right next to his windows! Just open the window and the branches burst into the room. This is all in front of the house; But look what he has in his garden! What's not there! Plums, cherries, sweet cherries, all kinds of vegetable gardens, sunflowers, cucumbers, melons, pods, even a threshing floor and a forge.

A wonderful person, Ivan Ivanovich! He loves melons very much. This is his favorite food. As soon as he has dined and goes out under the canopy in his shirt, he now orders Gapka to bring two melons. And he will cut it himself, collect the seeds in a special piece of paper and start eating. Then he orders Gapka to bring an inkwell and, with his own hand, makes an inscription over a piece of paper with seeds: “This melon was eaten on such and such a date.” If there was any guest, then: “such and such took part.”

The late judge of Mirgorod always admired Ivan Ivanovich’s house. Yes, the house is very nice. I like that there are canopies and canopies attached to it on all sides, so that if you look at it from a distance, you can only see the roofs, planted one on top of the other, which is very similar to a plate filled with pancakes, or even better, like sponges growing on tree. However, the roofs are all covered with an outline [
]; a willow, an oak and two apple trees leaned on them with their spreading branches. Small windows with carved whitewashed shutters flicker between the trees and even run out onto the street.

A wonderful person, Ivan Ivanovich! The Poltava commissar knows him too! Dorosh Tarasovich Pukhivochka, when he travels from Khorol, he always stops by to see him. And Archpriest Father Peter, who lives in Koliberd, when he has about five guests, always says that he doesn’t know anyone who fulfilled his Christian duty and knew how to live like Ivan Ivanovich.

God, how time flies! already then more than ten years had passed since he was widowed. He had no children. Gapka has children and they often run around the yard. Ivan Ivanovich always gives each of them either a bagel, or a piece of melon, or a pear. Gapka carries the keys to the closets and cellars; Ivan Ivanovich keeps the key to the large chest that is in his bedroom and to the middle chest and does not like to let anyone in there. Gapka, a healthy girl, wears a spare tire [
], with fresh calves and cheeks.

And what a pious man Ivan Ivanovich is! Every Sunday he puts on a bekesha and goes to church. Having entered it, Ivan Ivanovich, bowing in all directions, usually sits on the wing and plays his bass very well. When the service is over, Ivan Ivanovich cannot bear it so as not to bypass all the beggars. He might not have wanted to do such a boring task if his natural instinct had not prompted him to do so.