Poor little Kalmyk boy ... What a terrible time he was born! ..
He opens his eyes and flinches. He sees before him a terrible, black, soot-stained face. Who is this? Or what is it? It seems to him that he is delirious again. But this is General Silkova, an old widow who lives in the outbuilding, in number six. He knows her well, he remembers this clean little old woman, her ruddy face framed with a mourning lace headdress, her strict, decorous walk ... Why is she so scary now? What happened to her? With a fixed gaze, he looks at the old woman, and she leans towards him, often, often blinking her small teary eyes and whispering:
- Sleep, sleep, baby ... God bless you! ..
And a terrible bony hand rises over Lyonka, and dirty, black, like a chimney sweep's fingers cross him several times.
He screams and closes his eyes. And a minute later he hears the mother in a loud whisper trying to persuade the old woman behind the screen:
- Augusta Markovna! .. Well, why are you? What are you doing? After all, in the end, it is unhygienic ... In the end, you can get sick ...
“No, no, don’t say, master,” the old woman whispers in reply. - No, no, honey ... You don't know history well. During the Great Revolution in France, the sansculottes, holostenniks (64), recognized the aristocrats by their hands. Exactly. Exactly, exactly, you forgot, my dear, just like that.
The general's voice trembles, whistles, becomes crazy when she suddenly begins to speak in different voices:
- "Your pens, lady!" - "Here are my hands." "Why are your hands white? Why are they so white? Huh?" And - to the lantern! Yes, yes, master, to the lantern! A rope around the neck and - to the lantern, a la lantern! .. To the lantern! ..
General'sha Silkova no longer speaks, but hisses.
- And they will come to us, masher. You will see ... And this cup will not pass us ... They will come, they will come ...
"Who's going to come?" - thinks Lyonka. And suddenly he guesses: the Bolsheviks! The old woman is afraid of the Bolsheviks. She deliberately does not wash her hands so that they do not know that she is an aristocrat, the widow of a tsarist general.
He starts to shiver again. It becomes scary.
“It's good that I'm not an aristocrat,” he thinks, falling asleep. And for some reason, Volkova suddenly remembers.
"And who is Volkov? Is Volkov an aristocrat? Yes, there is someone who, and the Volkovs, of course, are real aristocrats ..."
... He sleeps long and sound. And again he wakes up from the roar. Someone knocks imperiously with iron on the iron gates. Voices are heard in the street. From mother's bedroom, where Vasya and Lyalya moved for a while, a child's cry is heard.
- Stesha! Stesha! Aleksandra Sergeevna cries muffledly. - What happened there? Dearie, come and find out ...
“Okay, Alexandra Sergeevna ... now ... I’ll find out,” Stesha replies calmly, and you can hear how they strike matches in the "dark" one ... Stesha's bare feet are slapping. A minute later, a door slams in the kitchen.
Lyonka lies, does not move, listens. It is quiet in the street and in the yard, but voices, shots, groans can be heard in the boy's fevered imagination ...
The door slammed again.
- Stesha, is that you?
- Me, lady.
- Well, what is it?
- Nothing, lady. Sailors and Red Guards are walking. They came with a search. They are looking for weapons.
- Where did they go?
- In the sixth issue, to Silkova.
- My God! Unhappy! What is she worried about? ”Aleksandra Sergeevna says with a sigh, and Lyonka feels how his hair on his head is stirring from horror, or, rather, what is left of it after a haircut for a zero clipper.
"To the lantern! To the lantern!" - he remembers the lisping whisper of the general's wife. He kicks off the covers, sits down, searches in the dark for his worn-out night shoes. He is scared, he is shaking all over, but at the same time he is unable to overcome greedy curiosity and the desire to see with his own eyes the last moments of the unfortunate general. He has no doubts that she is already hanging from the lantern. He clearly represents her - decorous and stern, hanging with her arms folded on her chest and with a prayerful gaze directed to heaven.
Throwing a blanket over his shoulders and staggering with weakness, he tiptoes into the hallway, the only window of which overlooks the courtyard. A poplar grows in front of the window, a gas lamp stands under the poplar.
Blinking his eyes, Lyonka approaches the window. He is afraid to open his eyes. For a whole minute, he stands tightly squinting, then gathers up courage and opens both eyes at once.
There is no one on the lantern yet. It is raining outside, the lantern is shining brightly, and raindrops run obliquely over its trapezoidal glass.
Somewhere in the back of the courtyard, in the outbuilding, a door slammed dully. Lyonka presses against the glass. He sees some black figures walking across the courtyard. Something glitters in the dark. And again it seems to him that groans, tears, muffled cries can be heard from the darkness ...
"They're coming ... to hang," he guesses, and with such force presses his forehead against the cold glass that the glass creaks, trembles and bends under his weight.
But people pass the lantern, walk on, and a moment later Lyonka hears the front door squealing disgustingly on the block below, on the back stairs.
"Come to us!" - he thinks. And, eel slipping off the windowsill, losing his shoes on the go, he runs into the nursery. A muffled song comes from Mom's bedroom. While rocking Lyalya, Alexandra Sergeevna sings in an undertone:
Sleep, my beautiful baby,
Baiushki bye...
Shines quietly ...
- Mama! - Lyonka shouts. - Mom! .. Mommy ... They're coming to us ... Search! ..
And before he has time to say it, an impetuous bell rings in the kitchen.
Lyonka runs into the nursery with a beating heart. The blanket slides off his shoulders. He pulls it up - and suddenly sees his hands.
They are white, pale, even paler than usual. Thin blue veins appear on them like rivers on a map.
For a few seconds Lyonka thinks, looks at his hands, then rushes to the stove, squats down and, burning himself, opens the red-hot copper door.
Red coals still flicker in the depths of the stove. The ash has not yet cooled down. Without hesitation, he takes this warm soft mass with handfuls and smears it on his hands up to his elbows. Then he does the same with the face.
And in the kitchen, men's voices are already heard, boots are knocking.
- Who lives? - Lyonka hears a sharp, rude voice.
- Teacher, - Stesha answers.
Having half-opened the door, Lyonka looks out into the kitchen.
At the front door stands a tall, stately sailor, similar to Peter the Great. The black antennae are dashingly twisted upward. The chest is crossed with machine-gun belts. A rifle in his hand, a wooden holster on his belt, on his left side - a cleaver in a leather sheath.
Several other people are crowding behind the sailor: two or three sailors, one civilian with a red bandage on his sleeve, and a woman in high boots. They all carry rifles.
Alexandra Sergeevna appears in the kitchen. With her right hand, she holds Lyalya, who is asleep on her shoulder, with her left hand, buttons up the hood and straightens her hair.
“Hello,” she says. - What's the matter?
She speaks calmly, as if a postman or a plumber had come to the kitchen, but Lyonka sees that her mother is still worried, her hands are shaking slightly.
The tall sailor puts his hand to his peakless cap.
- Will you be the owner of the apartment?
- I AM.
- The teacher?
- Yes. The teacher.
- Do you live alone?
- Yes. With three children and a servant.
- Widow?
- Yes, I'm a widow.
The giant looks at the woman with sympathy. In any case, so it seems to Lyonka.
- And what do you, excuse my curiosity, teach? What is the subject?
- I'm a music teacher.
- Yeah. It's clear. On the piano or the guitar?
- Yes ... on the piano.
- I see, - the sailor repeats and, turning to his companions, gives the command:
- Set aside! Vira ...
Then he once again throws his hand to his cap, on the ribbon of which the worn-out golden letters "Dawn of Freedom" gleam dully, and says, addressing the owners:
- I'm sorry to trouble you. They woke up ... But nothing can be done about the revolutionary debt! ..
Lyonka looks enchanted at the handsome sailor. He no longer experiences any fear. On the contrary, he is sorry that now this hero will leave, disappear, dissolve like a dream ...
At the door, the sailor turns around once more.
- Weapons, of course, are not found? he says with a delicate grin.
“No,” Alexandra Sergeevna answers with a smile. - Except for table knives and forks ...
- Thank you. No plugs required.
And then Lyonka bursts into the kitchen.
“Mom,” he whispers, tugging at his mother’s sleeve. - You forgot. We have ...
The sailor, who did not have time to leave, turns sharply.
“Ugh,” he says, widening his eyes. - And what kind of chimpanzee is this?
Товарищи его протискиваются в кухню и тоже с удивлением смотрят на странное черномазое существо, закутанное в зеленое стеганое одеяло.
- Lesha! .. What have you done to yourself? What happened to your face? And hands! Look at his hands! ..
- Mom, we have, - Lyonka mutters, tugging at his mother's hood sleeve. - You forgot. We have it.
- What do we have?
- Oguzhie ...
And, not hearing the laughter that stands behind him, he runs into the corridor.
A chest lined with brass is almost cluttered with things to the very ceiling. Climbing on top of it, Lyonka hastily throws baskets, trunks, bundles, hat boxes onto the floor ... With the same haste, he lifts the heavy lid of the chest. The poisonous smell of mothballs hits the nose hard. Squinting and sneezing, Lyonka frantically rummages through things, pulls out old checkers, pouches, stirrups, spurs from the chest ...
Loaded with this Cossack ammunition, he returns to the kitchen. The green blanket trails behind him like a train of a lady's dress ...
Again he is greeted with laughter.
- What is it? - says the giant sailor, with a smile looking at the things brought by Lyonka. - Where did you get this junk?
“These are the things of my late husband,” says Alexandra Sergeevna. - In nine hundred and four, he fought with the Japanese.
- Clear. No, boy, we don't need that. You'd better take this to some museum. But by the way ... wait ... Perhaps this saber will come in handy ...
And, turning a crooked Cossack saber in his hands, the sailor famously puts it in his belt, on which already there are weapons hung on a good half of a platoon.
... Ten minutes later, Lyonka is sitting in bed. There is a basin of warm water on a stool next to him, and Alexandra Sergeevna, rolling up her sleeves, washes the boy with a spongy Greek sponge. Stesha helps her.
End of free trial snippet.
"Mom! .. Where is mom? Where has she disappeared?"
And as if in response to this cry of his soul, somewhere in the far corner of the basement, a familiar, deaf and alarmed voice is heard:
- Leshenka! Son! Boy! Where are you?..
- Here I am! .. Mommy, Mom! .. - he shouts and feels that his voice breaks ...
Alexandra Sergeevna hardly pushes her way towards him. In her hands is a blanket, pillows and a tiny bundle of things.
- Why are you taking so long? - Lyonka mutters. - Where have you been? I thought ...
- You thought, little one, that they killed me? No, my dear, thank God, as you can see, I am alive. But, imagine what horror - while you and I were sitting here, we were robbed clean! ..
- Who?!
- How do I know who? There were some shameless, heartless people who took advantage of the misfortune of their neighbors and took away literally everything that was in the room. All that was left was every little thing on the toilet - a comb, a powder box ... a little provisions ... Yes, I found in the closet, luckily, your pants and sandals.
- And the greatcoat?
- I tell you - there is nothing: no greatcoat, no cap, no my galoshes, no suitcase ...
- Eh, people! - Lenka's neighbor laughs, wrapping up the remains of breakfast and an empty milk bottle in a napkin. - They work smartly! Well done boys!
- Wait, what does that mean? - someone says. - I have all the things in my room!
- My God! And I have one and a half pounds of grains and this is such a can of excellent Vologda oil!
Panic rises among the inhabitants of the basement. Many rush upstairs in the hope of saving at least some of the property left behind.
- Mom, - says Lyonka, - where is this ... checkered one with whom you went?
“Are you asking about the young man who accompanied me upstairs?” says Alexandra Sergeevna for some reason very loudly, as if so that others, and not just Lyonka, could hear her. “He said he was going to town to look for his uncle. His uncle is the owner of a stationery shop, somewhere, I think, on Kazansky Boulevard.
- Uncle ... Shop, - mutters, listening, the bearded man. - I would put such a nephew out the door. Such impudent! And also, it turns out, a young man from a decent family ...
In the bundle that Alexandra Sergeevna brought from her room, in addition to Lenka's trousers and sandals, there were several sandwiches, the remains of the nanny's "Yabloko" and "Easter cakes" and a decent piece of bacon. Lyonka got dressed, that is, put on uniform trousers and sandals on his bare feet; Alexandra Sergeevna set the table, that is, spread a crumpled sheet of newsprint on one of the boxes, and they both ate with pleasure.
- Is it scary there? - asked Lyonka, stuffing his mouth with dry potato apple and pointing his head up.
- No, in general, it's not so scary.
- Well, yes! - as if Lyonka was even upset.
- In Petrograd, it happened even more terrible.
- Bullets whistle?
- I, my dear, had no time for bullets.
After a while, Lyonka felt the need to go where he should have been for a long time.
- Good. Now. I'll see you off, ”said Alexandra Sergeevna, putting the pitiful remnants of breakfast in a bundle.
- Do not. I myself, - said Lyonka, blushing.
- You will get lost.
- Well, here ... What am I, little? You just explain how to get through.
- Yes, and there is nothing to explain. It is quite close. Right on the stairs, on the second landing. You will see two zeros on the door. But just, I beg you, please come back immediately!
Lyonka promised not to linger, wrapped himself in his mother's coat and, paddling with sandals, began to make his way to the exit.
... In a room with two zeros on the door, he really didn't stay longer than required. But when he went to the landing, he saw a staircase leading upstairs and daylight breaking through from somewhere, the temptation to look with at least one eye at what was happening in the hotel and in the city took possession of him with such force that he completely forgot all the promises made to his mother ...
“I’ll just look a little bit and go straight down,” he said to himself, and, picking up the hem of his coat like a woman, he ran upstairs two steps onto the third.
He had to run three or four flights of stairs before he found himself in a long hotel corridor, on either side of which there were endless rows of small, yellow doors that looked like one another. Above each of them hung a white plaque with a number. Some of the doors were ajar or wide open, and a dim twilight light streamed from there. Looking around, Lyonka listened and carefully peered into one of the rooms. There was no one there. A fresh Volga wind blew through the broken window. The whole room was covered with broken glass and plaster. The wardrobe was open, and an iron coat rack lay on the floor by the door. On the table in the middle of the room was an unfinished bottle of Borzhom, an open box of anchovies, two glasses, a glass, and a crumpled napkin.
Feeling how his heart was beating and how disgustingly the glass crunched underfoot, Lyonka tiptoed into the room, approached the window and looked out into the street.
The cannon was no longer under the window. Evening sunlight flooded the street, the square, gilded the bright greenery of the boulevard, burned on shards of glass and on white Chinese vases in the smashed window of the Siu store. The square was empty, only a few civilians with rifles over their shoulders walked lazily back and forth at the entrance to the corner house ... It was quiet, only pricking up his ears, Lyonka heard distant rifle and machine-gun shots. Indeed, in Petrograd it was much more terrible and much more interesting.
... Slightly disappointed, he returned to the corridor and was about to go to the stairs, when suddenly the door of the next room opened and a young man in a checkered jacket came out with a large copper kettle in his hand.
Lyonka almost collided with him.
“Hello,” he said, taken aback.
- Hello, - he answered, stopping. - I don’t know. Ah! What are you doing here?
- I just. I went to the restroom.
- Found?
- Found.
- Well done.
- And you that - did not find your uncle?
- What uncle? Oh, uncle? - the young man grinned. - No, my uncle, it turns out, went to America ...
- In which? North or South?
- The devil only knows, - to the Central, it seems. Nothing, we'll live somehow without an uncle.
- Why didn't you return to the basement? - asked Lyonka.
- Yes, you understand ... How can I tell you ... It's more convenient up here. Nobody interferes.
- And the bullets?
- Well, bullets ... In the world, my brother, there are things much more unpleasant than bullets. Wait, why on earth are you dressed up as such a robe?
- We were robbed, - said Lyonka.
- Where? When?
- Here in the room. Don't you know?
- No. And they took a lot?
- They took everything away. They even stole my overcoat.
- Gymnasium?
- No, I'm a realist.
- It's a pity. Listen, tell me, please - who is your mother?
- The teacher.
- Oh, that's what? Um ... You have a good one. Truth? Do you love her?
- I love, - Lyonka muttered.
The young man stood for a while, was silent and said:
- Well, go and catch a cold.
Lyonka did not even have time to take two steps when the blond one called out to him again:
- Hey, listen!
- What? - Lyonka looked around.
- What is your name?
- Alexey.
“That's what, Alyosha,” the guy said in an undertone. - You ... this ... you better not tell anyone that you saw me here. Okay?
- Okay. And mom, too, not to tell?
- You can tell your mom. Only slowly. Understood?
- Understood.
- Well, run. Don't just fall in your robe.
Lyonka stood for a while, watched the blond one go and went to the stairs. But it turned out that finding the stairs was not so easy. Moreover, it turned out that it was completely impossible to find her. There were so many doors in the corridor and they were all so similar to one another that in a few minutes the boy was completely confused and lost.
He pushed first at one door, then at the other. Some doors were locked, opening others, he got into other people's rooms.
Finally he saw a door that was not like the others. Above the door hung an oblong box-lantern, on the black glass of which it was written in red letters:
SPARE OUTPUT
Lyonka pushed the door. It opened and he found himself on the stairs.
"Thank God! Finally! .."
Spanking his sandals, he ran downstairs. Here on the landing is a peeling red door with two skinny black zeros. Here, next to her, a fire extinguisher, bright red like a fire barrel. He remembers it well. He saw this fire extinguisher when he ran upstairs. Another flight of stairs - and in front of him is a low, iron-clad door to the basement. With a running start, he runs into her, pushes and feels that the door does not open. He once again, with all his might, pounds his shoulder on her - the door does not lend itself. Cold with fear, he begins to drum his fists on the rusty iron. Nobody responds. He puts his ear to the door, squats, peers through the large keyhole. Cemetery chill blows from the well into his eye. The basement is quiet.
"Lord! What is it? Where have they all gone ?!"
From excessive excitement, he again experiences an urgent need to visit the room with two zeros on the door.
Staggering, he climbs the platform higher, pushes the red door with his knee and sees that this door is closed!
But this time he even feels some relief. So there is someone outside the door. It means that someone will come out now, explain to him what the matter is, and help him find mom.
He waits delicately for a minute or two, then gently knocks his knuckles on the door. Nobody responds.
And then he notices with horror that the door to the restroom is boarded up. Large rusty nails in two places stick out obliquely from the door frame.
Turning his back to the door, Lyonka kicks it with all his might.
And suddenly a guess dawns on him: he has got to the wrong place! .. This is not the staircase! Couldn't, in fact, during the time that he was upstairs, nail the restroom with nails! ..
He runs upstairs. Again he is in this awful, street-long corridor with endless rows of similar doors. But now he knows: we must look for a door above which there is no plate with a number. He finds such a door. He runs down the stairs and, having run a march and a half, is convinced that he has gone to the wrong place again. The stairs lead him to the kitchen. The smell of sauerkraut and bast hits his nose. He sees white tiled walls, a huge stove, hot-polished copper pots and pans.
Grabbing the rough iron railing, he trudges upstairs. His eyes begin to blur.
"We need to find this ... blond, - he thinks. - He will help me ... You just need to remember where he lives, from which room he came out with a kettle ..."
Aha! I remembered. He walked out that door over there, just opposite the boiling tank.
He runs to this door, knocks.
- Yes, come in, - he hears a displeased voice.
He opens the door, enters, and sees: an elderly bald man in a yellowish-white tousled jacket crawling on his knees in the middle of the room and tying a basket with a rope.
- What do you want? he asks, raising his eyebrows in amazement.
- Nothing ... sorry ... I got to the wrong place, - Lyonka babbles.
The man jumps up.
Lyonka runs out into the corridor.
- Come on, get out! - an angry voice rushes after him. A door slams behind him, a key turns in the well.
He knocks on the next door. Nobody is answering. He pushes her. The door is closed.
He rushes along the corridor like a mouse in a mousetrap.
... And now he finds himself on one more staircase. This staircase is covered with a carpet runner. Its walls are painted with paintings. On one of them, Napoleonic soldiers flee from Russia. On the other - Ivan Susanin lures Poles into a dense forest. On the third, a bearded noble headman reads out the Tsar's manifesto on "liberation" to the peasants. On the paper he is reading, it is written in large letters: "19th February".
Of course, at other times and under different circumstances Lyonka would not have resisted not to consider these fascinating pictures in all details. But now he has no time for the Poles and not for the French. It seems to him that the situation in which he found himself is much worse than any hunger, captivity and serfdom.
He trudges upstairs again. His legs can barely hold him. And suddenly he hears soft, small steps behind him. He looks around. A middle-aged plump man with a colorless grayish beard climbs the stairs, holding on to the velvet railings. Lyonka has time to think that this man is very similar to his late grandfather. A gold chain glistens on a white spiky vest, and a bunch of keys clinks in his hand.
And almost immediately a door slams below, and a hoarse youthful voice is heard in pursuit of him:
- Dad!
The man has stopped, looks down.
- Yes, Nikolashenka?
A tall young officer catches up with him. Brand new gold shoulder straps shine on his shoulders. A brand new leather harness wraps around a slender, athletic chest. A brand new yellow holster bounces at his belt.
- What, Nikolasha?
“You know,” the officer says, slightly out of breath, “it is necessary, in the end, to do something. I just went through the numbers ... This is the devil knows what! That way, two days later, you see, not a single pillow, not a single electric lamp, and not a single decanter will remain ...
And then the officer notices Lyonka, who, leaning over the railing, looks at him from the upper platform.
- Hey! Stop! - he shouts and with such a terrible look rushes upward that Lyonka, recoiling, rushes to the first door that came across.
At the door, the officer overtakes him. Grabbing Lyonka by the shoulder, he breathes heavily and says:
- What are you doing here, you bastard? A?
“Nothing,” the boy mutters. - I ... I got lost.
- Oh, that's how? Lost?
And, looking up the stairs, the officer shouts:
- Dad! Dad! If you please, admire ... I caught one!
- Yes, Nikolashenka ... I'm going. Where is he?
The officer holds Lyonka tightly by the shoulder.
- You look - huh? He's wearing a lady's coat, you scoundrel, ”he says, and shakes Lyonka with such force that the boy’s teeth snap.
- Where did you get your coat, ragamuffin? A? shouts the officer. “I’m asking, who did you steal the coat from, you vile ugly creature?”
From pain, horror and disgust, Lyonka cannot speak. He starts to hiccup loudly.
“I… I… hic… didn’t steal,” he mumbles breathlessly. - This ... this is my mother's coat ...
- Mom? I'll give you mommy! I'll make a chop out of you, street trash, if you don't tell me right now!
- Kolya! Kolya! - the old man laughs. “Leave him, let him go ... You’ll really shake out all his insides from him.” Wait, we'll figure it out now. Well, singed siskin, say: where did you come from? Where is your mother?
Hiccup does not allow Lyonka to speak.
- Hic ... hic ... in the basement.
- Which basement? On which street?
- Hic ... hic ... on this one.
- On Vlasyevskaya? What is the house number?
- Ik ... hic ... I don't know.
- Do you know which house you live in? So much for you! How old are you?
- De ... ten.
- Yes, this is, Kolenka, a uniform idiotic. At ten years old, he does not know the number of his house.
- Leave, please. What an idiotic there is! Not an idiotic, but a real swindler.
And the officer's fingers dig into Lenka's shoulder with such force that the boy screams.
- Leave me! he shouts, wrapped in a loach. - You don't dare ... Another officer is called ... I live here, in this house, in a hotel! ..
- Ha-ha! .. Witty! In what, I wonder, number? Maybe in a suite?
“Not in the suite, but in the basement.
“Stop, stop, Nikolasha,” the old man says anxiously. “Maybe it’s right, huh?” After all, they are there, and in fact, everyone huddled in the basement ...
- Come on. He's lying. I can see it in my eyes - he’s lying.
- And we'll find out now. Well, let's go, crazy! By the way, I myself wanted to look there. It's inconvenient, after all, you have to visit the audience.
The realization that now he will see his mother and that his suffering is coming to an end, makes Lyonka forget the insult for a while. Picking up the hem of his ill-fated coat and paddling with slipping sandals, he walks briskly between his guards.
And here he is in the basement; squeezes towards the mother and hears her indignant and alarmed voice:
- Lesha! Bad boy! Where have you been for so long ?!
He throws himself on her neck, kisses her and, pointing his finger at the officer, choking, hiccupping, swallowing tears, mumbles plaintively:
- He ... He ... hic ... He ... this ... me ... me ...
The officer looks at each other with embarrassment.
- Hm ... So this is your boy, madam? - Says the old man in a pique waistcoat.
- Yes, this is my son. And what happened?
- Never mind. Sheer trifles, - the officer explains with a sweet smile. Your little boy got lost, fell on the wrong stairs ... And my father and I, so to speak, led him on the path of truth ...
- Thank you. You are very kind.
- Please! Absolutely not at all, - says the officer and, clicking his heels, turns to his companion:
- Y-yes, papa ... You have, I must admit, you don't smell like comfort here.
“It doesn't smell, it doesn't smell, Nikolashenka,” he agrees. And, having looked around the room in a businesslike manner, he addresses those present:
- Well, how do you feel here, gentlemen?
- Fabulous! - they answer him from different angles.
- Not life, but a fairy tale.
“The only thing missing is prison chains, overseers and instruments of torture.
- But you, gentlemen, completely in vain walled yourself up here. It is possible to get well in the rooms.
- Yes? Do you think? Isn't it dangerous?
- Well, that's enough. What a danger there is! There is no danger. The Bolsheviks were utterly defeated, and not only in our country, but throughout the entire province. Here is my son, second lieutenant, can confirm this to you.
“Exactly,” the young officer confirms. - Military operations in Yaroslavl are over. Order is being established in the city. There is no danger for the loyal population.
Clutching his mother, clasping her warm neck with his hands, Lyonka looks with hatred at this puffed-up dandy, at his plump, ruddy cheeks, at his slicked, fixed temples, at his big white hands, which are constantly straightening their belt, belt, or holster on German
“Tell me,” someone asks. - Is it true that battles are also going on in Moscow and Petrograd?
- As far as I know, not only in Moscow and Petrograd, but throughout the country.
- What are you talking about ?!
“So you can really leave this dungeon?”
“You can, gentlemen, you can,” says the man with the chain. “There’s no need for you to make consumption here. However, do not complain, there is still little order in our hotel. There are not enough servants, you see. They scattered. But tomorrow morning, don't worry, we'll fix it all.
Before leaving, he once again addresses the inhabitants of the basement:
- By the way, keep in mind, gentlemen: tomorrow morning we are opening a restaurant. Welcome. The more rich they are, the more happy they are.
- Really by the way, - they answer him. “Otherwise we’re going over to St. Anthony’s food.”
“Only such a condition, gentlemen,” the old man says, smiling at the door. To celebrate, tomorrow I treat everyone at my own expense.
Accompanied by humorous applause and shouts of "hurray", he goes out onto the stairs. The officer leaves with him.
- Who is this? - ask around.
- Yes, you really do not know, gentlemen? - the all-knowing bearded man says in an offended voice. - Well this is Poyarkov, the owner of the hotel.
- And young?
- And the young one is his son. Academician.
- How is an academician?
- And so. Studied in Moscow at the Petrovsk Agricultural Academy. During the war he was an ensign. Under Kerensky he rose to the rank of second lieutenant. And today I came to my father for the holidays and - here you are, I got pleased, so to speak, right for the bright holiday.
- Did he bring shoulder straps with him? someone asks. Petrovsky students, as far as I know, don’t wear epaulettes.
- So he hid it somewhere. I waited for my hour.
- Shoulder straps what! But where did they get the gun ?!
... In the meantime, Alexandra Sergeevna, having laid Lyenka on a bed made from boxes, and perched beside him, scolded the boy in an undertone.
“No, honey,” she said. - It's impossible. Apparently, I will have to tie you by the string ...
- Tie! Tie! Please! - Lyonka whispered, clinging to his mother and feeling how a soft lock of her hair tickles his cheek. At that moment he just wanted this - to always, every hour and every moment to be with her.
- I suppose you caught a cold, ugly?
- I didn’t think so.
- Lord, there is not even a thermometer. Well, show your forehead. No ... strange, there is no temperature. Well, let's sleep, you are my punishment! ..
They are already settling in the basement for the night. Here and there candle stubs flash and go out. Conversations fall silent. Someone makes their way to the door, encouraged by the owner, many inhabitants of the basement go upstairs.
- And we will not go? - asks Lyonka.
- Where can I go for the night? .. Let's wait until tomorrow. It will be seen there.
- Mama, does it mean that the Bolsheviks are no longer there?
- As you can see, they say no.
- And in Petrograd?
- They say that there is an uprising in Petrograd as well.
- And in Cheltsov?
“My God, don't break my heart. Sleep please!
But Lyonka cannot sleep. He thinks about Petrograd, remembers Stesha, where is she now and what's wrong with her? He thinks about Krivtsov, about Vasya and Lyala, who remained in the arms of the nanny. The events of the day come to mind, flowing into one another. It seems to him that an eternity has passed since he lay in bed and read "Tartarin of Tarascon" ... But it was only this morning. The sun was shining, the city was noisy outside the window, the old beggar was shouting "Boska's womb", and everything was so good, peaceful and calm.
- Do not turn around, please, Lesha. You prevent me from sleeping, - Alexandra Sergeevna says in a sleepy voice.
- Pants are pricking, - Lyonka mutters.
He is already falling asleep, and suddenly he remembers his black realistic overcoat and black with orange edging and brass twigs on the band of his cap ... Lord, are they really gone? Will he now have to walk his whole life in such a robe, as this young man in a plaid jacket called him just now? ..
“Mom,” he says suddenly, lifting himself off the pillow.
- Well?
- Do you sleep?
- My God! .. No, it's impossible! ..
- Mommy, - Lyonka whispers in her ear, - you know, but I saw that checkered one ...
- What is checkered?
- Well, the one who escorted you upstairs.
Alexandra Sergeevna is silent. But Lyonka feels that his mother is awake.
- Where? she says very quietly.
- He's here in the hotel ... In his room ...
- Don't make a noise! .. You will wake up the neighbors. Have you spoken to him?
- Yes. You know, it turns out that his uncle went to America ...
- Where?
- In America. To Central ... Where is this? Where is Mexico, right?
- Yes ... it seems ... Only you, dear, do not tell anyone about this.
- About what?
- That you saw this man here. Understood?
- Understood. He also asked not to speak. He said you were good. Do you hear?
Alexandra Sergeevna is silent for a long time. Then, hugging the boy by the neck, she firmly kisses him on the forehead and says:
- Sleep, baby! .. Do not bother the neighbors.
And Lyonka falls asleep.
... The innkeeper did not cheat. In the morning we drank tea in a restaurant, where everything was like in peacetime - cupronickel dishes, palms, carpets, snow-white tablecloths, waiters in linen aprons ... Poyarkov himself stood at the pantry and, smiling, bowing, greeted the incoming guests.
There were not many waiters, they knocked off their feet, carrying around the tables teapots with tea and boiling water, saucers with landrine instead of sugar, pans with scrambled eggs, stale French rolls, dry sandwiches the day before yesterday ...
Waiters did not take money from visitors.
“Not ordered, sir,” they said, smiling and hiding their hands behind their backs, when they tried to settle accounts with them. - Tomorrow - please, with our great pleasure, but now Mikhail Petrovich is being treated at his own expense.
Lyonka and Alexandra Sergeevna were sitting at a small table by the broken window. From here, the restaurant, and the buffet at the entrance, and the square, and the theater, and the Siu and Co store were clearly visible.
The sun-drenched streets were no longer as lifeless and deserted as last night. Here and there figures of passers-by flashed outside the window. The cabby drove by. A barefoot boy came running with a kerosene can in hand. Somewhere nearby, in the next block, a lonely church bell banged. On the balcony above the Sioux store, an elderly woman in a colorful bonnet was shaking out a green beaver carpet ...
On the pavement, from the side of the boulevard, a large group of military and civilians walked discordantly with rifles over their shoulders. In the last row, walking menacingly, also with guns on their shoulders, were two schoolboys, one tall, with a piercing mustache, and the other very small, about thirteen years old.
- Mom, look, what a funny one! - said Lyonka, trying to squeeze out a contemptuous smile. But the grin didn't work. He felt that he was mortally jealous of these armed gray-haired men.
- Do not yawn on the sides, eat eggs, - finally killing him, said Alexandra Sergeevna.
There was a cheerful hum in the restaurant, dishes rattled, and laughter was heard. Every now and then the door slammed, new visitors appeared.
- Please, please, gentlemen, you are welcome, - the owner bowed and smiled at the sideboard. - There is a free table ... Nikanor Savvich, move, - he called out to the old waiter who was running past.
He was beaming all over, this gray-bearded good-natured Poyarkov. Lyonka looked at him, and it seemed to him that during the night the owner of the hotel had grown even more stout, blushed, blossomed.
- Gentlemen, have you heard the news? - he turned to those sitting at the table nearest to the buffet. - The city government started working in the morning!
- What are you talking about! Real government?
- The most real. What a pleasant word, huh?
- Yes, it sounds very sweet.
- And who entered it?
- Have you heard the name of Cherepanov?
- Landowner?
- He is.
- Pardon me, but this is a Black Hundred, a well-known monarchist.
- And what does not suit you?
- I think it suits me, but after all ... you understand ...
Many "horror films" have been written on the subject of bleeding houses. But such a plot is not always sucked from the finger. There are real life examples when blood appeared in dwellings for no apparent reason.
In August 1985. the chauffeur from Saint-Quentin (France) Jean-Marc-Belmer made repairs in the house. In January, Belmer and his wife, Lucy, were unpleasantly surprised to find small drops of red appearing on the walls and carpets of the living room. Having washed away the incomprehensible stains, the couple calmed down. But in February they appeared again. The stains began to appear on the bed linen as well. This scared the couple so much that they left the ominous house, reporting the incident to the police. The police officers who arrived to investigate found that the premises of the house were abundantly covered with dried brown spots. The analysis carried out it was found that this is indeed blood. Human blood. The source from which the bloody spots appeared was not found. A similar incident occurred at the home of the Williams and Mini Winston spouses from Atlanta, Georgia. Blood suddenly oozed from the walls and ceilings. There was a lot of it. It flowed to the floor like rain. There was blood everywhere - in the living room, bedroom, kitchen, hallway, even basement. Prior to this incident, the couple lived in the house for 20 years, and no anomalous phenomena occurred. Residents who lived before them also confirmed that they had never encountered anything like this. In the evening of October 19, 2004. Lyudmila Pavlovna Sheremeteva watched the series in her apartment in the village of Dubnitsy (Vitebsk region). And suddenly she noticed a stain of blood on the floor. Thinking that the blood was coming from her sore leg, she untied the bandage, but the wound on her leg was not bleeding. When the woman was tying the bandage, a strange hissing was heard, and, right in front of Lyudmila Pavlovna's eyes, a pool of blood formed on the floor. Frightened by what was happening, the woman woke up her husband dozing on the couch. In indescribable horror, the couple watched the blood dripping from the walls of the apartment. At first, there was a loud hiss, and then a section of the wall foamed with bloody bubbles and spattered blood in all directions. The whole apartment in a short time was spattered with blood stains. They were on floors, walls, furniture and linens. Until the morning, the husband and wife did not sleep a wink, and in the morning they invited the priest. He consecrated the apartment and for a while the bloody spots stopped appearing. But on October 24, the nightmare repeated itself. The most interesting thing is that there was not a single spot on the icons.
A similar case was recorded in St. Petersburg. In a communal apartment located at 9 Stakhanovtsev Street, blood stains appeared on the floor near the woman's bed. Then blood covered the wall, appeared in the bathroom. Frightened tenants called the police. The blood continued to appear in front of the astonished representatives of the law. And again, analysis showed that it belongs to a person. True, that blood had an abnormally high content of sulfur and zinc.
Blood does not always ooze from the walls. Cases of the appearance of other liquids have also been documented.
In August 1919. In the home of the parish priest Swenton Novers in Norfolk, England, a liquid that smelled like oil began to drip from the walls and ceiling. A version was put forward that the house is located on an oil field. But analysis of the liquid showed that it was not crude oil, but a mixture of gasoline and kerosene. On September 1, instead of oil, water began to flow, and later a mixture of methyl alcohol and sandalwood oil.
In 1991. The Boulter family living in Leicester, England, discovered that an incomprehensible yellowish mucus began to stand out from the walls. An unpleasant odor appeared along with the mucus. The sample taken was sent to the University of Nottingham for analysis. And the analysis revealed that this is the urine of an unknown mammal.
August 30, 1998 a resident of Plzhen (Czech Republic) returned home in the morning with her friend, and they went to bed. Waking up at about 10 am, we noticed that the entire carpet was covered with orange spots, some of which were drying out right before our eyes. Going into the kitchen, the landlady saw exactly the same spots, but already dried up. Trying to scrub the carpet, she couldn't find anything better than to taste the stains and licked the viscous and gelatinous substance with her tongue. It turned out to be burning. Later analysis showed that it was a 97% iron oxide solution.
Most often, dwellings are flooded with water.
Massachusetts-based Francis Martin was watching football with enthusiasm when there was a loud crash, and a stream of water started pouring out of the wall. Then there were more spitting jets. Water flowed from the ceiling. At intervals of 20 minutes, the water either poured in a stream or stopped flowing. Plumbers who had arrived at Francis's call closed the valve, but the water continued to flow, and the source of the flow could not be determined.
Family Francis urgently moved to the house of relatives. Amazingly, water found them there too, gushing from all directions and flooding the rooms.
If we analyze the case with Francis Martin, then the most likely explanation is poltergeist, because the events taking place were not tied to a specific place, but to specific people. Therefore, when the family moved to another house, the poltergeist showed itself there as well.
It turns out that the outflow of one or another liquid is caused by a person present in the room. Although there is no one hundred percent certainty about this. The described phenomena are too incomprehensible for our consciousness.
He was ill for forty-eight days. For three weeks of them, he lay in delirium, unconscious, in the struggle between life and death. And these were just those great days that shook the world and turned it upside down, like an earthquake overturns mountains.
It was October 1917.
Lyonka lay with a temperature of 39.9 on the day when the cruiser "Aurora" entered the Neva and dropped anchors at the Nikolaevsky bridge.
Lenin arrived at Smolny.
The Red Guard occupied railway stations, the telegraph office, and the state bank.
The Winter Palace, the citadel of the bourgeois government, was besieged by revolutionary troops and workers.
And the little boy, scattering the pillows and sheets, moaned and gasped in bed, fenced off from the rest of the room and from the whole outside world by a silk Japanese screen.
He saw nothing or heard anything. But when the clouded consciousness briefly returned to him, delirium and nightmares began. An unaccountable fear attacked the boy at these moments. Someone was chasing him, something had to be saved from something, something terrible, big-eyed, black-bearded, similar to Volkov's father, was advancing on him. And there was one salvation, one way out of this horror - it was necessary to knit a red cross from woolen threads. It seemed to him that it was so simple and so easy - to crochet, as mittens and stockings are knitted, a red cross, making it hollow, in the form of a bag like those that are put on teapots and coffee pots ...
Sometimes at night he opened his sore eyes, saw his mother's thinner face above him and, licking his dry lips, whispered:
- Mommy ... sweetheart ... tie me a red cross! .. Dropping her head on his chest, mother quietly cried. And he did not understand why she was crying and why she did not want to fulfill his request, so simple and so important.
* * *
... But the boy's body overcame the disease, a fracture occurred, and gradually consciousness began to return to Lyonka. True, it returned slowly, in shreds, in fits and starts, as if he was drowning, choking, going to the bottom, and only for a minute the terrible weight of the water released him, and he with efforts floated to the surface - to take a breath of air, see the sunlight, feel alive ... But even in those minutes he did not always understand where the dream was and where the reality, where the delirium and where the reality ...
He opens his eyes and sees an obese man with a black mustache beside his bed. He recognizes him: this is Dr. Tuwim from the Marine Hospital, their old family doctor. But why is he not in shape, why on his shoulders are not visible silver shoulder straps with anchors and gold stripes?
Doctor Tuvim holds Lyonka's hand, bends over to his face and, smiling with a wide, friendly smile, says:
- Wow! Are we awake? Well, how do we feel?
Lyonka was already amused by this manner of Dr. Tuwim talking about other "we" ... For some reason, he would never say: "drink castor oil" or "put on a mustard plaster", but always - "let us drink castor oil" or "let us put on a mustard plaster ”- although he himself does not put mustard plasters for himself and does not drink castor oil.
- We have no intention of eating? - he asks, stroking Lenka's hand.
Lyonka wants to answer, tries to smile, but he only has the strength to move his lips. His head is spinning, Doctor Tuvim is blurring, and Lyonka again falls through, goes headlong into the water. The last thing he hears is an unfamiliar male voice that says:
- They shoot again at Lermontovsky.
One night he was awakened by a terrible ringing. A cold street wind blew into the dark room with hurricane force.
- Stesha! Stesha! Where are you? Give me something ... a pillow or a blanket ...
- Lady! Yes, lady! Get away from the window! - shouted Stesha.
He wanted to ask: “What? What's the matter? ”, Wanted to raise his head, but his voice did not obey, and his head fell helplessly on the pillow.
* * *
... But now he woke up more and more often.
He could not speak yet, but he could listen.
He heard a machine gun pounding in the street. He heard armored cars rushing along the pavement with a roar, and saw how the light of their headlights ran menacingly and quickly over the white tiles of the stove.
He was beginning to realize that something had happened.
Once, when Stesha gave him cold cranberry juice, he gained strength and asked her in a whisper:
She understood, laughed and said loudly, like a deaf man:
- Our power, Leshenka! ..
He didn't immediately understand what she was talking about. What is "our power"? Why "our power"? But then, as often happens after an illness, some switch turned in Lenka's head, a bright ray illuminated his memory, and he remembered everything: he remembered the Bolshevik sailors from the guard's crew, remembered how he sneaked after Stesha along Sadovaya and Kryukov channel, he remembered the chest, the castle, and the Brockhaus encyclopedic dictionary ... His ears lit up, and, raising himself above the pillow, he looked at the maid with a pitiful smile and whispered:
- Stesha ... forgive me ...
- Nothing, nothing ... Enough for you ... Lie down! You stupid, - the girl laughed, and Lyonka suddenly thought that she had grown younger and prettier during this time. With such a cheerful and free laugh, she had never laughed before.
At this time, behind the door of the "dark", someone coughed loudly.
- Who is that there? - Lyonka whispered.
- No one is there, Leshenka. Lie down, - the girl laughed.
- No, really ... Someone walks.
Stesha quickly bent down and, tickling his ear with her lips, said:
- This is my brother, Leshenka!
- The same one.
Lyonka recalled a photograph with broken corners and a mustachioed man in a round, pie-like hat.
- Is he alive?
- Alive, Leshenka. I came from Smolensk for three days. Leaves today.
The door creaked.
- Wall, can I? - Lyonka heard a soft male voice.
Stesha rushed to the door.
- Shh ... Shh ... Where are you, Kolobrod? How can you come here ?! - Where are you, goat, stuck my Browning holster? The same voice asked quietly.
- What other holster? Ah, the holster? ..
Lyonka raised his head, wanted to look, but did not see anyone - he only heard a slight smell of tobacco smoke seeping into the room.
And in the evening he woke up again. He was awakened by a lisping old man's voice, which breathed over his headboard:
- Poor little Kalmyk boy ... What a terrible time he was born! ..
He opens his eyes and flinches. He sees before him a terrible, black, soot-stained face. Who is this? Or what is it? It seems to him that he is delirious again. But this is General Silkova, an old widow who lives in the outbuilding, in number six. He knows her well, he remembers this clean little old woman, her ruddy face framed with a mourning lace headdress, her strict, decorous walk ... Why is she so scary now? What happened to her? With a fixed gaze, he looks at the old woman, and she leans towards him, often, often blinking her small teary eyes and whispering:
- Sleep, sleep, baby ... God bless you! ..
And a terrible bony hand rises over Lyonka, and dirty, black, like a chimney sweep's fingers cross him several times.
He screams and closes his eyes. And a minute later he hears the mother in a loud whisper trying to persuade the old woman behind the screen:
- Augusta Markovna! .. Well, why are you? What are you doing? After all, in the end, it is unhygienic ... In the end, you can get sick ...
“No, no, don’t say, master,” the old woman whispers in reply. - No, no, dear ... You don't know history well. During the Great Revolution in France, the sansculottes, the holostenniks, recognized the aristocrats by their hands. Exactly. Exactly, exactly, you forgot, my dear, just like that.
- "Your hands, lady!" - "Here are my hands." “Why are your hands white? Why are they so white? A?" And - to the lantern! Yes, masher, to the lantern! A rope around the neck and - to the lantern, a la lantern! .. To the lantern! ..
General'sha Silkova no longer speaks, but hisses.
- And they will come to us, masher. You will see ... And this cup will not pass us ... They will come, they will come ...
"Who's going to come?" - thinks Lyonka. And suddenly he guesses: the Bolsheviks! The old woman is afraid of the Bolsheviks. She deliberately does not wash her hands so that they do not know that she is an aristocrat, the widow of a tsarist general.
He starts to shiver again. It becomes scary.
“It's good that I'm not an aristocrat,” he thinks, falling asleep. And for some reason, Volkova suddenly remembers.
“And who is Volkov? Is Volkov an aristocrat? Yes, there is someone who, and the Volkovs, of course, are the most real aristocrats ... "
* * *
... He sleeps long and sound. And again he wakes up from the roar. Someone knocks imperiously with iron on the iron gates. Voices are heard in the street. From mother's bedroom, where Vasya and Lyalya moved for a while, a child's cry is heard.
- Stesha! Stesha! Aleksandra Sergeevna cries muffledly. - What happened there? Dearie, come and find out ...
“Okay, Alexandra Sergeevna… now… I’ll find out,” Stesha replies calmly, and you can hear how they strike matches in the “dark one”… Stesha's bare feet are slapping. A minute later, a door slams in the kitchen.
Lyonka lies, does not move, listens. It is quiet on the street and in the yard, but voices, shots, moans seem to the boy's fevered imagination ...
The door slammed again.
- Stesha, is that you?
- Me, lady.
- Well, what is it?
- Nothing, lady. Sailors and Red Guards are walking. They came with a search. They are looking for weapons.
- Where did they go?
- In the sixth issue, to Silkova.
- My God! Unhappy! What is she worried about? ”Aleksandra Sergeevna says with a sigh, and Lyonka feels his hair on his head stirring with horror, or, rather, what is left of it after a haircut for a zero clipper.
“Into the lantern! To the lantern! " - he remembers the lisping whisper of the general's wife. He kicks off the covers, sits down, searches in the dark for his worn-out night shoes. He is scared, he is shaking all over, but at the same time he is unable to overcome greedy curiosity and the desire to see with his own eyes the last moments of the unfortunate general. He has no doubts that she is already hanging from the lantern. He clearly represents her - decorous and stern, hanging with her arms folded on her chest and with a prayerful gaze directed to heaven.
Throwing a blanket over his shoulders and staggering with weakness, he tiptoes into the hallway, the only window of which overlooks the courtyard. A poplar grows in front of the window, a gas lamp stands under the poplar.
Blinking his eyes, Lyonka approaches the window. He is afraid to open his eyes. For a whole minute, he stands tightly squinting, then gathers up courage and opens both eyes at once.
There is no one on the lantern yet. It is raining outside, the lantern is shining brightly, and raindrops run obliquely over its trapezoidal glass.
Somewhere in the back of the courtyard, in the outbuilding, a door slammed dully. Lyonka presses against the glass. He sees some black figures walking across the courtyard. Something glitters in the dark. And again it seems to him that groans, tears, muffled cries can be heard from the darkness ...
“They are going ... to hang,” he guesses, and with such force presses his forehead against the cold glass that the glass creaks, trembles and bends under his weight.
"Come to us!" - he thinks. And, eel slipping off the windowsill, losing his shoes on the go, he runs into the nursery. A muffled song comes from Mom's bedroom. While rocking Lyalya, Alexandra Sergeevna sings in an undertone:
Sleep, my beautiful baby,
Baiushki bye…
Shines quietly ...
- Mama! - Lyonka shouts. - Mom! .. Mommy ... They're coming to us ... Search! ..
And before he has time to say it, an impetuous bell rings in the kitchen.
Lyonka runs into the nursery with a beating heart. The blanket slides off his shoulders. He pulls it up - and suddenly sees his hands.
They are white, pale, even paler than usual. Thin blue veins appear on them like rivers on a map.
For a few seconds Lyonka thinks, looks at his hands, then rushes to the stove, squats down and, burning himself, opens the red-hot copper door.
Red coals still flicker in the depths of the stove. The ash has not yet cooled down. Without hesitation, he takes this warm soft mass with handfuls and smears it on his hands up to his elbows. Then he does the same with the face.
- Who lives? - Lyonka hears a sharp, rude voice.
- Teacher, - Stesha answers.
Having half-opened the door, Lyonka looks out into the kitchen.
At the front door stands a tall, stately sailor, similar to Peter the Great. The black antennae are dashingly twisted upward. The chest is crossed with machine-gun belts. A rifle in his hand, a wooden holster on his belt, on his left side - a cleaver in a leather sheath.
Several other people are crowding behind the sailor: two or three sailors, one civilian with a red bandage on his sleeve, and a woman in high boots. They all carry rifles.
Alexandra Sergeevna appears in the kitchen. With her right hand, she holds Lyalya, who is asleep on her shoulder, with her left hand, buttons up the hood and straightens her hair.
“Hello,” she says. - What's the matter?
She speaks calmly, as if a postman or a plumber had come to the kitchen, but Lyonka sees that her mother is still worried, her hands are shaking slightly.
The tall sailor puts his hand to his peakless cap.
- Will you be the owner of the apartment?
- The teacher?
- Yes. The teacher.
- Do you live alone?
- Yes. With three children and a servant.
- Widow?
- Yes, I'm a widow.
The giant looks at the woman with sympathy. In any case, so it seems to Lyonka.
- And what do you, excuse my curiosity, teach? What is the subject?
- I'm a music teacher.
- Yeah. It's clear. On the piano or the guitar?
- Yes ... on the piano.
- I see, - the sailor repeats and, turning to his companions, gives the command:
- Set aside! Vira ...
Then he once again throws his hand to his cap, on the ribbon of which the worn-out gold letters "Dawn of Freedom" gleam dully, and says, addressing the owners:
- I'm sorry to trouble you. They woke up ... But nothing can be done - a revolutionary debt! ..
Lyonka looks enchanted at the handsome sailor. He no longer experiences any fear. On the contrary, he is sorry that now this hero will leave, disappear, dissolve like a dream ...
At the door, the sailor turns around once more.
- Weapons, of course, are not found? He says with a delicate grin.
“No,” Alexandra Sergeevna answers with a smile. - Except for table knives and forks ...
- Thank you. No plugs required. And then Lyonka bursts into the kitchen.
“Mom,” he whispers, tugging at his mother’s sleeve. - You forgot. We have ...
The sailor, who did not have time to leave, turns sharply. “Ugh,” he says, widening his eyes. - And what kind of chimpanzee is this?
Товарищи его протискиваются в кухню и тоже с удивлением смотрят на странное черномазое существо, закутанное в зеленое стеганое одеяло.
- Lesha! .. What have you done to yourself? What happened to your face? And hands! Look at his hands! ..
- Mom, we have, - Lyonka mutters, tugging at his mother's hood sleeve. - You forgot. We have it.
- What do we have?
Товарищи с удивлением смотрят на странное черномазое существо, закутанное в зеленое одеяло.
- Oguzhie ...
And, not hearing the laughter that stands behind him, he runs into the corridor.
A chest lined with brass is almost cluttered with things to the very ceiling. Climbing onto it, Lyonka hastily throws baskets, trunks, bundles, hat boxes on the floor ... With the same haste, he lifts the heavy lid of the chest. The poisonous smell of mothballs hits the nose hard. Squinting and sneezing, Lyonka frantically rummages through things, pulls out old checkers, pouches, stirrups, spurs from the chest ...
Loaded with this Cossack ammunition, he returns to the kitchen. The green blanket trails behind him like a train of a lady's dress ...
Again he is greeted with laughter.
- What is it? - says the giant sailor, with a smile looking at the things brought by Lyonka. - Where did you get this junk?
“These are the things of my late husband,” says Alexandra Sergeevna. - In nine hundred and four, he fought with the Japanese.
- Clear. No, boy, we don't need that. You'd better take this to some museum. But by the way ... wait ... Perhaps this saber will come in handy ...
And, turning a crooked Cossack saber in his hands, the sailor famously puts it in his belt, on which already there are weapons hung on a good half of a platoon.
* * *
... Ten minutes later Lyonka is sitting in bed. There is a basin of warm water on a stool next to him, and Alexandra Sergeevna, rolling up her sleeves, washes the boy with a spongy Greek sponge. Stesha helps her.
- And you know, Stesha, - says Alexandra Sergeevna. “Perhaps these Red Guards are not that scary at all. They are even glorious. Especially this one, who is in charge of them, with a hussar mustache ...
- Well, lady, - Stesha answers offendedly. - What are they - robbers, or what? It's not from the Ditch Kanava is a district of St. Petersburg. any. This is a revolutionary guard. And they wake up good people at night because some bourgeoisie have taken the habit of hiding their weapons. Do you know what you found the other day in the corner house of a state councilor?
Soapy water flows into Lyonka's ears. He is afraid to listen, pulls himself out of Stesha's hands and asks:
- What? What have you found?
- Oh, to you, by God! - says Stesha. - Spattered all over. Don't jump, please! .. She had a whole machine gun in her bathtub. And two thousand cartridges. That's what!..
* * *
… These nocturnal adventures could end badly for the sick boy. But, probably, he had been ill for so long that the diseases eventually got tired of messing with him and they left him. After a week, he was feeling so good that Dr. Tuwim allowed him to get up. And two weeks later, wrapped up to the very nose with scarves and headgear, he first went out into the yard.
It has snowed a long time ago. He lay on the roofs, on the cornices, on the branches of an old poplar, on the beams of a lantern ...
Lyonka stood at the entrance and, lifting his head like a dump, with pleasure swallowed the clean, frosty air, smelling of smoke and Antonov's apples.
Snow creaked. He looked around. General Silkova was walking across the yard, leaning on a stick. Her clean, ruddy face flushed even more in the cold. A white lace collar peeped out from under a red fox boa, the tail of which hung on Silkova's chest, and a bulging-eyed, sharp muzzle with a protruding pink tongue stared at the back of the general's head.
Lyonka looked at Silkova like a ghost.
When the old woman passed by, he barely shuffled his foot across the deep snow and said:
- Hello, madam ... So you weren't hanged?
- What are you saying, baby? Silkova asked, stopping.
- I say: you were not hanged?
“No, poor child,” the old woman answered, and, sighing heavily, walked on.
* * *
... Lenka returned to school just before the Christmas holidays. He missed more than two months and, although the last two weeks worked hard at home, he was still afraid that he was far behind the class. However, when he came into reality and saw what kind of order reigned there, he realized that he had absolutely nothing to fear.
The first thing that struck him was that his class had thinned out a lot. On many desks there was one student, and on some there was no one at all.
- Where did all the boys go? - he asked his neighbor Tuzov the second.
- I do not know. It’s been like that for a long time, ”answered Aces the second. - Some are sick, some do not go for home reasons, and some have stopped practicing altogether.
- And Volkov?
- Volkov, it seems, has not appeared for a whole month.
“Probably sick too,” Lenka decided.
It was cold in the school. The steam heating batteries were barely heating up. Many of the windows had been pierced with rifle bullets and hastily repaired with round wooden patches. During recess, Lenka noticed that many high school students were walking along the school corridor in greatcoats.
As before, the main center of school life was in the lavatory. As before, there were debates all day long, but Lyonka thought that now these disputes and skirmishes became much more acute. Swear words were heard more often. Fights arose more often ... And one more observation was made by Lyonka: in these disputes and fights, the one who dared to defend the Bolsheviks most of all got it ...
Before the big break, the class teacher Bodrov came to the class and announced that there would be no more lessons today, the students could go home.
Nobody, except Lyonka, was surprised.
- Why? What happened? He asked the boy who was leaving the classroom with him. It was a funny, always smiling boy - Kolya Markelov, the grandson of the school watchman.
- And what? Nothing happened, ”Markelov smiled. - We now have such a bagpipe almost every day. For some reason, the stoker does not work, then the teachers sabotage, then the high school students go on strike.
“How is it going on strike? - Lyonka did not understand. "Workers are on strike in factories, but how can students and even more so teachers go on strike?"
* * *
... Leaving the school, Lyonka decided not to go home right away, but to stagger a little along the streets. He spent so long in four walls that he could not deny himself this pleasure.
Having rounded the huge Trinity Cathedral, admiring, as always, the monument of Glory, made of one hundred and twenty-eight cannons, he went to Izmailovsky, crossed the bridge and wandered along Voznesensky towards Sadovaya.
The day was bright, wintry. The snow crunched pleasantly underfoot. The sled runners creaked. Somewhere from behind Lenka's back, from behind the tower of the Varshavsky railway station, the tinned winter sun was shining coldly.
At first glance, no special changes have occurred on the streets during this time. Trade was brisk in the Aleksandrovsky market. On the locker of a newsboy near the black town house with tiled turrets, at the corner of Sadovaya and Voznesensky, lay all the same newspapers: Novoye Vremya, Rech, Russkaya Volya, Petrogradskiy Listok ... ", But newspapers appeared, which Lenka had never seen before:" Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet "," Pravda "," Soldierskaya Pravda "...
There was a long line at the door of Filippov's bakery. On the watchtower of the Spassky unit, a patrol's sheepskin coat loomed. A modest funeral procession was going along Sadovaya from Pokrov ... On the site opposite Nikolsky market, a village guy, belted with a red sash, was selling Christmas trees. Everything was the same as last year, as well as five years ago. But not everything was the same. There were changes that were striking.
The street crowd has become easier. There were no smart reckless drivers, sledges with bear cavities, smart ladies, brilliant officers. Lyonka even shuddered when he saw a short, obese gentleman in a beaver hat, with a gold pince-nez on his nose and in high black boots, walking towards him. He saw this gentleman in the autumn at the Volkovs'. He was about to bow, but then he noticed that this gentleman was not walking alone - two very stern-looking men with rifles and red armbands on their sleeves were walking to his right and left.
Lyonka shivered. Again he remembered Volkov.
“I'll go in and find out what's wrong with him,” he decided. Moreover, the Kryukov Canal was very close.
Climbing the scuffed carpet path to the mezzanine, he stood for a long time in front of the high front door and pressed the bell button. Nobody opened it to him.
As he went downstairs, a stooped, unshaven old man in felt boots and a black cap with gold lace came out of the Swiss.
- Who are you? He asked Lyonka.
- Do you know where the Volkovs from the first issue went? - said Lyonka. - I called, called, no one answers.
“And they won’t answer,” the doorman replied grimly.
- How? Why won't they answer? Where are they?
The doorman looked at the puny realist, as if wondering whether it was worth explaining himself to such a carapet at all, then he mercifully and replied:
- We left with the whole family to the south, to our own estate.
The next day, at the school, Lyonka reported this to Markelov, who asked him if he had seen Volkov.
“Volkov has gone south,” he said.
- Left ?! - Markelov laughed. - Better say - did not leave, but washed away!
- How is it - washed away? - Lyonka did not understand.
Then these thieves', "thieves" words appeared in large numbers not only in the everyday life of boys, but also in the spoken language of many adults. This is explained by the fact that the Provisional Government, before its fall, released criminals from prisons. This dark people, scattered throughout the cities and villages of the country, occupied an incontestable place among the enemies, with whom the young Soviet government had to fight later.
- What do you mean "washed away"? - Lyonka asked in surprise.
- Freak! - Markelov laughed. - Well, they ran away, they asked the snatch. Now your brother - you know yourself - is amba! And Volkov-papa, too, I suppose, has a stigma in the fluff! ..
- Which brother of ours? - Lyonka was offended. - What are you cursing? I am not an aristocrat.
- And who are you? Which party are you for?
“I’m a Cossack,” Lyonka replied out of habit.
* * *
This winter has been very difficult. Civil war broke out on the outskirts of the country. In Petrograd and in other cities, hunger became stronger and stronger. Food prices were rising. Horse meat appeared on the markets. Black bread, which until recently Lyonka was forced to eat at dinner with soup and roast, has imperceptibly turned into a delicacy like a cake or pastries.
Lenka’s mother was still running about lessons, which became more difficult to get every day. Her teeth still ached. And in the evenings, when, as always, she kissed and baptized the children before going to bed, Lyonka felt a sickeningly cloying smell of garlic and lily of the valley.
In the middle of winter Stesha went to work at the Triangle plant. She did not leave Lenka's family, continued to live in the "dark" one, even helped, as much as she could, to Alexandra Sergeevna. A little light, long before the factory whistle, she got up to take a line for bread or milk in the Pomeshchik store on Izmailovsky. Returning from work, she washed the dishes, took out the trash, washed the floors in the kitchen and in the corridors ... Alexandra Sergeevna tried to do the housework herself. She knew how to cook, as she once studied, in the early years of her marriage, in culinary courses. But when she once tried to wash the floor in the nursery, in the evening her back hurt so much that Lyonka had to hurry to the Kalinkin Bridge for Doctor Tuvim.
Winter, which dragged on for an infinitely long time, seemed somehow unreal to Lyonka. And they didn't really study. And they ate differently from before. And the stoves weren't always warm.
Who is to blame for all this, where is the cause of the beginning of the devastation, Lyonka did not understand, and did not really think about it. At ten years old, a person lives by his own, often much more complex than those of adults, interests. True, at this age, Lyonka did not look like his peers. He didn’t run to the rink, didn’t make friends-friends in the yard or on the street, wasn’t fond of French wrestling, didn’t collect stamps ... As before, his little desk, like a school desk, was the dearest place to his heart. He still avidly read, wrote poetry, and even compiled a small pamphlet entitled "What is Love", which spoke mainly about mother's love and which cited examples from Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy. He forced Vasya to rewrite this philosophical treatise in ten copies by hand, who had already been in preparatory classes for the second year and who could undertake this monstrous work only out of great respect for his brother. Vasya himself, who was growing and getting healthy by leaps and bounds, had no inclination to literary pursuits.
* * *
In the spring, when Lyonka successfully entered the second grade (which was not at all difficult in those conditions), a letter came from the nanny. She wrote that the children need to rest, and the times are difficult, everything is expensive and it is unlikely that Alexandra Sergeevna will rent a dacha this year. Will she get together with the children for the summer to her village?
In the evening, when everyone met in the dining room, Alexandra Sergeevna read this letter to her household.
- Well, what do you think: are we going or not? She asked her chicks.
- And you, Stesha, what do you think about this?
- Well, - said Stesha. - Of course, go ... The time is such that in the summer, maybe even worse, it will be hungrier, especially here in Petrograd.
- Maybe you, Stesha, will go too? - Alexandra Sergeevna looked at the girl with timid hope.
But Stesha resolutely shook her head.
“No, Alexandra Sergeevna,” she said. - I'm not leaving St. Petersburg. My place is here. I will save your property - do not worry. And you will do me a favor in return for this service - bow down to Mother Volga for me. After all, I am there - from near Uglich.
And so Lyonka, for the first time in his life, set off on a long journey - to the Yaroslavl province.
When, before going to the station, he sat down on a cab and with laughter took from Steshin's hands countless suitcases, bundles, bundles and baskets, he did not know and could not know that his journey would take a long time and that on this path, which began so easy and fun, very difficult troubles and severe trials await him.
