Strange people main characters and summary. Shukshin Vasily Makarovich - strange people - read free e-book online or download this book for free

Vasily Shukshin

Strange people

Early in the morning Chudik walked through the village with a suitcase.

To my brother, closer to Moscow! He answered the question of where he was going.

Far away, weirdo?

To my brother, rest. Gotta scurry around.

At the same time, his round fleshy face, round eyes expressed in the highest degree a trifling attitude to long-distance roads - they did not frighten him.

But my brother was still far away.

So far, he has safely reached the district town, where he was to take a ticket and board the train.

There was plenty of time left. The weirdo decided to buy sweets and gingerbread gifts for the tribes for now...

Went to the grocery store, got in line. In front of him stood a man in a hat, and in front of the hat was a plump woman with painted lips. The woman said softly, quickly, passionately to the hat:

Imagine how rude you have to be tactless person! He has sclerosis, well, he has had sclerosis for seven years, but no one suggested that he retire.

And this week without a year leads the team - and already: "Maybe you, Alexander Semenych, would be better off in retirement?" Nah-hal!

The hat agreed:

Yes, yes... They are like that now. Think - sclerosis! And Sumbatych?.. Also Lately did not keep the text. And this one, how is it? ..

The weirdo respected the city people. Not all, though: he did not respect hooligans and sellers. I was afraid.

It was his turn. He bought sweets, gingerbread, three bars of chocolate and stepped aside to put everything in a suitcase. He opened the suitcase on the floor and began to pack it... He glanced at the floor for some reason, and at the counter, where the queue was, a fifty-ruble piece of paper lay at the feet of people. A kind of green fool, lying to herself, no one sees her ... The weirdo even trembled with joy, his eyes flared up. In a hurry, so that someone would not get ahead of him, he quickly began to think about how it would be more cheerful, witty to say in line about a piece of paper.

Live well, citizens! - He said loudly and cheerfully.

They looked back at him.

We, for example, do not throw such pieces of paper.

This is where everyone got a little excited. This is not a triple, not a five - fifty rubles, you have to work for half a month. But the owner of the paper - no.

"Probably the one with the hat," said Freak to himself.

We decided to put the paper in a conspicuous place, on the counter.

Someone will come running now, - the saleswoman said.

The weirdo left the store in a very pleasant mood. Everyone thought how easy it was for him, how fun it turned out:

"We, for example, do not throw such pieces of paper!"

All of a sudden, he felt as if he was engulfed in heat: he remembered that exactly such a piece of paper and another twenty-five rubles had been given to him in the savings bank at home. He just exchanged a twenty-five-ruble note, a fifty-ruble note should be in his pocket ... He put it in his pocket - no. Here and there, no.

Mine was a piece of paper! - Chudik said loudly. - Your mother so-and-so! .. My piece of paper! Infection, infection...

Under the heart even somehow rang with grief. The first impulse was to go and say:

Citizens, my paper is something. I got two of them at the savings bank: one twenty-five rubles, the other half a hundred. One, twenty-five rubles, now exchanged, and the other - no.

But as soon as he imagined how he would stun everyone with this statement of his, as many would think: "Of course, since the owner was not found, he decided to pocket it." No, do not overpower yourself - do not reach out for this damned piece of paper. Might as well not give up...

Why am I like this? - Chudik argued bitterly. - So what's now?..

I had to return home.

He went to the store, wanted to look at the paper at least from a distance, stood at the entrance ... and did not enter. It will be quite painful. The heart can't take it.

I rode the bus and swore softly - I was gaining courage: I had an explanation with my wife.

It's... I lost money. At the same time, his snub-nosed nose turned white. Fifty rubles.

The wife's jaw dropped. She blinked; a pleading expression appeared on his face: maybe he is joking? No, this bald well (Crank was not bald in a rural way) would not dare to joke like that. She stupidly asked:

Here he involuntarily chuckled.

When they lose, then, as a rule ...

Well, no-no!! roared the wife. - You won't be grinning now! And she ran for the catch. - Nine months, well!

The weirdo grabbed a pillow from the bed - to reflect the blows.

They circled the room...

Nah! Freak!..

You're dirtying the pillow! Wash yourself...

I'll wash it! I'll wash it, bald man! And my two ribs will be! My! My! My!..

Hands down, fool!

Ott-shades-short! .. From-shadows-baldheads! ..

Hands, scarecrow! I won’t get to my brother and sit on the ballot! It's worse for you!

You're worse off!

Well, it will!

No, no, let me have fun. Let me take my darling away, you bald well ...

Well, you will!

The wife dropped her grip, sat down on a stool and wept.

She took care of it, she took care of it ... she put it aside for a penny ... You are a well, a well! .. You should choke on this money.

Thank you for your kind words, - Chudik whispered "poisonously".

Where was something - can you remember? Maybe he went where?

Didn't go anywhere...

Maybe he drank beer in a teahouse with alcoholics? .. Remember. Maybe he dropped it on the floor?

Yes, I did not go to the tea room!

Where could you have lost them?

The dude stared gloomily at the floor.

Well, now you’ll drink some chitushka after the bath, you’ll drink ... Get out - raw water from the well!

I need her, your chitushka. I can do without her...

You will be skinny!

Am I going to my brother?

Another fifty rubles were withdrawn from the book.

The eccentric, killed by his insignificance, which his wife explained to him, was traveling on a train. But gradually the bitterness passed.

Forests, copses, villages flashed outside the window ... They entered and left different people, told different stories...

The weirdo also told one thing to some intelligent comrade, when they were standing in the vestibule, smoking.

We also have a fool in the neighboring village ... He grabbed a firebrand - and fetched his mother. Drunk. She runs away from him and screams: "Hands, screaming, don't burn your hands, son!" He also cares about him. And he is rushing, a drunken mug. To mother. Imagine how rude, tactless...

Did you come up with it yourself? - the intelligent comrade asked sternly, looking at Chudik over his glasses.

For what? - he did not understand. - We have, across the river, the village of Ramenskoye ...

The intelligent comrade turned to the window and said no more.

After the train Chudik still had to fly a local plane. He used to fly once. For a long time. I got on the plane not without shyness.

Doesn't it spoil anything? - asked the stewardess.

What goes wrong in it?

You never know ... There are probably five different bolts here. One thread will break - and with greetings. How much is usually collected from a person? Two or three kilos?

Don't talk. They took off.

Next to Chudik sat a fat citizen with a newspaper. The weirdo tried to talk to him.

And breakfast healed, - he said.

They feed on the planes.

Fatty was silent on this.

The dude started looking down.

Mountains of clouds below.

That's interesting, - Chudik spoke again, - five kilometers below us, right? And I - at least henna. I'm not surprised. And now in my mind I measured five kilometers from my house, put it on my priest - it will be up to the apiary!

The plane shook.

Here's a man! .. He came up with the same, - he also said to a neighbor. He looked at him, again did not say anything, rustled with a newspaper.

Buckle up! said the pretty young woman. - I'm going to land.

The weirdo obediently buckled his belt. And the neighbor - zero attention. The weirdo gently touched him:

They tell you to fasten the belt.

Nothing, said the neighbor. He put down the newspaper, leaned back in his seat and said, as if remembering something: - Children are the flowers of life, they should be planted with their heads down.

As is clear from the comments, V. Shukshin has 125 published stories, most of which amaze with their life originality, the originality of life material. Criticism tried to define individual quality these stories through the concepts of “Shukshin's hero” and “Shukshin's life”.

According to critics, Shukshin's hero “in tarpaulin boots” (S. Zalygin) “is gathering dust on country roads”(L. Anninsky). The writer knew Altai drivers, mechanics, tractor drivers well and often met on the Chuisky tract leading from the city of Biysk to Mongolian border passing by the village of Srostki, located in the foothills of the Altai steppe, on the banks of the Katun River. Now they speak of the native village of the writer Srostka as an open-air museum of Shukshin.

The heroes of Shukshin are from that “Shukshin life” that the writer himself lived. Having finished seven classes in 1943 rural school in his native village, Shukshin enters the Biysk Automobile College and studies there for about a year. Before that, he unsuccessfully wanted to become an accountant under the guidance of a godfather. He never made it as a car mechanic. In 1946-1948. he was a laborer, a painter's apprentice, a loader ( foundry in Kaluga), worked for railway, was a mechanic at a tractor factory in Vladimir. In 1948-1952. served as a radio operator in the navy, but this period of his life was hardly reflected in the literature, in 1953-1954, at first without a secondary education, he worked in Srostki as the director of an evening school for rural and working youth and prepared for exams for ten years as an external student, in the fall of 1953 He passed all the exams, he was accepted into the party, elected secretary of the district committee of the Komsomol. In 1954, at the age of twenty-five, when many had already received higher education, becomes a student of the 1st year of VGIK, where, together with A. Tarkovsky, he studies in the workshop of M. Romm. Summer holidays spent at home, in Srostki, worked on a collective farm, traveled around Altai, fished, met people. Like M. Sholokhov on the Don, so V. Shukshin on the Altai found his heroes.

However, not only the hero is important, but also the angle of his image. In a simple, ordinary hero “in tarpaulin boots”, about which many have written, Shukshin is interested in something that everyone passed by - the soul. “I am more interested in the “history of the soul”, and for the sake of revealing it, I consciously and omit a lot from outer life the person whose soul excites me, ”said Shukshin. But not every “soul” is close to the writer. “...The so-called simple, average, normal, positive person does not suit me. Nauseous. Boring ... - wrote Shukshin. - It is most interesting for me to explore the character of a non-dogmatic person, a person not planted in the science of behavior. Such a person is impulsive, gives in to impulses, and therefore, is extremely natural. But he always has a reasonable soul.”

The non-dogmatic man everyday life often looks like a strange person, out of this world. Shukshin wrote quite a lot of stories about these people (“Master”, “I choose a village for residence”, “Microscope”, “Strokes to a portrait”, “Alyosha Beskonvoyny”, etc.); moreover, it was about these people that his film “Strange People” (1969), which included his short stories: “Freak” (in the script - “Brother”), “Milpardon, madam” (in the movie - “Fatal Shot”), "Thoughts". Critics took the definition of this hero from the prose of Shukshin himself - a freak.

V. Shukshin's story "Crank" (1967) - about thirty-nine-year-old rural mechanic Vasily Egorovich Knyazev. Starting from the title, the author immediately begins the story about the hero himself: “The wife called him - Freak. Sometimes kindly. The weirdo had one feature: something constantly happened to him. ”

Shukshin, as a rule, avoids long introductions and commissionings. IN this case Shukshin follows Chekhov's advice. Further, like Chekhov, he strives not to describe state of mind hero, but to make it clear from his actions. Shukshin is a supporter of an objective manner of writing.

The thesis stated in the first lines of the story that something constantly happened to Chudik is realized in the text in two everyday situations: in a city store and in the Urals with his brother, where he nevertheless arrived. Seeing someone drop a fifty-ruble note in a store, Knyazev did not rush to check his pockets, which most people would have done, but feverishly, so that no one was ahead, he was thinking how to tell the people in line about this piece of paper in a smarter way: “- Live well, citizens ! he said loudly and cheerfully. “We, for example, do not throw such pieces of paper!” Later, he was convinced that it was his money, but he was ashamed to go to the store to pick it up. I had to return home (and he went to his brother, whom he had not seen for 12 years) - to withdraw money from the book and set off again.

Biographers claim that a similar incident happened to Shukshin himself in the spring of 1967 in Biysk, when he went to Srostki on a business trip to Pravda to write an article about youth. The question arises: are there any “signs” of such a hero in V. Shukshin himself?

Another episode where Chudik realizes himself is the scene of his stay in the family of Dmitry's brother. Unexpected for him is the hostility of the daughter-in-law, who, according to the brother, grovels before responsible people and despises the village. The weirdo wanted peace with his daughter-in-law and, in order to please her, paints a baby carriage, for which he is expelled from home. “He was in pain again. When he was hated, he was very hurt. And scary. It seemed: well, now everything, why live?

The weirdo is going home, and only after getting off the bus and running across the warm wet ground (“it was raining brightly steamy” - a small landscape, like Chekhov’s, by the way!), did he find peace of mind.

The two situations described in this story are typically Shukshin's: a person is unbalanced by something or someone, or is struck or offended by something, and he wants to somehow resolve this pain, returning to the normal logic of life.

The impressionable, vulnerable, feeling the beauty of the world and at the same time awkward Chudik is compared in the story with the petty-bourgeois world of the daughter-in-law, the barmaid of the administration, in the past a village woman who seeks to erase everything village in her memory, to transform into a real townswoman. But this is not the contrast between city and country, which critics found in the stories of the writer of the 60s. (“Ignakha has arrived”, “Snake venom”, “Two letters”, “Nylon Christmas tree”, etc.). Objectively speaking, this opposition as such did not exist in his stories at all. Shukshin researched serious problem a marginal (intermediate) person who left the village and did not fully acclimatize in the city (“I choose the village for residence”) or took root at the cost of losing something important in himself, as in the case of Chudik’s daughter-in-law and other heroes.

This problem was deeply personal for the writer himself: “So it happened to me by the age of forty that I was neither urban to the end, nor already rural. Terribly uncomfortable position. It's not even between two chairs, but rather like this: one foot on the shore, the other in the boat. And it’s impossible not to swim, and it’s kind of scary to swim ... But this position of mine has its “pluses” ... From comparisons, from all kinds of “from there - here” and “from there - there”, thoughts not only about the “village ”and“ the city ”- about Russia”.

In an awkward, strange person, according to Shukshin, the truth of his time is most fully expressed.

The disharmoniousness of the hero of the story “Mile pardon, madam” (1967) is already stated in the paradoxical combination of his name and surname - Bronislav Pupkov.

To such a name, you need a suitable surname. And I'm Bronislav Pupkov. As roll call in the army, so - laughter. And over there - Vanka Pupkov - at least something.

This story has brief portrait hero and short author's description his fate, but 9/10 of the text is devoted to dialogue.

A hunter, smart and lucky, a rare shooter, Bronka Pupkov, out of stupidity, lost two fingers while hunting. He would have been a sniper in the war, but he had to serve as an orderly throughout the war. He could not realize his gift in the war, so absurdly lost in Peaceful time. And his soul yearned. Working as a huntsman after the war, as a rule, on the last day, when the dump was celebrated, he tells the city hunters whom he accompanied and to whom he showed best places in the district, his dramatic story of an alleged assassination attempt on Hitler, and at the same time weeps. “...I shot... I missed...”

This is how the unfulfilled dream of a hunter to use his talent in war is bizarrely deformed. He hated the Nazis, but this hatred could not manifest itself in a military feat - and his soul yearns. Here is how the writer himself comments on the film novel “The Fatal Shot” from the film “Strange People”, based on the story “Mil Pardon, Madam”: “I wanted to say in this film that the human soul rushes about and yearns, if it never rejoiced, cried out in delight, pushing her to a feat, if she had never lived full life, did not love, did not burn.

The critic V. Korobov, a researcher of V. Shukshin’s work, concretizes the words of the writer, explaining the meaning of the story invented by Bronka Pupkov about the duel with Hitler: “This strange fictional story is the hero’s public repentance, heart anguish splashed out, maet, confession, execution of himself. Only in this way does he receive some short-lived spiritual relief ... War, the truth of war, a national tragedy - cries out in Bronka Pupkovo.

As rightly noted by S.M. Kozlov, in the stories of V. Shukshin about strange people, “essentially one plot situation: the hero with maniacal methodicalness and passion is looking for a “confessor” for confession, repentance, “for a conversation” (“Raskas”, “Crank”, “Mil pardon, madam ”, “Cut off”, “Mitka Ermakov”, “Strait”, “I believe!”, “Conversations under a clear moon”, “I choose a village for residence”, “Strokes to a portrait”)”.

Gleb Kapustin from the story “Cut off” is also a strange person who is almost impossible to put on a par with Chudik and Bronka Pupkov, because his strangeness is at a different pole of life. That is why, when many researchers are trying to prove that Shukshin is developing different variants one character, that in his artistic world there is not a variety of types, but a variety of variants of one character, the root of which is eccentricity, “knocking out” (according to Anninsky), “offended soul”, - this is not entirely true.

Everyone is offended, and more than once, in their life, and it is risky to build a solid typology on this basis. These “freaks” are too different - a strong man foreman Shurygin (“Strong man”), an old woman Malysheva (“Shameless”), Semka Lynx (“Master”), Gleb Kapustin from the story “Cut off”.

“Here, I think, the development of the topic of such ... social demagoguery ... A person, when dividing social wealth, decided that he was bypassed, and now he began to take revenge, let's say, on scientists. This is revenge in pure form, not at all embellished ... But in general, evil revenge for the fact that at the feast, so to speak, he was bypassed by a complete spell ... Maybe we are a little to blame for addressing him too much as a master, master of the situation , the master of the country, a worker, we fed him a little to the size, so to speak, of greed already. He has already become such - he needs everything. And in order to give it himself - for some reason he forgot about it. I think that here is a villager, also the current one, and like that.”

Ho in the text of the story, the writer did not condemn Gleb Kapustin completely, trying to understand him, and the creative thought of researchers in the 80-90s went in this direction.

Undoubtedly, Gleb Kapustin is the new character of the new village life, open writer. The character is quite complex, not exhausted by the concept of “social demagogy”. Not only verbal abracadabra, not distinguishing the meaning of the words "philology" and "philosophy", is carried by Gleb Kapustin. He also has serious, even author's, thoughts (Shukshin sometimes resorts to this technique - he trusts his thoughts to different heroes):

“... We are here, too, a little ... “mikitim”. And we also read newspapers, and, it happens, we read books. And we even watch TV. And, you can imagine, we are not overjoyed ... you can write the word “people” hundreds of times in all articles, but knowledge will not increase from this. So when you are already leaving for this very people, then be a little more collected. Get ready, right? And it's easy to be fooled."

In these words, there is a hidden resentment that the urban allow themselves arrogant behavior towards the village, although the heroes of the story, Konstantin Ivanovich Zhuravlev and his wife, candidates of science, whom Gleb Kapustin “cut off”, are modest people and did not show any arrogance. Ho Gleb does not see this anymore, for him all the townspeople look the same - enemies. It is possible that earlier in the village of Novaya, V. Korobov suggests, there were such visitors.

The motive of resentment of the villager, who felt disrespect on the part of the city dweller, sounds in more early story Critics (1964), but even there the city and the countryside are not opposed, but there is a conversation about the human right to self-expression; moreover, this right is defended, as they say, with a fight.

Shukshin himself experienced the feeling of resentment of fellow countrymen more than once. Writer's fellow villagers dissatisfied with the that he distorted their lives and “disgraced” the whole country in the movie “Such a guy lives”, that Alyosha Beskonvoyny from story of the same name not Alyosha at all, but Shurka Gilev, at meetings they strove to ask him: “Well, tell me, Vasily, and how did you turn from a bast shoe into a boot?”

E.V. Chernosvitov believes that small homeland takes revenge on those who abandoned her: “Almost blood feud. The clan avenges itself... In this context, Gleb Kapustin is a clan prosecutor... he is both a judge, an executioner, and a victim... Well, when the modern village is the mise-en-scene of his action, he takes on the appearance of the same weirdo, idiot, but not quite...”

In its structure, “Cut off” is a typical Shukshin story. It begins without any introductions, with the main event: “The son Konstantin Ivanovich came to the old woman Agafya Zhuravleva...” dead end of visiting noble guests: one page of description, author's text, plus five pages of dialogue. The heroes reveal themselves in a conversation - an "intellectual" duel, a scene of an argument. Actors practically two, Gleb and Konstantin Ivanovich, the rest are extras or almost extras. The end of the story is traditionally open: the final verdict was not passed on the hero, and an ambiguous assessment was put into the mouths of the peasants and into the meager author's commentary: the surprise and admiration of the peasants ("- What's there. Cunning, dog!"), But without love ("Gleb is cruel, but no one has ever loved cruelty anywhere else”), with pity and sympathy for the candidate.

There is no answer to the question of who is right and who is to blame, it must be given by the reader himself - such is the logic of an open ending.

Shukshin's stories are dramatic, most of them are dominated by dialogue, stage episodes over descriptive, non-stage episodes, this is an indisputable result of the impact on the prose of stage thinking of Shukshin the director, which even affects the plot. The plot in Shukshin's stories is chronologically successive stage episodes. The writer himself was afraid of finished plots, which, in his opinion, always carry some kind of conclusion, morality, and he did not tolerate moralizing: “The plot is not good and dangerous because it limits the breadth of life comprehension... boldly, there is no predetermined, ready-made predestination in it.

“The most important thing for me is to show human character”, Shukshin said more than once. The image of a weirdo strange person, a significant place is given to Shukshin's stories, moreover, he is at the center of his prose, but the world of the writer's heroes is not limited to this character. Shukshin's typology of characters is diverse: just look at his “collection” of negative characters to be convinced of this (“A strong man”, “Eternally dissatisfied Yakovlev”, “Fingerless”). The writer's hero is most often revealed in speech, in dialogue, and the meaning of V. Shukshin's linguistic mastery lies in the ability to find the most accurate, single word for the character's self-expression. “The ear is amazingly sensitive” - this is how A.T. Tvardovsky.

But Shukshin's heroes have a trait that makes them part of an individual artistic world writer, - the absence of spiritual inertia, indifference. These simple people preoccupied not with material goods, but with their own inner world, they think, search, try to understand the meaning of their existence, their feelings, to defend themselves. According to V. Rasputin, before Shukshin, “no one else in our literature claimed the right to himself with such impatience, no one managed to make himself listen to such internal affairs. In the matter of the toiling soul ... The soul is, presumably, the essence of the personality, the life of the permanent, continuing in it, historical man unbroken by temporary hardships.”

It's about a person with whom something constantly happened. His name was Vasily, but his wife called him Chudik. He was a very cheerful person.

This story describes some episodes of the Chudik's trip. Vasily decided to go to the Urals to his brother, whom they had not seen for about 12 years. He began to gather. I was looking for a pike lure, but I did not find it. Until the night he was going, and then early in the morning he went with a suitcase through the village. Everyone asked where he was, and Chudik kept answering that he was in the Urals. Long distances did not scare him at all. He drove to the regional center, where he had to buy a ticket and board the train. But I decided not to go to my brother empty-handed, as there are children there. Chudik thought up to buy sweets, gingerbread and chocolate. It was his turn in the store, he was stingy.

I began to put everything in a suitcase and saw that a fifty-ruble bill was lying on the floor. He began to think about how it would be more fun to tell people about her. He says: “Live well, citizens. We don't throw papers like that." The saleswoman suggested that they would come running after her. The dude left the store. I began to think that he was very good at approaching this matter with humor. And then it throws him into the heat. He understands that it was his money. Since he received 75 rubles in the savings bank in two bills - one is 25 rubles, and the second is 50. He does not know what to do, since going to the store and trying to pick up money is not an option, because everyone would think that he is trying to get not his own money.

The freak returns home. Tells his wife. She hit him on the head a couple of times with a slotted spoon. And withdrew another 50 rubles from the savings bank.

The bitterness gradually subsided as he rode the train. People came out, came in, told each other different stories. And the weirdo also tried to tell some story to an intelligent comrade, during a smoke break in the vestibule. The story was about a drunken man and his mother. But after listening to Chudik, the intelligent comrade turned to the window and they no longer talked. Then the weirdo got to the Urals by plane. I tried to communicate with the person sitting next to me, but it didn’t work out so he read the newspaper. It was not the first time the weirdo had flown on an airplane, but he still thought whether some screw would go bad in 1.5 hours. He also wanted to eat on the plane. Just out of curiosity. And they were carrying something.

He looked down through the porthole. Mountains of clouds below. And this beauty did not cause a single gram of impression, except for the desire to fall into these clouds. The flight attendant told me to fasten my seat belts. Chudik's neighbor neglected this and when the plane began to land strangely, it was thrown from side to side throughout the cabin. As a result, the plane landed not at the airport, but in a potato field. The bald neighbor of the weirdo was looking for his false teeth, and the weirdo himself decided to help him, and helped. But sitting next to him, instead of thanking him, he began to shout lispingly, asking why the weirdo took his jaw with his hands.

Then Chudik wrote a telegram to his wife at the airport. To which the telegraph operator said that something he wrote was bad. As a result, there were several such attempts.

Finally, the weirdo was with his brother. His name was Dmitry. Chudik turned out to have three nephews and a very evil daughter-in-law, i.e. Wife of Chudik's brother. In general, the daughter-in-law Chudik did not love. No matter what he said, it wasn't like that. He and his brother went out into the street and Dmitry began to cry that his wife was angry, that she did not like the villagers. As a result, the next day his brother and his wife went to work, the children were not at home either. And Chudik was thinking about how to improve relations with his daughter-in-law. And he decided to paint the stroller, he did it very well at home. Decorated, painted a flock of cranes, cockerels, chickens, flowers, grass. I bought a toy boat for my nephew. I also thought about painting it. Somewhere at 6 came to his brother. And even before I had time to go in, I realized that it was better not to enter. He heard how the brother and his wife were arguing, how she threatened to throw out the things of the Crank. A brother tried with might and main to protect his brother. The freak was hurt to the point of pain in his heart. He kept asking himself why he was like this. He sat in the shed until dark, then brother Dmitry came. The weirdo decided to go home, to which his brother only sighed and said nothing.

Arriving in his native village, Chudik got caught in a steamy rain. He got off the bus, took off his new shoes, ran across the wet ground. And loudly sang a song about poplars.

And only at the end of the story we can find out that the Chudik's name was Vasily Egorovich Knyazev. He is 39 years old. He worked as a projectionist in the village. As a child, I dreamed of being a spy.

Shukshin Vasily

Strange people

Vasily Shukshin

Strange people

Early in the morning Chudik walked through the village with a suitcase.

To my brother, closer to Moscow! He answered the question of where he was going.

Far away, weirdo?

To my brother, rest. Gotta scurry around.

At the same time, his round, fleshy face, his round eyes expressed an extremely careless attitude towards long-distance roads - they did not frighten him.

But my brother was still far away.

So far, he has safely reached the district town, where he was to take a ticket and board the train.

There was plenty of time left. The weirdo decided to buy sweets and gingerbread gifts for the tribes for now...

Went to the grocery store, got in line. In front of him stood a man in a hat, and in front of the hat was a plump woman with painted lips. The woman said softly, quickly, passionately to the hat:

Imagine how rude, tactless a person must be! He has sclerosis, well, he has had sclerosis for seven years, but no one suggested that he retire.

And this week without a year leads the team - and already: "Maybe you, Alexander Semenych, would be better off in retirement?" Nah-hal!

The hat agreed:

Yes, yes... They are like that now. Think - sclerosis! And Sumbatych? And this one, how is it? ..

The weirdo respected the city people. Not all, though: he did not respect hooligans and sellers. I was afraid.

It was his turn. He bought sweets, gingerbread, three bars of chocolate and stepped aside to put everything in a suitcase. He opened the suitcase on the floor and began to pack it... He glanced at the floor for some reason, and at the counter, where the queue was, a fifty-ruble piece of paper lay at the feet of people. A kind of green fool, lying to herself, no one sees her ... The weirdo even trembled with joy, his eyes flared up. In a hurry, so that someone would not get ahead of him, he quickly began to think about how it would be more cheerful, witty to say in line about a piece of paper.

Live well, citizens! - He said loudly and cheerfully.

They looked back at him.

We, for example, do not throw such pieces of paper.

This is where everyone got a little excited. This is not a triple, not a five - fifty rubles, you have to work for half a month. But the owner of the paper - no.

"Probably the one with the hat," said Freak to himself.

We decided to put the paper in a conspicuous place, on the counter.

Someone will come running now, - the saleswoman said.

The weirdo left the store in a very pleasant mood. Everyone thought how easy it was for him, how fun it turned out:

"We, for example, do not throw such pieces of paper!"

All of a sudden, he felt as if he was engulfed in heat: he remembered that exactly such a piece of paper and another twenty-five rubles had been given to him in the savings bank at home. He just exchanged a twenty-five-ruble note, a fifty-ruble note should be in his pocket ... He put it in his pocket - no. Here and there, no.

Mine was a piece of paper! - Chudik said loudly. - Your mother so-and-so! .. My piece of paper! Infection, infection...

Under the heart even somehow rang with grief. The first impulse was to go and say:

Citizens, my paper is something. I got two of them at the savings bank: one twenty-five rubles, the other half a hundred. One, twenty-five rubles, now exchanged, and the other - no.

But as soon as he imagined how he would stun everyone with this statement of his, as many would think: "Of course, since the owner was not found, he decided to pocket it." No, do not overpower yourself - do not reach out for this damned piece of paper. Might as well not give up...

Why am I like this? - Chudik argued bitterly. - So what's now?..

I had to return home.

He went to the store, wanted to look at the paper at least from a distance, stood at the entrance ... and did not enter. It will be quite painful. The heart can't take it.

I rode the bus and swore softly - I was gaining courage: I had an explanation with my wife.

It's... I lost money. At the same time, his snub-nosed nose turned white. Fifty rubles.

The wife's jaw dropped. She blinked; a pleading expression appeared on his face: maybe he is joking? No, this bald well (Crank was not bald in a rural way) would not dare to joke like that. She stupidly asked:

Here he involuntarily chuckled.

When they lose, then, as a rule ...

Well, no-no!! roared the wife. - You won't be grinning now! And she ran for the catch. - Nine months, well!

The weirdo grabbed a pillow from the bed - to reflect the blows.

They circled the room...

Nah! Freak!..

You're dirtying the pillow! Wash yourself...

I'll wash it! I'll wash it, bald man! And my two ribs will be! My! My! My!..

Hands down, fool!

Ott-shades-short! .. From-shadows-baldheads! ..

Hands, scarecrow! I won’t get to my brother and sit on the ballot! It's worse for you!

You're worse off!

Well, it will!

No, no, let me have fun. Let me take my darling away, you bald well ...

Well, you will!

The wife dropped her grip, sat down on a stool and wept.

She took care of it, she took care of it ... she put it aside for a penny ... You are a well, a well! .. You should choke on this money.

Thank you for your kind words, - Chudik whispered "poisonously".

Where was something - can you remember? Maybe he went where?

Didn't go anywhere...

Maybe he drank beer in a teahouse with alcoholics? .. Remember. Maybe he dropped it on the floor?

Yes, I did not go to the tea room!

Where could you have lost them?

The dude stared gloomily at the floor.

Well, now you’ll drink some chitushka after the bath, you’ll drink ... Get out - raw water from the well!

I need her, your chitushka. I can do without her...

You will be skinny!

Am I going to my brother?

Another fifty rubles were withdrawn from the book.

The eccentric, killed by his insignificance, which his wife explained to him, was traveling on a train. But gradually the bitterness passed.

Forests, copses, villages flashed past the window ... Different people entered and left, different stories were told ...

The weirdo also told one thing to some intelligent comrade, when they were standing in the vestibule, smoking.

We also have a fool in the neighboring village ... He grabbed a firebrand - and fetched his mother. Drunk. She runs away from him and screams: "Hands, screaming, don't burn your hands, son!" He also cares about him. And he is rushing, a drunken mug. To mother. Imagine how rude, tactless...

Did you come up with it yourself? - the intelligent comrade asked sternly, looking at Chudik over his glasses.

For what? - he did not understand. - We have, across the river, the village of Ramenskoye ...

The intelligent comrade turned to the window and said no more.

After the train Chudik still had to fly a local plane. He used to fly once. For a long time. I got on the plane not without shyness.

Doesn't it spoil anything? - asked the stewardess.

What goes wrong in it?

You never know ... There are probably five different bolts here. One thread will break - and with greetings. How much is usually collected from a person? Two or three kilos?