Literary heritage of Russia - I. Bunin. The Story of the Pass. I. A. Bunin “Pass” The night is long, and I still wander through the mountains to the pass, wander under the wind, among the cold fog, and hopelessly, but dutifully, a wet, tired horse follows me, tinkling

I. A. Bunin († 1953)

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin(1870 - 1953) - Russian writer. Belonged to an old noble family. Born October 22, 1870 in Voronezh. He spent his early childhood in a small family estate (farm Butyrki, Yelets district, Oryol province). At the age of ten he was sent to the Yelets Gymnasium, where he studied for four and a half years, was expelled (for non-payment of tuition fees) and returned to the village. Received home education. Already in childhood, B.'s extraordinary impressionability and susceptibility manifested itself, qualities that formed the basis of his artistic personality and caused an image of the surrounding world hitherto unseen in Russian literature in terms of sharpness and brightness, as well as the richness of shades. B. recalled: “ My eyesight was such that I saw all the seven stars in the Pleiades, heard the whistle of a marmot in the evening field a mile away, got drunk, smelling the smell of a lily of the valley or an old book". B. made his debut as a poet in 1887. In 1891, the first book of poems was published in Orel. At the same time, the writer began to be published in the capital's magazines, and his work attracted the attention of literary celebrities (criticism of N. K. Mikhailovsky, poet A. M. Zhemchuzhnikov), who helped B. publish poems in the journal Vestnik Evropy. In 1896, Bunin published his translation of G. Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. With the release of the collection "To the End of the World" (1897), "Under the Open Sky" (1898), "Poems and Stories" (1900), "Leaf Fall" (1901), Bunin gradually asserts his original place in the artistic life of Russia. more>>

Works

I. A. Bunin († 1953)
Stories.

Pass.

H It's been a long time, but I'm still wandering through the mountains to the pass, wandering under the wind, in the midst of a cold fog, and hopelessly, but obediently, a wet, tired horse follows me, clinking empty stirrups.

IN twilight, resting at the foot of the pine forests, behind which this bare and deserted ascent begins, I still cheerfully looked into the immense depth below me with that special feeling of pride and strength with which you always look from a great height. There, far below, one could still make out the lights in the darkening valley, on the shores of the narrow bay, which, leaving to the east, expanded more and more and, rising like a foggy blue wall, hugged the sky high. But night was already falling in the mountains. It grew dark quickly, and as I approached the forests, the mountains grew more and more gloomy and majestic, and into the spans between their spurs, with stormy swiftness, thick gray fog fell in oblique, long clouds, driven by a storm from above. He fell from the height of the plateau, which he enveloped in a giant loose ridge, and with his fall sharply emphasized the gloomy depth of the abysses between the mountains. It has already smoked the pine forest, growing before me together with the deaf, deep and unsociable hum of the pines. There was a breeze of winter freshness, a rush of snow and wind... Night fell, and I walked for a long time under the dark vaults of the mountain forest, buzzing in the fog, trying somehow to protect myself from the wind.

« FROM short pass, I said to myself. - The area is safe and familiar, and in two or three hours I will be in the calm behind the mountains, in a bright and crowded house. Now it's getting dark early."

H Oh, half an hour, an hour passes ... Every minute it seems to me that the pass is two steps away from me, and the bare and rocky ascent does not end. The pine forests have long been left below, the stunted bushes twisted by storms have long since passed, and I begin to get tired and tremble from the cold wind and fog. I remember the cemetery of those who died at this height - several graves among a bunch of pines not far from the pass, in which some kind of Tatars-woodcutters are buried, thrown down from Yayla by a winter blizzard. These graves are already not far away - I feel what a wild and deserted height I am on, and from the realization that now there is only fog and cliffs around me, my heart shrinks. How will I get past the lonely memorial stones when they, like human figures, blacken in the mist? Can it be that only at the dead of midnight will I reach the pass? And will I have the strength to descend from the mountains, when even now I am losing the idea of ​​time and place? But there is no time to think - you need to go!.

D far ahead, something vaguely blackens among the running fog ... These are some kind of dark hills, similar to sleeping bears. I climb over them from one stone to another, the horse, breaking off and clanging its horseshoes on wet pebbles, climbs with difficulty after me - and suddenly I notice that the road is again starting to slowly climb up the mountain! Then I stop, and despair seizes me. I tremble all over with tension and fatigue, my clothes are all soaked with snow, and the wind pierces through them. Shouldn't you scream for help? But now even the shepherds have crowded into their Homeric huts together with goats and sheep, which means that absolutely no one will hear me. And, looking around, I think with horror:

« B oh my! Am I lost? Is this my last night? And if not, how and where will I spend it? .. "

P It’s late, the struggle is muffled and sleepy buzzing in the distance. The night is becoming more and more mysterious, and I feel it well, despite the fact that I do not know either the time or the place. Now the last light has gone out in the deep valleys, and a gray mist reigns over them, knowing that its hour has come - a long and terrible hour, when it seems that everything has died out on earth and morning will never come, but fogs will only grow, enveloping majestic in their midnight guard of the mountains, - the forests will hum dully over the mountains, and the snow will fly thicker and thicker on the deserted pass.

W shielding myself from the wind, I turn to the horse. The only living being left with me! But the horse does not look at me. Wet, chilled, hunched under a high saddle, which clumsily sticks out on her back, she stands, obediently lowering her head with her ears flattened. And I angrily pull her by the reins and again expose my face to wet snow and wind, and again I stubbornly go towards them. When I try to see what surrounds me, I see only a gray, running mist that is blinding with snow, and I feel slippery, stony soil under my feet. When I listen closely, I distinguish only the whistling of the wind in my ears and the monotonous tinkling behind my back: these are stirrups knocking, colliding with each other ...

H oh, strange—my despair is beginning to strengthen me! I begin to walk more boldly, and a vicious reproach to someone for everything that I endure makes me happy. He is already moving into that gloomy and steadfast resignation to everything that needs to be endured, in which it is sweet to feel his growing grief and hopelessness ...

IN from, finally, and the pass. Now it is clear that I am at the highest point of the ascent, but I do not care. I am walking on a level and flat steppe, the wind carries the fog in long tufts and knocks me down, but I pay no attention to it. Already by the whistling of the wind and through the fog one can feel how deeply the late night has taken possession of the mountains - for a long time the little people have been sleeping in the valleys in their small huts; but I'm not in a hurry, I go, gritting my teeth, and muttering, turning to the horse:

- H nothing, nothing, go! Let's trudge until we fall. - How many of these difficult and lonely passes have already been in my life! From early youth I entered from time to time into their fateful streak. Like night, sorrows, sufferings, illnesses and helplessness of my own and loved ones approached me, betrayals of my loved ones and bitter insults of friendship accumulated, and the hour of separation from everything I was used to and with which I was related came. And, reluctantly, I took in my hands my wandering staff. And the ascents to new happiness were high and difficult, night, fog and storm met me on high, and terrible loneliness seized me on the passes ... Never mind, we will trudge until we fall down!

FROM stumbling, I wander as in a dream. Far from morning. The whole night will have to go down to the valleys and only at dawn will it be possible, perhaps, to fall asleep somewhere in a dead sleep - to shrink and feel only one thing - the joy of warmth after the piercing cold and sweet rest - after the painful road.

D The day will again delight me with people and the sun, and again will deceive me for a long time and make me forget about the passes. But they will be again, and the most difficult and lonely - will be the last ... Somewhere I will fall and will forever remain in the middle of the night and blizzards on the bare and deserted mountains from time immemorial?

Source: Iv. Bunin. Volume One: Stories. - Third edition. - St. Petersburg: Publication of the partnership "Knowledge", 1904. - S. 1-5.

The night is long, and I am still wandering through the mountains to the pass, wandering under the wind, among the cold fog, and hopelessly, but obediently, a wet, tired horse follows me in a bridle, clinking empty stirrups.
At dusk, resting at the foot of the pine forests, behind which this bare, desert ascent begins, I looked into the immense depths below me with that special feeling of pride and strength with which you always look from a great height. You could still make out the lights in the darkening valley far below, on the coast of a narrow bay, which, leaving to the east, kept expanding and, rising like a foggy blue wall, embraced half the sky. But it was already night in the mountains. It was getting dark quickly, I walked, approached the forests - and the mountains grew more gloomy and majestic, and thick fog, driven by a storm from above, fell into the spans between their spurs with stormy swiftness in oblique, long clouds. He fell off the plateau, which he enveloped in a giant loose ridge, and with his fall, as it were, increased the gloomy depth of the abysses between the mountains. He was already smoking the forest, advancing on me along with the deaf, deep and unsociable rumble of pines. There was a breath of winter freshness, snow and wind blew ... Night fell, and I walked for a long time under the dark vaults of the mountain forest, buzzing in the fog, bowing my head from the wind.
"Soon the pass," I said to myself. "Soon I'll be in the calm, beyond the mountains, in a bright, crowded house..."
But half an hour, an hour passes ... Every minute it seems to me that the pass is two steps away from me, and the bare and rocky ascent does not end. The pine forests have long been left below, the stunted, twisted bushes have long since passed, and I begin to get tired and tremble. I remember several graves among the pines not far from the pass, where some woodcutters are buried, thrown from the mountains by a winter storm. I feel at what a wild and deserted height I am, I feel that around me there is only fog, cliffs, and I think: how will I get past the lonely monument stones when they, like human figures, blacken among the fog? will I have the strength to descend from the mountains when I am already losing the idea of ​​time and place?
Ahead, something vaguely blackens among the running fog ... some dark hills that look like sleeping bears. I make my way along them, from one stone to another, the horse, breaking off and clanging with horseshoes on wet pebbles, climbs with difficulty after me - and suddenly I notice that the road is slowly starting to climb uphill again! Then I stop and despair seizes me. I am trembling all over with tension and fatigue, my clothes are all soaked with snow, and the wind pierces through them. Shouldn't you shout? But now even the shepherds have crowded into their Homeric huts along with the goats and sheep - who will hear me? And I look around in horror:
- My God! Am I lost?
Late. Bohr hums muffled and sleepy in the distance. The night is becoming more and more mysterious, and I feel it, although I do not know either the time or the place. Now the last light has gone out in the deep valleys, and a gray fog reigns over them, knowing that its hour has come, a long hour, when it seems that everything has died out on earth and the morning will never come, but the mists will only grow, enveloping the majestic in their the midnight guard of the mountain, the forests will hum dully over the mountains and the snow will fly thicker and thicker on the desert pass.
Shielding myself from the wind, I turn to the horse. The only living being left with me! But the horse does not look at me. Wet, chilled, hunched under a high saddle, which clumsily sticks out on her back, she stands with her head obediently lowered with her ears flattened. And I viciously pull the reins, and again expose my face to wet snow and wind, and again stubbornly go towards them. When I try to see what surrounds me, I see only gray running darkness that blinds me with snow. When I listen closely, I distinguish only the whistling of the wind in my ears and the monotonous tinkling behind my back: these are stirrups knocking, colliding with each other ...
But strangely - my despair is beginning to strengthen me! I begin to walk more boldly, and a vicious reproach to someone for everything that I endure makes me happy. He is already passing into that gloomy and steadfast resignation to everything that needs to be endured, in which hopelessness is sweet ...
Here is the pass at last. But I don't care anymore. I am walking on a level and flat steppe, the wind carries the fog in long tufts and knocks me down, but I pay no attention to it. Already by one whistle of the wind and through the fog one can feel how deeply the late night has taken possession of the mountains, - for a long time the little people have been sleeping in the valleys, in their small huts; but I'm not in a hurry, I go, gritting my teeth, and muttering to the horse:
- Go, go. We'll trudge until we fall. How many of these difficult and lonely passes have already been in my life! Like night, sorrows, sufferings, illnesses, betrayals of loved ones and bitter resentments of friendship approached me - and the hour of separation from everything with which I was related came. And, reluctantly, I again took up my wandering staff. And the ascents to new happiness were high and difficult, night, fog and storm met me at a height, terrible loneliness seized me on the passes ... But - let's go, let's go!
Stumbling, I wander like in a dream. Far from morning. The whole night will have to go down to the valleys, and only at dawn will it be possible, perhaps, to fall asleep somewhere like a dead sleep - to shrink and feel only one thing - the sweetness of warmth after the cold.
The day will again delight me with people and the sun, and again deceive me for a long time ... Somewhere I will fall and will forever remain in the middle of the night and blizzards on the bare and deserted mountains for centuries?

Current page: 1 (total book has 39 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 10 pages]

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Antonov apples

Oleg Mikhailov. Great Exile

[text missing]

Pass

The night is long, and I am still wandering through the mountains to the pass, wandering under the wind, among the cold fog, and hopelessly, but obediently, a wet, tired horse follows me in a bridle, clinking empty stirrups.

At dusk, resting at the foot of the pine forests, behind which this bare, desert ascent begins, I looked into the immense depths below me with that special feeling of pride and strength with which you always look from a great height. You could still make out the lights in the darkening valley far below, on the coast of a narrow bay, which, leaving to the east, kept expanding and, rising like a foggy blue wall, embraced half the sky. But it was already night in the mountains. It was getting dark quickly, I walked, approached the forests - and the mountains grew more and more gloomy and majestic, and thick fog, driven by a storm from above, fell into the spans between their spurs with stormy swiftness in oblique, long clouds. He fell off the plateau, which he enveloped in a giant loose ridge, and with his fall, as it were, increased the gloomy depth of the abysses between the mountains. He was already smoking the forest, advancing on me along with the deaf, deep and unsociable rumble of pines. There was a breath of winter freshness, snow and wind blew ... Night fell, and I walked for a long time under the dark vaults of the mountain forest, buzzing in the fog, bowing my head from the wind.

“The pass is coming soon,” I said to myself. “Soon I will be in a calm, beyond the mountains, in a bright, crowded house…”

But half an hour, an hour passes ... Every minute it seems to me that the pass is two steps away from me, and the bare and rocky ascent does not end. The pine forests have long been left below, the stunted, twisted bushes have long since passed, and I begin to get tired and tremble. I remember several graves among the pines not far from the pass, where some woodcutters are buried, thrown from the mountains by a winter storm. I feel at what a wild and deserted height I am, I feel that around me there is only fog, cliffs, and I think: how will I get past the lonely monument stones when they, like human figures, blacken among the fog? will I have the strength to descend from the mountains when I am already losing the idea of ​​time and place?

Ahead, something vaguely blackens among the running fog ... some dark hills that look like sleeping bears. I make my way along them, from one stone to another, the horse, breaking off and clanging its horseshoes on wet pebbles, climbs with difficulty after me - and suddenly I notice that the road is slowly starting to climb uphill again! Then I stop and despair seizes me. I am trembling all over with tension and fatigue, my clothes are all soaked with snow, and the wind pierces through them. Shouldn't you shout? But now even the shepherds have crowded into their Homeric huts along with the goats and sheep - who will hear me? And I look around in horror:

- My God! Am I lost?

Late. Bohr hums muffled and sleepy in the distance. The night is becoming more and more mysterious, and I feel it, although I do not know either the time or the place. Now the last light has gone out in the deep valleys, and a gray fog reigns over them, knowing that its hour has come, a long hour, when it seems that everything has died out on earth and the morning will never come, but the mists will only grow, enveloping the majestic in their the midnight guard of the mountain, the forests will hum dully over the mountains and the snow will fly thicker and thicker on the desert pass.

Shielding myself from the wind, I turn to the horse. The only living being left with me! But the horse does not look at me. Wet, chilled, hunched under a high saddle, which clumsily sticks out on her back, she stands with her head obediently lowered with her ears flattened. And I viciously pull the reins, and again expose my face to wet snow and wind, and again stubbornly go towards them. When I try to see what surrounds me, I see only gray running darkness that blinds me with snow. When I listen closely, I distinguish only the whistling of the wind in my ears and the monotonous tinkling behind my back: these are stirrups knocking, colliding with each other ...

But strangely, my despair is beginning to strengthen me! I begin to walk more boldly, and a vicious reproach to someone for everything that I endure makes me happy. He is already moving into that gloomy and steadfast resignation to everything that needs to be endured, in which hopelessness is sweet ...

Here is the pass at last. But I don't care anymore. I am walking on a level and flat steppe, the wind carries the fog in long tufts and knocks me down, but I pay no attention to it. Already by one whistle of the wind and through the fog one can feel how deeply the late night has taken possession of the mountains - for a long time the little people have been sleeping in the valleys, in their small huts; but I'm not in a hurry, I go, gritting my teeth, and muttering to the horse:

- Go, go. We'll trudge until we fall. How many of these difficult and lonely passes have already been in my life! Like night, sorrows, sufferings, illnesses, betrayals of loved ones and bitter resentments of friendship approached me - and the hour of separation from everything with which I was related came. And, reluctantly, I again took up my wandering staff. And the ascents to new happiness were high and difficult, night, fog and storm met me at a height, terrible loneliness seized me on the passes ... But - let's go, let's go!

Stumbling, I wander like in a dream. Far from morning. The whole night will have to go down to the valleys, and only at dawn will it be possible, perhaps, to fall asleep somewhere like a dead sleep - to shrink and feel only one thing - the sweetness of warmth after the cold.

The day will again delight me with people and the sun, and again deceive me for a long time ... Somewhere I will fall and will forever remain in the middle of the night and blizzards on the bare and deserted mountains for centuries?

1892–1898

Tanya

Tanka felt cold, and she woke up.

Having freed her hand from the blanket, in which she awkwardly wrapped herself at night, Tanya stretched out, took a deep breath and clenched herself again. But still it was cold. She rolled under the very "head" of the stove and pressed Vaska to it. He opened his eyes and looked as brightly as only healthy children look from sleep. Then he turned on his side and fell silent. Tanya also began to doze off. But in the hut the door banged: the mother, rustling, dragged an armful of straw from the senets

- Is it cold, auntie? asked the wanderer, lying on the horse.

- No, - answered Marya, - fog. And the dogs are lying around - without fail to a blizzard.

She was looking for matches and rattling her tongs. The Stranger lowered his legs from the horse, yawned and put on his shoes. The bluish cold light of morning shone through the windows, a lame drake, waking up, hissed and quacked under the bench. The calf stood up on weak, splayed legs, convulsively stretched out its tail and meowed so stupidly and abruptly that the wanderer laughed and said:

- Orphan! Have you lost a cow?

- Sold.

"And you don't have a horse?"

- Sold.

Tanya opened her eyes.

The sale of the horse especially stuck in her memory “When they were still digging potatoes”, on a dry, windy day, her mother was noon in the field, crying and saying that “a piece doesn’t go down her throat”, and Tanka kept looking at her throat, not understanding what's the point.

Then, in a large, strong cart with a high limber, the "Anchichrists" arrived. Both of them looked alike - black, greasy, girded with bonfires. Another one came after them, even blacker, with a stick in his hand, I shouted something loudly, a little later, I led the horse out of the yard and ran with it along the pasture, my father ran after him, and Tanka thought that he had gone to take the horse away, caught up and again led her into the yard. Mother stood on the threshold of the hut and wailed. Looking at her, Vaska also roared at the top of his lungs. Then the "black" again led the horse out of the yard, tied it to the cart and trotted downhill ... And the father did not chase anymore ...

The "Anchichrists", horsemen-philistines, were, indeed, fierce in appearance, especially the last one - Taldykin. He came later, and before him, the first two only knocked down the price. They vied with each other torturing the horse, tore its muzzle, beat it with sticks.

- Well, - shouted one, - look here, get money with God!

“They are not mine, take care, you don’t have to take half the price,” Korney answered evasively.

- Yes, what kind of half price is this, if, for example, the mare is more years old than you and I? Pray to God!

“What a waste of time to interpret,” Korney objected absently.

It was then that Taldykin came, a healthy, fat tradesman with the physiognomy of a pug: shiny, angry black eyes, the shape of his nose, cheekbones - everything about him resembled this dog breed.

- What is the noise, but there is no fight? he said, coming in and smiling, if nostril flaring can be called a smile.

He went up to the horse, stopped and was silent for a long time, looking at it indifferently. Then he turned around, casually said to his comrades: “Hurry up, it’s time to go, it’s raining on the pasture,” and went to the gate.

Korney hesitantly called out:

- Why didn’t the horse look!

Taldykin stopped.

“Not worth a long look,” he said.

- Come on, let's indulge ...

Taldykin came up and made lazy eyes.

He suddenly struck the horse under the belly, pulled its tail, felt it under the shoulder blades, sniffed its hand and walked away.

- Bad? – trying to joke, asked Roots.

Taldykin chuckled:

- Longevity?

- The horse is not old.

- Tek. So, the first head on the shoulders?

Korney was confused.

Taldykin quickly thrust his fist into the corner of the horse's lips, looked, as it were, briefly into its teeth, and, wiping his hand on the floor, asked mockingly and quickly:

- So not old? Your grandfather did not go to marry her? .. Well, yes, it will do for us, get eleven yellow ones.

And, without waiting for Korney's answer, he took out the money and took the horse for a turn.

- Pray to God and put half a bottle.

- What are you, what are you? - Korney was offended - You are without a cross, uncle!

- What? - Taldykin exclaimed menacingly, - are you fooled? Don't want money? Take it while the fool comes across, take it, they tell you!

- What kind of money is that?

- The ones you don't have.

- No, it's better not to.

- Well, after a certain date you will give it back for seven, you will give it back with pleasure - believe your conscience.

Korney walked away, took an ax and, with a businesslike air, began to hew a pillow under the cart.

Then they tried the horse in the pasture ... And no matter how cunning Korney was, no matter how he restrained himself, he did not win it back!

When October came and white flakes flickered and fell in the air blue from the cold, bringing pasture, lazina and blockage of the hut, Tanka had to be surprised at her mother every day.

It used to happen that with the onset of winter, true torment began for all the children, stemming, on the one hand, from the desire to escape from the hut, run waist-deep in the snow through the meadow and, rolling on their feet on the first blue ice of the pond, beat it with sticks and listen to how he gurgles, and on the other hand - from the menacing shouts of his mother.

- Where are you going? Chicher, cold - and she, nakosya! With the boys to the pond! Now climb on the stove, otherwise look at me, little demon!

Sometimes, with sadness, one had to be content with the fact that a cup with steaming crumbly potatoes and a slice of bread smelling like a crate, steeply salted, was stretched onto the stove. Now the mother did not give bread or potatoes at all in the mornings, she answered requests for this:

- Go, I'll dress you, go to the pond, baby!

Last winter, Tanka and even Vaska went to bed late and could safely enjoy sitting on the “group” of the stove until midnight. Steamed, thick air stood in the hut; on the table a lamp without a glass was burning, and the soot reached the very ceiling in a dark, quivering wick. Father was sitting near the table and sewing sheepskin coats; mother mended shirts or knitted mittens; her bowed face was at that time meekly and affectionately in a quiet voice, she sang the “old” songs that she heard as a girl, and Tanka often wanted to cry from them. In the dark hut, blown with snowstorms, Marya remembered her youth, remembered the hot hayfields and the evening dawns, when she walked in the girlish crowd along the field road with ringing songs, and behind the rumbles the sun went down and golden dust poured through the ears of its fading reflection. She told her daughter in song that she would have the same dawns, that everything that passes so quickly and for a long time will be replaced by village grief and care for a long time.

When her mother was getting ready for dinner, Tanka, in one long shirt, jumped off the stove and, often pawing her bare feet, ran to the horse, to the table. Here she, like an animal, squatted down and quickly caught lard in a thick stew and ate cucumbers and potatoes. Fat Vaska ate slowly and goggled his eyes, trying to put a large spoon into his mouth ... After dinner, with a tight stomach, she just as quickly ran across to the stove, fought over a place with Vaska, and when one frosty night turbidity looked through the dark windows, she fell asleep with a sweet dream to the prayerful whisper of the mother: “Pleasers of God, merciful to St. Mykola, pillar-protection of people, Mother Blessed Friday - pray to God for us! A cross at the head, a cross at the feet, a cross from the evil one…”

Now the mother put her to bed early, said that there was nothing to eat, and threatened to “gouge out her eyes”, “give them to the blind in a bag” if she, Tanya, did not sleep. Tanka often roared and asked for "at least cabbages," while the calm, mocking Vaska lay, tore his legs up and scolded his mother:

“Here’s the brownie,” he said seriously, “sleep and sleep!” Let daddy wait!

Dad left from Kazanskaya, was at home only once, said that there was “trouble” everywhere - they don’t sew sheepskin coats, they die more, and he only repairs here and there with rich peasants. True, at that time they ate herring, and even “such and such a piece” of salted pike perch, dad brought in a rag. “On kstins, he says, he was on the third day, so he hid it for you guys ...” But when dad left, they almost stopped eating ...

The Stranger put on his shoes, washed himself, and prayed to God; his broad back in a greasy caftan, resembling a cassock, bent only at the waist, he crossed himself widely. Then he combed his goatee and drank from the bottle he took out of his backpack. Instead of a snack, he lit a cigarette. His washed face was broad, yellow and tight, his nose turned up, his eyes looked sharp and surprised.

“Well, aunt,” he said, “are you burning straw for nothing, don’t you put brew?”

- What to cook? Marya asked curtly.

- Like what? Hey nothing?

“Here’s a brownie…” Vaska muttered.

Maria looked at the stove:

- Ai woke up?

Vaska sniffed calmly and evenly.

Tanya chuckled.

“They are sleeping,” Marya said, sitting up and lowering her head.

The Stranger looked at her from under his brows for a long time and said:

- There is nothing to grieve, aunt.

Mary was silent.

“Nothing,” repeated the stranger. God will give the day, God will give food. I, brother, have no shelter, no home, I make my way along the banks and meadows, borders and borders, and along the backyards - and wow ... Oh, you didn’t spend the night on the snow under the willow bush - that’s what!

“You didn’t spend the night either,” Marya suddenly answered sharply, and her eyes sparkled, “with hungry children, you didn’t hear how they scream in their sleep from hunger!” That's what I'm going to give them now, how will they get up? I ran around all the yards before dawn - I asked God by Christ, I got one piece of bread ... and then, thank you. The goat gave it... he said, there was no frill on the bast shoes... But it's a pity for the guys - they overcame the decoration...

“I’m out,” she continued, more and more agitated, “I drive them every day to the pond ... “Give me cabbages, give me potatoes ...” And what will I give? Well, I’m driving: “Go, they say, play, baby, run on the ice ...”

Marya sobbed, but immediately tugged at her eyes with her sleeve, gave the kitten a kick (“Oh, there is no death for you! ..”) and began intensively raking straw on the floor.

Tanya froze. Her heart was pounding. She wanted to cry all over the hut, run to her mother, cuddle up to her ... But suddenly she came up with something else. She crept quietly into the corner of the stove, hastily, looking around, put on her shoes, wrapped her head in a handkerchief, slipped off the stove and darted through the door.

“I’ll go to the pond myself, I won’t ask for potatoes, so she won’t cry,” she thought, hastily climbing over the snowdrift and rolling into the meadow, “I’ll come by evening ...”

On the road out of the city, light "visors" glided smoothly, smoothly rolling to the right and left, the gelding walked in them at a lazy trot. Near the sleigh, a young peasant in a new sheepskin coat and snow-studded boots, a gentleman's worker, was running lightly. The road was rolling, and every minute, seeing a dangerous place, he had to jump off the limber, run for a while and then manage to hold the sleigh with him on the roll and again jump sideways onto the box.

In the sleigh sat a gray-haired old man, with drooping eyebrows, gentleman Pavel Antonych. For four hours now he had been staring into the warm, muddy air of a winter day and at the roadside milestones covered in hoarfrost.

For a long time he traveled along this road ... After the Crimean campaign, having lost almost all his fortune at cards, Pavel Antonych settled forever in the village and became the most zealous owner. But even in the village he was not lucky ... His wife died ... Then he had to let the serfs go ... Then he saw off his student son to Siberia ... And Pavel Antonych became completely a recluse. He was drawn into loneliness, into his stingy household, and it was said that in the whole district there is no person more greedy and gloomy. And today he was especially gloomy.

It was freezing, and behind the snowy fields, in the west, dimly shining through the clouds, the dawn was turning yellow.

"Hurry, touch, Yegor," said Pavel Antonych curtly.

Yegor pulled the reins.

He lost his whip and looked sideways.

Feeling embarrassed, he said:

- God will give us something in the spring in the garden: the vaccinations, it seems, are all intact, not a single one, read, has not been touched by frost.

"I was touched, but not by the frost," Pavel Antonych said curtly and moved his eyebrows.

– But how?

- Eaten.

- Hares? True, they failed, they ate somewhere.

- Not hares ate.

Yegor looked around timidly.

- And who is it?

- I ate.

Yegor looked at the master in bewilderment.

“I ate,” repeated Pavel Antonych, “if I told you, you fool, to wrap them up properly and cover them up, they would be whole ... So, I ate.

Egor stretched his lips into an awkward smile.

- What are you grinning at? Drive!

Yegor, rummaging through the straw, muttered:

- The whip, it seems, jumped off, and the whip ...

- And the whip? asked Pavel Antonych sternly and quickly.

- Fractured...

And Yegor, all red, took out a broken whip in two. Pavel Antonych took two sticks, looked at them, and thrust them into Yegor.

You have two, give me one. And the whip - he, brother, belt - come back, find it.

- Yes, he can ... near the city.

- All the better. You can buy in the city... Go. You will come on foot. I'll go alone.

Yegor knew Pavel Antonych well. He got off the front and went back along the road.

And thanks to this, Tanka spent the night in the master's house. Yes, in Pavel Antonych's office a table was moved up to the bench, and the samovar rang softly on it. Tanka was sitting on the couch, Pavel Antonych beside her. Both drank tea with milk.

Tanka was sweating, her eyes shone with clear stars, her silky white hair was combed into a slanting row, and she looked like a boy. Sitting upright, she drank her tea in jerky sips and blew hard into the saucer. Pavel Antonych ate pretzels, and Tanya secretly watched his low gray eyebrows move, his mustache, yellowed from tobacco, move, and his jaws move funny, up to the temple.

If Pavel Antonych had been a worker, this would not have happened. But Pavel Antonich rode through the village alone. The boys were riding on the mountain. Tanya stood aside and, putting her blue hand into her mouth, warmed her. Pavel Antonich stopped.

- Whose are you? - he asked.

- Korneeva, - answered Tanka, turned and rushed to run.

“Wait, wait,” shouted Pavel Antonych, “I saw my father, I brought a little hotel from him.

Tanya stopped.

With an affectionate smile and a promise to give her a ride, Pavel Antonych lured her into a sledge and took her away. Dear Tanya, she was completely gone. She was sitting on Pavel Antonych's lap. With his left hand, he grabbed her, along with her fur coat. Tanya sat without moving. But at the gates of the estate she suddenly fidgeted from her fur coat, she even became completely naked, and her legs hung behind the sleigh. Pavel Antonich managed to grab her under the armpits and again began to persuade her. Everything became warmer in his senile heart when he wrapped a tattered, hungry and chilled child in fur. God knows what he was thinking, but his eyebrows were moving faster and faster.

In the house, he took Tanka through all the rooms, made the clock play for her ... Listening to them, Tanka laughed, and then she became alert and looked in surprise: where did these quiet chimes and roulades come from? Then Pavel Antonych fed her prunes—Tanka didn’t take them at first—“he’s blackish, you’re going to die,” gave her a few lumps of sugar. Tanya hid and thought:

Pavel Antonych combed her hair and girded it with a blue sash. Tanya smiled softly, pulled the belt under her armpits and found it very beautiful. Sometimes she answered questions very hastily, sometimes she was silent and shook her head.

The office was warm. In the distant dark rooms, the pendulum was clearly pounding ... Tanka listened, but could no longer overcome herself. Hundreds of vague thoughts swirled in her head, but they were already shrouded in a sleepy mist.

Suddenly, a guitar string trembled faintly on the wall and a quiet sound went out. Tanya laughed.

- Again? she said, raising her eyebrows as she combined the watch and the guitar into one.

A smile lit up Pavel Antonych's stern face, and for a long time it had not lit up with such kindness, such senile-childlike joy.

“Wait,” he whispered, taking the guitar off the wall. First he played "Kachuga", then "Napoleon's Escape March" and switched to "Zorenka":

Dawn is mine, dawn.

My dawn is clear!

He looked at the dozing Tanya, and it began to seem to him that it was she, already a young village beauty, singing songs with him:

By dawn-dawn

Want to play!

Village beauty! And what awaits her? What will come of a child who comes face to face with starvation?

Pavel Antonych frowned, tightly gripping the strings...

Now his nieces are in Florence... Tanya and Florence!..

He stood up, kissed Tanya softly on the head, smelling of a smokehouse.

And he walked across the room, moving his eyebrows.

He remembered the neighboring villages, remembered their inhabitants. How many of them, such villages - and everywhere they are languishing from hunger!

Pavel Antonych walked faster and faster around the study, stepping softly on his felt boots, and often stopped in front of his son's portrait...

And Tanya dreamed of a garden through which she rode home in the evening. The sleigh ran silently through the thickets, covered with hoarfrost like white fur. Lights swarmed, fluttered and went out through them, blue, green - stars ... All around stood as if white mansions, frost fell on her face and tickled her cheeks like a cold fluff ... She dreamed of Vaska, hourly roulades, she heard her mother crying then he sings old songs in a dark smoky hut ...

I.A. Bunin "Pass"

The night is long, and I am still wandering through the mountains to the pass, wandering under the wind, among the cold fog, and hopelessly, but obediently, a wet, tired horse follows me in a bridle, clinking empty stirrups.

At dusk, resting at the foot of the pine forests, behind which this bare, desert ascent begins, I looked into the immense depths below me with that special feeling of pride and strength with which you always look from a great height. You could still make out the lights in the darkening valley far below, on the coast of a narrow bay, which, leaving to the east, kept expanding and, rising like a foggy blue wall, embraced half the sky. But it was already night in the mountains. It was getting dark quickly, I walked, approached the forests - and the mountains grew more gloomy and majestic, and thick fog, driven by a storm from above, fell into the spans between their spurs with stormy swiftness in oblique, long clouds. He fell off the plateau, which he enveloped in a giant loose ridge, and with his fall, as it were, increased the gloomy depth of the abysses between the mountains. He was already smoking the forest, advancing on me along with the deaf, deep and unsociable rumble of pines. There was a breath of winter freshness, snow and wind blew ... Night fell, and I walked for a long time under the dark vaults of the mountain forest, buzzing in the fog, bowing my head from the wind.

"Soon the pass," I said to myself. "Soon I'll be in the calm, beyond the mountains, in a bright, crowded house..."

But half an hour, an hour passes ... Every minute it seems to me that the pass is two steps away from me, and the bare and rocky ascent does not end. The pine forests have long been left below, the stunted, twisted bushes have long since passed, and I begin to get tired and tremble. I remember several graves among the pines not far from the pass, where some woodcutters are buried, thrown from the mountains by a winter storm. I feel at what a wild and deserted height I am, I feel that around me there is only fog, cliffs, and I think: how will I get past the lonely monument stones when they, like human figures, blacken among the fog? will I have the strength to descend from the mountains when I am already losing the idea of ​​time and place?

Ahead, something vaguely blackens among the running fog ... some dark hills that look like sleeping bears. I make my way along them, from one stone to another, the horse, breaking off and clanging with horseshoes on wet pebbles, climbs with difficulty after me - and suddenly I notice that the road is slowly starting to climb uphill again! Then I stop and despair seizes me. I am trembling all over with tension and fatigue, my clothes are all soaked with snow, and the wind pierces through them. Shouldn't you shout? But now even the shepherds have crowded into their Homeric huts along with the goats and sheep - who will hear me? And I look around in horror:

My God! Am I lost?

Late. Bohr hums muffled and sleepy in the distance. The night is becoming more and more mysterious, and I feel it, although I do not know either the time or the place. Now the last light has gone out in the deep valleys, and a gray fog reigns over them, knowing that its hour has come, a long hour, when it seems that everything has died out on earth and the morning will never come, but the mists will only grow, enveloping the majestic in their the midnight guard of the mountain, the forests will hum dully over the mountains and the snow will fly thicker and thicker on the desert pass.

Shielding myself from the wind, I turn to the horse. The only living being left with me! But the horse does not look at me. Wet, chilled, hunched under a high saddle, which clumsily sticks out on her back, she stands with her head obediently lowered with her ears flattened. And I viciously pull the reins, and again expose my face to wet snow and wind, and again stubbornly go towards them. When I try to see what surrounds me, I see only gray running darkness that blinds me with snow. When I listen closely, I distinguish only the whistling of the wind in my ears and the monotonous tinkling behind my back: these are stirrups knocking, colliding with each other ...

But strangely - my despair is beginning to strengthen me! I begin to walk more boldly, and a vicious reproach to someone for everything that I endure makes me happy. He is already passing into that gloomy and steadfast resignation to everything that needs to be endured, in which hopelessness is sweet ...

Here is the pass at last. But I don't care anymore. I am walking on a level and flat steppe, the wind carries the fog in long tufts and knocks me down, but I pay no attention to it. Already by one whistle of the wind and through the fog one can feel how deeply the late night has taken possession of the mountains, - for a long time the little people have been sleeping in the valleys, in their small huts; but I'm not in a hurry, I go, gritting my teeth, and muttering to the horse:

Go, go. We'll trudge until we fall. How many of these difficult and lonely passes have already been in my life! Like night, sorrows, sufferings, illnesses, betrayals of loved ones and bitter resentments of friendship approached me - and the hour of separation from everything with which I was related came. And, reluctantly, I again took up my wandering staff. And the ascents to new happiness were high and difficult, night, fog and storm met me at a height, terrible loneliness seized me on the passes ... But - let's go, let's go!

Stumbling, I wander like in a dream. Far from morning. The whole night will have to go down to the valleys, and only at dawn will it be possible, perhaps, to fall asleep somewhere like a dead sleep - to shrink and feel only one thing - the sweetness of warmth after the cold.

The day will again delight me with people and the sun, and again deceive me for a long time ... Somewhere I will fall and will forever remain in the middle of the night and blizzards on the bare and deserted mountains for centuries?