Description of the characters in the story: the owner and the worker. The story “The Master and the Worker” clearly reveals the characteristic features of the late Tolstoy’s artistic style.

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich

Owner and worker

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy

Owner and worker

This was in the seventies, the day after winter Nikola. There was a holiday in the parish, and the village janitor, merchant of the second guild Vasily Andreich Brekhunov, could not be absent: he had to be in church - he was a church elder - and at home he had to receive and treat his relatives and friends. But then the last guests left, and Vasily Andreich began to get ready to immediately go to the neighboring landowner to buy from him a grove that had long been bargained for. Vasily Andreich was in a hurry to leave so that the city merchants would not take this profitable purchase away from him. The young landowner asked ten thousand for the grove only because Vasily Andreich gave seven for it. Seven thousand was only one third of the real value of the grove. Vasily Andreich, perhaps, would have bargained for more, since the forest was in his district, and a procedure had long been established between him and the village district merchants, according to which one merchant did not raise prices in the district of another, but Vasily Andreich learned that the provincial The timber merchants wanted to go and sell the Goryachkinskaya Grove, and he decided to go immediately and finish the matter with the landowner. And therefore, as soon as the holiday passed, he took out his seven hundred rubles from the chest, added two thousand three hundred of the church rubles he had to them, so that there were three thousand rubles, and, carefully counting them and putting them in his wallet, he got ready to go.

Worker Nikita, the only one of Vasily Andreich’s workers who was not drunk that day, ran to harness the horse. Nikita was not drunk that day because he was a drunkard, and now, with the spell, during which he drank from his undershirt and leather boots, he swore off drinking and did not drink for the second month; I didn’t drink now, despite the temptation of drinking wine everywhere during the first two days of the holiday.

Nikita was a fifty-year-old man from a nearby village, a non-owner, as they said about him, who spent most of his life not at home, but among people. Everywhere he was appreciated for his hard work, dexterity and strength in work, most importantly for his kind, pleasant character; but he did not get along anywhere, because twice a year, or even more often, he drank, and then, in addition to drinking everything from himself, he became even more violent and picky. Vasily Andreich also drove him away several times, but then took him again, valuing his honesty, love for animals and, most importantly, his cheapness. Vasily Andreich did not pay Nikita eighty rubles, how much such a worker cost, but forty rubles, which he gave him without calculation, in small change, and even then, for the most part, not in money, but at an expensive price in goods from the store.

Nikita's wife, Marfa, who had once been a beautiful, lively woman, ran the house with a small teenager and two girls and did not invite Nikita to live home, firstly, because she had already been living for twenty years with a cooper, a man from a foreign village, who stood in their house; and secondly, because, although she pushed her husband around as she wanted when he was sober, she was afraid of him like fire when he was drunk. Once, while drunk and drunk at home, Nikita, probably to avenge his wife for all his sober humility, broke into her chest, took out her most precious clothes and, taking an ax, chopped all her sundresses and dresses into small pieces on a stump. The salary Nikita earned was all given to his wife, and Nikita did not contradict this. So now, two days before the holiday, Marfa came to Vasily Andreich and took from him white flour, tea, sugar and octal wine, three rubles in total, and also took five rubles in money and thanked him for this as for a special favor, then how the cheapest price for Vasily Andreich was twenty rubles.

Did we make any kind of arrangements with you? - Vasily Andreich said to Nikita. - You need it - take it, you'll live. I’m not like people: wait, yes, there are settlements, and there are fines. We are honorable. You serve me, and I will not leave you.

And, saying this, Vasily Andreich was sincerely confident that he was doing Nikita a favor: he knew how to speak so convincingly, and so all the people who depended on his money, starting with Nikita, supported him in this conviction that he was not deceiving, but was benefiting them.

Yes, I understand, Vasily Andreich; It seems that I serve, I try, like my own father. “I understand very well,” Nikita answered, understanding very well that Vasily Andreich was deceiving him, but at the same time feeling that there was no point in trying to explain his calculations to him, but he must live until there is no other place, and take what they give.

Now, having received the owner’s order to harness, Nikita, as always, cheerfully and willingly, with the cheerful and light step of his goose-walking feet, went into the barn, took the heavy belt with a brush from the nail there and, rattling the rams of the bit, went to the closed stable, in which The horse that Vasily Andreich ordered to be harnessed stood separately.

Are you bored, bored, you fool? - Nikita said, responding to the weak neigh of greeting with which he was greeted by a medium-sized, somewhat lop-backed, karak, fly-haired stallion standing alone in the stable. - But, but! “If you’re in time, let daddy tell you first,” he spoke to the horse exactly as one speaks to creatures who understand words, and, brushing his hollow, fatty back with a groove in the middle, corroded and covered with dust, he put a bridle on the stallion’s beautiful young head, pulled out his ears and bangs and, throwing off the mud, he led them out to drink.

Carefully getting out of the tall, overgrown barn, Mukhorty began to play and bucked, pretending that he wanted to kick Nikita, who was trotting with him to the well, with his hind leg.

Pamper, spoil, scoundrel! - Nikita said, knowing the care with which Mukhorty raised his back leg just enough to touch his greasy sheepskin coat, but not to hit him, and especially loved this manner.

Having drunk the cold water, the horse sighed, moving his wet, strong lips, from which transparent drops dripped from his whiskers into the trough, and froze, as if deep in thought; then suddenly she snorted loudly.

If you don’t want it, you don’t have to, so we’ll know; “Don’t ask me any more,” said Nikita, completely seriously and thoroughly explaining his behavior to Mukhortom; and again ran to the barn, tugging at the reins of the cheerful young horse, bucking and crackling throughout the yard.

There were no workers; there was only one stranger, the cook's husband who came to the holiday.

Go and ask, dear soul,” Nikita told him, “what kind of sleigh should I order to be harnessed: the small ones or the tiny ones?”

The cook's husband went to the iron-roofed house on a high foundation and soon returned with the news that it was ordered to harness the little ones. Nikita at this time had already put on a collar, tied up a saddle studded with carnations, and, carrying a light painted bow in one hand and leading a horse in the other, approached two sleighs standing under the barn.

“In the little ones, so in the little ones,” he said, and led the clever horse into the shafts, which was all the time pretending that it wanted to bite him, and with the help of the cook, he began harnessing his husband.

I

This was in the seventies, the day after winter Nikola. There was a holiday in the parish, and the village janitor, merchant of the second guild Vasily Andreich Brekhunov, could not be absent: he had to be in church - he was a church elder - and at home he had to receive and treat his relatives and friends. But then the last guests left, and Vasily Andreich began to get ready to immediately go to the neighboring landowner to buy from him a grove that had long been bargained for. Vasily Andreich was in a hurry to leave so that the city merchants would not take this profitable purchase away from him. The young landowner asked ten thousand for the grove only because Vasily Andreich gave seven for it. Seven thousand was only one third of the real value of the grove. Vasily Andreich, perhaps, would have bargained for more, since the forest was in his district and a procedure had long been established between him and the village district merchants, according to which one merchant did not raise prices in the district of another, but Vasily Andreich learned that the provincial timber merchants they wanted to go and sell the Goryachkinskaya Grove, and he decided to go immediately and finish the matter with the landowner. And therefore, as soon as the holiday passed, he took his seven hundred rubles out of the chest, added to them the two thousand three hundred church rubles he had, so that there were three thousand rubles, and, carefully counting them and putting them in his wallet, he got ready to go.

Worker Nikita, the only one of Vasily Andreich’s workers who was not drunk that day, ran to harness the horse. Nikita was not drunk that day because he was a drunkard, and now, with the spell, during which he drank from his undershirt and leather boots, he swore off drinking and did not drink for the second month; I didn’t drink now, despite the temptation of drinking wine everywhere during the first two days of the holiday.

Nikita was a fifty-year-old man from a nearby village, a non-owner, as they said about him, who spent most of his life not at home, but among people. Everywhere he was appreciated for his hard work, dexterity and strength in his work, most importantly for his kind, pleasant character; but he did not get along anywhere, because twice a year, or even more often, he drank, and then, in addition to drinking everything from himself, he became even more violent and picky. Vasily Andreich also drove him away several times, but then took him again, valuing his honesty, love for animals and, most importantly, his cheapness. Vasily Andreich did not pay Nikita eighty rubles, how much such a worker cost, but forty rubles, which he gave him without calculation, in small change, and even then, for the most part, not in money, but at an expensive price in goods from the store.

Nikita's wife, Marfa, who had once been a beautiful, lively woman, ran the house with a small teenager and two girls and did not invite Nikita to live home, firstly, because she had been living for twenty years with a cooper, a man from a foreign village, who stood in their house; and secondly, because, although she pushed her husband around as she wanted when he was sober, she was afraid of him like fire when he was drunk. Once, while drunk and drunk at home, Nikita, probably in order to avenge his wife for all his sober humility, broke into her chest, took out her most precious clothes and, taking an ax, chopped all her sundresses and dresses into small pieces on a stump. The salary Nikita earned was all given to his wife, and Nikita did not contradict this. So now, two days before the holiday, Martha came to Vasily Andreich and took from him white flour, tea, sugar and octane wine, three rubles in total, and also took five rubles in money and thanked him for this as for a special favor, whereas at the cheapest price for Vasily Andreich it was twenty rubles.

– Did we really make any arrangements with you? - Vasily Andreich said to Nikita. – You need it, take it, you’ll live. I’m not like people: wait, yes, there are settlements, and there are fines. We are by honor. You serve me, and I will not leave you. You need it, I will deliver it.

And, saying all this, Vasily Andreich was sincerely convinced that he was benefactoring Nikita: he knew how to speak so convincingly, and so all the people who depended on his money, starting with Nikita, supported him in this conviction that he was not deceiving, but was benefactoring them.

– Yes, I understand, Vasily Andreich; It seems that I serve, I try, like my own father, I understand very well,” Nikita answered, very well understanding that Vasily Andreich was deceiving him, but at the same time feeling that there was no point in trying to explain his calculations with him, but he had to live until there is no other place, and take what they give.

Now, having received the owner’s order to harness, Nikita, as always, cheerfully and willingly, with the cheerful and light step of his goose-walking feet, went into the barn, took the heavy belt with a brush from the nail there and, rattling the rams of the bit, went to the closed stable, in which The horse that Vasily Andreich ordered to be harnessed stood separately.

- What, are you bored, bored, fool? - Nikita said, responding to the weak neigh of greeting with which he was greeted by a medium-sized, somewhat lop-backed, karak, fly-haired stallion standing alone in the stable. - But, but! “If you’re in time, give me some water first,” he spoke to the horse in exactly the same way as one speaks to creatures who understand words, and, having brushed his hollow, fat, corroded and dust-covered back with a groove in the middle, he put a bridle on the stallion’s beautiful young head, pulled out his ears and bangs and, throwing off the mud, he led them out to drink.

Carefully getting out of the highly manured barn, Mukhorty began to play and bucked, pretending that he wanted to kick Nikita, who was trotting with him to the well, with his hind leg.

- Pamper, spoil, scoundrel! - Nikita said, knowing the care with which Mukhorty raised his back leg just enough to touch his greasy sheepskin coat, but not to hit him, and especially loved this manner.

Having drunk the cold water, the horse sighed, moving his wet, strong lips, from which transparent drops dripped from his whiskers into the trough, and froze, as if deep in thought; then suddenly she snorted loudly.

- If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, so we’ll know; “Don’t ask me anymore,” said Nikita, completely seriously and thoroughly explaining his behavior to Mukhortom; and again ran to the barn, tugging at the reins of the cheerful young horse, bucking and crackling throughout the yard.

There were no workers, there was only one stranger, the cook’s husband, who came to the holiday.

“Go and ask, dear soul,” Nikita said to him, “what kind of sleigh should I order to be harnessed: the small ones or the tiny ones?”

The cook's husband went to the iron-roofed house on a high foundation and soon returned with the news that it was ordered to harness the little ones. Nikita at this time had already put on a collar, tied up a saddle covered with carnations, and, carrying a light painted bow in one hand and leading a horse with the other, approached two sleighs standing under the barn.

“In small ones, so in small ones,” he said and led the smart horse into the shafts, which was always pretending that she wanted to bite him, and with the help of the cook, he began harnessing his husband.

When everything was almost ready and all that remained was to start the fire, Nikita sent the cook’s husband to the barn for straw and to the barn for rope.

- That's okay. But, but, don’t push yourself! - Nikita said, kneading the freshly threshed oat straw brought by the cook’s husband in the sleigh. “Now let’s lay the sackcloth down like this, and put a rope on top.” This is how, this is how it’s good to sit,” he said, doing what he said, tucking the rope on top of the straw on all sides around the seat.

“Thank you, dear soul,” Nikita said to the cook’s husband, “everything is faster together.” - And, having disassembled the belt reins with a ring at the connected end, Nikita sat down on the handlebar and set off the good horse, which was asking to go, across the frozen manure of the yard to the gate.

- Uncle Mikit, uncle, uncle! - a seven-year-old boy in a black sheepskin coat, new white felt boots and a warm hat shouted behind him in a thin voice, hastily running out of the hallway into the yard. “Put me down,” he asked, buttoning up his sheepskin coat as he walked.

“Well, well, run, my dear,” said Nikita and, stopping him, he sat down the owner’s pale, thin boy, who was beaming with joy, and drove out into the street.

It was three o'clock. It was frosty - ten degrees, cloudy and windy. Half of the sky was covered with a low dark cloud. But it was quiet outside. On the street, the wind was more noticeable: snow was falling from the roof of the neighboring barn and it was spinning on the corner near the bathhouse. As soon as Nikita rode through the gate and turned his horse towards the porch, Vasily Andreich, with a cigarette in his mouth, in a covered sheepskin sheepskin coat, belted tightly and low with a sash, came out of the entryway onto the high porch trampled with snow, squealing under his skin with covered felt boots, and stopped. . Taking a drag from the rest of his cigarette, he threw it under his feet and stepped on it and, blowing smoke through his mustache and looking askance at the horse as it rode out, began tucking the corners of the collar of his sheepskin coat on both sides of his ruddy face, shaved except for the mustache, with the fur inward, so that the fur would not sweating from breathing.

“Look, what a prosecutor’s office, it’s already in time!” - he said, seeing his little son in the sleigh. Vasily Andreich was excited by the wine he drank with the guests and therefore even more than usual, pleased with everything that belonged to him and everything that he did. The sight of his son, whom he had always called heir in his thoughts, now gave him great pleasure; he looked at him, squinting and baring his long teeth.

Wrapped over her head and shoulders in a woolen scarf, so that only her eyes were visible, Vasily Andreich’s pregnant, pale and thin wife, seeing him off, stood behind him in the entryway.

“Really, I should have taken Nikita,” she said, timidly stepping out from behind the door.

Vasily Andreich did not answer anything and at her words, which were obviously unpleasant to him, he frowned angrily and spat.

“You’ll go with the money,” the wife continued in the same plaintive voice. - And the weather wouldn’t have risen. Really, by God.

Current page: 1 (book has 4 pages in total)

Lev Tolstoy

Owner and worker

This was in the seventies, the day after winter Nikola. There was a holiday in the parish, and the village janitor, merchant of the second guild Vasily Andreich Brekhunov, could not be absent: he had to be in church - he was a church elder - and at home he had to receive and treat his relatives and friends. But then the last guests left, and Vasily Andreich began to get ready to immediately go to the neighboring landowner to buy from him a grove that had long been bargained for. Vasily Andreich was in a hurry to leave so that the city merchants would not take this profitable purchase away from him. The young landowner asked ten thousand for the grove only because Vasily Andreich gave seven for it. Seven thousand was only one third of the real value of the grove. Vasily Andreich, perhaps, would have bargained for more, since the forest was in his district and a procedure had long been established between him and the village district merchants, according to which one merchant did not raise prices in the district of another, but Vasily Andreich learned that the provincial timber merchants they wanted to go and sell the Goryachkinskaya Grove, and he decided to go immediately and finish the matter with the landowner. And therefore, as soon as the holiday passed, he took his seven hundred rubles out of the chest, added to them the two thousand three hundred church rubles he had, so that there were three thousand rubles, and, carefully counting them and putting them in his wallet, he got ready to go.

Worker Nikita, the only one of Vasily Andreich’s workers who was not drunk that day, ran to harness the horse. Nikita was not drunk that day because he was a drunkard, and now, with the spell, during which he drank from his undershirt and leather boots, he swore off drinking and did not drink for the second month; I didn’t drink now, despite the temptation of drinking wine everywhere during the first two days of the holiday.

Nikita was a fifty-year-old man from a nearby village, a non-owner, as they said about him, who spent most of his life not at home, but among people. Everywhere he was appreciated for his hard work, dexterity and strength in his work, most importantly for his kind, pleasant character; but he did not get along anywhere, because twice a year, or even more often, he drank, and then, in addition to drinking everything from himself, he became even more violent and picky. Vasily Andreich also drove him away several times, but then took him again, valuing his honesty, love for animals and, most importantly, his cheapness. Vasily Andreich did not pay Nikita eighty rubles, how much such a worker cost, but forty rubles, which he gave him without calculation, in small change, and even then, for the most part, not in money, but at an expensive price in goods from the store.

Nikita's wife, Marfa, who had once been a beautiful, lively woman, ran the house with a small teenager and two girls and did not invite Nikita to live home, firstly, because she had been living for twenty years with a cooper, a man from a foreign village, who stood in their house; and secondly, because, although she pushed her husband around as she wanted when he was sober, she was afraid of him like fire when he was drunk. Once, while drunk and drunk at home, Nikita, probably in order to avenge his wife for all his sober humility, broke into her chest, took out her most precious clothes and, taking an ax, chopped all her sundresses and dresses into small pieces on a stump. The salary Nikita earned was all given to his wife, and Nikita did not contradict this. So now, two days before the holiday, Martha came to Vasily Andreich and took from him white flour, tea, sugar and octane wine, three rubles in total, and also took five rubles in money and thanked him for this as for a special favor, whereas at the cheapest price for Vasily Andreich it was twenty rubles.

– Did we really make any arrangements with you? - Vasily Andreich said to Nikita. – You need it, take it, you’ll live. I’m not like people: wait, yes, there are settlements, and there are fines. We are by honor. You serve me, and I will not leave you. You need it, I will deliver it.

And, saying all this, Vasily Andreich was sincerely convinced that he was benefactoring Nikita: he knew how to speak so convincingly, and so all the people who depended on his money, starting with Nikita, supported him in this conviction that he was not deceiving, but was benefactoring them.

– Yes, I understand, Vasily Andreich; It seems that I serve, I try, like my own father, I understand very well,” Nikita answered, very well understanding that Vasily Andreich was deceiving him, but at the same time feeling that there was no point in trying to explain his calculations with him, but he had to live until there is no other place, and take what they give.

Now, having received the owner’s order to harness, Nikita, as always, cheerfully and willingly, with the cheerful and light step of his goose-walking feet, went into the barn, took the heavy belt with a brush from the nail there and, rattling the rams of the bit, went to the closed stable, in which The horse that Vasily Andreich ordered to be harnessed stood separately.

- What, are you bored, bored, fool? - Nikita said, responding to the weak neigh of greeting with which he was greeted by a medium-sized, somewhat lop-backed, karak, fly-haired stallion standing alone in the stable. - But, but! “If you’re in time, give me some water first,” he spoke to the horse in exactly the same way as one speaks to creatures who understand words, and, having brushed his hollow, fat, corroded and dust-covered back with a groove in the middle, he put a bridle on the stallion’s beautiful young head, pulled out his ears and bangs and, throwing off the mud, he led them out to drink.

Carefully getting out of the highly manured barn, Mukhorty began to play and bucked, pretending that he wanted to kick Nikita, who was trotting with him to the well, with his hind leg.

- Pamper, spoil, scoundrel! - Nikita said, knowing the care with which Mukhorty raised his back leg just enough to touch his greasy sheepskin coat, but not to hit him, and especially loved this manner.

Having drunk the cold water, the horse sighed, moving his wet, strong lips, from which transparent drops dripped from his whiskers into the trough, and froze, as if deep in thought; then suddenly she snorted loudly.

- If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, so we’ll know; “Don’t ask me anymore,” said Nikita, completely seriously and thoroughly explaining his behavior to Mukhortom; and again ran to the barn, tugging at the reins of the cheerful young horse, bucking and crackling throughout the yard.

There were no workers, there was only one stranger, the cook’s husband, who came to the holiday.

“Go and ask, dear soul,” Nikita said to him, “what kind of sleigh should I order to be harnessed: the small ones or the tiny ones?”

The cook's husband went to the iron-roofed house on a high foundation and soon returned with the news that it was ordered to harness the little ones. Nikita at this time had already put on a collar, tied up a saddle covered with carnations, and, carrying a light painted bow in one hand and leading a horse with the other, approached two sleighs standing under the barn.

“In small ones, so in small ones,” he said and led the smart horse into the shafts, which was always pretending that she wanted to bite him, and with the help of the cook, he began harnessing his husband.

When everything was almost ready and all that remained was to start the fire, Nikita sent the cook’s husband to the barn for straw and to the barn for rope.

- That's okay. But, but, don’t push yourself! - Nikita said, kneading the freshly threshed oat straw brought by the cook’s husband in the sleigh. “Now let’s lay the sackcloth down like this, and put a rope on top.” This is how, this is how it’s good to sit,” he said, doing what he said, tucking the rope on top of the straw on all sides around the seat.

“Thank you, dear soul,” Nikita said to the cook’s husband, “everything is faster together.” - And, having disassembled the belt reins with a ring at the connected end, Nikita sat down on the handlebar and set off the good horse, which was asking to go, across the frozen manure of the yard to the gate.

- Uncle Mikit, uncle, uncle! - a seven-year-old boy in a black sheepskin coat, new white felt boots and a warm hat shouted behind him in a thin voice, hastily running out of the hallway into the yard. “Put me down,” he asked, buttoning up his sheepskin coat as he walked.

“Well, well, run, my dear,” said Nikita and, stopping him, he sat down the owner’s pale, thin boy, who was beaming with joy, and drove out into the street.

It was three o'clock. It was frosty - ten degrees, cloudy and windy. Half of the sky was covered with a low dark cloud. But it was quiet outside. On the street, the wind was more noticeable: snow was falling from the roof of the neighboring barn and it was spinning on the corner near the bathhouse. As soon as Nikita rode through the gate and turned his horse towards the porch, Vasily Andreich, with a cigarette in his mouth, in a covered sheepskin sheepskin coat, belted tightly and low with a sash, came out of the entryway onto the high porch trampled with snow, squealing under his skin with covered felt boots, and stopped. . Taking a drag from the rest of his cigarette, he threw it under his feet and stepped on it and, blowing smoke through his mustache and looking askance at the horse as it rode out, began tucking the corners of the collar of his sheepskin coat on both sides of his ruddy face, shaved except for the mustache, with the fur inward, so that the fur would not sweating from breathing.

“Look, what a prosecutor’s office, it’s already in time!” - he said, seeing his little son in the sleigh. Vasily Andreich was excited by the wine he drank with the guests and therefore even more than usual, pleased with everything that belonged to him and everything that he did. The sight of his son, whom he had always called heir in his thoughts, now gave him great pleasure; he looked at him, squinting and baring his long teeth.

Wrapped over her head and shoulders in a woolen scarf, so that only her eyes were visible, Vasily Andreich’s pregnant, pale and thin wife, seeing him off, stood behind him in the entryway.

“Really, I should have taken Nikita,” she said, timidly stepping out from behind the door.

Vasily Andreich did not answer anything and at her words, which were obviously unpleasant to him, he frowned angrily and spat.

“You’ll go with the money,” the wife continued in the same plaintive voice. - And the weather wouldn’t have risen. Really, by God.

- Well, why don’t I know the road, that I definitely need an escort? - Vasily Andreich said with that unnatural tension of his lips with which he usually spoke with sellers and buyers, pronouncing each syllable with particular clarity.

- Well, really, I would take it, I ask you from God! - the wife repeated, turning the scarf over to the other side.

- That’s how the bath leaf stuck... Well, where can I take it?

“Well, Vasily Andreich, I’m ready,” Nikita said cheerfully. “Only they would have given the horses food without me,” he added, turning to the hostess.

“I’ll take a look, Nikitushka, I’ll tell Semyon,” said the hostess.

- So, should we go, Vasily Andreich? - Nikita said, waiting.

- Yes, it’s obvious to respect the old woman. “Just if you’re going, go and put on a warmer suitcase,” Vasily Andreich said, smiling again and winking at Nikita’s sheepskin coat, torn under the armpits and in the back and at the hem, fringed, greasy and matted, having seen everything.

- Hey, dear soul, go out, hold the horse! - Nikita shouted to the cook’s husband into the yard.

- I myself, I myself! - the boy squeaked, taking his cold red hands out of his pockets and grabbing the cold belt reins with them.

- Just don’t be too pretentious about your diplomat, be quick! - Vasily Andreich shouted, mocking Nikita.

“One puff, Father Vasily Andreich,” said Nikita and, quickly flashing his socks inside his old felt boots lined with felt soles, he ran into the yard and into the work hut.

- Come on, Arinushka, give me my robe from the stove - to go with the owner! - Nikita said, running into the hut and taking the sash off the nail.

The worker, who had slept after lunch and was now setting up the samovar for her husband, cheerfully greeted Nikita and, infected by his haste, just like him, quickly moved and took out from the stove a poor, worn-out cloth caftan that was drying there and began to hastily shake off and knead it.

“You and your master will have plenty of room to walk,” said Nikita to the cook, who always, out of good-natured politeness, said something to a person when he was alone with him.

And, drawing the narrow, matted sash around him, he pulled in his already skinny belly and pulled on his sheepskin coat as hard as he could.

“That’s it,” he said after that, turning not to the cook, but to the sash, tucking its ends into his belt. - You can’t jump out like that! - and, raising and lowering his shoulders so that there was a looseness in his hands, he put on a robe on top, also strained his back so that his arms were free, tucked them under his arms and took out mittens from the shelf. - Well, that's okay.

“You should, Stepanych, change your legs,” said the cook, “otherwise the boots are thin.”

Nikita stopped, as if remembering.

- It should be... Well, it will do just like that, not far away!

And he ran into the yard.

“Won’t you be cold, Nikitushka?” - said the hostess when he approached the sleigh.

“Why is it cold, it’s warm at all,” answered Nikita, straightening the straw in the heads of the sleigh to cover his legs, and tucking the whip, which was unnecessary for a good horse, under the straw.

Vasily Andreich was already sitting in the sleigh, filling almost the entire curved back of the sleigh with his back, dressed in two fur coats, and immediately, taking the reins, he set off the horse. As Nikita walked, he sat down in front on the left side and stuck out one leg.

The good stallion, with a slight creaking of the runners, moved the sled and set off at a brisk pace along the frosty road in the village.

-Where are you going? Give me the whip, Mikita! - Vasily Andreich shouted, obviously rejoicing at the heir, who was perched behind on the runners. - I love you! Run to your mother, you son of a bitch.

The boy jumped off. Mukhorty increased his amble and, stuttering, switched to a trot.

The crosses in which Vasily Andreich’s house stood consisted of six houses. As soon as they left the last blacksmith's hut, they immediately noticed that the wind was much stronger than they thought. The road was almost no longer visible. The track of the runners was immediately covered up, and the road could only be distinguished by the fact that it was higher than the rest of the place. There was smoking all over the field, and the line where the earth meets the sky was not visible. The Velyatinsky forest, always clearly visible, only occasionally became dimly black through the snow dust. The wind blew from the left side, stubbornly twisting the mane on Mukhorty’s steep, well-fed neck to one side, and twisting his fluffy tail, tied in a simple knot, to one side. The long collar of Nikita, who was sitting on the side of the wind, pressed against his face and nose.

“She doesn’t really run, it’s snowy,” said Vasily Andreich, proud of his good horse. “I once drove it to Pashutino, and it delivered in half an hour.”

- Chago? – Nikita asked, unable to hear because of his collar.

“I got to Pashutino, I say, in half an hour,” shouted Vasily Andreich.

- Needless to say, the horse is good! - Nikita said.

They were silent. But Vasily Andreich wanted to talk.

- Well, did I tell the cooper not to give tea to the hostess? - Vasily Andreich spoke in the same loud voice, so confident that Nikita should be flattered to talk to such an important and intelligent person like him, and so pleased with his joke that it never occurred to him that this conversation might be unpleasant Nikita.

Nikita again did not hear the sound of the owner’s words carried by the wind.

Vasily Andreich repeated his joke about the cooper in his loud, distinct voice.

- God be with them, Vasily Andreich, I don’t delve into these matters. I don’t want her to offend the little ones, otherwise God be with her.

“That’s true,” said Vasily Andreich. - Well, are you going to buy a horse in the spring? – he began a new subject of conversation.

“Yes, we can’t avoid it,” answered Nikita, turning away the collar of his caftan and bending over to the owner.

Now Nikita was interested in the conversation, and he wanted to hear everything.

“The kid has grown up, you have to plow yourself, otherwise everyone is hired,” he said.

- Well, take the cutless one, I won’t put it at a price! - Vasily Andreich shouted, feeling excited and as a result of this attacking his favorite occupation, which absorbed all his mental strength, - profiteering.

“If you give me fifteen rubles, I’ll buy it from a horse-drawn horse,” said Nikita, who knew that the red price for the cutless horse that Vasily Andreich wanted to sell him was seven rubles, and that Vasily Andreich, having given him this horse, would count it at twenty-five rubles , and then you won’t see any money from him in six months.

- The horse is good. I wish you as much as I wish myself. According to conscience. Liars will not offend any person. Let what is mine disappear, and not like others. By honor,” he shouted in that voice with which he charmed his sellers and buyers. - The horse is real!

“As it is,” Nikita said, sighing, and, making sure that there was nothing more to listen to, he pulled down his collar with his hand, which immediately covered his ear and face.

They drove in silence for half an hour. The wind blew through Nikita's side and arm, where his fur coat was torn.

He shrugged and breathed into the collar that covered his mouth, and he didn’t feel cold at all.

- What do you think, should we go to Karamyshevo or go straight? – asked Vasily Andreich.

On Karamyshevo the driving was on a more active road, installed with good markers in two rows, but further. It was closer straight ahead, but the road was little traveled and there were no markers or they were bad and out of place.

Nikita thought for a moment.

“But you can’t get lost if you drive straight through the hollow, but it’s good through the forest,” said Vasily Andreich, who wanted to go straight.

“It’s your choice,” Nikita said and pulled down his collar again.

Vasily Andreich did so and, having driven off half a mile, near a tall oak branch that was blowing in the wind, with dry leaves hanging here and there on it, he turned left.

The wind from the turn became almost counter to them. And it snowed from above. Vasily Andreich ruled, puffed out his cheeks and blew the spirit from below into his mustache. Nikita was dozing.

They drove like this in silence for about ten minutes. Suddenly Vasily Andreich said something.

- Chago? – Nikita asked, opening his eyes.

Vasily Andreich did not answer, but twisted, looking back and forth in front of the horse. The horse, curled with sweat in its groins and neck, walked at a walk.

- What are you doing, I say? – Nikita repeated.

“Chago, chago,” Vasily Andreich mimicked him angrily. - There are no landmarks in sight! They must have lost their way!

“Then wait, I’ll look at the road,” said Nikita and, easily jumping off the sleigh and taking out a whip from under the straw, he went to the left and from the side on which he was sitting.

The snow this year was shallow, so there was a road everywhere, but still in some places it was knee-deep and fell into Nikita’s boot. Nikita walked, felt with his feet and whip, but there was no road anywhere.

- Well? - said Vasily Andreich when Nikita approached the sleigh again.

- There is no road on this side. We need to go in that direction.

“There’s something black ahead, go there and look,” said Vasily Andreich.

Nikita went there too, approached what was turning black - this was the blackening soil that had poured from the bare winter fields on top of the snow and had colored the snow black. After walking to the right, Nikita returned to the sleigh, brushed off the snow, shook it out of his boot and sat down in the sleigh.

“We need to go to the right,” he said decisively. “The wind was on my left side, but now it’s straight in my face.” Go right! – he said decisively.

Vasily Andreich listened to him and took to the right. But there was still no road. They drove like this for some time. The wind did not decrease, and it began to snow.

“And we, Vasily Andreich, apparently have completely lost our way,” Nikita suddenly said, as if with pleasure. - What's this? - he said, pointing to black potato tops sticking out from under the snow.

Vasily Andreich stopped the horse, which was already sweating and was moving heavily with its steep sides.

- And what? - he asked.

- And the fact that we are on the Zakharovsky field. That's where we went!

- Is it wrong? - Vasily Andreich responded.

“I’m not lying, Vasily Andreich, but I’m telling the truth,” said Nikita, “and you can hear on the sleigh - we’re going through the potato fields, and there are heaps of tops being brought in.” Zakharovskoe factory field.

- See where you've gone astray! - said Vasily Andreich. - How can this be?

“But we have to take it straight away, that’s all, let’s go somewhere,” Nikita said. - If not to Zakharovka, we’ll go to the manor’s farm.

Vasily Andreich obeyed and let the horse go, as Nikita ordered. They drove like this for quite a long time. Sometimes they drove out beyond the bare greenery, and the sleigh rattled over the ridges of frozen earth, sometimes they drove out into the stubble fields, then winter, then spring, along which from under the snow one could see wormwood and straws dangling from the wind; sometimes we drove out into deep, uniformly white snow everywhere, beyond which nothing was visible.

Snow fell from above and sometimes rose from below. The horse was obviously exhausted, all curled up and covered in frost from sweat, and walked at a walk. Suddenly she broke off and sat down in a pond or ditch. Vasily Andreich wanted to stop, but Nikita shouted at him.

- What to hold on to! We arrived - we need to leave. But, darling! But! but, dear! - he shouted in a cheerful voice at the horse, jumping out of the sleigh and getting stuck in the ditch.

The horse rushed and immediately climbed out onto the frozen embankment. Apparently it was a dug ditch.

-Where are we? - said Vasily Andreich.

- But we’ll find out! - Nikita answered. - Touch it and know. We'll go somewhere.

- But this must be the Goryachkinsky forest? - said Vasily Andreich, pointing to something black that appeared from behind the snow in front of them.

“We’ll drive up and see what the forest is like,” Nikita said.

Nikita saw that dry elongated vine leaves were rushing from the direction of something blackened, and therefore he knew that this was not a forest, but a dwelling, but did not want to talk.

And indeed, they had not even gone ten fathoms after the ditch when the trees in front of them apparently turned black and some new dull sound was heard. Nikita guessed correctly: it was not a forest, but a row of tall vines with leaves still flapping on them here and there. The lozins were obviously planted along the threshing floor ditch. Having approached the vineyards that were sadly humming in the wind, the horse suddenly rose with its front legs higher than the sleigh, climbed out onto a hill with its hind legs, turned to the left and stopped sinking into the snow up to its knees. This was the road.

“So we’ve arrived,” said Nikita, “but we don’t know where.”

The horse, without losing his way, walked along the snow-covered road, and they had not traveled forty fathoms along it when the straight strip of the fence of the barn turned black under the roof, thickly covered with snow, from which snow was constantly falling. Having passed Riga, the road turned downwind, and they drove into a snowdrift. But ahead was an alley between two houses, so, obviously, a snowdrift had blown up on the road and it was necessary to cross it. And indeed, having driven over a snowdrift, they drove into the street. Near the outer yard, frozen clothes hung desperately on a rope in the wind: shirts, one red, one white, trousers, onuchi and a skirt. The white shirt was especially desperately torn, waving its sleeves.

“Look, the woman is lazy, or else dying, she didn’t pack her laundry for the holiday,” Nikita said, looking at the dangling shirts.

“It was in the seventies, the day after winter Nikola. There was a holiday in the parish, and the village janitor, merchant of the second guild Vasily Andreich Brekhunov, could not be absent: he had to be in church - he was a church elder - and at home he had to receive and treat his relatives and friends. But then the last guests left, and Vasily Andreich began to get ready to immediately go to the neighboring landowner to buy from him a grove that had long been bargained for. Vasily Andreich was in a hurry to leave so that the city merchants would not take this profitable purchase away from him. The young landowner asked ten thousand for the grove only because Vasily Andreich gave seven for it. Seven thousand was only one third of the real value of the grove...”

This was in the seventies, the day after winter Nikola. There was a holiday in the parish, and the village janitor, merchant of the second guild Vasily Andreich Brekhunov, could not be absent: he had to be in church - he was a church elder - and at home he had to receive and treat his relatives and friends. But then the last guests left, and Vasily Andreich began to get ready to immediately go to the neighboring landowner to buy from him a grove that had long been bargained for. Vasily Andreich was in a hurry to leave so that the city merchants would not take this profitable purchase away from him. The young landowner asked ten thousand for the grove only because Vasily Andreich gave seven for it. Seven thousand was only one third of the real value of the grove. Vasily Andreich, perhaps, would have bargained for more, since the forest was in his district and a procedure had long been established between him and the village district merchants, according to which one merchant did not raise prices in the district of another, but Vasily Andreich learned that the provincial timber merchants they wanted to go and sell the Goryachkinskaya Grove, and he decided to go immediately and finish the matter with the landowner. And therefore, as soon as the holiday passed, he took his seven hundred rubles out of the chest, added to them the two thousand three hundred church rubles he had, so that there were three thousand rubles, and, carefully counting them and putting them in his wallet, he got ready to go.

Worker Nikita, the only one of Vasily Andreich’s workers who was not drunk that day, ran to harness the horse. Nikita was not drunk that day because he was a drunkard, and now, with the spell, during which he drank from his undershirt and leather boots, he swore off drinking and did not drink for the second month; I didn’t drink now, despite the temptation of drinking wine everywhere during the first two days of the holiday.

Nikita was a fifty-year-old man from a nearby village, a non-owner, as they said about him, who spent most of his life not at home, but among people. Everywhere he was appreciated for his hard work, dexterity and strength in his work, most importantly for his kind, pleasant character; but he did not get along anywhere, because twice a year, or even more often, he drank, and then, in addition to drinking everything from himself, he became even more violent and picky. Vasily Andreich also drove him away several times, but then took him again, valuing his honesty, love for animals and, most importantly, his cheapness. Vasily Andreich did not pay Nikita eighty rubles, how much such a worker cost, but forty rubles, which he gave him without calculation, in small change, and even then, for the most part, not in money, but at an expensive price in goods from the store.

Nikita's wife, Marfa, who had once been a beautiful, lively woman, ran the house with a small teenager and two girls and did not invite Nikita to live home, firstly, because she had been living for twenty years with a cooper, a man from a foreign village, who stood in their house; and secondly, because, although she pushed her husband around as she wanted when he was sober, she was afraid of him like fire when he was drunk. Once, while drunk and drunk at home, Nikita, probably in order to avenge his wife for all his sober humility, broke into her chest, took out her most precious clothes and, taking an ax, chopped all her sundresses and dresses into small pieces on a stump. The salary Nikita earned was all given to his wife, and Nikita did not contradict this. So now, two days before the holiday, Martha came to Vasily Andreich and took from him white flour, tea, sugar and octane wine, three rubles in total, and also took five rubles in money and thanked him for this as for a special favor, whereas at the cheapest price for Vasily Andreich it was twenty rubles.

– Did we really make any arrangements with you? - Vasily Andreich said to Nikita. – You need it, take it, you’ll live. I’m not like people: wait, yes, there are settlements, and there are fines. We are by honor. You serve me, and I will not leave you. You need it, I will deliver it.

And, saying all this, Vasily Andreich was sincerely convinced that he was benefactoring Nikita: he knew how to speak so convincingly, and so all the people who depended on his money, starting with Nikita, supported him in this conviction that he was not deceiving, but was benefactoring them.

– Yes, I understand, Vasily Andreich; It seems that I serve, I try, like my own father, I understand very well,” Nikita answered, very well understanding that Vasily Andreich was deceiving him, but at the same time feeling that there was no point in trying to explain his calculations with him, but he had to live until there is no other place, and take what they give.

Now, having received the owner’s order to harness, Nikita, as always, cheerfully and willingly, with the cheerful and light step of his goose-walking feet, went into the barn, took the heavy belt with a brush from the nail there and, rattling the rams of the bit, went to the closed stable, in which The horse that Vasily Andreich ordered to be harnessed stood separately.

- What, are you bored, bored, fool? - Nikita said, responding to the weak neigh of greeting with which he was greeted by a medium-sized, somewhat lop-backed, karak, fly-haired stallion standing alone in the stable. - But, but! “If you’re in time, give me some water first,” he spoke to the horse in exactly the same way as one speaks to creatures who understand words, and, having brushed his hollow, fat, corroded and dust-covered back with a groove in the middle, he put a bridle on the stallion’s beautiful young head, pulled out his ears and bangs and, throwing off the mud, he led them out to drink.

Carefully getting out of the highly manured barn, Mukhorty began to play and bucked, pretending that he wanted to kick Nikita, who was trotting with him to the well, with his hind leg.

- Pamper, spoil, scoundrel! - Nikita said, knowing the care with which Mukhorty raised his back leg just enough to touch his greasy sheepskin coat, but not to hit him, and especially loved this manner.

Having drunk the cold water, the horse sighed, moving his wet, strong lips, from which transparent drops dripped from his whiskers into the trough, and froze, as if deep in thought; then suddenly she snorted loudly.

- If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, so we’ll know; “Don’t ask me anymore,” said Nikita, completely seriously and thoroughly explaining his behavior to Mukhortom; and again ran to the barn, tugging at the reins of the cheerful young horse, bucking and crackling throughout the yard.

There were no workers, there was only one stranger, the cook’s husband, who came to the holiday.

“Go and ask, dear soul,” Nikita said to him, “what kind of sleigh should I order to be harnessed: the small ones or the tiny ones?”

The cook's husband went to the iron-roofed house on a high foundation and soon returned with the news that it was ordered to harness the little ones. Nikita at this time had already put on a collar, tied up a saddle covered with carnations, and, carrying a light painted bow in one hand and leading a horse with the other, approached two sleighs standing under the barn.

“In small ones, so in small ones,” he said and led the smart horse into the shafts, which was always pretending that she wanted to bite him, and with the help of the cook, he began harnessing his husband.

When everything was almost ready and all that remained was to start the fire, Nikita sent the cook’s husband to the barn for straw and to the barn for rope.

- That's okay. But, but, don’t push yourself! - Nikita said, kneading the freshly threshed oat straw brought by the cook’s husband in the sleigh. “Now let’s lay the sackcloth down like this, and put a rope on top.” This is how, this is how it’s good to sit,” he said, doing what he said, tucking the rope on top of the straw on all sides around the seat.

“Thank you, dear soul,” Nikita said to the cook’s husband, “everything is faster together.” - And, having disassembled the belt reins with a ring at the connected end, Nikita sat down on the handlebar and set off the good horse, which was asking to go, across the frozen manure of the yard to the gate.

- Uncle Mikit, uncle, uncle! - a seven-year-old boy in a black sheepskin coat, new white felt boots and a warm hat shouted behind him in a thin voice, hastily running out of the hallway into the yard. “Put me down,” he asked, buttoning up his sheepskin coat as he walked.

“Well, well, run, my dear,” said Nikita and, stopping him, he sat down the owner’s pale, thin boy, who was beaming with joy, and drove out into the street.

It was three o'clock. It was frosty - ten degrees, cloudy and windy. Half of the sky was covered with a low dark cloud. But it was quiet outside. On the street, the wind was more noticeable: snow was falling from the roof of the neighboring barn and it was spinning on the corner near the bathhouse. As soon as Nikita rode through the gate and turned his horse towards the porch, Vasily Andreich, with a cigarette in his mouth, in a covered sheepskin sheepskin coat, belted tightly and low with a sash, came out of the entryway onto the high porch trampled with snow, squealing under his skin with covered felt boots, and stopped. . Taking a drag from the rest of his cigarette, he threw it under his feet and stepped on it and, blowing smoke through his mustache and looking askance at the horse as it rode out, began tucking the corners of the collar of his sheepskin coat on both sides of his ruddy face, shaved except for the mustache, with the fur inward, so that the fur would not sweating from breathing.

“Look, what a prosecutor’s office, it’s already in time!” - he said, seeing his little son in the sleigh. Vasily Andreich was excited by the wine he drank with the guests and therefore even more than usual, pleased with everything that belonged to him and everything that he did. The sight of his son, whom he had always called heir in his thoughts, now gave him great pleasure; he looked at him, squinting and baring his long teeth.

Wrapped over her head and shoulders in a woolen scarf, so that only her eyes were visible, Vasily Andreich’s pregnant, pale and thin wife, seeing him off, stood behind him in the entryway.

“Really, I should have taken Nikita,” she said, timidly stepping out from behind the door.

Vasily Andreich did not answer anything and at her words, which were obviously unpleasant to him, he frowned angrily and spat.

“You’ll go with the money,” the wife continued in the same plaintive voice. - And the weather wouldn’t have risen. Really, by God.

- Well, why don’t I know the road, that I definitely need an escort? - Vasily Andreich said with that unnatural tension of his lips with which he usually spoke with sellers and buyers, pronouncing each syllable with particular clarity.

- Well, really, I would take it, I ask you from God! - the wife repeated, turning the scarf over to the other side.

- That’s how the bath leaf stuck... Well, where can I take it?

“Well, Vasily Andreich, I’m ready,” Nikita said cheerfully. “Only they would have given the horses food without me,” he added, turning to the hostess.

“I’ll take a look, Nikitushka, I’ll tell Semyon,” said the hostess.

- So, should we go, Vasily Andreich? - Nikita said, waiting.

- Yes, it’s obvious to respect the old woman. “Just if you’re going, go and put on a warmer suitcase,” Vasily Andreich said, smiling again and winking at Nikita’s sheepskin coat, torn under the armpits and in the back and at the hem, fringed, greasy and matted, having seen everything.

- Hey, dear soul, go out, hold the horse! - Nikita shouted to the cook’s husband into the yard.

- I myself, I myself! - the boy squeaked, taking his cold red hands out of his pockets and grabbing the cold belt reins with them.

- Just don’t be too pretentious about your diplomat, be quick! - Vasily Andreich shouted, mocking Nikita.

“One puff, Father Vasily Andreich,” said Nikita and, quickly flashing his socks inside his old felt boots lined with felt soles, he ran into the yard and into the work hut.

- Come on, Arinushka, give me my robe from the stove - to go with the owner! - Nikita said, running into the hut and taking the sash off the nail.

The worker, who had slept after lunch and was now setting up the samovar for her husband, cheerfully greeted Nikita and, infected by his haste, just like him, quickly moved and took out from the stove a poor, worn-out cloth caftan that was drying there and began to hastily shake off and knead it.

“You and your master will have plenty of room to walk,” said Nikita to the cook, who always, out of good-natured politeness, said something to a person when he was alone with him.

And, drawing the narrow, matted sash around him, he pulled in his already skinny belly and pulled on his sheepskin coat as hard as he could.

“That’s it,” he said after that, turning not to the cook, but to the sash, tucking its ends into his belt. - You can’t jump out like that! - and, raising and lowering his shoulders so that there was a looseness in his hands, he put on a robe on top, also strained his back so that his arms were free, tucked them under his arms and took out mittens from the shelf. - Well, that's okay.

“You should, Stepanych, change your legs,” said the cook, “otherwise the boots are thin.”

Nikita stopped, as if remembering.

- It should be... Well, it will do just like that, not far away!

And he ran into the yard.

“Won’t you be cold, Nikitushka?” - said the hostess when he approached the sleigh.

“Why is it cold, it’s warm at all,” answered Nikita, straightening the straw in the heads of the sleigh to cover his legs, and tucking the whip, which was unnecessary for a good horse, under the straw.

Vasily Andreich was already sitting in the sleigh, filling almost the entire curved back of the sleigh with his back, dressed in two fur coats, and immediately, taking the reins, he set off the horse. As Nikita walked, he sat down in front on the left side and stuck out one leg.

This publication is an electronic version of the 90-volume collected works of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, published in 1928-1958. This unique academic publication, the most complete collection of Leo Tolstoy’s legacy, has long become a bibliographic rarity. In 2006, the Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate, in collaboration with the Russian State Library and with the support of the E. Mellon Foundation and coordination The British Council scanned all 90 volumes of the publication. However, in order to enjoy all the advantages of the electronic version (reading on modern devices, the ability to work with text), more than 46,000 pages still had to be recognized. For this purpose, the State Museum of L. N. Tolstoy, the museum-estate “Yasnaya Polyana”, together with its partner - the ABBYY company, opened the project “All Tolstoy in one click”. On the website readingtolstoy.ru, more than three thousand volunteers joined the project, using the ABBYY FineReader program to recognize text and correct errors. The first stage of reconciliation was completed in just ten days, and the second in another two months. After the third stage of proofreading volumes and individual works published electronically on the website tolstoy.ru.

The edition preserves the spelling and punctuation of the printed version of the 90-volume collected works of L. N. Tolstoy.

Head of the project “All Tolstoy in one click”

Fekla Tolstaya

Reproduction is permitted free of charge.

Tolstoy in Begichevka.

Photo from 1892

OWNER AND WORKER

I

This was in the 70s, the day after winter Nikola. There was a holiday in the parish, and the village janitor, merchant of the 2nd guild Vasily Andreich Brekhunov, could not be absent: he had to be in church - he was a church elder - and at home he had to receive and treat his relatives and friends. But then the last guests left, and Vasily Andreich began to get ready to immediately go to the neighboring landowner to buy from him a grove that had long been bargained for. Vasily Andreich was in a hurry to leave so that the city merchants would not take this profitable purchase away from him. The young landowner asked ten thousand for the grove only because Vasily Andreich gave seven for it. Seven thousand was only one third of the real value of the grove. Vasily Andreich, perhaps, would have bargained for more, since the forest was in his district, and a procedure had long been established between him and the village district merchants, according to which one merchant did not raise prices in the district of another, but Vasily Andreich learned that the provincial The timber merchants wanted to go and sell the Goryachkinskaya Grove, and he decided to go immediately and finish the matter with the landowner. And therefore, as soon as the holiday passed, he took out his 700 rubles from the chest, added to them the 2300 church rubles he had, so that there were 3000 rubles, and, carefully counting them and putting them in his wallet, he got ready to go.

Worker Nikita, the only one not drunk that day; one of Vasily Andreich's workers ran to harness it. Nikita was not drunk that day because he was a drunkard, and now, with the spell, during which he drank from his undershirt and leather boots, he swore off drinking and did not drink for the second month; I didn’t drink now, despite the temptation of drinking wine everywhere during the first two days of the holiday.

Nikita was a 50-year-old man from a nearby village, not a master, as they said about him, who spent most of his life not at home, but among people. Everywhere he was appreciated for his hard work, dexterity and strength in his work, most importantly for his kind, pleasant character; but he did not get along anywhere, because twice a year, or even more often, he drank, and then, in addition to drinking everything from himself, he became even more violent and picky. Vasily Andreich also drove him away several times, but then took him again, valuing his honesty, love for animals and, most importantly, his cheapness. Vasily Andreich paid Nikita not 80 rubles, how much such a worker cost, but 40 rubles, which he gave him without calculation, in small things, and even then, for the most part, not in money, but at an expensive price in goods from the store.

Nikita's wife, Marfa, who was once a beautiful, lively woman, managed the house with a small teenager and two girls and did not invite Nikita to live home, firstly, because for 20 years she had already lived with a cooper, a man from a foreign village, who stood at them in the house; and secondly, because, although she pushed her husband around as she wanted when he was sober, she was afraid of him like fire when he got drunk. Once, while drunk and drunk at home, Nikita, probably in order to avenge his wife for all his sober humility, broke into her chest, took out her most precious clothes and, taking an ax, chopped all her sundresses and dresses into small pieces on a stump. The salary Nikita earned was all given to his wife, and Nikita did not contradict this. So now, two days before the holiday, Marfa came to Vasily Andreich and took from him white flour, tea, sugar and octal wine, three rubles in total, and also took five rubles in money and thanked him for this as for a special favor, then how the cheapest price for Vasily Andreich was 20 rubles.

– Did we really make any arrangements with you? - Vasily Andreich said to Nikita. – You need it, take it, you’ll live. I’m not like people: wait, yes, there are settlements, and there are fines. We are honorable. You serve me, and I will not leave you.

And, saying this, Vasily Andreich was sincerely convinced that he was doing Nikita a favor: he knew how to speak so convincingly, and so all the people who depended on his money, starting with Nikita, supported him in this conviction that he was not deceiving, but was benefactoring them.

– Yes, I understand, Vasily Andreich; It seems that I serve, I try, like my own father. “I understand very well,” Nikita answered, understanding very well that Vasily Andreich was deceiving him, but at the same time feeling that there was no point in trying to explain his calculations to him, but he had to live until there was no other place, and take what they gave.

Now, having received the owner’s order to harness, Nikita, as always, cheerfully and willingly, with the cheerful and light step of his goose-walking feet, went into the barn, took the heavy belt with a brush from the nail there and, rattling the rams of the bit, went to the closed stable, in which The horse that Vasily Andreich ordered to be harnessed stood separately.

- What, are you bored, bored, fool? - Nikita said, responding to the weak neigh of greeting with which he was greeted by a medium-sized, somewhat lop-backed, karak, fly-haired stallion standing alone in the stable. - But, but! “If you’re in time, give me some water first,” he spoke to the horse exactly as one speaks to creatures who understand words, and, brushing his hollow, fatty back with a groove in the middle, corroded and covered with dust, he put a bridle on the stallion’s beautiful young head, pulled out his ears and forelocks. and, throwing off the mud, he led them out to drink.

Carefully getting out of the highly manured barn, Mukhorty began to play and bucked, pretending that he wanted to kick Nikita, who was trotting with him to the well, with his hind leg.

- Pamper, spoil, scoundrel! - Nikita said, knowing the care with which Mukhorty raised his back leg just enough to touch his greasy sheepskin coat, but not to hit him, and especially loved this manner.

Having drunk the cold water, the horse sighed, moving his wet, strong lips, from which transparent drops dripped from his whiskers into the trough, and froze, as if deep in thought; then suddenly she snorted loudly.

- If you don’t want to, you don’t have to, we’ll know; “Don’t ask me anymore,” said Nikita, completely seriously and thoroughly explaining his behavior to Mukhortom; and again ran to the barn, tugging at the reins of the cheerful young horse, bucking and crackling throughout the yard.

There were no workers; there was only one stranger, the cook's husband who came to the holiday.

“Go and ask, dear soul,” Nikita told him, “what kind of sleigh should I order to be harnessed: the small ones or the tiny ones?”

The cook's husband went to the iron-roofed house on a high foundation and soon returned with the news that it was ordered to harness the little ones. Nikita at this time had already put on a collar, tied up a saddle studded with carnations, and, carrying a light painted bow in one hand and leading a horse in the other, approached two sleighs standing under the barn.

“In the little ones, so in the little ones,” he said and led the smart horse into the shafts, all the time pretending that it wanted to bite him, and with the help of the cook, he began harnessing his husband.

When everything was almost ready and all that remained was to start the fire, Nikita sent the cook’s husband to the barn for straw and to the barn for rope.

- That's okay. But, but, don’t push yourself! - Nikita said, kneading the freshly threshed oat straw brought by the cook’s husband in the sleigh. - Now let’s lay the sackcloth down like this, and put the rope on top. This is how, this is how it will be good to sit,” he said, doing what he said, tucking the rope on top of the straw on all sides around the seat.

“Thank you, dear soul,” Nikita said to the cook’s husband, “everything is faster together.” - And, having disassembled the belt reins with a ring at the connected end, Nikita sat down on the handlebar and set off the good horse, which was asking to go, across the frozen manure of the yard to the gate.

- Uncle Mikit, uncle, uncle! - a seven-year-old boy in a black sheepskin coat, new white felt boots and a warm hat shouted behind him in a thin voice, hastily running out of the hallway into the yard. “Put me down,” he asked, buttoning up his sheepskin coat as he walked.

“Well, well, run, my dear,” said Nikita and, stopping him, he sat down the owner’s pale, thin boy, who was beaming with joy, and drove out into the street.

It was three o'clock. It was frosty - 10 degrees, cloudy and windy. Half of the sky was covered with a low dark cloud. But it was quiet outside. On the street, the wind was more noticeable: snow was falling from the roof of the neighboring barn and it was twisting on the corner, near the bathhouse. As soon as Nikita rode out through the gate and turned his horse towards the porch, Vasily Andreich, with a cigarette in his mouth, in a covered sheepskin sheepskin coat, belted tightly and low with a sash, came out of the entryway onto the high porch squealing under his skin with trimmed felt boots, trampled with snow and has stopped. Taking a drag from the rest of his cigarette, he threw it under his feet and stepped on it and, blowing smoke through his mustache and glancing sideways at the riding horse, began tucking the corners of the collar of his sheepskin coat on both sides of his ruddy face, shaved except for the mustache, with the fur inward, so that the fur would not sweat from breathing.

“Look, what a prosecutor’s office, it’s already in time!” - he said, seeing his little son in the sleigh. Vasily Andreich was excited by the wine he drank with the guests and therefore even more than usual, pleased with everything that belonged to him and everything that he did. The sight of his son, whom he had always called heir in his thoughts, now gave him great pleasure; he looked at him, squinting and baring his long teeth.

Wrapped over her head and shoulders in a woolen scarf, so that only her eyes were visible, Vasily Andreich’s pregnant, pale and thin wife, seeing him off, stood behind him in the entryway.

“Really, I should have taken Nikita,” she said, timidly stepping out from behind the door.

Vasily Andreich did not answer anything and at her words, which were obviously unpleasant to him, he frowned angrily and spat.

“You’ll go with the money,” the wife continued in the same plaintive voice. “And the weather wouldn’t have risen, really, by God.”

- Well, why don’t I know the road, that I definitely need an escort? - Vasily Andreich said with that unnatural tension of his lips with which he usually spoke with sellers and buyers, pronouncing each syllable with particular clarity.

- Well, really, I would take it. I beg you by God! – the wife repeated, wrapping the scarf on the other side.

- That’s how the bath leaf stuck... Well, where can I take it?

“Well, Vasily Andreich, I’m ready,” Nikita said cheerfully. “Only they would have given the horses food without me,” he added, turning to the hostess.

“I’ll take a look, Nikitushka, I’ll tell Semyon,” said the hostess.

- So, should we go, Vasily Andreich? - Nikita said, waiting.

- Yes, obviously, respect the old woman. “Just if you’re going, go and put on a warmer suitcase,” Vasily Andreich said, smiling again and winking at Nikita’s fringed, torn, greasy and matted sheepskin coat, torn in the armpits and in the back and at the hem.

- Hey, dear soul, go out and hold the horse! - Nikita shouted to the cook’s husband into the yard.

- I myself, I myself! - the boy squeaked, taking his cold red hands out of his pockets and grabbing the cold belt reins with them.

- Just don’t be too pretentious about your diplomat, be quick! - Vasily Andreich shouted, mocking Nikita.

“One puff, Father Vasily Andreich,” said Nikita and, quickly flashing his toes inside his old felt boots lined with felt soles, he ran into the yard and into the work hut.

- Come on, Arinushka, give me my robe from the stove - to go with the owner! - Nikita said, running into the hut and taking the sash off the nail.

The worker, who had slept after lunch and was now setting up the samovar for her husband, cheerfully greeted Nikita and, infected by his haste, just like him, quickly moved and took out from the stove a poor, worn-out cloth caftan that was drying there and began to hastily shake off and knead it.

“You and your master will have plenty of room to walk,” said Nikita to the cook, who always, out of good-natured politeness, said something to a person when he was alone with him.

And, drawing the narrow, matted sash around him, he pulled in his already skinny belly and pulled on his sheepskin coat as hard as he could.

“That’s it,” he said after that, turning not to the cook, but to the sash, tucking its ends into his belt, “you can’t jump out like that,” and, raising and lowering his shoulders so that there was a swagger in his hands, he put it on top robe, also strained his back so that his arms could be free, tucked it under his armpits and took out mittens from the shelf. - Well, okay.

“You should, Stepanych, change your legs,” said the cook, “otherwise the boots are thin.”

Nikita stopped, as if remembering.

- We should... Well, let’s get off anyway, it’s not far!

And he ran into the yard.

“Won’t you be cold, Nikitushka?” - said the hostess when he approached the sleigh.

“Why is it cold, it’s warm at all,” answered Nikita, straightening the straw in the heads of the sleigh to cover his legs, and tucking the whip, which was unnecessary for a good horse, under the straw.

Vasily Andreich was already sitting in the sleigh, filling almost the entire curved back of the sleigh with his back, dressed in two fur coats, and immediately, taking the reins, he set off the horse. As Nikita walked, he sat down in front on the left side and stuck out one leg.

II

The good stallion, with a slight creaking of the runners, moved the sleigh and set off at a brisk pace along the frosty road in the village.

-Where are you going? Give me the whip, Mikita! - Vasily Andreich shouted, obviously rejoicing at the heir, who was perched behind on the runners. - I love you! Run to your mother, you son of a bitch!

The boy jumped off. Mukhorty increased his amble and, stuttering, switched to a trot.

The crosses in which Vasily Andreich’s house stood consisted of six houses. As soon as they left the last Kuznetsov's hut, they immediately noticed that the wind was much stronger than they thought. The road was almost no longer visible. The track of the runners was immediately covered up, and the road could only be distinguished by the fact that it was higher than the rest of the place. It was spinning all over the field, and the line where the earth meets the sky was not visible. The Velyatinsky forest, always clearly visible, now occasionally became dimly black through the snow dust. The wind blew from the left side, stubbornly twisting the mane on Mukhorty’s steep, well-fed neck to one side, and twisting his fluffy tail, tied in a simple knot, to one side. The long collar of Nikita, who was sitting on the side of the wind, pressed against his face and nose.

“She doesn’t really run, it’s snowy,” said Vasily Andreich, proud of his good horse. “I once drove it to Pashutino, and it delivered in half an hour.”

- Chago? – Nikita asked, unable to hear because of his collar.

“I got to Pashutino, I say, in half an hour,” shouted Vasily Andreich.

- Needless to say, the horse is good! - Nikita said.

They were silent. But Vasily Andreich wanted to talk.

- Well, did I tell the cooper not to give tea to the hostess? - Vasily Andreich spoke in the same loud voice, so confident that Nikita should be flattered to talk to such an important and intelligent person like him, and so pleased with his joke that it never occurred to him that this conversation might be unpleasant Nikita.

Nikita again did not hear the sound of the owner’s words carried by the wind.

Vasily Andreich repeated his joke about the cooper in his loud, distinct voice.

- God be with them, Vasily Andreich, I don’t delve into these matters. I don’t want her to offend the little ones, otherwise God be with her.

“That’s true,” said Vasily Andreich. - Well, are you going to buy a horse in the spring? – he began a new subject of conversation.

“Yes, we can’t avoid it,” answered Nikita, turning away the collar of his caftan and bending over to the owner.

Now Nikita was interested in the conversation, and he wanted to hear everything.

“The kid has grown up, you have to plow yourself, and then everyone was hired,” he said.

- Well, take the cutless one, I won’t put it at a price! - Vasily Andreich shouted, feeling excited and as a result of this attacking his favorite occupation, which absorbed all his mental strength, - profiteering.

“If you give me fifteen rubles, I’ll buy it from a horse-drawn horse,” said Nikita, who knew that the red price for the cutless horse that Vasily Andreich wanted to sell him was seven rubles, and that Vasily Andreich, having given him this horse, would count it at twenty-five rubles , and then you won’t see any money from him in six months.

- The horse is good. I wish you as much as I wish myself. According to conscience. Liars will not offend any person. Let mine disappear, and not like others. By honor,” he shouted in that voice with which he charmed his sellers and buyers. - The horse is real!

“As it is,” Nikita said, sighing, and, making sure that there was nothing more to listen to, he pulled down his collar with his hand, which immediately covered his ear and face.

They drove in silence for half an hour. The wind blew through Nikita's side and arm, where his fur coat was torn.

He shrugged and breathed into the collar that covered his mouth, and he didn’t feel cold at all.

- What do you think, should we go to Karamyshevo or straight? – asked Vasily Andreich.

On Karamyshevo the ride was on a busier road, lined with good markers in two rows, but further. It was closer straight ahead, but the road was little traveled, and there were no markers or they were poor and out of place.

Nikita thought for a moment.

“But you can’t get lost if you drive straight through the hollow, but it’s good through the forest,” said Vasily Andreich, who wanted to go straight.

“It’s your choice,” Nikita said and pulled down his collar again.

Vasily Andreich did just that and, having driven off half a mile, near a high oak branch dangling from the wind with dry leaves hanging on it here and there, he turned left.

The wind from the turn became almost counter to them. And it snowed from above. Vasily Andreich ruled, puffed out his cheeks and blew the spirit from below into his mustache. Nikita was dozing.

They drove like this in silence for about ten minutes. Suddenly Vasily Andreich said something.

- Chago? – Nikita asked, opening his eyes.

Vasily Andreich did not answer and twisted, looking back and forth in front of the horse. The horse, curled with sweat in its groins and neck, walked at a walk.

- What are you doing, I say? – Nikita repeated.

- Chago, chago! – Vasily Andreich imitated him angrily. - There are no landmarks in sight! They must have lost their way!

“Then wait, I’ll look at the road,” said Nikita and, easily jumping off the sleigh and taking out a whip from under the straw, he went to the left and from the side on which he was sitting.

The snow this year was not deep, so there was a road everywhere, but still in some places it was knee-deep and fell into Nikita’s boot. Nikita walked, felt with his feet and whip, but there was no road anywhere.

- Well? - said Vasily Andreich when Nikita approached the sleigh again.

- There is no road on this side. We need to go in that direction.

“There’s something black ahead, go there and look,” said Vasily Andreich.

Nikita went there too, approached what was turning black - this was the blackening soil that had poured from the bare winter fields on top of the snow and had colored the snow black. After walking to the right, Nikita returned to the sleigh, brushed off the snow, shook it out of his boot and sat down in the sleigh.

“We need to go to the right,” he said decisively. “The wind was on my left side, but now it’s straight in my face.” Go right! – he said decisively.

Vasily Andreich listened to him and took to the right. But there was still no road. They drove like this for some time. The wind did not decrease, and it began to snow.

“And we, Vasily Andreich, apparently have completely lost our way,” Nikita suddenly said, as if with pleasure. - What's this? - he said, pointing to black potato tops sticking out from under the snow.

Vasily Andreich stopped the horse, which was already sweating and was moving heavily with its steep sides.

- And what? - he asked.

- And the fact that we are on the Zakharovsky field. That's where we went!

- Is it wrong? - Vasily Andreich responded.

“I’m not lying, Vasily Andreich, but I’m telling the truth,” said Nikita, “and you can hear from the sleigh - we’re going through the potato fields; and there are heaps of tops being hauled away. Zakharovskoe factory field.