Read Astafyev's little darling. Victor Astafiev is a sweetheart. Farewell to the main character

Stories –

Victor Astafiev
LYUDOCHKA

You fell like a stone.
I died under it.
Vl. Sokolov
A story told in passing, heard in passing, fifteen years ago.
I've never seen her, that girl. And I won't see it again. I don’t even know her name, but for some reason it popped into my head - her name was Lyudochka. “What’s in my name for you? It will die like a sad noise...” And why do I remember this? In fifteen years, so many events have happened, so many people were born and died of natural causes, so many died at the hands of villains, got drunk, got poisoned, burned, got lost, drowned...
Why does this story, quietly and separately from everything, live in me and burn my heart? Maybe it's all about its depressing ordinariness, its disarming simplicity?

Lyudochka was born in a small dying village called Vychugan. Her mother was a collective farmer, her father a collective farmer. Due to his early oppressive work and long-standing, inveterate drunkenness, my father was frail, frail, fussy and dull. The mother was afraid that her child would not be born a fool, she tried to conceive him during a rare break from her husband’s drinking, but still the girl was bruised by her father’s unhealthy flesh and was born weak, sick and tearful.
She grew up like wilted roadside grass, played little, rarely sang or smiled, at school she never got a C grade, but she was silently diligent and did not stoop to a straight D.
Lyudochka's father disappeared from life long ago and unnoticed. Mother and daughter lived freer, better and more cheerful without him. Men would visit my mother, sometimes they drank, sang at the table, stayed overnight, and one tractor driver from a neighboring timber industry enterprise, having plowed the garden, had a hearty dinner, stayed for the whole spring, grew into the farm, began to debug it, strengthen it and multiply it. He rode to work seven miles on a motorcycle, at first he carried a gun with him and often threw crumpled birds dropping their feathers out of his backpack onto the floor, sometimes he took out a hare by its yellow paws and, hanging it on nails, deftly skinned it. For a long time afterwards, the skin hung over the stove, turned outward, with a white edge and red spots scattered with stars on it, so long that it began to break, and then the wool was cut from the skins, spun together with linen thread, and shaggy shawls were knitted.
The guest did not treat Lyudochka in any way, neither good nor bad, did not scold her, did not offend her, did not reproach her, but she was still afraid of him. He lived, she lived in the same house - and that’s all. When Lyudochka completed ten grades at school and became a girl, her mother told her to go to the city to get settled, since she had nothing to do in the village, she and herself - her mother stubbornly did not call the guest master and father - were planning to move to the timber industry enterprise. At first, the mother promised to help Lyudochka with money, potatoes and whatever God would send - in her old age, you see, she will help them too.
Lyudochka arrived in the city by train and spent the first night at the station. In the morning, she went to the station hairdresser and, after sitting in line for a long time, she spent even longer getting herself into a city look: she got a perm and a manicure. She also wanted to dye her hair, but the old hairdresser, who herself dyed it to look like a copper samovar, advised against it: they say, your hair is “me-a-ah-kanky, fluffy, little head, like a dandelion, but the chemicals will cause your hair to break and fall off.” . Lyudochka agreed with relief - she didn’t so much want to put on makeup as she wanted to be in the hairdresser’s, in this warm room emanating cologne aromas.
Quiet, seemingly constrained in a village way, but dexterous like a peasant, she offered to sweep up the hair on the floor, dispensed soap for someone, handed someone a napkin, and by the evening she had learned all the local customs, waylaid an auntie named Gavrilovna at the exit to the hairdresser's. , who advised her not to wear makeup, and asked her to be her student.
The old woman looked carefully at Lyudochka, then studied her unburdensome documents, asked a little, then went with her to the city municipal administration, where she registered Lyudochka to work as a hairdresser's apprentice.
Gavrilovna took the student to live with her, setting simple conditions: to help around the house, not to go out longer than eleven, not to bring guys into the house, not to drink wine, not to smoke tobacco, obey the mistress in everything and honor her as your own mother. Instead of paying for the apartment, let them bring a carload of firewood from the timber industry enterprise.
- As long as you are a student, you will live, but as soon as you become a master, go to the hostel. God willing, you will arrange your life. - And, after a heavy pause, Gavrilovna added: “If you get pregnant, I’ll drive you away.” I didn’t have children, I don’t like squeaks, and besides, like all the old masters, I struggle with my feet. When the weather is good, I howl at night.
It should be noted that Gavrilovna made an exception to the rule. For some time now she had been reluctant to let boarders in at all, and even refused to let girls in at all.
Long ago, during the Khrushchev era, two students from a financial college lived with her. Wearing trousers, dyed, smoking. Regarding smoking and everything else, Gavrilovna gave strict instructions straight out and without beating around the bush. The girls curled their lips, but resigned themselves to the demands of everyday life: they smoked on the street, they came home on time, they didn’t play their music loudly, but they didn’t sweep or wash the floor, they didn’t put away the dishes after themselves, they didn’t clean the restroom. That would be okay. But they constantly raised Gavrilovna, referred to examples of outstanding people, and said that she was living wrong.
And that would be all right. But the girls didn’t really distinguish between their own and someone else’s, they would eat the pies from the plate, then they would scoop the sugar out of the sugar bowl, then they would wash out the soap, and they were in no hurry to pay the rent until you reminded it ten times. And this could be tolerated. But they began to manage the garden, not in the sense of weeding and watering, but they began to pick what was ripe, using the gifts of nature without asking. One day we ate the first three cucumbers from a steep manure ridge with salt. Those cucumbers, the first, Gavrilovna, as always, grazed and groomed, knelt down in front of the ridge, onto which in winter she dragged manure in a backpack from the horse yard, putting a coin for it to the old robber, the lame Slyusarenko, talking to them, to the cucumbers: “Well, grow up, grow up, take heart, kids! Then we’ll take you to okro-o-oshechka-oo, to okro-o-oshechka-oo-oo” - and we’ll give them some warm water, under the sun in a heated barrel.
- Why did you eat the cucumbers? - Gavrilovna approached the girls.
- What's wrong with that? They ate and ate. It's a pity, isn't it? We'll buy you something at the market!
- I don’t need any information! You really need this!.. For pleasure. And I was saving the cucumbers...
- For yourself? You are selfish!
-Who-who?
- Selfish!
- Well, what about you...! - offended by the unfamiliar word, Gavrilovna made the final conclusion and swept the girls out of the apartment.
From then on, she allowed only guys, most often students, into the house to live, and quickly brought them into God's form, taught them how to do housework, wash floors, cook, and do laundry. She even taught two of the smartest guys from the Polytechnic Institute how to cook and how to operate a Russian stove. Gavrilovna allowed Lyudochka to come to her because she recognized in her a village relative who had not yet been spoiled by the city, and she began to feel burdened by loneliness, she would collapse - there was no one to give water, and that she gave a strict warning without leaving the cash register, so how could it be otherwise? Just disband them, the young people of today, give them some slack, they will immediately go crazy and ride you wherever they want.
Lyudochka was an obedient girl, but her studies were a little slow, the barbering trade, which seemed so simple, was difficult for her, and when the appointed period of study had passed, she was unable to pass the master's degree. She worked as a cleaner at a hairdressing salon and remained on staff, continuing her practice - cutting the heads of pre-conscripts with a clipper, cutting schoolchildren with electric scissors, leaving a ponytail on the bare head above the forehead. She learned to do shaped haircuts “at home”, cutting the hair of the terrible fashionistas from the village of Vepeverze, where Gavrilovna’s house was located, to look like schismatics. She created hairstyles on the heads of fidgety disco girls, like those of foreign hit stars, without charging anything for it.
Gavrilovna, sensing a weakness in the guest’s character, sold all the household chores and all the household chores to the girl. The old woman’s legs were hurting more and more, the veins on her calves stood out, lumpy, black. Lyudochka’s eyes stung as she rubbed the ointment into the mangled legs of the housewife, who was working her last year before retirement. Gavrilovna called Mazi te “bonbeng”, also “mamzin”. The smell from them was so fierce, Gavrilovna’s screams were so heartbreaking that the cockroaches scattered among the neighbors, every single flie died.
- Wow, she’s our little job, wow, she’s such a beauty of a human being, she’s such a bother! - Having calmed down, Gavrilovna spoke out in the darkness. - Look, rejoice, even though you are stupid, you will still become some kind of master... What drove you out of the village?
Lyudochka endured everything: the ridicule of her girlfriends, who had already become masters, and the city’s homelessness, and her loneliness, and the morality of Gavrilovna, who, however, did not hold a grudge, did not drive her away from the apartment, although her stepfather did not bring the promised car of firewood. Moreover, for patience, diligence, for help around the house, for use in illness, Gavrilovna promised to give Lyudochka a permanent residence permit, register the house in her name, if she continued to behave just as modestly, take care of the hut, the yard, bend her back in the garden and will look after her, the old woman, when she is completely deprived of legs.

From work from the station to the final stop, Lyudochka rode the tram, then walked through the dying Vepeverze park, in human terms - the park of the carriage and locomotive depot, planted in the thirties and destroyed in the fifties. Someone decided to dig a ditch and lay a pipe through it across the entire park. And they dug it up. And they laid it, but, as is usual with us, they forgot to bury the pipe.
A black pipe, with crooked knees, like a snake trampled by cattle, lay in the steamed clay, hissing, steaming, bubbling like a hot mud. Over time, the pipe became covered with soapy mucus and mud, and a hot river flowed along the top, swirling rainbow-poisonous rings of fuel oil and various household items. The trees above the ditch became sick, wilted, and peeled off. Only poplars, gnarled, with burst bark, with horned dry branches on the top, resting their paws of roots on the earth's firmament, grew, littered fluff and in the autumn dropped brittle leaves sprinkled with wood scabies around. A bridge of four blocks was thrown across the ditch. Every year, depot craftsmen attached sides from old platforms to it instead of railings, so that drunken and lame people would not fall into the hot water. The children and grandchildren of the depot craftsmen carefully broke those railings every year.
When the steam locomotives stopped running and the depot building was occupied by new cars - diesel locomotives, the pipe became completely clogged and stopped working, but some hot mess of dirt, fuel oil, and soapy water still flowed down the ditch. The railings to the bridge were no longer erected. Over the years, all kinds of woodland and bad grass crawled to the ditch and grew, as he wanted: elderberry, raspberry, willow grass, wolfberry, wild currant, which did not bear berries, and everywhere - spreading wormwood, cheerful burdock and thorns. Here and there, this impenetrable tree was pierced by crooked bird cherry trees, two or three willows, one stubborn birch blackened with mold grew, and, receding ten fathoms, politely rustling with their leaves, crooked lindens bloomed in the middle of summer. Newly planted fir trees and pines tried to take root here, but they didn’t get beyond infancy - the trees were cut down for the New Year by the quick-witted residents of the village of Vepeverze, the pine trees were plucked by goats and all sorts of lascivious cattle, just like that, out of boredom, they were broken off by walking hand-to-handers until such to the extent that they had one or two paws left that they couldn’t reach. The park, with its stubbornly standing gate frame and basketball court posts and just posts dug in here and there, completely overwhelmed by the shoots of weedy poplars, looked as if it had been bombed or invaded by undaunted enemy cavalry. There was always a stench here in the park, because puppies, kittens, dead piglets were thrown into the ditch, everything and anything that was unnecessary burdened the house and human life. That’s why the park was always, but especially in winter, black with crows and jackdaws; the raven roar echoed the surroundings, scratching people’s ears like sharp locomotive slag.

About fifteen years ago the author heard this story, and he doesn’t know why, it lives in him and burns his heart. “Maybe it’s all about its depressing ordinariness, its disarming simplicity?” It seems to the author that the heroine’s name was Lyudochka. She was born in the small endangered village of Vychugan. Parents are collective farmers. The father became a drunkard from his depressing work, was fussy and dull. The mother was afraid for her unborn child, so she tried to conceive during a rare break from her husband’s drinking. But the girl, “bruised by her father’s unhealthy flesh, was born weak, sickly and tearful.” She grew lethargic, like roadside grass, rarely laughed or sang, and at school she was a bad student, although she was silently diligent. The father disappeared from the life of the family long ago and unnoticed. Mother and daughter lived freer, better, more cheerful without him. Men appeared in their house from time to time, “one tractor driver from a neighboring timber industry enterprise, having plowed the garden, had a hearty dinner, stayed for the whole spring, grew into the farm, began to debug it, strengthen it and multiply it. He rode a motorcycle to work seven miles away, took a gun with him and often brought either a killed bird or a hare. “The guest did not treat Lyudochka in any way: neither good nor bad.” He didn't seem to notice her. And she was afraid of him.

When Lyudochka graduated from school, her mother sent her to the city to improve her life, and she herself was going to move to the timber industry enterprise. “At first, the mother promised to help Lyudochka with money, potatoes and whatever God sends - in her old age, you see, she will help them.”

Lyudochka arrived in the city by train and spent the first night at the station. In the morning I came to the station hairdresser to get a perm and manicure, I wanted to dye my hair, but the old hairdresser advised against it: the girl already has weak hair. Quiet, but with the dexterity of a village, Lyudochka offered to sweep the hairdresser's, dissolved soap for someone, gave someone a napkin and by the evening she learned all the local customs, waylaid an elderly hairdresser who advised her not to wear makeup, and asked to become her student.

Gavrilovna carefully examined Lyudochka and her documents, went with her to the city municipal administration, where she registered the girl for a job as a hairdresser’s apprentice, and took her to live with her, setting simple conditions: help around the house, don’t go out longer than eleven, don’t take guys into the house, don’t drink wine. , do not smoke tobacco, obey your mistress in everything and honor her as your own mother. Instead of paying for the apartment, let them bring a carload of firewood from the timber industry enterprise. “As long as you are a student, you will live, but as soon as you become a master, go to the hostel, God willing, and you will arrange your life... If you get pregnant, I will drive you away from your place. I didn’t have children, I don’t like squeakers...” She warned the tenant that during bad weather she kicks and “howls” at night. In general, Gavrilovna made an exception for Lyudochka: for some time now she has not taken in lodgers, much less girls. Once upon a time, back in Khrushchev’s times, two students from a financial technical school lived with her: dyed, in trousers... they didn’t scrub the floor, they didn’t wash the dishes, they didn’t distinguish between theirs and someone else’s - they ate the owner’s pies, the sugar that grew in the garden. In response to Gavrilovna’s remark, the girls called her “selfish,” and she, not understanding the unknown word, swore at them and kicked them out. And from then on, she allowed only guys into the house and quickly taught them how to do housework. She even taught two of them, especially smart ones, how to cook and operate a Russian stove.

Gavrilovna let Lyudochka in because she recognized in her village relatives who had not yet been spoiled by the city, and she began to feel burdened by loneliness in her old age. “If you fall down, there’s no one to give you water.”

Lyudochka was an obedient girl, but her studies were a little difficult, the barber's trade, which seemed so simple, was difficult, and when the appointed period of study had passed, she was unable to pass the master's degree. At the hairdressing salon, Lyudochka also earned extra money as a cleaner and remained on staff, continuing her practice - she cut haircuts for conscripts and schoolchildren, and she learned to do fashionable haircuts “at home,” cutting the dissenters’ haircuts for the scary fashionistas from the village of Vepeverze, where Gavrilovna’s house was located. She created hairstyles on the heads of fidgety disco girls, like those of foreign hit stars, without charging anything for it.

Gavrilovna sold all the household chores and all household items to Lyudochka. The old woman’s legs hurt more and more, and Lyudochka’s eyes stung as she rubbed the ointment into the mangled legs of the housewife, who was working her last year before retirement. The smell from the ointment was so fierce, Gavrilovna’s screams were so heartbreaking that the cockroaches scattered among the neighbors, every single flie died. Gavrilovna complained about her work, which made her disabled, and then consoled Lyudochka that she would not be left without a piece of bread, having learned to become a master.

For help around the house and care in her old age, Gavrilovna promised to give Lyudochka a permanent registration, register the house in her name, if the girl would continue to behave as modestly, take care of the hut, the yard, bend over backwards in the garden and look after her, the old woman, when she was completely debilitated. .

From work, Lyudochka rode the tram, and then walked through the dying Vepeverze park, or, in human terms, a railway car depot park, planted in the 30s and destroyed in the 50s. Someone decided to lay a pipe through the park. They dug a ditch, laid a pipe, but forgot to bury it. A black pipe with bends lay in the steamed clay, hissing, steaming, bubbling like a hot mud. Over time, the pipe became clogged, and a hot river flowed above, swirling iridescently toxic rings of fuel oil and various debris. The trees have dried up and the leaves have fallen off. Only poplars, gnarled, with burst bark, with horned branches at the top, rested their paws of roots on the earth's firmament, grew, littered fluff and in the autumn dropped leaves scattered with wood scabies around.

A bridge with railings was thrown across the ditch, which were broken every year and renewed again in the spring. When steam locomotives were replaced by diesel locomotives, the pipe became completely clogged, and a hot mess of mud and fuel oil still flowed down the ditch. The banks were overgrown with all sorts of bad forests; here and there stood stunted birches, rowan trees and linden trees. Fir trees also made their way, but they didn’t go beyond infancy - they were cut down for the New Year by the shrewd residents of the village, and the pine trees were plucked by goats and all sorts of lascivious cattle. The park looked as if “after a bombing or an invasion by undaunted enemy cavalry.” There was a constant stench all around; puppies, kittens, dead piglets and everything that burdened the residents of the village were thrown into the ditch.

But people cannot exist without nature, so there were reinforced concrete benches in the park - the wooden ones were instantly broken. There were kids running around in the park, and there were punks who were having fun playing cards, drinking, fighting, “sometimes to the death.” “They also had girls here...” The leader was the punk Artemka-soap, with a foamy white head. No matter how hard Lyudochka tried to tame the rags on Artemka’s wild head, nothing worked. His “curls, which from a distance resembled soap foam, from up close turned out to be like sticky cones from the station canteen - they boiled them, threw them in a lump onto an empty plate, and there they lay, stuck together, unliftable. And the guy didn’t come to Lyudochka for the sake of his hair. As soon as her hands became occupied with scissors and a comb, Artemka began to grab her in different places. Lyudochka at first dodged Artemka’s grasping hands, and when that didn’t help, she hit him on the head with a typewriter and drew blood, so she had to pour iodine on the head of the “adorable man.” Artemka hooted and began to catch air with a whistle. Since then, “he stopped his hooligan harassment,” moreover, he ordered the punks not to touch Lyudochka.

Now Lyudochka was not afraid of anyone or anything, she walked from the tram to her house through the park at any hour and at any time of the year, answering the punks’ greeting with “her own smile.” One day, the ataman-soap “implanted” Lyudochka in the central city park for a dance in a pen that looked like an animal’s.

“In the enclosure-menagerie, people behaved like animals... The herd went berserk, went berserk, creating bodily shame and delirium out of dances... Music, helping the herd in demonism and savagery, convulsed, crackled, hummed, rattled drums, moaned and howled."

Lyudochka was frightened by what was happening, hid in a corner, looked for Artemka to intercede, but “the soap was washed away in this seething gray foam.” Lyudochka was snatched into a circle by a whip, began to get impudent, she barely fought off the gentleman and ran home. Gavrilovna admonished the “resident” that if Lyudochka “passes on as a master, decides on a profession, she will find her a suitable working guy without any dancing - there are not only punks living in the world...” Gavrilovna insisted that dancing was a disgrace. Lyudochka agreed with her on everything and thought she was very lucky to have a mentor who had rich life experience.

The girl cooked, washed, scrubbed, bleached, painted, washed, ironed, and it was not a burden for her to keep the house completely clean. But if she gets married, she can do everything, she can be an independent housewife in everything, and her husband will love and appreciate her for this. Lyudochka often didn’t get enough sleep and felt weak, but it’s okay, she can survive it.

That time, a famous man nicknamed Strekach returned from places not at all remote to everyone in the area. In appearance, he also resembled a black, narrow-eyed beetle, however, under his nose, instead of tentacles-whiskers, Strekach had some kind of dirty patch, and with a smile reminiscent of a grin, spoiled teeth were exposed, as if made from cement crumbs. Vicious since childhood, he was engaged in robbery even at school - he took “silver coins, gingerbread cookies”, chewing gum from the kids, and especially loved those in “shiny wrappers”. In the seventh grade, Strekach was already carrying a knife, but he didn’t need to take anything from anyone - “the small population of the village brought him, as a khan, tribute, everything he ordered and wanted.” Soon Strekach cut someone with a knife, he was registered with the police, and after attempting to rape a postwoman he received his first sentence - three years with a suspended sentence. But Strekach did not calm down. He destroyed neighboring dachas and threatened the owners with fire, so the dacha owners began leaving drinks and snacks with the wish: “Dear guest! Drink, eat, relax - just, for God’s sake, don’t set anything on fire!” Strekach survived almost the entire winter, but then they took him anyway, and he was imprisoned for three years. Since then, he has been “in forced labor camps, from time to time arriving in his native village, as if on a well-deserved vacation. The local punks then followed Strekach like crazy, gaining their wits, considering him a thief in law, but he did not hesitate, pinching his team in small ways, playing either cards or a thimble. “The already anxious population of the village of Veperveze lived at that time in anxiety. That summer evening, Strekach sat on a bench, drinking expensive cognac and toiling around with nothing to do. The punks promised: “Don’t freak out. When the masses leave the dances, we’ll hire you some chicks. As much as you want..."

Suddenly he saw Lyudochka. Artemka-soap tried to put in a word for her, but Strekach didn’t listen, he was overcome with courage. He caught the girl by the belt of her cloak and tried to make her sit on her knees. She tried to get rid of him, but he threw her over the bench and raped her. The punks were nearby. Strekach also forced the punks to “get dirty” so that he was not the only culprit. Seeing Lyudochka torn to pieces, Artemka-soap became frightened and tried to pull the cloak over her, and she, distraught, ran, shouting: “Soap! Soap!" Having reached Gavrilovna’s house, Lyudochka fell on the steps and lost consciousness. She woke up on an old sofa, where she was dragged by the compassionate Gavrilovna, who was sitting next to her and comforting the resident. Having come to her senses, Lyudochka decided to go to her mother.

In the village of Vychugan “there are two whole houses left. In one, the old woman Vychuganikha stubbornly lived out her life, in the other - Lyudochka’s mother and stepfather.” The entire village, suffocated in wild growth, with a barely trampled path, was surrounded by boarded up windows, swaying birdhouses, and poplars, bird cherry trees, and aspens growing wildly between the huts. That summer, when Lyudochka graduated from school, the old apple tree produced an unprecedented harvest of red juicy apples. The woman was frightening: “Guys, don’t eat these apples. This is not good!” “And one night the living branch of the apple tree, unable to bear the weight of the fruit, broke off. The bare, flat trunk remained behind the parted houses, like a cross with a broken cross member in a churchyard. Monument to a dying Russian village. One more. “Look,” Vychuganikha prophesied, “they will drive a stake through the middle of Russia, and there will be no one to remember her, plagued by evil spirits...” It was terrible for the women to listen to Vychuganikha; they prayed ineptly, considering themselves unworthy of God’s mercy.

Lyudochka’s mother also began to pray, and only hope remained in God. Lyudochka giggled at her mother and slapped her across the face.

Soon Vychuganikha died. Lyudochka’s stepfather called the men from the timber industry enterprise, they took the old woman to the churchyard on a tractor sleigh, but there was nothing and nothing to remember. Lyudochka’s mother collected some things for the table. They remembered that Vychuganikha was the last of the Vychugani family, the founders of the village.

The mother was doing laundry in the kitchen, when she saw her daughter, she began to wipe her hands on her apron, put them to her big belly, and said that the cat had been “washing guests” in the morning, she was still surprised: “Where do we have them? What’s wrong with that!” Looking around Lyudochka, the mother immediately realized that something bad had happened to her daughter. “It doesn’t take much intelligence to realize what a disaster happened to her. But all women must go through this... inevitability... How many more troubles are ahead..." She found out that her daughter came for the weekend. I was glad that I had saved sour cream for her arrival; my stepfather pumped it up with honey. The mother said that she would soon move with her husband to the timber industry enterprise, only “as soon as I give birth...”. Embarrassed that at the end of her forties she decided to give birth, she explained: “He wants a child himself. He is building a house in the village... and we will sell this one. But he doesn’t mind if we transfer it to you...” Lyudochka refused: “Why do I need it.” The mother was delighted, maybe they would give five hundred for slate and glass.

The mother began to cry, looking out the window: “Who benefits from this ruin?” Then she went to finish the laundry, and sent her daughter to milk the cow and bring firewood. “Sam” must come home from work late; by the time he arrives, they will have time to cook the stew. Then they will have a drink with their stepfather, but the daughter replied: “I haven’t learned yet, Mom, either to drink or to cut a haircut.” His mother reassured him that he would learn to cut his hair “someday.” It is not the gods who burn the pots.

Lyudochka thought about her stepfather. How difficultly, but passionately, he grew into the economy. He handled cars, engines, and guns easily, but in the garden for a long time he could not distinguish one vegetable from another; he perceived haymaking as pampering and a holiday. When they finished throwing the haystacks, the mother ran off to prepare food, and Lyudochka ran off to the river. Returning home, she heard an “animal rumble” behind the search. Lyudochka was very surprised to see how her stepfather - “a man with a shaved head, graying on all sides, with deep furrows on his face, covered in tattoos, stocky, long-armed, slapping his stomach, suddenly ran skipping along the shallows, and a hoarse roar of joy erupted from the burnt or rusty insides of a person she barely knew,” Lyudochka began to guess that he had no childhood. At home, she laughed and told her mother how her stepfather frolicked in the water. “Where could he have learned how to bathe? From an early age in exile and in camps, under escort and guards in a government bathhouse. His life is oh-ho-ho... - Having come to her senses, the mother became stern and, as if proving to someone, continued: “But he is a decent person, maybe even kind.”

From that time on, Lyudochka ceased to be afraid of her stepfather, but did not become closer. My stepfather did not allow anyone close to him.

Now I suddenly thought: I would run to the timber industry enterprise, seven miles away, find my stepfather, lean against him and cry on his rough chest. Maybe he will pat her on the head and feel sorry for her... Unexpectedly, she decided to leave on the morning train. The mother was not surprised: “Well... if it’s necessary, then...” Gavrilovna did not expect the little house to return quickly. Lyudochka explained that her parents were moving and had no time for her. She saw two strings attached to the bag instead of straps, and began to cry. Mother said that she tied these strings to the cradle, put her foot in the loop and waved her foot... Was Gavrilovna afraid that Lyudochka was crying? “I feel sorry for mom.” The old woman became sad, and there was no one to feel sorry for her, then she warned: Artyom-soap was taken away, Lyudochka scratched his face all over... a sign. He was ordered to remain silent, or die. Strekach also warned the old woman that if the resident made too much noise, they would nail her to a post, and the old woman’s hut would be burned down. Gavrilovna complained that she had all the blessings - a corner in her old age, she could not lose it. Lyudochka promised to move to the hostel. Gavrilovna reassured him: this bandit won’t stay out for a long time, he’ll soon go to prison again, “and I’ll call you back.” Lyudochka remembered how, while living on a state farm, she caught a cold, developed pneumonia, and was admitted to the district hospital. On an endless, long night, she saw a dying guy and learned his simple story from the nurse. Recruited from some distant places, a lonely boy caught a cold in a logging site and a boil appeared on his temple. The inexperienced paramedic scolded him for calling him for all sorts of trifles, and a day later she accompanied the guy, who had fallen unconscious, to the regional hospital. In the hospital they opened the skull, but they couldn’t do anything - the pus began to do its destructive work. The guy was dying, so they carried him out into the corridor. Lyudochka sat for a long time and looked at the suffering man, then she put her palm to his face. The guy gradually calmed down, opened his eyes with effort, tried to say something, but all he could hear was “usu-usu... usu...”. With her feminine instinct, she guessed that he was trying to thank her. Lyudochka sincerely felt sorry for the guy, so young, lonely, and probably never had time to love anyone, brought a stool, sat down next to him and took the guy’s hand. He looked at her hopefully and whispered something. Lyudochka thought that he was whispering a prayer and began to help him, then she got tired and dozed off. She woke up, saw that the guy was crying, shook his hand, but he did not respond to her squeeze. He realized the price of compassion - “another habitual betrayal has been committed towards the dying.” They betray him, “the living betray him! And not his pain, not his life, their suffering is dear to them, and they want his torment to end as soon as possible, so as not to suffer themselves.” The guy took his hand away from Lyudochka and turned away - “he did not expect weak consolation from her, he expected a sacrifice from her, consent to be with him to the end, maybe even die with him. Then a miracle would happen: together they would become stronger than death, they would rise to life, a mighty impulse would appear in him,” the path to resurrection would open. But there was no person nearby capable of sacrificing himself for the sake of the dying man, and alone he could not overcome death. Lyudochka sideways, as if caught in a bad act, stealthily went to her bed. Since then, the feeling of deep guilt in front of the late lumberjack guy has not ceased in her. Now she herself was in grief and abandonment, she especially acutely, very tangibly felt all the rejection of a dying person. She had to drink to the end the cup of loneliness, of crafty human sympathy - the space around her was narrowing, like near that bed behind the hospital peeling stove where the dying guy lay. Lyudochka was ashamed: “Why did she pretend then, why? After all, if she really had been willing to stay with the dying man to the end, to accept torment for him, as in the old days, perhaps unknown forces would really have revealed themselves in him. Well, even if a miracle had not happened, the dying person had not been resurrected, still the knowledge that she was able... to give him all of herself, until her last breath, would have made her strong, self-confident, ready to repel evil forces.” Now she understood the psychological state of solitary prisoners. Lyudochka again remembered her stepfather: he must be one of those strong ones? But how, from what place to approach it? Lyudochka thought that in trouble, in loneliness, everyone is the same, and there is no need to shame or despise anyone.

There were no places in the hostel yet, and the girl continued to live with Gavrilovna. The owner taught the resident to “return in the dark” not through the park, so that the “saranopals” would not know that she lived in the village. But Lyudochka continued to walk through the park, where the guys once caught her, threatened her with Strekach, imperceptibly pushing her towards a bench. Lyudochka understood what they wanted. She carried a razor in her pocket, wanting to cut off “Strekach’s dignity at the very root.” I didn’t think of this terrible revenge myself, but I once heard about a similar act by a woman in a hairdresser’s. Lyudochka said to the guys, it’s a pity that Strekach, “such a prominent gentleman,” is not there. She said cheekily: fuck off, boys, I’ll go change into second-hand clothes, I’m not a rich girl. The guys let her go so that she could come back as soon as possible, and warned her not to dare “joking.” At home, Lyudochka changed into an old dress, belted herself with the same rope from her cradle, took off her shoes, took a piece of paper, but did not find a pen or pencil and ran out into the street. On the way to the park, I read an advertisement about the recruitment of young men and women into the forestry industry. A saving thought flashed: “Maybe I should leave?” “Yes, immediately another thought interrupted the first: there, in the forest, there is a strekach on a strekach and everyone has a mustache.” In the park, she found a long-noticed poplar tree with a gnarled branch over the path, threw a rope onto it, and deftly tied the loop; although she was quiet, she knew a lot in a village way. Lyudochka climbed onto a broken poplar tree and put the noose around her neck. She mentally said goodbye to her family and friends and asked God for forgiveness. Like all reserved people, she was quite decisive. “And then, with a noose around her neck, she, too, as in childhood, covered her face with her palms and, pushing off with her feet, as if she had rushed from a high bank into a pool. Boundless and bottomless."

She managed to feel her heart swell in her chest, it seemed to break her ribs and burst out of her chest. My heart quickly grew tired and weakened, and immediately all pain and torment left Lyudochka...

The guys waiting for her in the park began to scold the girl who had deceived them. One was sent on reconnaissance mission. He shouted to his friends: “We’re tearing out the claws! Co-claws! She..." - The scout rushed by jumping from the poplars, from the light." Later, sitting in a station restaurant, he said with a nervous laugh that he saw Lyudochka’s trembling and twitching body. The guys decided to warn Strekach and leave somewhere before they were “battered.”

Lyudochka was buried not in her abandoned village, but in the city cemetery. The mother would sometimes forget herself and cry. At home, Gavrilovna burst into tears: she considered Lyudochka to be her daughter, but what did she do to herself? The stepfather drank a glass of vodka and went out onto the porch to smoke. He went to the park and found the whole company, led by Strekach, standing there. The bandit asked the man who came up what he wanted. “I came to look at you,” answered the stepfather. He tore the cross from Strekach’s neck and threw it into the bushes. “At least this isn’t trash, sucker! At least don’t paw at God, leave it to the people!” Strekach tried to threaten the man with a knife. The stepfather grinned and, with an elusive, lightning-quick movement, grabbed Strekach’s hand and tore it out of his pocket along with a piece of cloth. Without giving the bandit time to come to his senses, he grabbed the collar of his shirt along with his tailcoat, dragged Strekach by the collar through the bushes, threw him into a ditch, and in response there was a heartbreaking scream. Wiping his hands on his pants, his stepfather stepped out onto the path, and the punks stood in his way. He fixed his gaze on them. “The guys felt a real, unimaginative godfather. This guy hasn’t soiled his pants with mud, he hasn’t knelt in front of anyone for a long time, not even in front of the dirtiest convoy.” The punks fled: some from the park, some dragging the half-cooked Strekach out of the ditch, some behind the ambulance to inform Strekach’s half-drunk mother about the fate that befell her son, whose stormy journey from a children’s forced labor colony to a maximum security camp had ended. Having reached the outskirts of the park, Lyudochka’s stepfather stumbled and suddenly saw a piece of rope on a branch. “Some former force, not fully known to himself, threw him high, he caught himself by a branch, it creaked and fell off.” Holding the branch in his hands, for some reason smelling it, the stepfather quietly said: “Why didn’t you break off when you should?” He chopped it into pieces, scattered it to the sides, and hurried to Gavrilovna’s house. Arriving home and drinking vodka, I got ready to go to the timber industry enterprise. At a respectful distance, his wife hurried behind him and could not keep up. He took Lyudochka’s belongings from her, helped her climb up the high steps into the train car and found an empty seat. Lyudochka’s mother first whispered, and then loudly asked God to help give birth and keep at least this child intact. She asked for Lyudochka, whom she did not save. Then “she timidly laid her head on his shoulder, weakly leaned against him, and it seemed to her, or in fact it was so, that he lowered his shoulder so that she would be more agile and at ease, and even seemed to press her to her side with his elbow, warming her.”

The local police department did not have enough strength and capabilities to split Artemka-soap. He was sent home with a stern warning. Out of fright, Artemka entered the communications school, a branch where they teach how to climb poles, screw in glasses and pull wires; out of fear, no less, Artemka-soap soon got married, and in Stakhanov style, faster than anyone else in the village, four months after the wedding, a curly-haired child was born, smiling and cheerful. Grandfather laughed that “this little guy with a flat head, because he was taken out into the light of God with tongs, won’t even be able to figure out what end to climb onto the pole with his dad’s.”

On the fourth page of the local newspaper at the end of the block, a note appeared about the state of morality in the city, but “Lyudochka and Strekach were not included in this report. The head of the Internal Affairs Directorate had two years left until retirement, and he did not want to spoil the positive percentage with dubious data. Lyudochka and Strekach, who did not leave behind any notes, property, valuables or witnesses, went down the line of suicides in the Internal Affairs Directorate register... foolishly committing suicide.”

Astafiev's humanism, his irreconcilability to all evil and his bright love and admiration for the beauty of the Earth, which should lift human souls, making them beautiful, is manifested in each of his works.

“Morality is Truth,” wrote Vasily Shukshin. Truth and morality are inseparable in literature. Astafiev “by nature is a moralist and singer of humanity,” in the fates of his heroes “highlights ethical moments that are understandable to every time, both present and tomorrow,” notes critic A. Makarov.

In the September issue of the magazine "New World" for one thousand nine hundred and eighty-nine, Astafiev's story "Lyudochka" was published. It is about youth, but there is no youth in its heroes. And there are lonely, suffering somewhere deep within themselves and worn-out shadows staggering around the world, casting their gloomy feelings on the impressionable souls of readers. Loneliness in Astafiev’s heroes is especially striking. Eerie and unchanging. Lyudochka is trying to break out of this feeling. But the very first lines of the work, where the heroine is compared to limp, frozen grass, suggest that Lyudochka, like this grass, is incapable of life. She leaves her parents' house, where strangers remain. And also lonely. The mother had long been accustomed to the structure of her life. Lyudochka's stepfather did not treat her in any way. “He lived, she lived in one house and that’s all.”

The girl is a stranger in her own home. Stranger among people. Today it is clear to everyone that our society is sick. But in order to treat it correctly, you need a correct diagnosis. The country's best minds are working on this. Astafiev made a very accurate diagnosis of one of the terrible diseases that affected the country. He saw the main tragedy of the heroine of his story “Lyudochka,” in whose image the pain of the vast majority of our compatriots was reflected like two peas in a pod, in spiritual loneliness. The story easily fits into the literary process of our time.

One of the main features of Viktor Petrovich’s talent is the ability to cover problems that concern many writers: mismanagement, decline in morality, collapse of the village, increase in crime. Astafiev shows us everyday, gray, most ordinary life: home - work - home. In this circle lives Gavrilovna, who lost her health in a hairdresser, and her friends, who take all the sorrows and blows of fate for granted. The main character of the story, Lyudochka, should also be in this circle. And she, without resisting, crawls in this circle, and her dream is the most ordinary, like all young girls: to get married, learn to work. The speech of Astafiev’s heroes convincingly illustrates this position of social psychology. “As long as you are a student, you will live, but as soon as you become a master, go to a hostel, God willing, and you will arrange your life,” Gavrilovna instructed the girl.

The biography of the main character is given by the writer at the very beginning of the story. “Lyudochka was born in a small dying village” “weak, sickly and whiny.” With the help of epithets, the author creates in the reader an appropriate psychological mood for the development of the main storyline. Episodes one after another reveal the moral essence of human relations, gradually preparing us for a tragic outcome. Cynicism and lack of spirituality are the first plot layer of the story. The second layer is tightly connected to it - an environmental disaster. Pictures of nature in a work are not just the background against which the action unfolds, they are important in the structure of the story. They contain a deep meaning, because in relation to nature, to the earth, the spiritual appearance of a person is revealed, his moral essence is revealed. We see a village “suffocating in wild growth”, a burst central heating pipe, described so naturally that you seem to feel its “aromas”. Both of these symbols help to see many troubles and real dangers more clearly, without embellishment. This is a certain author’s position, this desire to excite the reader, make him look around.

V. Astafiev, who selflessly loves people, throughout the course of his narrative proves how necessary it is to fight against lack of spirituality, opportunism, like a worm, from within, undermining the moral foundations of a society for which it has always been easy to “operate” with the destinies of thousands of people. But there was not enough attention to specific destinies. When Lyudochka was violated by a bandit, she found herself completely alone. On the street, the leader of the city punks was afraid to stand up for her, giving in to a more sophisticated swindler. The landlady immediately recoiled from her (her shirt was closer). There was no time for Lyudochka’s troubles in her parents’ house either. Everywhere the main character faced indifference. This is precisely what she could not withstand - the betrayal of people close to her. But the apostasy appeared earlier. At some point, Lyudochka realized that she herself was involved in this tragedy. She herself showed indifference until the trouble touched her personally. It is no coincidence that Lyudochka remembered her stepfather, whose plight she had not previously been interested in. It was not for nothing that I remembered the guy dying in the hospital, whose pain and drama the living did not want to understand. To them, the living, it is not his pain, not his life, their compassion is dear to them, and they want his torment to end as soon as possible, so as not to suffer themselves. “The living did not want to sacrifice themselves to the dying man. Lyudochka herself did not realize then that if she had taken a step towards the dying man, then perhaps a miracle would have happened: together they would have become stronger than death, they would have risen to life, in him, who was almost dead, the such a mighty impulse that it would sweep away everything on the way to resurrection.” The heroine turned out to be far from this. And it is quite natural that, having found herself in trouble, she now did not find understanding from others. This is what brought the girl to a tragic outcome.

The story is extremely touching, because the reader feels how the author himself is surprisingly caring and kind-hearted towards this girl. Astafiev put a large number of aphorisms and phrases into Gavrilovna’s mouth (“my little gold,” “blue-winged little dove,” “swallow,” “killer whale”). This is used by the author to characterize the hostess, to emotionally assess her individual qualities. Astafiev’s heroes inherit the style and spirit of their time and their speech is not just talk, but “an exponent of all mental and moral forces.” The “bad” ones are written out with gusto. All that remains is to applaud the writer for his excellent knowledge of jargon (“we’re tearing our claws”, “homies”, “fuck off”, “godfather”). Russian proverbs, sayings and other stable phrases and expressions occupy a significant place among the visual means used by the writer, primarily because they contain great expressive possibilities: a high degree of generality, emotionality, and expressiveness. The author conveys to us his worldview with amazing artistic expressiveness, capacious, plastic language. Steady turns of phrase give the characters’ speech the liveliness and accuracy characteristic of folk speech (“it got into my head,” “bend my back,” “worked like a horse”).

Astafiev’s language is rich, colorful, and unique in its melodic sound. In addition to simple personifications (such as “the village suffocated in the wild growth”, “the crocodile Gena gave up the rubber spirit”), many complex, full of epithets and metaphors are used, creating a separate picture (“staggering drunkenly, squatting, dancing a worn-out heart”, “silver overseas the buttons were shooting off the tailcoat"). That’s why the work turned out so rich, bright, and unforgettable.

The writer does not focus only on the shadow sides of life. In his story there is a bright beginning, which, brightening up many adversities, comes from the hearts of workers, who are not translated into Rus'. I remember the haymaking scene, when “Lyudochka and her mother were throwing a haystack,” and then the girl “in her native river washed away the hay dust and dust” with the joy that is known only to people who have worked to their hearts’ content." The artistic device of contrast, successfully used here by the writer, emphasizes the spiritual closeness of man with nature, which cannot be felt in a city mired in the darkness of ignorance, poverty and complete backwardness.

Look around: strife, anger, pride are tormenting and tormenting our land. “If not us, then who will break through this vicious circle.” Therefore, the problems raised by V. Astafiev are especially relevant in the light of today. Thinking about Lyudochka, about her fate, about the corrupting, oppressive environment in which her peers and their loved ones live, I involuntarily want to exclaim: “This is worse than the truth!” This is why there is a real, great artist who clearly showed us our abomination and made us look around and think about how we live.

Victor Astafiev

You fell like a stone.

I died under it.

Vl. Sokolov

A story told in passing, heard in passing, fifteen years ago.

I've never seen her, that girl. And I won't see it again. I don’t even know her name, but for some reason it popped into my head - her name was Lyudochka. “What’s in my name for you? It will die like a sad noise...” And why do I remember this? In fifteen years, so many events have happened, so many people were born and died of natural causes, so many died at the hands of villains, got drunk, got poisoned, burned, got lost, drowned...

Why does this story, quietly and separately from everything, live in me and burn my heart? Maybe it's all about its depressing ordinariness, its disarming simplicity?

Lyudochka was born in a small dying village called Vychugan. Her mother was a collective farmer, her father a collective farmer. Due to his early oppressive work and long-standing, inveterate drunkenness, my father was frail, frail, fussy and dull. The mother was afraid that her child would not be born a fool, she tried to conceive him during a rare break from her husband’s drinking, but still the girl was bruised by her father’s unhealthy flesh and was born weak, sick and tearful.

She grew up like wilted roadside grass, played little, rarely sang or smiled, at school she never got a C grade, but she was silently diligent and did not stoop to a straight D.

Lyudochka's father disappeared from life long ago and unnoticed. Mother and daughter lived freer, better and more cheerful without him. Men would visit my mother, sometimes they drank, sang at the table, stayed overnight, and one tractor driver from a neighboring timber industry enterprise, having plowed the garden, had a hearty dinner, stayed for the whole spring, grew into the farm, began to debug it, strengthen it and multiply it. He rode to work seven miles on a motorcycle, at first he carried a gun with him and often threw crumpled birds dropping their feathers out of his backpack onto the floor, sometimes he took out a hare by its yellow paws and, hanging it on nails, deftly skinned it. For a long time afterwards, the skin hung over the stove, turned outward, with a white edge and red spots scattered with stars on it, so long that it began to break, and then the wool was cut from the skins, spun together with linen thread, and shaggy shawls were knitted.

The guest did not treat Lyudochka in any way, neither good nor bad, did not scold her, did not offend her, did not reproach her, but she was still afraid of him. He lived, she lived in the same house - and that’s all. When Lyudochka completed ten grades at school and became a girl, her mother told her to go to the city to get settled, since she had nothing to do in the village, she and herself - her mother stubbornly did not call the guest master and father - were planning to move to the timber industry enterprise. At first, the mother promised to help Lyudochka with money, potatoes and whatever God would send - in her old age, you see, she will help them too.

Lyudochka arrived in the city by train and spent the first night at the station. In the morning, she went to the station hairdresser and, after sitting in line for a long time, she spent even longer getting herself into a city look: she got a perm and a manicure. She also wanted to dye her hair, but the old hairdresser, who herself dyed it to look like a copper samovar, advised against it: they say, your hair is “me-a-ah-kanky, fluffy, little head, like a dandelion, but the chemicals will cause your hair to break and fall off.” . Lyudochka agreed with relief - she didn’t so much want to put on makeup as she wanted to be in the hairdresser’s, in this warm room emanating cologne aromas.

Quiet, seemingly constrained in a village way, but dexterous like a peasant, she offered to sweep up the hair on the floor, dispensed soap for someone, handed someone a napkin, and by the evening she had learned all the local customs, waylaid an auntie named Gavrilovna at the exit to the hairdresser's. , who advised her not to wear makeup, and asked her to be her student.

The old woman looked carefully at Lyudochka, then studied her unburdensome documents, asked a little, then went with her to the city municipal administration, where she registered Lyudochka to work as a hairdresser's apprentice.

Gavrilovna took the student to live with her, setting simple conditions: to help around the house, not to go out longer than eleven, not to bring guys into the house, not to drink wine, not to smoke tobacco, obey the mistress in everything and honor her as your own mother. Instead of paying for the apartment, let them bring a carload of firewood from the timber industry enterprise.

As long as you are a student, you will live, but as soon as you become a master, go to the hostel. God willing, you will arrange your life. - And, after a heavy pause, Gavrilovna added: “If you get pregnant, I’ll drive you away.” I didn’t have children, I don’t like squeaks, and besides, like all the old masters, I struggle with my feet. When the weather is good, I howl at night.

You fell like a stone.

I died under it.

Vl. Sokolov

A story told in passing, heard in passing, fifteen years ago.

I've never seen her, that girl. And I won't see it again. I don’t even know her name, but for some reason it popped into my head - her name was Lyudochka. “What’s in my name for you? It will die like a sad noise...” And why do I remember this? In fifteen years, so many events have happened, so many people were born and died of natural causes, so many died at the hands of villains, got drunk, got poisoned, burned, got lost, drowned...

Why does this story, quietly and separately from everything, live in me and burn my heart? Maybe it's all about its depressing ordinariness, its disarming simplicity?

Lyudochka was born in a small dying village called Vychugan. Her mother was a collective farmer, her father a collective farmer. Due to his early oppressive work and long-standing, inveterate drunkenness, my father was frail, frail, fussy and dull. The mother was afraid that her child would not be born a fool, she tried to conceive him during a rare break from her husband’s drinking, but still the girl was bruised by her father’s unhealthy flesh and was born weak, sick and tearful.

She grew up like wilted roadside grass, played little, rarely sang or smiled, at school she never got a C grade, but she was silently diligent and did not stoop to a straight D.

Lyudochka's father disappeared from life long ago and unnoticed. Mother and daughter lived freer, better and more cheerful without him. Men would visit my mother, sometimes they drank, sang at the table, stayed overnight, and one tractor driver from a neighboring timber industry enterprise, having plowed the garden, had a hearty dinner, stayed for the whole spring, grew into the farm, began to debug it, strengthen it and multiply it. He rode to work seven miles on a motorcycle, at first he carried a gun with him and often threw crumpled birds dropping their feathers out of his backpack onto the floor, sometimes he took out a hare by its yellow paws and, hanging it on nails, deftly skinned it. For a long time afterwards, the skin hung over the stove, turned outward, with a white edge and red spots scattered with stars on it, so long that it began to break, and then the wool was cut from the skins, spun together with linen thread, and shaggy shawls were knitted.

The guest did not treat Lyudochka in any way, neither good nor bad, did not scold her, did not offend her, did not reproach her, but she was still afraid of him. He lived, she lived in the same house - and that’s all. When Lyudochka completed ten grades at school and became a girl, her mother told her to go to the city to get settled, since she had nothing to do in the village, she and herself - her mother stubbornly did not call the guest master and father - were planning to move to the timber industry enterprise. At first, the mother promised to help Lyudochka with money, potatoes and whatever God would send - in her old age, you see, she will help them too.

Lyudochka arrived in the city by train and spent the first night at the station. In the morning, she went to the station hairdresser and, after sitting in line for a long time, she spent even longer getting herself into a city look: she got a perm and a manicure. She also wanted to dye her hair, but the old hairdresser, who herself dyed it to look like a copper samovar, advised against it: they say, your hair is “me-a-ah-kanky, fluffy, little head, like a dandelion, but the chemicals will cause your hair to break and fall off.” . Lyudochka agreed with relief - she didn’t so much want to put on makeup as she wanted to be in the hairdresser’s, in this warm room emanating cologne aromas.

Quiet, seemingly constrained in a village way, but dexterous like a peasant, she offered to sweep up the hair on the floor, dispensed soap for someone, handed someone a napkin, and by the evening she had learned all the local customs, waylaid an auntie named Gavrilovna at the exit to the hairdresser's. , who advised her not to wear makeup, and asked her to be her student.

The old woman looked carefully at Lyudochka, then studied her unburdensome documents, asked a little, then went with her to the city municipal administration, where she registered Lyudochka to work as a hairdresser's apprentice.

Gavrilovna took the student to live with her, setting simple conditions: to help around the house, not to go out longer than eleven, not to bring guys into the house, not to drink wine, not to smoke tobacco, obey the mistress in everything and honor her as your own mother. Instead of paying for the apartment, let them bring a carload of firewood from the timber industry enterprise.

As long as you are a student, you will live, but as soon as you become a master, go to the hostel. God willing, you will arrange your life. - And, after a heavy pause, Gavrilovna added: “If you get pregnant, I’ll drive you away.” I didn’t have children, I don’t like squeaks, and besides, like all the old masters, I struggle with my feet. When the weather is good, I howl at night.

It should be noted that Gavrilovna made an exception to the rule. For some time now she had been reluctant to let boarders in at all, and even refused to let girls in at all.

Long ago, during the Khrushchev era, two students from a financial college lived with her. Wearing trousers, dyed, smoking. Regarding smoking and everything else, Gavrilovna gave strict instructions straight out and without beating around the bush. The girls curled their lips, but resigned themselves to the demands of everyday life: they smoked on the street, they came home on time, they didn’t play their music loudly, but they didn’t sweep or wash the floor, they didn’t put away the dishes after themselves, they didn’t clean the restroom. That would be okay. But they constantly raised Gavrilovna, referred to examples of outstanding people, and said that she was living wrong.

And that would be all right. But the girls didn’t really distinguish between their own and someone else’s, they would eat the pies from the plate, then they would scoop the sugar out of the sugar bowl, then they would wash out the soap, and they were in no hurry to pay the rent until you reminded it ten times. And this could be tolerated. But they began to manage the garden, not in the sense of weeding and watering, but they began to pick what was ripe, using the gifts of nature without asking. One day we ate the first three cucumbers from a steep manure ridge with salt. Those cucumbers, the first, Gavrilovna, as always, grazed and groomed, knelt down in front of the ridge, onto which in winter she dragged manure in a backpack from the horse yard, putting a coin for it to the old robber, the lame Slyusarenko, talking to them, to the cucumbers: “Well, grow up, grow up, take heart, kids! Then we’ll take you to okro-o-oshechka-oo, to okro-o-oshechka-oo-oo” - and we’ll give them some warm water, under the sun in a heated barrel.

Why did you eat cucumbers? - Gavrilovna approached the girls.

What's wrong with that? They ate and ate. It's a pity, isn't it? We'll buy you something at the market!

I don’t need any information! You really need this!.. For pleasure. And I was saving the cucumbers...

For yourself? You are selfish!

Who-who?

Selfish!

Well, what about you...! - offended by the unfamiliar word, Gavrilovna made the final conclusion and swept the girls out of the apartment.

From then on, she allowed only guys, most often students, into the house to live, and quickly brought them into God's form, taught them how to do housework, wash floors, cook, and do laundry. She even taught two of the smartest guys from the Polytechnic Institute how to cook and how to operate a Russian stove. Gavrilovna allowed Lyudochka to come to her because she recognized in her a village relative who had not yet been spoiled by the city, and she began to feel burdened by loneliness, she would collapse - there was no one to give water, and that she gave a strict warning without leaving the cash register, so how could it be otherwise? Just disband them, the young people of today, give them some slack, they will immediately go crazy and ride you wherever they want.

Lyudochka was an obedient girl, but her studies were a little slow, the barbering trade, which seemed so simple, was difficult for her, and when the appointed period of study had passed, she was unable to pass the master's degree. She worked as a cleaner at a hairdressing salon and remained on staff, continuing her practice - cutting the heads of pre-conscripts with a clipper, cutting schoolchildren with electric scissors, leaving a ponytail on the bare head above the forehead. She learned to do shaped haircuts “at home”, cutting the hair of the terrible fashionistas from the village of Vepeverze, where Gavrilovna’s house was located, to look like schismatics. She created hairstyles on the heads of fidgety disco girls, like those of foreign hit stars, without charging anything for it.