in the world

Chapter 9

The icon workshop occupied two rooms in a large half-stone house; one had three windows looking on the courtyard and two on the garden; the other had one window on the garden and one on the street.The windows were small, square, and glazed.The glass is so old that it is fuzzy, reluctantly letting in the faint winter sunlight into the workshop.

Both rooms were packed with tables, and at each table sat a hunched icon-maker; sometimes two persons sat at one table.There are some glass balls filled with water hanging from the ceiling. They converge the light and emit a cold white light, which is reflected on the square icon panel.

It was hot and stuffy in the workshop, where twenty or so "icon painters" from Palekh, Kholui, and Msjora worked.Everyone wore cloth shirts with open collars, canvas trousers, and bare feet or worn-out shoes.The smoke of inferior tobacco steamed above the heads of the craftsmen, the smell of varnish, dry oil, and rotten eggs wafted all around, and the song of Vladimir, as slow as rosin oil, and sad: How unhappy are people nowadays? Shy—the lad charms the big girl in front of people... and many other songs, all of which are quite unpleasant to hear, but this one sings the most.The elongated tone of the song does not disturb the thinking, nor does it hinder the use of a fine sable brush to draw wrinkles on the "clothing" of the icon, and to draw fine lines of pain on the bony faces of the saints.Under the window, Gogolev, the gilt painter, is an old man who likes to drink and has a big blue nose, tapping a small mallet.In the lazy singing here, from time to time added his dull hammer sound, like a worm biting a tree trunk.

No one was enthusiastic about painting icons, and some wicked and wise man had divided the work into a succession of trifling, unbeautiful tasks that did not arouse interest or interest.Panfil, a squint-eyed joiner, is a vicious and sinister person. He brought cypress and linden boards of various sizes that he had planed and glued.Davydov, the consumptive youth, primed them.His partner, Sorokin, added a "primer".Miliashin traced an outline from the image with a pencil.Old Gogolev painted it with gold and carved a pattern on it.Draw the background and clothing for the clothing.From now on, the icon with no face and no hands will be erected by the wall, waiting for the face painter to paint.

The great holy images, which hang in the veils and on the altar doors, have no face, no hands and feet, but only robes, or armor, and the tunic of an archangel, stand on the wall, and are very unpleasant to be seen from a distance.These multicolored boards were lifeless, lacking that which animated them, but which seemed to have been there, only to disappear strangely, leaving now their own cumbersome robes.

After the face painter has painted the "body", the icon is handed over to another kind of craftsman, who paints the "enamel" according to the pattern knocked out by the gilder.There are craftsmen who write characters.

The final varnish is applied by the foreman himself.The foreman was Ivan Larionovich, a quiet man.

His face was gray, his little beard was gray too, covered with fine hairs like silk threads, and his eyes were also gray, very sunken and full of sadness.He laughed very well, but people couldn't smile at him, and they always felt that something was out of place.He was like the stylized dervish Simeon, as thin and shriveled as Simeon, and even his dull eyes seemed to be gazing halfway into the distance through people and walls.

A few days after I came to the workshop, Kabejiushin, a Cossack from the Don, the master of the banner painting, came in drunk.He was a handsome man with great strength. When he came in, he gritted his teeth, narrowed his sweet, feminine eyes, and silently swung his iron fists, hitting anyone he saw.This short but well-proportioned man was scurrying about in the factory like a cat in a mouse's nest. Everyone hid in the corner of the room in embarrassment, yelling at each other: "Fight."

Yevgeny Sitanov, who painted the face, hit the rampage on the head with a stool, knocking him unconscious.The Cossack sat on the ground, and they immediately pushed him down and tied him up with handkerchiefs.He wanted to bite off the towel like a wild animal.Yevgeny jumped on the table in a frenzy, leaning his elbows on his waist, in the posture of throwing himself at the Cossack.He was tall, strong, and would have crushed Kabegikhin's breastbone when he fell.But at the same moment Larionovich in a coat and hat came up to him, threatened Sitanov with his finger, and said seriously and in a low voice to the workmen: "Take him into the porch and let him wake up." Sober up..." Pulled the Cossack out of the workshop, arranged the tables and chairs and sat down to work again.We exchanged short words, talked about the strength of the Cossack, predicted that one day he would be killed in a fight, and so on.

"It's not easy to kill him," Sitanov said quietly, as if talking about a job he was familiar with.

I looked at Larionovich and wondered: Why do these strong and violent people obey him so easily?
He told everyone how to work, and even skilled craftsmen listened to him.He taught Kabejukhin more than anyone else, and spoke to him more.

"Kabejiuchin, since you are called a painter, you must paint well, in the Italian style. Oil paintings must have a unity of warm colors, but you use too much white, and the eyes of the Virgin are blurred." So cold, with a chilling air. The cheeks are painted as red as apples, the eyes don't match it, and the position is also wrong. One looks at the tip of the bridge of the nose, but the other moves to the temple. The result The face has no sense of sanctity and cleanliness, but has become cunning and vulgar. You don't work hard, Kabejiushin."

The Cossack listened, tilting his face, and then, smiling without shame, with womanly eyes, said in a pleasant voice, a little hoarse from being drunk: "Hi, Ivan Laryonovich!" Well, my lord, this is not my profession. I was born a musician, but I became a monk."

"As long as you work hard, you can do anything well."

"No, who am I? Tell me to be a driver and bring three horses, hey..." As he spoke, he protruded his Adam's apple, and sang sadly and desperately: Hey hey, I want to put black on the three-horse carriage. A fast chestnut-haired horse gallops straight to my lover's house in the cold night.

Ivan Larionovitch smiled mildly, adjusted his spectacles on his gray, sad nose, and went away.Immediately, more than a dozen voices joined his singing, turning into a powerful current, which seemed to float the whole workshop, and the well-proportioned tune made the workshop tremble. …The hand of the apprentice Bashka Odintsov stopped pouring the egg yolk, and holding the broken eggshell in both hands, he sang a beautiful high-pitched chorus in a child's voice.

Intoxicated by the song, they all forgot themselves, breathed together, lived in the same feeling, and squinted at the Cossack.When he sang, the whole workshop recognized him as its leader.Everyone was attracted by him and watched him waving his hands, as if he was about to fly.I am sure that if he had stopped singing at this moment and cried out, "Break it all down," everyone, even the most respectable craftsman, would have smashed the workshop to pieces in a few minutes.

He seldom sang, but his bold voice was always equally irresistible and triumphant.No matter how heavy people feel, he can make them excited and aroused, and everyone will be energetic and hot, and they will be combined into a powerful organism.

These songs made me passionately envious of the singer himself and the power of commanding the beauty of others. A feeling of extreme excitement penetrated into my heart. I felt sore and wanted to cry and shout to the people who sang: "I love you."

The consumptive yellow-faced Davidov, with disheveled hair, also opened his mouth strangely, like a baby bird just peeled from its egg shell.

Only when the Cossacks lead the singing, can they sing bold and happy songs.Usually I always sing sad and long-drawn songs, humming "People Who Are Not Shy", "Under the Tree Shade" and about the death of Alexander I: "How Our Alexander Reviewed His Army".

Sometimes, it was suggested by the most skilled face painter Zhikharev in the workshop to try singing hymns, but there were always many failures.Zhikharev always used a special tune that only he knew, which hindered the chorus.

He was a man of about 45, thin, bald, with a half circle of curly black hair like a gypsy, and thick black eyebrows like a beard.The thick pointed beard made his slender, dark, un-Russian face very attractive, but a bristly mustache protruded from the middle of the tall nose, and because of his eyebrows, he looked very attractive. It's superfluous.His blue eyes were unusually large, the one on the left obviously much larger than the one on the right.

"Bashka," he called in a tenor voice to my companion, the apprentice. "Take the lead and sing "Praise the Name of the Lord." Listen, everyone."

Baska wiped his hands on the apron and began to sing: "Zam-beau..."

"...the name of the Lord," several people joined in, and Zhikhalev yelled anxiously: "Evgeny, lower your voice. Keep your voice deep in your heart..." Sitanov slammed it like a barrel. A rumbling voice shouted: Servants of God... "No no no. This place should be singing so loudly that the windows and doors will open of their own accord."

Zhikharev's whole body trembled with inexplicable excitement, and his strange eyebrows rose and fell on the forehead.His voice was out of shape, and his fingers were playing invisible strings in the air.

"Servants of God—get it?" he said meaningfully. "This place should pierce through the shell to the center. Praise God, servants. Why don't you understand? You are all flesh and blood."

"You know we've never had a good song here," said Sitanov politely.

"Then there is no need to sing."

Zhikharev set to work angrily.He was the best painter, able to paint the Byzantine style, the French style, and the "Artistic" Italian style of the saint.

With the order for the veil, Larionovich consulted with him - he was very familiar with the originals of holy paintings, such as the reproductions of precious spiritual icons from Fedorovsk, Smolensk, Kazan, etc. Everything is done through his hands.But when he observed the original works, he shouted loudly: "These original works have restricted us...it must be said frankly: restricted..." Although he occupies an important position in the workshop, he is no prouder than others. , treat the apprentices - Pavel and I are also very kind.He wanted to teach us a trade, and no one cared about it but him.

He was a man not easy to understand, generally a gloomy man, who sometimes worked silently for weeks, looking at everyone strangely and strangely, as if he were seeing someone he was acquainted with for the first time.Although he liked to sing very much, at that time, he didn't sing, and he didn't even seem to be able to hear it.Everyone looked at each other and paid attention to his movements.He bent over the slanting icon, which stood on his knees and rested half against the edge of the table.With his fine brush, he carefully drew the sullen and otherworldly face, and he himself seemed to be a sullen and otherworldly person.

Suddenly, he made a clear voice angrily: "Pioneer—what do you mean? The word "drive"—in the past, it was the word "walking". The pioneer means the person who left first, and there is no other meaning..." The workshop was silent, everyone Looking sideways at Zhikharev and laughing, in the silence, he heard the strange words: "The pioneer cannot wear sheepskin, he should be painted with wings..." "Who are you talking to?" Everyone asked him.

He was silent, did not hear or would not answer.A moment later, in the stillness of Stein, his words were heard: "The lives of the saints should be known. Does anyone know—the lives of the saints? What do we know? It doesn't matter that we live... Where is the soul? Where is the soul ? The original work... yes Luo.——Here. But there is no soul..." This kind of thought in words, except for Sitanov, arouses a mocking smile from everyone, and almost everyone murmurs maliciously Said: "It's Saturday... I'm going to drink again..." Sitanov was a tall, well-built young man of 22 years old.

With his round face, beardless and eyebrowless, he stared sadly and gravely into the corner of the room.

I remember that Zhikharev painted a copy of the Madonna of Fedorovsk, which he sent to Kungur, put the icon on the table, and exclaimed excitedly: "The Madonna is painted. You are a cup— ——The bottomless cup will bear the bitter and loyal tears of the world from now on..." So I threw someone's coat over my shoulders and went to the hotel.The young people laughed and whistled, and the older ones looked at his back enviously and sighed.Sitanov walked up to his work, examined it carefully and said: "No wonder he is going to drink. It's a pity to give the work to others, but this kind of pity is not understood by everyone..." Zhikharev's wine Addiction always started on Saturday.Maybe it's different from those artisans who generally drink alcohol.It started like this: in the morning he wrote a note asking where to send Bashka, and before lunch he said to Larionovitch: "Today I'm going to the bathhouse."

"How long?"

"Well, my God..."

"Then please don't wait until Tuesday."

Zhikharev nodded his bald head in agreement, and his eyebrows trembled a little at that time.

When he came back from the bathhouse, he dressed up beautifully, put on a corset, tied a bow around his neck, and hung a long silver chain on his satin vest, and drove away silently.Before leaving, he told Pavel and me: "In the evening, clean up the workshop, wash the big table, and scrape off the stains."

Everyone is in a festive mood.Everyone cheered up, groomed themselves, went to bathe, and ate supper in a hurry.After dinner, Zhikharev came back with beer, wine, and drinks in a paper package. Behind him was a woman who was distended to look ugly in all parts and was twenty feet twelve inches tall. Our chairs and stools were placed on It was as if her eyes were for children.The tall Sitanov, next to her, also became a half-grown child.Her body was very shapely, her breasts rose like a hill and touched her chin, and her movements were slow and clumsy.She is over 40 years old, but her chubby and dull face is bright and smooth, her eyeballs are as big as a horse's, and her mouth is small, like the mouth of a cheap doll, which makes people suspect it was drawn with a pen.The woman put on a smiley face and extended her big, warm hand to everyone, talking unnecessary nonsense.

"How are you. It's cold today. Your house smells very bad. It must be the smell of paint. How are you?"

She is like a mighty river, calm and powerful, and it is pleasant to look at her.But her words make people sleepy, all nonsense.Before speaking, she took a deep breath, and her cheeks, which were almost red and purple, swelled even more round.

The young man sneered and said in a low voice:
"Like a machine."

"A bell tower."

She pursed her lips, put her hands under her breasts, and sat at the prepared table, near the samovar, looking at each one in turn with a kindly gleam in her horse's eyes.

Everyone respected her, and the younger ones were even a little afraid of her.One young man gazed greedily at the gigantic body, and lowered his eyes in embarrassment when they met hers alluring.Zhikharev was also very respectful to his female guests, using "you" when speaking to her, calling her godmother, and bowing to her when asking her to eat.

"Don't worry about it," she said in a long, sweet voice. "What a trouble you are, really."

She herself was always so unhurried.Only the lower half of her arm moves, and the upper half is always close to her side.From her body, there was an alcohol smell of hot bread.

Old Gogolev stammered with joy, like a church boy singing a hymn to the beauty of this woman.She smiled kindly and listened to him, and when he couldn't speak, she said to herself: "I was not beautiful when I was not married, but I changed after I became a woman. When I was 30 years old, I became even more attractive, even the nobles paid attention to me, and a chief nobleman in the county even promised to give me a two-horse carriage..." Kabe Jiuxin, with disheveled hair, was drunk, Looking at her with disgust, he asked rudely, "Why did he give you this?"

"Naturally for our love," explained the female guest.

"Love," Kabejiushin'I murmured uneasily. "What kind of love is that?"

"You, such a handsome boy, know love very well," said the woman crisply.

The workshop was shaken by laughter, and Sitanov said to Kabedyukhin in a low voice: "Stupid guy, I'm afraid he's not as good as a stupid guy. Who wouldn't love such a woman if he wasn't depressed to death..." He was so drunk Pale, with sweat beading at his temples, his wise eyes burning restlessly.Old Gogolev twitched his ugly nose, wiped his tears with his fingers, and asked again: "How many sons do you have?"

"We only have one child..."

A lamp hung over the table, and another was burning behind the corner of the stove.The lights are not too bright, and there are thick shadows gathered in the corner of the workshop, and the headless icon that has not been painted is looking out from the darkness.Where the head and arms should have been, there had been flat gray blotches, and now they looked more terrifying than usual, as if the saint's body had mysteriously slipped out of this basement through the painted clothes.The glass ball hung on a hook near the ceiling, covered in a haze of smoke, and glowing pale blue.

Zhikharev paced restlessly around the table, inviting everyone to eat, his bald head leaning one way and another, his thin fingers twitching constantly.He had grown thinner, and his eagle nose had become sharper.When he stood sideways to the lamp, the shadow of his nose was black on his cheeks.

"Drink and eat, my friends," he said in a crisp tenor voice.

The woman said like a housewife: "What are you doing, godfather, you are so busy? Everyone has hands and knows their own appetite. No one can eat when they are full."

"Okay, let's rest for a while." Zhikhalev shouted excitedly.

"My friends, we are all servants of God, let's sing "Praise the Name of the Lord."..." The chorus of the hymn did not succeed, and everyone was drunk and fed, and there was no energy left.

Kabedyukhin held a two-key accordion in his hand, and Viktor Sarautin, a serious young worker with black hair like a young crow, held a tambourine, fingering the taut drum head, which was There was a heavy voice, and the bells clanked lively.

"Russian dance," Zhikharev ordered. "Godmother, please."

"Oh," the woman stood up with a sigh. "You're really busy."

She walked to the empty space in the room, like a small church, standing there.She wore a large russet skirt, a yellow linen blouse, and a bright red turban.

The accordion blared impatiently, the bells twitched, the tambourine tinkled, and there came out a melancholy sound like a sigh, which was unpleasant to listen to: it was like the sound of a madman crying and banging his head against the wall.

Zhikharev couldn't dance, but walked with fine steps on his polished leather heels, jumping like a goat, which still didn't quite fit with the exciting music.His legs didn't seem to be growing on his body, and his body was writhing wildly. The frantic look, like a wasp falling into a bee net or a fish falling into a fishing net, had no interest at all.But everyone was watching him, even his drunken friends, staring blankly at his twitching movements, staring silently at his face and hands.Zhikharev's face changed from being coquettish and shy to bold and bold.Just as he raised his face seriously, he suddenly sighed in surprise; he closed his eyelids slightly, and then opened them again, showing a crying appearance.He clenched his fists, walked towards the woman secretly, stomped his feet suddenly, knelt down in front of her, opened his arms, raised his eyebrows, and smiled sadly.At this time, she smiled softly, looked down at him, and reminded him in a low voice: "Godfather, you will be tired."

She tried to close her eyes coquettishly, but her eyes, which were as big as a three-kopeck piece, could not be closed, and she grimaced, showing an ugly expression.

She couldn't dance either, but slowly swayed her huge body from here to there without making a sound.She was holding a handkerchief in her left hand, waving it lazily, and her right hand was on her waist, making her look like a big jar.

And Zhikharev walked around this stone-like woman, changing faces--so that it seemed that not one danced but ten different ones; some calm and gentle, some The angry and frightening ones were timid, secretly sighing, trying to run away quietly from the unpleasant big woman.Then, another one appeared, gnashing his teeth and writhing convulsively, like a bitten dog.This insipid, ugly dance made me deeply sad, and reminded me of soldiers, washerwomen, cooks and their dog-like marriages.

I still remember Sidorov's whisper: "Everyone is cheating on each other in this matter, it's something everyone is ashamed of, no one loves anyone, it's just a joke..." I don't want to believe "in Everyone lied to each other about this."So what about "Queen Margot"?And this Zhikharev, of course, is not cheating.

I know that Sitanov fell in love with a prostitute and was infected with a heart disease by her. Instead of following the advice of his friends to beat the woman, he rented a room for her, treated her, and always talked about her. Very gentle and cramped.

The fat woman was still swaying, smiling stiffly, waving her handkerchief.Zhikharev was bouncing around her convulsively, and I looked at her and wondered, could Eve, who deceived God, be like this mare?I developed feelings of loathing for her.

Icons without heads and faces peered from the shadows.Dark night clings to the panes.The lights were dimly on in the stuffy workshop.He listened carefully, and amidst the heavy footsteps and noise, he heard the sound of water dripping from the copper sink into the dirty bucket.

All this is so different from the life I read about in books.Not at all.Finally, everyone got tired of playing.Kabejikhin handed the accordion to Sarautin and called out: "Come and join in the fun."

He jumped up like Vanka the Gypsy, as if flying through the air.Then Pavel Odintsov and Sorokin jumped up clamorously and cleverly.

Davydov, who was consumptive, was also moving on the floor, coughing from dust, smoke, the strong smell of wine, and tanned sausage.

Dancing, singing, shouting, everyone remembered that he was having fun, and it was almost like a competition to see who could do it better and last longer.

The drunken Sitanov asked one thing and another: "Is it possible to love such a woman?"

He looked like he was about to cry.

Larionovich raised his thin shoulder blades a little, and answered him: "A woman is a woman, what else do you need?"

The person everyone was talking about disappeared at some point.It took Zhikharev two or three days to come back, to go to the bath once more, and then for about two weeks, ignoring anyone, ostentatiously hiding in a corner and working alone.

"Going away?" Sitanov asked himself, raising his sad blue-gray eyes and glancing at the workshop.His face is very ugly, a bit like an old man, only his eyes are very delicate and kind.

Sitanov was very kind to me—thanks to my thick book of transcribed poems.He didn't believe in God, but it was hard to understand who in the workshop, except Larionovich, really loved and believed in God.Everyone loves to talk about God frivolously, mockingly, like a proprietress.But sit down to lunch and supper--everyone makes the sign of the sign of the sign of the cross, says prayers when they lie down and goes to bed, and goes to church on holidays.

Sitanov does none of this, and that's why he's called an atheist.

"There is no God," he said.

"So, where did everything in the world come from?"

"do not know……"

I asked him, how could there be no God?He explained: "You know how high God is."

As he spoke, he stretched his long arms over his head, and then moved down to about a foot above the ground, saying: "Man is so low. Isn't it? You know, it is written in the scriptures: 'Man is made in the likeness of God. Made it.' But who is Gogolev like?"

This baffles me: that dirty old drunkard Gogolev is guilty of Onan at such an age; then I think of Vitka's soldier Yermokhin, grandmother's sister—is there something in them? A little shadow of God?
"You know that people are like pigs," said Sitanov, and immediately reassured me: "It doesn't matter, Maximovich, there are good people, there are."

Being with him is very refreshing, if there is anything he doesn’t know, just honestly say: “I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it.”

This is also special: before I met him, the people I met knew everything and talked about everything.

In his notebook, besides some good poems, there are also many obscene poems that make people blush, which makes me feel strange.I told him about Pushkin, and he showed me a "Gavrilida" he copied out of his notebook... "Pushkin—what's that? He's just talking funny things, but Benediktov , this man, Maximovich, deserves attention."

Saying this, she closed her eyes and read in a low voice:
Behold, the beautiful woman's

Charming boobs...

For some unknown reason, he especially admired the last three lines and read them triumphantly: Even the eagle's sharp eyes cannot see her heart through this fiery door... "Understood?"

I'm ashamed to admit that I don't understand why.

(End of this chapter)