in the world

Chapter 1

I came down to earth to work as an apprentice in a "fashionable shoe shop" in the main street of the city.

My boss was a dumpy man with a rough sorrel face, blue-green teeth, and wet eyes full of gum.I thought he was blind, and to prove it I made faces.

"Don't make a fool of yourself," he said in a low, stern voice.

Those cloudy eyes make me sick; I don't believe they can see, maybe he just thinks I'm making faces.

"I said, don't make funny faces," he said in a lower voice, his thick lips barely moving.

"Don't scratch your hands," he babbled dryly at me. "Remember, you are working in a first-class shop on the street in the city! As an apprentice, you have to stand at the door like a statue..."

I don't know what a statue is, and I can't help scratching my hands.Both my arms were covered with red sores and pustules to the elbow, and the mange worms were biting me badly. "What are you doing at home?" the boss asked, examining my arm carefully.

When I told him, he shook his round head covered with gray hair and said embarrassingly:
"Picking up junk is worse than begging; worse than stealing."

I say proudly:
"I stole things too."

So, he put his hands like cat's paws on the accounting table, blinked his eyes like a blind man and stared at me in surprise, and said hoarsely in a low voice,

"Why, have you ever stolen something?"

I told him what happened.

"Well, that's a trivial matter. But if you steal shoes and money from my shop, I'll put you in jail until you grow up..."

He said it in a calm tone, but I was terrified and hated him even more.

In addition to the owner, there were Yakov's son, my cousin Sasha, and a big red-faced guy in the shop, who was very clever and could pester people.Sasha wore a red-brown frock coat, corset, loose-leg trousers, and tie.He was arrogant and didn't take me seriously.

When my grandfather took me to see the boss, Tosasha took care of me and taught me.Sasha furrowed his brows with vigor and warned:
"Then make him listen to me."

Grandfather put his hand on my head and bent my neck:
"You have to listen to Sasha, he is older than you and has a higher position than you..."

Sasha stared at me and told me:
"Don't forget what Grandpa said!"

So, from the first day, he took advantage of the situation and put on his veteran status.

"Kashilin, don't keep staring!" the boss said to him.

"I, I don't, my boss," Sasha bowed her head in response; but the boss kept nagging.

"Don't make a fool of yourself, customers will think you're a goat..."

The big guy was all smiles, the boss pouted ugly, Sasha blushed and hid behind the counter.

I don't like these conversations, I don't understand a lot of things in them, and sometimes it seems that they are speaking a foreign language.

Whenever a female customer came in, the boss would take out a hand from his pocket and stroke his mustache, with a sweet smile on his face and countless wrinkles, but the pair of blind eyes did not change a bit.The big man straightened up, put his elbows on his waist, and spread his palms respectfully in the air.Sasha blinked timidly, trying to hide her bulging eyes.I stood at the door of the shop, quietly scratching my hands, carefully observing their business rules.

The big man knelt in front of the female customer, and stretched his fingers wonderfully to measure the size of the shoes.His hands trembled, and he touched the woman's feet cautiously, as if afraid of breaking them.In fact, this lady's feet are very fat, like an upside-down bottle slipping off her shoulders.Once, a lady shivered her feet, curled up and said:

"Ouch, you're making me itchy..."

"This is our courtesy..." The big guy hastily explained enthusiastically.

The way he was pestering the ladies was ridiculous, and to keep from laughing, I turned my face to the glass door, but I couldn't bear to see them doing business, because the big guy's behavior was very annoying. I thought it was ridiculous, and at the same time felt that I would never learn to spread my fingers so politely, and to shoe a stranger so deftly.

The boss often hides in the counting room behind the counter, calling Sasha in at the same time, leaving the big guy to deal with the female customers alone.At one point, he touched the feet of a brown-haired female customer, then pinched his thumb, index and middle fingers together and kissed them.

"Ouch!" the woman called out. "You naughty bastard!"

He puffed up his cheeks and said with difficulty:

"Tsk...tsk."

At this time, I couldn't help laughing out loud. I was afraid that I would not be able to stand still, so I grabbed the doorknob with my hands. The door was pushed open, and my head hit the glass door, breaking a piece of glass.The big guy stomped at me and the boss hit me on the head with his big gold ringed finger.Sasha was going to twist my ears.On the way home in the evening, Sasha said to me harshly:
"You'll be kicked out of your nonsense! What's so ridiculous about that?"

He also explained that business would flourish if the men liked the ladies.

"Women come here to buy a pair of shoes, even if they don't need them, just to see the lovely guy. But you, you just don't understand! Let others worry about you..."

I feel aggrieved and no one bothers me, least of all him.

Every morning, the sick, grumpy cook always woke me up an hour before Sasha.I had to polish the shoes of the boss's family, the old man, and Sasha, brush their clothes, light the samovar, prepare firewood for all the stoves, and clean the lunch boxes.Once in the shop, they sweep the floor, dust off the dust, prepare tea, deliver the goods to the buyer's house, and then go back to the boss's house to pick up lunch.At this time, my errand at the door of the shop was replaced by Sasha.He thought it would be degrading for him to do this, so he scolded me:

"Lazy guy, ask others to do things for you..."

I feel distressed, lonely.I was used to living a free life, morning till night, on the sandy roads of Kunavino, by the muddy Oka River, in the fields and forests.But here there is no grandmother, no children, no one to talk to, and life has unfolded to me all its ugly and hypocritical inside stories, which make me resentful.

Sometimes the female customers left without buying anything, and then the three of them felt insulted.The boss restrained his sweet smile and ordered Sasha to say:

"Kashirin, put away the goods!"

Then scold people:
"Bah! Even the pigs are coming in! Stupid woman, you're so bored at home, you're hanging out in other people's shops. If it were my wife, I'd call you..."

His wife was a thin, wizened woman with dark eyes and a big nose, who used to stamp her feet and scold him as if she were a servant.

Often like this, when they see female customers they are familiar with, they will bow courteously and say flattering words, and after seeing them off, they will have to speak ill of the woman.At that time, I really wanted to run to the street, catch up with the female customer, and tell her what they said behind their backs.

Of course, I know that people in the world talk bad about each other behind their backs, but these three fellows are especially irritating when they talk about people, as if someone recognized them as the greatest of men, and appointed them to judge the world.They are always jealous, never praise anyone, and they know a little about their shortcomings.

Once a young woman came into the shop, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling, and she wore a velvet cloak with a black fur collar, from which her face was exposed like a flower.She took off her coat and handed it to Sasha, looking even more beautiful.Her slender figure was tightly wrapped in a dark gray silk dress, and the diamonds on her ears were dazzling.She reminded me of the peerless beauty Vasilisa, and I decided that this woman must be the governor's wife.They received her with respect, stooping as before a fire, and full of flattery.The three people were like monsters, running around all over the shop, their shadows were reflected on the window glass, as if everything around them were on fire and were gradually disappearing, and they were about to change into another look, another kind. shape.

She quickly picked out a pair of expensive leather shoes and left.The boss smacked his lips and whistled:
"Bitch..."

"Just to put it bluntly, she's an actress!" said the big man contemptuously.

So they talked about the lady's lovers and her luxurious life.

After lunch, the boss was taking a nap in the back room of the shop. I opened his gold watch and dripped a little vinegar on the mechanism.I was very happy to see him come into the shop with his watch after waking up, and said in a panic:
"What's going on? The watch suddenly sweated! I've never seen a watch sweat! Could something be wrong?"

In spite of my busyness with the business of the shop and the house, I seemed to be sunk in a kind of boredom.So I used to think, what's the one thing I'd have to do to get them to throw me out of the shop?
Pedestrians covered in snow walked silently past the shop door, making one feel as if they were going to the cemetery because they lost time and were busy chasing after the coffin.The horse dragged the cart slowly over the snowdrifts with difficulty.In the church tower behind the shop the bells were tolling dolefully every day—it was Lent.The sound of the bell is like a pillow hitting a person's head. It doesn't hurt, but it makes people numb and deaf.

One day, I was in the yard in front of the shop, clearing out the boxes that had just been delivered.At that moment the crooked-shouldered old man at the door of the church came up to me.He was as limp as a piece of cloth, and his clothes looked as if they had been chewed to pieces by a dog.

"Steal me a pair of overshoes, boy?" he said to me.

I didn't say anything.He sat down on the empty box, yawned, crossed himself, and repeated:
"How about you steal me a pair?"

"Don't steal!" I said to him.

"But someone stole it, give my old man some face!"

He was different from those around me, and he was likable.I thought he was quite convinced that I would steal for him, so I agreed to slip him a pair of overshoes through the vent.

"Very well," he said calmly, without appearing happy. "Don't you coax people? Well, um, I can see that you don't coax people..."

The old man sat for a while in silence, stepping on the dirty slush with the soles of his boots, smoking a pipe from a clay-fired pipe.Suddenly, he frightened me and said:
"What if I coax you? I took this pair of galoshes to your boss and told me I bought them from you for half a ruble. The goloshes cost more than two rubles, but you only sold them for half a ruble." Ruble! It said you went to buy delicious food, so what do you do?"

I stared at him blankly, as if he had done what he said.But he still looked at his boots, exhaled green smoke, and continued to say softly in a nasal voice:

"For example, what if I had been asked by your boss: 'Go and check on that boy for me, is he a thief?' What should I do?"

"I won't give you overshoes," I said angrily.

"Now you have no choice but to give it, because you have already promised!"

He took my hand, pulled me to him, tapped my forehead with his cold fingers, and said lazily:
"How easily can you say: 'Hey, take this?!'"

"You made me do it."

"I'm asking for more! I want you to rob the church. What, what are you doing? Can you trust others? Oh, you silly boy..."

After finishing speaking, he pushed me away and stood up:
"I don't want stolen galoshes. I'm not a rich man. I don't need to wear galoshes. I'm just kidding you... You are very kind. At Easter, I will let you go to the clock tower to strike the bell and look at the street view... "

"I know the whole town."

"Looking at it from the bell tower, it's much more beautiful..."

He tiptoed the snow and walked slowly around the corner of the church.I looked at his back, secretly worried, and thought anxiously: Is the old man really just joking, or did the boss ask him to test me?I dare not go into the shop.Sasha broke into the courtyard and yelled:
"What the hell are you doing?"

I got angry and raised my pliers to him.

I know that he and his fellows used to steal from the boss. They hid a pair of leather shoes or sandals in the chimney of the stove, and stuffed them in the sleeves of their coats when they left the shop.I hate this kind of thing and am a little scared.I still remember the boss's intimidation.

"Are you stealing?" I asked Sasha.

"It's not me, it's the big guy," he declared solemnly. "I was just doing him a favor, and he said: You have to do me a favor! I'll have to obey, or he'll play tricks on me. Boss! He's a clerk himself, and he understands everything. But don't mess with me." Say!"

As he talked, he looked in the mirror, imitating the style of a big man, stretching his fingers unnaturally to adjust his tie.He always puts on airs in front of me, plays awe-inspiring, and reprimands me.When he gave me orders, he always held out one hand in a pushing gesture.I am taller and stronger than him, but thin and clumsy.He was plump, soft, and shiny.He wore a frock coat and trousers, which seemed to me very dignified and majestic, but it gave people a ridiculous feeling.He hated the cook very much, and the cook was indeed a strange woman, and it was impossible to say whether she was a good person or a bad person.

"Of things in the world, I like to fight," she said, with dark, burning eyes. "No matter what kind of fight, I think it's good. I think it's good for cockfights, dog bites, and men fighting!"

When cocks and pigeons were fighting in the yard, she put down her work, leaned against the window, and watched intently until the fight was over.She said to me and Sasha every night: "You boys, it's so boring to sit around, and it's so good to fight!"

Sasha said angrily:

"Silly woman, who told you that I'm a boy?! I'm the second buddy!"

"I don't think so. In my eyes, those who don't marry wives are all brats!"

"Stupid woman, silly brain..."

"The devil is clever, but God doesn't like him."

Her proverbs especially pissed off Sasha.He deliberately provoked her, but she glanced at him contemptuously and said:

"Hmph, you cockroach, God was blind and gave birth to you by mistake!"

Sasha often instigated me to put some shoe polish or soot on her face while she was asleep, or put some needles in her pillow, or "joke" with her in other ways, but I was afraid she.She slept soundly and woke up often.As soon as she woke up, she lit the lamp, sat on the bed, and stared blankly at the corner.Sometimes, she walked around the stove and came to me, shook me awake, and said in a hoarse voice:
"Lekseyka, I'm a little scared, I can't sleep, talk to me!" I said something to her in a daze, and she sat silently, shaking her body.

I felt a scent of pewter and incense emanating from her hot body.I thought, this woman is dying, maybe she will fall to the floor and die in no time.I was afraid, so I raised my voice, but she stopped me and said:

"Keep your voice down! If the villains wake up, they'll take you for my lover..."

Sitting next to me, she always maintains a posture: her back is arched, her hands are placed between her knees, and she is clamped by her thin leg bones.She has a flat chest, and even in a heavy linen shirt, you can see the ribs like the hoops on a bucket that has dried out.She was silent for a long time, then suddenly said in a low voice:
"I'd better die, and live only to suffer..."

Or, as if asking someone:
"It's the end of life, eh, is it?"

"Sleep!" Before I could finish, she interrupted me, straightened her waist, and her gray figure quietly disappeared in the darkness of the kitchen.

"Witch!" Sasha called her behind her back.

I tease him:

"You call her that in front of her face!"

"Do you think I'm afraid of her?"

But he immediately frowned and said, "No, I won't call her in person, maybe she's really a witch..."

The cook looked down on everyone, got angry with everyone she saw, and was rude to me. Every morning at six o'clock, she pulled my thigh and cried:
"Don't snooze! Go get firewood! Burn a samovar, peel potatoes!  …"

Sasha woke up and said bitterly:
"What are you shouting about? It's so loud that people can't sleep well. I'll tell the boss..." Her withered and skinny body hurriedly ran around the kitchen, staring at Sasha with red, swollen eyes from lack of sleep. by:

"Hmph, God was blind and gave birth to you by mistake! If I were your stepmother, I'd rip your hair off."

"Damn it," Sasha swore, and whispered to me on the way to the shop, "must try to get her out of there. Yeah, sneak a big pinch of salt in everything —If everything is terribly salty, she'll have to get out. Or just pour some kerosene on it, why are you so dazed?"

"Why don't you do it?"

He snorted angrily:
"coward!"

We all saw the death of the cook.She bent down to hold the samovar, and suddenly fell to the ground, as if being pushed in the chest by someone, and fell silently on her side, with her arms stretched forward, bleeding from her mouth.

We both knew right then and there that she was dead.But he was so frightened that he stared at her for a long time, unable to say a word.Later, Sasha ran out of the kitchen.But I didn't know what to do, so I leaned against the bright place by the window.The boss came in, knelt down worriedly, touched her face with his finger, and said:

"Really, dead... what's going on?"

So he went to the little icon of Nikolay the Miracle Worker in the corner of the room, made the sign of the sign of the sign of the sign of the cross, and after praying, he ordered me in the antechamber:
"Kashilin, report to the police station!"

A policeman came, walked around the house, took a tip, and left.After a while, they came back again, with a coachman, and they carried the cook into the street with one head and the other foot.The proprietress poked her head in from the front room and told me:

"Wipe the floor clean!"

But the boss said:

"Fortunately she died at night!..."

I don't understand: why is it good to die at night.In bed at night, Sasha never said so gently:

"Don't turn off the lights!"

"You're scared?"

He covered his head with the quilt and lay silent for a long time.The night is very quiet, as if listening to something, waiting for something.I seem to feel: the bell will ring soon, and the whole city will run, scream, and make a mess.

Sasha poked her nose out of the bed and said softly:

"Would you like to sleep together on the stove?"

"It's too hot on the kang!"

He was silent for a moment, and then said:

"Why did she die so suddenly? I really didn't expect this witch...I can't sleep..."

"I can't sleep either."

He began to tell about the dead, how they came out of their graves and wandered about the city until midnight, looking for their former homes and the places where their loved ones were.

"The dead remember only cities," he whispered. "But he can't remember the streets and the houses..."

The surroundings became more and more silent, and it seemed to be getting darker.Sasha raised his head and asked:

"Want to see my suitcase?"

I've long wanted to see what he kept in his chest.Usually he locks it with a lock, and every time he opens the box, he is always very careful. If I want to look, he will ask rudely:

"What are you doing? Huh?"

After I agreed, he sat up, and without getting out of bed, ordered me to carry the box on the bed and put it at his feet.The key was attached to a strap, together with the cross of the bodyguard, and hung around his neck.Glancing first into the dark corner of the kitchen, frowning sullenly, he unlocked the lock, blew on the lid of the box as if it were hot, opened it, and took out sets of shirts and drawers.Half the box was full of medicine boxes, tea wrappers of various colors, shoe polish boxes, sardine tins, and so on. "What's this?" "You'll see right away..."

He clamped the box between his legs, bent over it, and said softly, "May God..."

I thought there must be toys in it.I've never owned a toy before, so although I pretend to be uncommon on the surface, I still can't help being envious when I see someone else has one.I am glad that a man of Sasha's age still has toys. Although he is shy and hides them, I understand the shyness.

Opening the first box, he took out a pair of glasses frames, put them on the bridge of his nose, looked at me sternly and said, "It doesn't matter if you don't have lenses, it's just this kind of glasses." "Let me wear them too." "You don't fit well, it's because of your dark eyes, your eyes are light-colored," he explained, coughing as if he was a boss, and immediately glanced fearfully at the kitchen.

The empty shoe polish box is full of buttons of various colors. He explained to me proudly: "These are all picked up from the street, and I picked them up by myself. I have already saved 37 buttons..."

In the third box, also copper pins picked up in the street, worn iron palms on the heels of leather shoes, broken and intact buttons on leather shoes and loafers, brass doorknobs, broken bone handles from walking sticks, A girl's comb, a book called "Dream Realization and Divination", and many other things of equal value.

When I was picking up junk, I could easily collect more than ten times this kind of worthless stuff in a month.Sasha's stuff disappointed me, annoyed me, and pitied him.But he carefully admired them one by one, caressed them lovingly, and solemnly pursed his thick lips, his protruding eyes showed affection and worry.The spectacles he wore gave the boyish face a very comical look. "What are you doing with these?"

He glanced at me from the frame of his glasses, and asked in a crisp childish voice, "Do you want me to give you something?" "No, I don't want to..."

Evidently, he was somewhat upset by my refusal and neglect of his treasure.He was silent for a while, and then consulted with me in a low voice: "Bring a hand towel, I have to wipe everything, it's all dusty..."

After he wiped the things clean and put them away, he got under the covers and turned his face to the wall.It was raining outside, and the raindrops were dripping from the roof, and the wind beat the windows from time to time.

Without turning around, Sasha said to me, "While you're out in the garden, I'll show you something—you'll be amazed!"

I was silent, ready to sleep.

After a while, he jumped up suddenly, clutching the wall with both hands, and said very earnestly, "I am afraid... Lord, I am afraid! May the Lord have mercy! What is going on here?"

At that time, I was too scared to speak.I seem to see the cook leaning against the window facing the yard, with her head down, her forehead pressed against the glass, and her back to me standing there, just like she used to watch chickens fight when she was alive.

Sasha burst into tears, scratching the wall with her hands and kicking her legs.As if stepping on a fire, without looking back, I trudged through the kitchen and lay down beside him.We cried, cried, and fell asleep when we were tired from crying.

A few days later, what a holiday.I did business for half a day in the morning, and went home for lunch. After the meal, when the boss’s family was taking a nap, Sasha said to me mysteriously: “Let’s go!”

I guessed that I would soon see the thing that surprised me.

We are in the garden.In a narrow space between the two houses stood fifteen or sixteen old linden trees, their stout trunks covered with thick moss, and their black, naked branches stretched dully.There wasn't even an old crow's nest in these branches, and the trunk was like a tombstone.Except for these lindens, there were neither shrubs nor grass in the garden.The sidewalks are hard and black as iron.The ground exposed under the rotting leaves of the next year is also covered with mold stains like duckweed floating in stagnant water.

Sasha turned a corner, walked towards the wooden fence in the adjoining street, and stopped under a lime tree.He blinked at the dimly lit window of the neighbor's house, then squatted down, and pulled up a pile of fallen leaves with both hands--exposing the root of a big tree, with two bricks beside it, deeply sunken in the soil.He lifted the bricks, and the bottom was the rotten tin sheet used on the roof, and the bottom was a square board.So, what finally appeared before my eyes was a big hole piercing down the tree root.

Sasha struck a match, lit the wax head, stuck it into the hole, and said to me: "Look! Don't be afraid..."

He himself was obviously a little scared, the wax in his hand was trembling, his face was blue, his lips were ugly, and his eyes were wet; the other empty hand was slowly moved behind his body.I'm scared too.Cautiously, I peered down into the hole below the tree roots.The roots of the tree became the roof of the hole—Sasha lit three sticks of wax in the bottom of the hole, and the hole glowed blue.The hole is quite large, as deep as a pail, but bigger than a pail.There are small pieces of stained glass and tea set pieces embedded in the side, and the slightly raised area in the middle is covered with a piece of red cloth. Underneath is a small coffin made of tinfoil, and half of it is covered with a small piece of cloth, which is the same as the coffin cover. The little sparrow's gray paws and beak with a pointed beak stick out from under the edge of the cloth.Behind the coffin is a spiritual platform, on which there is a bronze protective cross.Three long sticks of wax were dotted around the altar, on which were pasted yellow and white tinfoil wrapping candies.

The flame of the wax head leaned towards the mouth of the hole, and there were sparks and spots of various colors dimly flickering in the hole.The smell of wax, musty smell, and earthy smell hotly fumed my face.The tiny iridescent flakes dazzled my eyes.I looked at all this with painful wonder, and my terror was banished. "Okay?" Sasha asked. "What's this for?" "The chapel," he explained. "Like it?" "I don't know." "That little sparrow looks like a dead person, maybe it will become an immortal golden body, because it was killed innocently..." "So it was dead?" "No, it It flew into the cargo room, and I threw it to death with my hat." "Why did you throw it to death?" "Why not..."

He looked at me and asked again: "Is it fun?" "Not so good!"

So he immediately bent down facing the hole, quickly covered the planks and iron sheets, and embedded the bricks into the soil.Then, he stood up, wiped the mud off his knees, and asked sternly, "Why don't you like it?" "I pity that little bird."

His blind eyeballs looked at me motionlessly, and he was
I pushed my chest and cursed loudly: "Bastard! You are jealous, so you say you don't like it. Do you think you can do better than this in your house on the Funeral Straße?" I thought of the gazebo at home, So she firmly replied: "Of course it's better than this!" Sasha took off his shirt, threw it on the ground, rolled up his sleeves, spat on his palm, and suggested: "Then, let's fight!"

I don't want to fight, I can't breathe because of the heavy boredom, and I feel very uncomfortable looking at my cousin's angry face.

He rushed over, bumped his head on my chest, knocked me down, rode on me and shouted: "To live or to die?"

But I was stronger than him, and I was very angry. After a while, he lay on his face on the ground, with his head in his hands, made a hoarse sound and stopped moving.I panicked and wanted to pick him up, but his hands and feet were scratching and kicking. I was even more scared, and I walked aside, not knowing what to do.But he raised his head and said, "Why, did you win the battle? I'll just lie down and let the boss's family see me. I will sue you, and they will drive you away!"

He cursed and threatened.What he said angered me, so I simply ran to the hole, uncovered the bricks, threw the coffin containing the little sparrow outside the wooden fence, and moved the contents out of the hole with my feet. The hole is stepped flat. "See it?"

Sasha's trouble with me was very strange: he sat on the ground, his mouth was slightly opened, his brows were furrowed, and he looked at me silently.When I finished, he stood up slowly, patted the dust off his body, pushed his coat over his shoulders, and said calmly and viciously: "Just wait and see, it won't take long! You know, this I did it on purpose for you, this is magic! Hmph!..."

I seemed to be hurt by his words. I squatted down and felt cold all over, but he kept walking without looking back.His composure overwhelmed me even more.

I decided to slip away tomorrow, out of the city, out of the boss's house, out of Sasha and his magic, out of this boring stupid life.

The next morning, the new cook woke me up. "Oh, what's the matter with your face?..." she cried out. "Here comes the magic!" I thought ruefully.

But the cook laughed loudly with her belly in her hands, which made me laugh too. Taking a look in her mirror, my face was covered with a thick layer of soot. "Is it Sasha?" "Could it be me?" cried the cook absurdly.

I started to shine my shoes, and as soon as I put my hand into the shoes, I was pricked by a pin. "This is his magic again!"

Inside each shoe were needles and pins, so cleverly placed that they stuck into the palm of my hand.So I scooped up a spoonful of cold water with a spoon, walked up to the magician who hadn't woken up, or was pretending to be asleep, and splashed him on the head with great relief.

But I was still unhappy, the coffin containing the sparrow, the curled claws, the waxy pointed beak that stretched out pitifully upwards, and the five-colored sparks around me that seemed to emit iridescence but could not be emitted in my mind from time to time Eyes flicker.Gradually the coffin grew bigger, and the sparrow's claws grew bigger, tilted upwards, and trembled.

I decided to run away that night, but when I was cooking soup on the kerosene stove before lunch, because I was out of my mind, the soup boiled, and I was about to put out the stove, and the soup pot was overturned in my hand. Hospital.

To this day, I remember the agonizing nightmare of being in the hospital: gray and white shadows in shrouds, squirming blindly and whispering among the rickety yellow voids.A tall man with eyebrows as thick as a beard, thick and long, leaning on a walking stick, shaking a big black beard, shouted like a roar: "I want to report to the Archbishop!"

All the hospital beds remind me of coffins, and the patient sleeping with his nose upside down looks like the dead sparrow.The yellow walls swayed, the ceiling bulged like a sail, and the floor rippled.The sickbeds lined up in rows, close together for a while, and then leave for a while, everything is unaccounted for, it's terrible.Looking out of the window, the branches are stretched out like horse whips, and I don't know who is shaking them.

At the door, a thin dead man with reddish-brown hair danced while dragging his corpse clothes with his short hands, and screamed: "I don't want a lunatic!"

The big black beard leaning on a cane yelled at him, "I want to report to the Great Master!..."

I've heard it from my grandfather, my grandmother, and others: Hospitals often torture people to death—I think my life is over.A woman walked up to me, she was wearing glasses and she was wearing a shroud, she wrote something on a blackboard next to my bed, the chalk broke, and the chalk fell on my head. "What's your name?" she asked. "No name." "But you always have a name, right?" "No." "Don't mess around, you'll get beaten!"

If she didn't tell me, I also believed that I would be beaten, so I simply didn't answer her.She snorted like a cat, and walked away quietly like a cat.

Two lamps were lit, the yellow flames looked like a pair of absent-minded eyes, hanging from the ceiling, hanging and blinking, as if they were about to close together, making people's eyes dazzled and their hearts irritable.

Someone in the corner of the room was talking: "Come and play cards?" "How can I play without hands?" "Ah, one of your hands was sawed off."

Immediately I thought: this man had his hand amputated for playing cards, how would they torture me before killing me?

Both of my hands hurt like fire, as if someone was cracking the bones in my hands.I was scared and hurt, and I cried softly.I closed my eyes so that no one could see the tears, but the tears oozed from the corners of my eyes, ran down my temples, and dripped into my ears.

When night came, everyone lay on the bed, covered in gray blankets, and fell silent minute by minute.I only heard someone muttering in the corner: "There will be no results, the man is a waste, and the woman is also a waste..."

I wanted to write to my grandmother, asking her to come and steal me from the hospital before I died.But I had no paper, and I couldn't move my hands, so I couldn't write letters.I'll give it a try, can I sneak out from here?

The night became more and more silent, as if it would never dawn again.I lowered my legs quietly to the floor and was already at the door, which was ajar.In the corridor, leaning against a long log with a backrest under the light, a gray-white hedgehog-like head appeared, puffing out smoke. Its dark sunken eyes were looking at me, and I had no time to dodge it. "Who is strolling, come here!"

The voice is very soft, not frightening.I walked over and saw a round face with a full beard--the hair on the head was longer, standing upright in a mess, and shining with silver.At his belt hung a bunch of keys.Had his beard and hair grown a little longer, he would have looked exactly like the apostle Peter. "Did you burn your hand? Why are you walking around in the middle of the night? What rule is that?"

He sprayed the smoke on my chest and face, put a warm hand around my neck, and pulled me to his side. "Are you scared?" "Scared!" "People who come here are scared at first. But there's nothing to be afraid of, especially with me—I won't let anyone suffer... Do you want to smoke? Oh, Don’t smoke. You are still young. In two or three years... where are your parents? No parents! Well, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have one, a child can live without parents. But don’t be timid! Do you understand?”

It has been a long time since I have met someone who speaks to me in such casual, kind, and clear terms.After hearing these words, I feel indescribably happy.

As he put me back on the bed, I begged him, "Sit with me for a while!" "Okay," he said yes. "What do you do?" "Me? A soldier, a real soldier, a Caucasian soldier, I fought, but—can I not fight? Soldiers fight. I fought Hungarians, I fought The Circassians, fought the Poles—had fought a lot of people! My brother, fighting is lawless."

I closed my eyes for a while, and when I opened them again, the grandmother in black was sitting where the soldier had been sitting just now, and the soldier stood beside her and said, "Ah, are they all dead?"

The sun shines into the ward, dyeing everything in the room with gold, then disappears for a while, and shines brightly for a while, as if a child is playing.Grandmother bowed to me and asked: "What's the matter, darling? Is it bad? I told him, the devil with the brown beard..." "I'll go through the formalities right away," said the soldier, and walked away up.The grandmother wiped her tears and continued: "This soldier is from our city of Barahana..."

I always feel like I'm dreaming and I don't make a sound.The doctor came and changed the gauze on the wound.I was riding down the street with my grandmother in a carriage, and she said, "Our old man is crazy and disgustingly miserly! Recently, one of his new friends, the furrier 'Horse Whip' caught him in a book of hymns. The hundred-rouble notes in the pocket were stolen. Such a thing, alas!"

The sun was shining brightly, clouds were flying like swans in the sky, and we walked along the slabs on the ice of the Volga, which bulged upwards with a clack, and the river splashed under the narrow slabs There was a clatter.On the red roof of the cathedral in the market, several golden crosses shone brightly.Met a broad-faced woman, with her arms full of soft willow branches--spring is here, and Easter is coming.

My heart trembled like a lark: "Grandma, I really like you!"

My words didn't surprise her, she said calmly, "Because I'm a relative. I'm not boasting, but even outsiders like me, thanks to the Holy Mother!"

She smiled and said again. "The day that the Holy Mother likes is coming soon, her son is resurrected, but, Varyusha, where is my daughter..." After she finished speaking, she fell silent...

(End of this chapter)