Russian, Soviet writer, prose writer. playwright, essayist. Made a huge contribution to domestic literature. Major writer in the genre of "village" and military prose. Veteran of the Great Patriotic War.

Biography

Victor Astafiev was born in the village of Ovsyanka, not far from Krasnoyarsk. The writer’s father, Pyotr Pavlovich Astafiev, went to prison for “sabotage” several years after the birth of his son, and when the boy was 7 years old, his mother drowned in an accident. Victor was raised by his grandmother. Having been released from prison, the father of the future writer married for the second time and new family left for Igarka, however expected big money didn’t work, on the contrary, he ended up in the hospital. The stepmother, with whom Victor had a tense relationship, kicked the boy out into the street. In 1937, Victor ended up in an orphanage.

After graduating from boarding school, Victor went to Krasnoyarsk, where he entered a factory apprenticeship school. After graduating, he worked as a train compiler at the Bazaikha station near Krasnoyarsk, until he volunteered for the front in 1942. Astafiev served throughout the war with the rank of private, from 1943 on the front line, received seriously injured, was shell-shocked. In 1945, V.P. Astafiev was demobilized from the army and, together with his wife (Maria Semyonovna Koryakina), came to her homeland - the city of Chusovoy in the western Urals. The couple had three children: daughters Lydia (1947, died in infancy) and Irina (1948-1987) and son Andrei (1950). At this time, Astafiev works as a mechanic, laborer, loader, carpenter, meat washer, and meat processing plant watchman.

In 1951, the writer's first story was published in the Chusovskoy Rabochiy newspaper, and from 1951 to 1955 Astafiev worked as a literary employee of the newspaper. In 1953, his first book of short stories, “Until Next Spring,” was published in Perm, and in 1958, the novel “The Snows Are Melting.” V. P. Astafiev is accepted into the Writers' Union of the RSFSR. In 1962 the family moved to Perm, and in 1969 to Vologda. In 1959-1961, the writer studied at the Higher Literary Courses in Moscow. Since 1973, stories have appeared in print that later formed the famous narrative in the stories “The King of the Fish.” The stories are subject to strict censorship, some are not published at all, but in 1978, V. P. Astafiev was awarded the USSR State Prize for the narration in the stories “The King Fish”.

In 1980, Astafiev moved to live in his homeland - in Krasnoyarsk, in the village of Ovsyanka, where he lived for the rest of his life. The writer accepted perestroika without enthusiasm, although in 1993 he was one of the writers who signed the famous “Letter of the 42”. However, despite numerous attempts to draw Astafiev into politics, in general the writer remained aloof from political debates. Instead, the writer actively participates in cultural life Russia. Astafiev, member of the board of the USSR Writers' Union, secretary of the board of the RSFSR SP (since 1985) and the USSR SP (since August 1991), member of the Russian PEN Center, vice-president of the Writers Association " European Forum"(since 1991), Chairman of the Commission on the Literary Heritage of S. Baruzdin (1991), Deputy Chairman - Member of the Bureau of the Presidium of the International Literary Fund. Was a member of the editorial board of the magazine "Our Contemporary" (until 1990), member of the editorial boards of magazines " New world"(since 1996 - public council), "Continent", "Day and Night", "School Roman-Newspaper" (since 1995), the Pacific almanac "Rubezh", the editorial board, then (since 1993) the editorial council of "LO". Academician Academy of Creativity. People's Deputy USSR from the SP USSR (1989-91), member of the Presidential Council of the Russian Federation, the Council for Culture and Art under the President of the Russian Federation (since 1996), the presidium of the State Commission. Prizes under the President of the Russian Federation (since 1997).

He died on November 29, 2001 in Krasnoyarsk, and was buried in his native village of Ovsyanka, Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Interesting facts from life

In 1994, the Astafiev Non-Profit Foundation was created. In 2004, the foundation established the All-Russian literary prize them. V. P. Astafieva.

In 2000, Astafiev stopped working on the novel “Cursed and Killed,” two books of which were written back in 1992–1994.

On November 29, 2002, the memorial house-museum of Astafiev was opened in the village of Ovsyanka. Documents and materials from the writer’s personal fund are also stored in State Archives Perm region.

In 2004, on the Krasnoyarsk-Abakan highway, not far from the village of Sliznevo, a brilliant forged “Tsar Fish”, a monument to the story of the same name by Viktor Astafiev, was installed. Today this is the only monument in Russia literary work with an element of fiction.

Astafiev invented a new literary form: “zatesi” - peculiar short stories. The name is due to the fact that the writer began writing them during the construction of the house.

You won't find this lake on the map. It's small. Small, but memorable for Vasyutka. Still would! It's no small honor for a thirteen-year-old boy to have a lake named after him! Even though it is not big, not like, say, Baikal, Vasyutka himself found it and showed it to people. Yes, yes, don’t be surprised and don’t think that all the lakes are already known and that each has its own name. There are many, many more nameless lakes and rivers in our country, because our Motherland is great, and no matter how much you wander around it, you will always find something new and interesting.

The fishermen from the brigade of Grigory Afanasyevich Shadrin - Vasyutka’s father - were completely depressed. Frequent autumn rains swollen the river, the water in it rose, and the fish began to be difficult to catch: they went deeper.

The cold frost and dark waves on the river made me sad. I didn’t even want to go outside, let alone swim out to the river. The fishermen fell asleep, became tired from idleness, and even stopped joking. But then a warm wind blew from the south and seemed to smooth out people’s faces. Boats with elastic sails glided along the river. Below and below the Yenisei the brigade descended. But the catches were still small.

“We don’t have any luck today,” grumbled Vasyutkin’s grandfather Afanasy. - Father Yenisei has become impoverished. Previously, we lived as God commanded, and the fish moved in clouds. And now the steamships and motorboats have scared away all the living creatures. The time will come - the ruffs and minnows will disappear, and they will only read about omul, sterlet and sturgeon in books.

Arguing with grandfather is useless, that’s why no one contacted him.

The fishermen went far to the lower reaches of the Yenisei and finally stopped.

The boats were pulled ashore, the luggage was taken to a hut built several years ago by a scientific expedition.

Grigory Afanasyevich, in high rubber boots with turned-down tops and a gray raincoat, walked along the shore and gave orders.

Vasyutka was always a little timid in front of his big, taciturn father, although he never offended him.

- Sabbath, guys! - said Grigory Afanasyevich when the unloading was completed. “We won’t wander around anymore.” So, to no avail, you can Kara Sea get there.

He walked around the hut, for some reason touched the corners with his hand and climbed into the attic, straightened the sheets of bark on the roof that had slid to the side. Having gone down the decrepit stairs, he carefully shook off his pants, blew his nose and explained to the fishermen that the hut was suitable, that they could calmly wait for the autumn fishing season in it, and in the meantime they could fish by ferries and nets. Boats, seines, floating nets and all other gear must be properly prepared for the big move of fish.

Monotonous days dragged on. Fishermen repaired seines, caulked boats, made anchors, knitted, and pitched.

Once a day they checked the lines and paired nets - ferries, which were placed far from the shore.

The fish that fell into these traps were valuable: sturgeon, sterlet, taimen, and often burbot, or, as they were jokingly called in Siberia, settler. But this is calm fishing. There is no excitement, daring and that good, hard-working fun that bursts out of the men when they pull out several centners of fish with a half-kilometer net for one ton.

Vasyutka’s life began to be completely boring. There is no one to play with - no friends, nowhere to go. There was one consolation: the school year would soon begin and his mother and father would send him to the village. Uncle Kolyada, the foreman of the fish collection boat, has already brought new textbooks from the city. During the day, Vasyutka will look into them out of boredom.

In the evenings the hut became crowded and noisy. The fishermen had dinner, smoked, cracked nuts, and told tales. By nightfall there was a thick layer of nutshells on the floor. It crackled underfoot like autumn ice on puddles.

Vasyutka supplied the fishermen with nuts. He has already chopped all the nearby cedars. Every day we had to climb further and further into the forest. But this work was not a burden. The boy liked to wander. He walks through the forest alone, hums, and sometimes fires a gun.

Vasyutka woke up late. There is only one mother in the hut. Grandfather Afanasy went somewhere. Vasyutka ate, leafed through his textbooks, tore off a piece of the calendar and happily noted that there were only ten days left until the first of September.

The mother said displeasedly:

“You have to prepare for school, but you disappear in the forest.”

-What are you doing, mom? Should someone get the nuts? Must. After all, fishermen want to click in the evening.

- “Hunt, hunt”! They need nuts, so let them go on their own. We got used to pushing the boy around and littering in the hut.

The mother grumbles out of habit because she has no one else to grumble at.

When Vasyutka, with a gun on his shoulder and a cartridge belt on his belt, looking like a stocky little man, came out of the hut, his mother, as usual, sternly reminded:

“Don’t stray too far from your plans, you’ll perish.” Did you take any bread with you?

- Why do I need him? I bring it back every time.

- Do not speak! Here's the edge. She won't crush you. It has been this way since time immemorial; it is still too early to change the taiga laws.

You can't argue with your mother here. This is the old order: if you go into the forest, take food, take matches.

Vasyutka obediently put the edge into the bag and hurried to disappear from his mother’s eyes, otherwise he would find fault with something else.

Whistling merrily, he walked through the taiga, followed the marks on the trees and thought that, probably, every taiga road begins with a hole. A man will make a notch on one tree, move away a little, hit it again with an ax, then again. Other people will follow this person; They will knock the moss off the fallen trees with their heels, trample down the grass and berry patches, make footprints in the mud - and you will get a path. The forest paths are narrow and winding, like the wrinkles on grandfather Afanasy’s forehead. Only some paths become overgrown with time, and the wrinkles on the face are unlikely to heal.

Vasyutka, like any taiga dweller, developed a penchant for lengthy reasoning. He would have thought for a long time about the road and about all sorts of taiga differences, if not for the creaking quacking somewhere above his head.

“Kra-kra-kra!..” came from above, as if they were cutting a strong branch with a dull saw.

Vasyutka raised his head. At the very top of an old disheveled spruce I saw a nutcracker. The bird held a cedar cone in its claws and screamed at the top of its lungs. Her friends responded to her in the same vociferous manner. Vasyutka did not like these impudent birds. He took the gun off his shoulder, took aim and clicked his tongue as if he had pulled the trigger. He didn't shoot. He had had his ears torn out more than once for wasted cartridges. The fear of the precious “supply” (as Siberian hunters call gunpowder and shot) is firmly drilled into Siberians from birth.

- “Kra-kra!” - Vasyutka mimicked the nutcracker and threw a stick at it.

The guy was annoyed that he couldn’t kill the bird, even though he had a gun in his hands. The nutcracker stopped screaming, leisurely plucked itself, raised its head, and its creaky “kra!” rushed through the forest again.

- Ugh, damned witch! – Vasyutka swore and walked away.

Feet walked softly on the moss. There were cones scattered here and there, spoiled by nutcrackers. They resembled lumps of honeycombs. In some of the holes of the cones, nuts stuck out like bees. But there is no use in trying them. The nutcracker has an amazingly sensitive beak: the bird does not even remove empty nuts from the nest. Vasyutka picked up one cone, examined it from all sides and shook his head:

- Oh, what a dirty trick you are!

Vasyutka scolded like that for the sake of respectability. He knew that the nutcracker is a useful bird: it spreads cedar seeds throughout the taiga.

Finally Vasyutka took a fancy to a tree and climbed it. With a trained eye, he determined: there, in the thick pine needles, were hidden entire broods of resinous cones. He began to kick the spreading branches of the cedar with his feet. The cones just started falling down.

Vasyutka climbed down from the tree and collected them in a bag. Then he looked around the surrounding forest and took a fancy to another cedar.

“I’ll cover this one too,” he said. “It will probably be a little hard, but that’s okay, I’ll tell you.”

Suddenly something clapped loudly in front of Vasyutka. He shuddered in surprise and immediately saw a large black bird rising from the ground. "Capercaillie!" – Vasyutka guessed, and his heart sank. He shot ducks, waders, and partridges, but he had never shot a wood grouse.

Viktor Petrovich Astafiev

Best stories for children

Vasyutkino Lake

You won't find this lake on the map. It's small. Small, but memorable for Vasyutka. Still would! It's no small honor for a thirteen-year-old boy to have a lake named after him! Even though it is not big, not like, say, Baikal, Vasyutka himself found it and showed it to people. Yes, yes, don’t be surprised and don’t think that all the lakes are already known and that each has its own name. There are many, many more nameless lakes and rivers in our country, because our Motherland is great, and no matter how much you wander around it, you will always find something new and interesting.

The fishermen from the brigade of Grigory Afanasyevich Shadrin - Vasyutka’s father - were completely depressed. Frequent autumn rains swollen the river, the water in it rose, and the fish began to be difficult to catch: they went deeper.

The cold frost and dark waves on the river made me sad. I didn’t even want to go outside, let alone swim out to the river. The fishermen fell asleep, became tired from idleness, and even stopped joking. But then a warm wind blew from the south and seemed to smooth out people’s faces. Boats with elastic sails glided along the river. Below and below the Yenisei the brigade descended. But the catches were still small.

“We don’t have any luck today,” grumbled Vasyutkin’s grandfather Afanasy. - Father Yenisei has become impoverished. Previously, we lived as God commanded, and the fish moved in clouds. And now the steamships and motorboats have scared away all the living creatures. The time will come - the ruffs and minnows will disappear, and they will only read about omul, sterlet and sturgeon in books.

Arguing with grandfather is useless, that’s why no one contacted him.

The fishermen went far to the lower reaches of the Yenisei and finally stopped.

The boats were pulled ashore, the luggage was taken to a hut built several years ago by a scientific expedition.

Grigory Afanasyevich, in high rubber boots with turned-down tops and a gray raincoat, walked along the shore and gave orders.

Vasyutka was always a little timid in front of his big, taciturn father, although he never offended him.

- Sabbath, guys! - said Grigory Afanasyevich when the unloading was completed. “We won’t wander around anymore.” So, to no avail, you can walk to the Kara Sea.

He walked around the hut, for some reason touched the corners with his hand and climbed into the attic, straightened the sheets of bark on the roof that had slid to the side. Having gone down the decrepit stairs, he carefully shook off his pants, blew his nose and explained to the fishermen that the hut was suitable, that they could calmly wait for the autumn fishing season in it, and in the meantime they could fish by ferries and nets. Boats, seines, floating nets and all other gear must be properly prepared for the big move of fish.

Monotonous days dragged on. Fishermen repaired seines, caulked boats, made anchors, knitted, and pitched.

Once a day they checked the lines and paired nets - ferries, which were placed far from the shore.

The fish that fell into these traps were valuable: sturgeon, sterlet, taimen, and often burbot, or, as they were jokingly called in Siberia, settler. But this is calm fishing. There is no excitement, daring and that good, hard-working fun that bursts out of the men when they pull out several centners of fish with a half-kilometer net for one ton.

Vasyutka’s life began to be completely boring. There is no one to play with - no friends, nowhere to go. There was one consolation: the school year would soon begin and his mother and father would send him to the village. Uncle Kolyada, the foreman of the fish collection boat, has already brought new textbooks from the city. During the day, Vasyutka will look into them out of boredom.

In the evenings the hut became crowded and noisy. The fishermen had dinner, smoked, cracked nuts, and told tales. By nightfall there was a thick layer of nutshells on the floor. It crackled underfoot like autumn ice on puddles.

Vasyutka supplied the fishermen with nuts. He has already chopped all the nearby cedars. Every day we had to climb further and further into the forest. But this work was not a burden. The boy liked to wander. He walks through the forest alone, hums, and sometimes fires a gun.

Vasyutka woke up late. There is only one mother in the hut. Grandfather Afanasy went somewhere. Vasyutka ate, leafed through his textbooks, tore off a piece of the calendar and happily noted that there were only ten days left until the first of September.

The mother said displeasedly:

“You have to prepare for school, but you disappear in the forest.”

-What are you doing, mom? Should someone get the nuts? Must. After all, fishermen want to click in the evening.

- “Hunt, hunt”! They need nuts, so let them go on their own. We got used to pushing the boy around and littering in the hut.

The mother grumbles out of habit because she has no one else to grumble at.

When Vasyutka, with a gun on his shoulder and a cartridge belt on his belt, looking like a stocky little man, came out of the hut, his mother, as usual, sternly reminded:

“Don’t stray too far from your plans, you’ll perish.” Did you take any bread with you?

- Why do I need him? I bring it back every time.

- Do not speak! Here's the edge. She won't crush you. It has been this way since time immemorial; it is still too early to change the taiga laws.

You can't argue with your mother here. This is the old order: if you go into the forest, take food, take matches.

Vasyutka obediently put the edge into the bag and hurried to disappear from his mother’s eyes, otherwise he would find fault with something else.

Whistling merrily, he walked through the taiga, followed the marks on the trees and thought that, probably, every taiga road begins with a hole. A man will make a notch on one tree, move away a little, hit it again with an ax, then again. Other people will follow this person; They will knock the moss off the fallen trees with their heels, trample down the grass and berry patches, make footprints in the mud - and you will get a path. The forest paths are narrow and winding, like the wrinkles on grandfather Afanasy’s forehead. Only some paths become overgrown with time, and the wrinkles on the face are unlikely to heal.

Vasyutka, like any taiga dweller, developed a penchant for lengthy reasoning. He would have thought for a long time about the road and about all sorts of taiga differences, if not for the creaking quacking somewhere above his head.

“Kra-kra-kra!..” came from above, as if they were cutting a strong branch with a dull saw.

Vasyutka raised his head. At the very top of an old disheveled spruce I saw a nutcracker. The bird held a cedar cone in its claws and screamed at the top of its lungs. Her friends responded to her in the same vociferous manner. Vasyutka did not like these impudent birds. He took the gun off his shoulder, took aim and clicked his tongue as if he had pulled the trigger. He didn't shoot. He had had his ears torn out more than once for wasted cartridges. The fear of the precious “supply” (as Siberian hunters call gunpowder and shot) is firmly drilled into Siberians from birth.

- “Kra-kra!” - Vasyutka mimicked the nutcracker and threw a stick at it.

The guy was annoyed that he couldn’t kill the bird, even though he had a gun in his hands. The nutcracker stopped screaming, leisurely plucked itself, raised its head, and its creaky “kra!” rushed through the forest again.

- Ugh, damned witch! – Vasyutka swore and walked away.

Feet walked softly on the moss. There were cones scattered here and there, spoiled by nutcrackers. They resembled lumps of honeycombs. In some of the holes of the cones, nuts stuck out like bees. But there is no use in trying them. The nutcracker has an amazingly sensitive beak: the bird does not even remove empty nuts from the nest. Vasyutka picked up one cone, examined it from all sides and shook his head:

- Oh, what a dirty trick you are!

Vasyutka scolded like that for the sake of respectability. He knew that the nutcracker is a useful bird: it spreads cedar seeds throughout the taiga.

Finally Vasyutka took a fancy to a tree and climbed it. With a trained eye, he determined: there, in the thick pine needles, were hidden entire broods of resinous cones. He began to kick the spreading branches of the cedar with his feet. The cones just started falling down.

Vasyutka climbed down from the tree and collected them in a bag. Then he looked around the surrounding forest and took a fancy to another cedar.

“I’ll cover this one too,” he said. “It will probably be a little hard, but that’s okay, I’ll tell you.”

Suddenly something clapped loudly in front of Vasyutka. He shuddered in surprise and immediately saw a large black bird rising from the ground. "Capercaillie!" – Vasyutka guessed, and his heart sank. He shot ducks, waders, and partridges, but he had never shot a wood grouse.

The capercaillie flew across a mossy clearing, swerved between the trees and sat down on a dead tree. Try sneaking up!

The boy stood motionless and did not take his eyes off the huge bird. Suddenly he remembered that wood grouse are often taken with a dog. Hunters said that a capercaillie, sitting on a tree, looks down with curiosity at the barking dog, and sometimes teases it. Meanwhile, the hunter quietly approaches from the rear and shoots.

Vasyutka, as luck would have it, did not invite Druzhka with him. Cursing himself in a whisper for his mistake, Vasyutka fell on all fours, barked, imitating a dog, and began to carefully move forward. His voice broke from excitement. The capercaillie froze, watching this interesting picture with curiosity. The boy scratched his face and tore his padded jacket, but did not notice anything. Before him in reality is a wood grouse!

... It's time! Vasyutka quickly got down on one knee and tried to land the worried bird on the fly. Finally, the trembling in my hands subsided, the fly stopped dancing, its tip touched the capercaillie... Bang! - and the black bird, flapping its wings, fell down. Without touching the ground, she straightened up and flew into the depths of the forest.

Vasyutkino Lake

You won't find this lake on the map. It's small. Small, but memorable for Vasyutka. Still would! It's no small honor for a thirteen-year-old boy to have a lake named after him! Even though it is not big, not like, say, Baikal, Vasyutka himself found it and showed it to people. Yes, yes, don’t be surprised and don’t think that all the lakes are already known and that each has its own name. There are many, many more nameless lakes and rivers in our country, because our Motherland is great, and no matter how much you wander around it, you will always find something new and interesting.

The fishermen from the brigade of Grigory Afanasyevich Shadrin - Vasyutka’s father - were completely depressed. Frequent autumn rains swollen the river, the water in it rose, and the fish began to be difficult to catch: they went deeper.

The cold frost and dark waves on the river made me sad. I didn’t even want to go outside, let alone swim out to the river. The fishermen fell asleep, became tired from idleness, and even stopped joking. But then a warm wind blew from the south and seemed to smooth out people’s faces. Boats with elastic sails glided along the river. Below and below the Yenisei the brigade descended. But the catches were still small.

“We don’t have any luck today,” grumbled Vasyutkin’s grandfather Afanasy. - Father Yenisei has become impoverished. Previously, we lived as God commanded, and the fish moved in clouds. And now the steamships and motorboats have scared away all the living creatures. The time will come - the ruffs and minnows will disappear, and they will only read about omul, sterlet and sturgeon in books.

Arguing with grandfather is useless, that’s why no one contacted him.

The fishermen went far to the lower reaches of the Yenisei and finally stopped.

The boats were pulled ashore, the luggage was taken to a hut built several years ago by a scientific expedition.

Grigory Afanasyevich, in high rubber boots with turned-down tops and a gray raincoat, walked along the shore and gave orders.

Vasyutka was always a little timid in front of his big, taciturn father, although he never offended him.

- Sabbath, guys! - said Grigory Afanasyevich when the unloading was completed. “We won’t wander around anymore.” So, to no avail, you can walk to the Kara Sea.

He walked around the hut, for some reason touched the corners with his hand and climbed into the attic, straightened the sheets of bark on the roof that had slid to the side. Having gone down the decrepit stairs, he carefully shook off his pants, blew his nose and explained to the fishermen that the hut was suitable, that they could calmly wait for the autumn fishing season in it, and in the meantime they could fish by ferries and nets. Boats, seines, floating nets and all other gear must be properly prepared for the big move of fish.

Monotonous days dragged on. Fishermen repaired seines, caulked boats, made anchors, knitted, and pitched.

Once a day they checked the lines and paired nets - ferries, which were placed far from the shore.

The fish that fell into these traps were valuable: sturgeon, sterlet, taimen, and often burbot, or, as they were jokingly called in Siberia, settler. But this is calm fishing. There is no excitement, daring and that good, hard-working fun that bursts out of the men when they pull out several centners of fish with a half-kilometer net for one ton.

Vasyutka’s life began to be completely boring. There is no one to play with - no friends, nowhere to go. There was one consolation: the school year would soon begin and his mother and father would send him to the village. Uncle Kolyada, the foreman of the fish collection boat, has already brought new textbooks from the city. During the day, Vasyutka will look into them out of boredom.

In the evenings the hut became crowded and noisy. The fishermen had dinner, smoked, cracked nuts, and told tales. By nightfall there was a thick layer of nutshells on the floor. It crackled underfoot like autumn ice on puddles.

Vasyutka supplied the fishermen with nuts. He has already chopped all the nearby cedars. Every day we had to climb further and further into the forest. But this work was not a burden. The boy liked to wander. He walks through the forest alone, hums, and sometimes fires a gun.

Vasyutka woke up late. There is only one mother in the hut. Grandfather Afanasy went somewhere. Vasyutka ate, leafed through his textbooks, tore off a piece of the calendar and happily noted that there were only ten days left until the first of September.

The mother said displeasedly:

“You have to prepare for school, but you disappear in the forest.”

-What are you doing, mom? Should someone get the nuts? Must. After all, fishermen want to click in the evening.

- “Hunt, hunt”! They need nuts, so let them go on their own. We got used to pushing the boy around and littering in the hut.

The mother grumbles out of habit because she has no one else to grumble at.

When Vasyutka, with a gun on his shoulder and a cartridge belt on his belt, looking like a stocky little man, came out of the hut, his mother, as usual, sternly reminded:

“Don’t stray too far from your plans, you’ll perish.” Did you take any bread with you?

- Why do I need him? I bring it back every time.

- Do not speak! Here's the edge. She won't crush you. It has been this way since time immemorial; it is still too early to change the taiga laws.

You can't argue with your mother here. This is the old order: if you go into the forest, take food, take matches.

Vasyutka obediently put the edge into the bag and hurried to disappear from his mother’s eyes, otherwise he would find fault with something else.

Whistling merrily, he walked through the taiga, followed the marks on the trees and thought that, probably, every taiga road begins with a hole. A man will make a notch on one tree, move away a little, hit it again with an ax, then again. Other people will follow this person; They will knock the moss off the fallen trees with their heels, trample down the grass and berry patches, make footprints in the mud - and you will get a path. The forest paths are narrow and winding, like the wrinkles on grandfather Afanasy’s forehead. Only some paths become overgrown with time, and the wrinkles on the face are unlikely to heal.

Vasyutka, like any taiga dweller, developed a penchant for lengthy reasoning. He would have thought for a long time about the road and about all sorts of taiga differences, if not for the creaking quacking somewhere above his head.

“Kra-kra-kra!..” came from above, as if they were cutting a strong branch with a dull saw.

Vasyutka raised his head. At the very top of an old disheveled spruce I saw a nutcracker. The bird held a cedar cone in its claws and screamed at the top of its lungs. Her friends responded to her in the same vociferous manner. Vasyutka did not like these impudent birds. He took the gun off his shoulder, took aim and clicked his tongue as if he had pulled the trigger. He didn't shoot. He had had his ears torn out more than once for wasted cartridges. The fear of the precious “supply” (as Siberian hunters call gunpowder and shot) is firmly drilled into Siberians from birth.

- “Kra-kra!” - Vasyutka mimicked the nutcracker and threw a stick at it.

The guy was annoyed that he couldn’t kill the bird, even though he had a gun in his hands. The nutcracker stopped screaming, leisurely plucked itself, raised its head, and its creaky “kra!” rushed through the forest again.

- Ugh, damned witch! – Vasyutka swore and walked away.

Feet walked softly on the moss. There were cones scattered here and there, spoiled by nutcrackers. They resembled lumps of honeycombs. In some of the holes of the cones, nuts stuck out like bees. But there is no use in trying them. The nutcracker has an amazingly sensitive beak: the bird does not even remove empty nuts from the nest. Vasyutka picked up one cone, examined it from all sides and shook his head:

- Oh, what a dirty trick you are!

Vasyutka scolded like that for the sake of respectability. He knew that the nutcracker is a useful bird: it spreads cedar seeds throughout the taiga.

Finally Vasyutka took a fancy to a tree and climbed it. With a trained eye, he determined: there, in the thick pine needles, were hidden entire broods of resinous cones. He began to kick the spreading branches of the cedar with his feet. The cones just started falling down.

Vasyutka climbed down from the tree and collected them in a bag. Then he looked around the surrounding forest and took a fancy to another cedar.

“I’ll cover this one too,” he said. “It will probably be a little hard, but that’s okay, I’ll tell you.”

Suddenly something clapped loudly in front of Vasyutka. He shuddered in surprise and immediately saw a large black bird rising from the ground. "Capercaillie!" – Vasyutka guessed, and his heart sank. He shot ducks, waders, and partridges, but he had never shot a wood grouse.

The capercaillie flew across a mossy clearing, swerved between the trees and sat down on a dead tree. Try sneaking up!

The boy stood motionless and did not take his eyes off the huge bird. Suddenly he remembered that wood grouse are often taken with a dog. Hunters said that a capercaillie, sitting on a tree, looks down with curiosity at the barking dog, and sometimes teases it. Meanwhile, the hunter quietly approaches from the rear and shoots.

Vasyutka, as luck would have it, did not invite Druzhka with him. Cursing himself in a whisper for his mistake, Vasyutka fell on all fours, barked, imitating a dog, and began to carefully move forward. His voice broke from excitement. The capercaillie froze, watching this interesting picture with curiosity. The boy scratched his face and tore his padded jacket, but did not notice anything. Before him in reality is a wood grouse!

... It's time! Vasyutka quickly got down on one knee and tried to land the worried bird on the fly. Finally, the trembling in my hands subsided, the fly stopped dancing, its tip touched the capercaillie... Bang! - and the black bird, flapping its wings, fell down. Without touching the ground, she straightened up and flew into the depths of the forest.

“Wounded!” – Vasyutka perked up and rushed after the shot wood grouse.

Only now did he realize what the matter was and began to reproach himself mercilessly:

– He banged it with small shot. Why is he petty? He's almost like Druzhka!..

The bird left on short flights. They became shorter and shorter. The capercaillie was weakening. Now he, unable to lift his heavy body, ran.

“Now I’ll catch up!” – Vasyutka decided confidently and started running harder. It was very close to the bird.

Quickly throwing the bag off his shoulder, Vasyutka raised his gun and fired. In a few leaps I found myself near the wood grouse and fell on my stomach.

- Stop, darling, stop! – Vasyutka muttered joyfully. – You won’t leave now! Look, he's so quick! Brother, I also run – be healthy!

Vasyutka stroked the capercaillie with a satisfied smile, admiring the black feathers with a bluish tint. Then he weighed it in his hand. “It will be five kilograms, or even half a pound,” he estimated and put the bird in the bag. “I’ll run, otherwise my mother will hit me on the back of the neck.”

Thinking about his luck, Vasyutka, happy, walked through the forest, whistling, singing, whatever came to mind.

Suddenly he realized: where are the lines? It's time for them to be.

He looked around. The trees were no different from those on which the notches were made. The forest stood motionless and quiet in its sad reverie, just as sparse, half-naked, entirely coniferous. Only here and there were frail birch trees with sparse yellow leaves. Yes, the forest was the same. And yet there was something alien about him...

Vasyutka turned sharply back. He walked quickly, carefully looking at each tree, but there were no familiar notches.

- Ffu-you, damn it! Where are the places? – Vasyutka’s heart sank, perspiration appeared on his forehead. - All this capercaillie! “I rushed like crazy, now think about where to go,” Vasyutka spoke out loud to drive away the approaching fear. - It’s okay, now I’ll think about it and find the way. Soooo... The almost bare side of the spruce means that direction is north, and where there are more branches - south. Soooo...

After that, Vasyutka tried to remember on which side of the trees the old notches were made and on which side the new ones were made. But he didn’t notice this. Stitch and stitch.

- Oh, dumbass!

Fear began to weigh even more heavily. The boy spoke out loud again:

- Okay, don't be shy. Let's find a hut. We have to go one way. We must go south. The Yenisei makes a turn at the hut, you can’t pass by it. Well, everything is fine, but you, weirdo, were afraid! – Vasyutka laughed and cheerfully commanded himself: “Arsh step!” Hey, two!

But the vigor did not last long. There were no problems and there were no problems. At times the boy thought he could clearly see them on the dark trunk. With a sinking heart, he ran to the tree to feel with his hand a notch with droplets of resin, but instead he discovered a rough fold of bark. Vasyutka had already changed direction several times, poured pine cones out of the bag and walked, walked...

The forest became completely quiet. Vasyutka stopped and stood listening for a long time. Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock-knock... - the heart beat. Then Vasyutka’s hearing, strained to the limit, caught some strange sound. There was a buzzing sound somewhere.

It froze and a second later came again, like the hum of a distant plane. Vasyutka bent down and saw the rotted carcass of a bird at his feet. An experienced hunter - a spider stretched a web over a dead bird. The spider is no longer there - it must have gone away to spend the winter in some hollow, and abandoned the trap. A well-fed, large spitting fly got into it and beats, beats, buzzes with weakening wings.

Something began to bother Vasyutka at the sight of a helpless fly stuck in a snare. And then it hit him: he was lost!

This discovery was so simple and stunning that Vasyutka did not immediately come to his senses.

He heard many times from hunters scary stories about how people wander in the forest and sometimes die, but that’s not how I imagined it at all. It all worked out very simply. Vasyutka did not yet know that terrible things in life often begin very simply.

The stupor lasted until Vasyutka heard some mysterious rustling in the depths of the darkened forest. He screamed and started running. How many times he stumbled, fell, got up and ran again, Vasyutka did not know. Finally, he jumped into a windfall and began to crash through the dry, thorny branches. Then he fell from the fallen trees face down into the damp moss and froze. Despair overwhelmed him, and he immediately lost his strength. “Come what may,” he thought detachedly.

Night flew into the forest silently, like an owl. And with it comes the cold. Vasyutka felt his sweat-soaked clothes getting cold.

“Taiga, our nurse, doesn’t like flimsy people!” – he remembered the words of his father and grandfather. And he began to remember everything that he had been taught, that he knew from the stories of fishermen and hunters.

First things first, you need to light a fire. It's good that I brought matches from home. Matches came in handy.

Vasyutka broke off the lower dry branches of the tree, groped for a bunch of dry bearded moss, chopped up the twigs into small pieces, put everything in a pile and set it on fire. The light, swaying, crawled uncertainly along the branches. The moss flared up and everything around became brighter. Vasyutka threw more branches. Shadows scurried between the trees, the darkness receded further. Itching monotonously, several mosquitoes flew onto the fire - it’s more fun with them.

We had to stock up on firewood for the night. Vasyutka, not sparing his hands, broke branches, dragged dry dead wood, and turned out an old stump. Pulling a piece of bread out of the bag, he sighed and thought sadly: “He’s crying, go ahead, mother.”

He also wanted to cry, but he overcame himself and, plucking the capercaillie, began to gut it with a penknife. Then he raked the fire to the side, dug a hole in the hot spot and put the bird there. Covering it tightly with moss, he sprinkled it with hot earth, ash, coals, put flaming brands on top and added firewood.

About an hour later he unearthed a wood grouse. The bird gave off steam and an appetizing smell: a capercaillie drowned in its own juice - a hunting dish! But without salt, what would the taste be? Vasyutka struggled to swallow the unleavened meat.

- Eh, stupid, stupid! How much of this salt is in barrels on the shore! What did it take to pour a handful into your pocket! - he reproached himself.

Then he remembered that the bag he took for the cones was from salt, and hastily turned it out. He picked out a pinch of dirty crystals from the corners of the bag, crushed them on the butt of the gun and smiled forcefully:

After dinner, Vasyutka put the rest of the food in a bag, hung it on a branch so that mice or anyone else wouldn’t get to the grub, and began to prepare a place to spend the night.

He moved the fire to the side, removed all the coals, threw on branches with pine needles, moss and lay down, covering himself with a padded jacket.

It was heated from below.

Busy with chores, Vasyutka did not feel loneliness so keenly. But as soon as I lay down and thought about it, anxiety began to overcome me. new strength. The polar taiga is not afraid of animals. The bear is a rare resident here. There are no wolves. The snake too. Sometimes there are lynxes and lascivious arctic foxes. But in the fall there is plenty of food for them in the forest, and they could hardly covet Vasyutka’s reserves. And yet it was creepy. He loaded the single-barreled breaker, cocked the hammer and laid the gun down next to him. Sleep!

Not even five minutes had passed when Vasyutka felt that someone was sneaking towards him. He opened his eyes and froze: yes, he’s sneaking! A step, a second, a rustle, a sigh... Someone walks slowly and carefully through the moss. Vasyutka fearfully turns his head and, not far from the fire, sees something dark and large. Now it stands and does not move.

The boy peers intently and begins to make out either hands or paws raised towards the sky. Vasyutka is not breathing: “What is this?” My eyes ripple from tension, I can no longer hold my breath. He jumps up and points his gun at this dark one:

- Who it? Come on, or I’ll hit you with buckshot!

There was no sound in response. Vasyutka stands motionless for some time, then slowly lowers the gun and licks his dry lips. “Really, what could be there?” – he suffers and shouts again:

– I say, don’t hide, otherwise it will get worse!

Silence. Vasyutka wipes the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and, plucking up courage, resolutely heads towards the dark object.

- Oh, damned one! – he sighs with relief, seeing a huge inversion root in front of him. - Well, I’m a coward! I almost lost my mind over this kind of nonsense.

To finally calm down, he breaks off shoots from the rhizome and carries them to the fire.

The August night in the Arctic is short. While Vasyutka was busy with the firewood, the darkness, thick as pitch, began to thin out and hide deeper into the forest. Before it had time to completely dissipate, fog had already crawled out to replace it. It got colder. The fire hissed from the dampness, clicked, and began to sneeze, as if it was angry at the thick veil that shrouded everything around. The mosquitoes that had been bothering me all night had disappeared. Not a breath, not a rustle.

Everything froze in anticipation of the first sound of the morning. What kind of sound this will be is unknown. Perhaps the timid whistle of a bird or the light sound of the wind in the tops of bearded spruce trees and gnarled larches, perhaps a woodpecker knocking on a tree or a wild deer trumpeting.

Something must be born from this silence, someone must awaken the sleepy taiga. Vasyutka shivered chillily, moved closer to the fire and fell fast asleep, never waiting for the morning news.

The sun was already high. The fog fell like dew on the trees, on the ground, fine dust sparkled everywhere.

“Where am I?” – Vasyutka thought in amazement and, finally waking up, heard the lively taiga.

Throughout the forest, nutcrackers shouted anxiously in the manner of market women. Somewhere, Zhelna began to cry childishly. Above Vasyutka's head, titmice were gutting an old tree, squeaking busily. Vasyutka stood up, stretched and scared away the feeding squirrel. She, clattering in alarm, rushed up the trunk of the spruce, sat down on a branch and, without ceasing to clack, stared at Vasyutka.

- Well, what are you looking at? I did not recognize? – Vasyutka turned to her with a smile.

The squirrel moved its fluffy tail.

- But I got lost. He foolishly rushed after a wood grouse and got lost. Now they are looking for me all over the forest, my mother is roaring... You don’t understand anything, talk to you! Otherwise I would have run and told our people where I was. You are so agile! “He paused and waved his hand: “Get out, redhead, I’ll shoot!”

Vasyutka raised his gun and fired into the air. The squirrel, like a feather caught in the wind, darted and went to count the trees.

After watching her go, Vasyutka fired again and waited a long time for an answer. Taiga didn't respond. The nutcrackers were still annoyingly and discordantly bawling, a woodpecker was working nearby, and drops of dew were clicking as they fell from the trees.

There are ten cartridges left. Vasyutka no longer dared to shoot. He took off his padded jacket, threw his cap over it and, spitting on his hands, climbed up the tree...

Taiga... Taiga... She stretched endlessly in all directions, silent, indifferent. From above it seemed like a huge dark sea. The sky did not end immediately, as it happens in the mountains, but stretched far, far away, pressing closer and closer to the tops of the forest. The clouds overhead were sparse, but the longer Vasyutka looked, the thicker they became, and finally the blue openings disappeared completely. The clouds lay like compressed cotton wool on the taiga, and it dissolved in them.

For a long time Vasyutka looked with his eyes for a yellow strip of larch among the motionless green sea (deciduous forest usually stretches along the banks of the river), but all around was dark coniferous forest. Apparently, the Yenisei, too, was lost in the remote, gloomy taiga. Vasyutka felt very small and cried out with anguish and despair:

- Hey, mom! Folder! Grandfather! I'm lost!..

Vasyutka slowly came down from the tree, thought and sat there for half an hour. Then he shook himself, cut off the meat and, trying not to look at the small edge of the bread, began to chew. Having refreshed himself, he collected a bunch of pine cones, crushed them and began to pour nuts into his pockets. The hands did their job, and the question was being solved in the head, one single question: “Where to go?” Now the pockets are full of nuts, the cartridges have been checked, a belt is attached to the bag instead of a strap, but the issue is still not resolved. Finally, Vasyutka threw the bag over his shoulder, stood for a minute, as if saying goodbye to the place he lived in, and walked due north. He reasoned simply: the taiga stretches for thousands of kilometers to the south, you will get completely lost in it. And if you go north, then after a hundred kilometers the forest will end and the tundra will begin. Vasyutka understood that going out into the tundra was not salvation. Settlements there are very rare, and you are unlikely to come across people soon. But at least he can get out of the forest, which blocks the light and oppresses him with its gloominess.

The weather was still good. Vasyutka was afraid to think about what would happen to him if autumn raged. By all indications, the wait won't be long.

The sun was setting when Vasyutka noticed skinny stems of grass among the monotonous moss. He quickened his pace. Grass began to appear more often and no longer in individual blades, but in bunches. Vasyutka became worried: grass usually grows near large bodies of water. “Is the Yenisei really ahead?” – Vasyutka thought with surging joy. Noticing birches, aspen trees, and then small bushes between the coniferous trees, he could not restrain himself, ran and soon burst into dense thickets of bird cherry, creeping willow, and currant. Tall nettles stung his face and hands, but Vasyutka did not pay attention to this and, protecting his eyes from the flexible branches with his hand, he made his way forward with a crash. A gap flashed between the bushes.

The shore is ahead... Water! Not believing his eyes, Vasyutka stopped. He stood like that for some time and felt that his legs were getting stuck. Swamp! Swamps most often occur near the shores of lakes. Vasyutka’s lips trembled: “No, it’s not true! There are swamps near the Yenisei too.” A few jumps through thicket, nettles, bushes - and here he is on the shore.

No, this is not the Yenisei. Before Vasyutka’s eyes is a small, dull lake, covered with duckweed near the shore.

Vasyutka lay down on his stomach, scooped up the green mush of duckweed with his hand and greedily pressed his lips to the water. Then he sat down, with a tired movement took off the bag, began to wipe his face with his cap, and suddenly, clinging to it with his teeth, he burst into tears.

... Vasyutka decided to spend the night on the shore of the lake. He chose drier place, hauled wood, lit a fire. It's always more fun with a light, and even more so alone. Having fried the cones in the fire, Vasyutka rolled them out of the ash with a stick, one after another, like a baked potato. His tongue was already hurting from the nuts, but he decided: as long as he had enough patience, not to touch the bread, but to eat nuts and meat, whatever he had to.

Evening was falling. Through the dense coastal thickets, reflections of the sunset fell on the water, stretched in living streams into the depths and were lost there, without reaching the bottom. Saying goodbye to the day, here and there titmice tinkled sadly, a jay cried, and loons moaned. And yet, it was much more fun by the lake than in the thick of the taiga. But there are still many mosquitoes here. They began to pester Vasyutka. Waving them off, the boy carefully watched the ducks diving on the lake. They were not at all frightened and swam near the shore with a masterly quack. There were a lot of ducks. There was no reason to shoot one at a time. Vasyutka, grabbing a gun, went to the toe that jutted into the lake and sat down on the grass. Next to the sedge, on the smooth surface of the water, circles kept blurring. This caught the boy's attention. Vasyutka looked into the water and froze: fish were swarming around the grass, densely, one next to the other, moving their gills and tails. There were so many fish that Vasyutka began to doubt: “Algae, probably?” He touched the grass with a stick. Schools of fish moved away from the shore and stopped again, lazily working with their fins.

Vasyutka had never seen so many fish before. And not just any lake fish - pike, sorog or perch - no, by their wide backs and white sides he recognized peleds, whitefish, and whitefish. This was the most amazing thing. There are white fish in the lake!

Vasyutka knitted his thick eyebrows, trying to remember something. But at that moment a herd of wigeon ducks distracted him from his thoughts. He waited until the ducks were level with the cape, singled out a pair and fired. Two elegant wigeons turned upside down with their bellies and often moved their paws. Another duck, its wing protruding, swam sideways from the shore. The rest were alarmed and noisily flew to the other side of the lake. For about ten minutes, herds of frightened birds flew over the water.

The boy pulled out a couple of ducks with a long stick, but the third managed to swim far away.

“Okay, I’ll get it tomorrow,” Vasyutka waved his hand.

The sky had already darkened and twilight was falling in the forest. The middle of the lake now resembled a hot stove. It seemed that if you put slices of potatoes on the smooth surface of the water, they would instantly bake and smell burnt and delicious. Vasyutka swallowed his saliva, looked again at the lake, at the bloody sky and said with alarm:

- There will be wind tomorrow. What if it still rains?

He plucked the ducks, buried them in the hot coals of the fire, lay down on the fir branches and began cracking nuts.

The dawn has burned out. There were sparse motionless clouds in the darkened sky. The stars began to appear. A small, nail-like moon appeared. It became lighter. Vasyutka remembered the words of his grandfather: “Started - to the cold!” – and his soul became even more anxious.

To drive away bad thoughts, Vasyutka tried to think first about home, and then he remembered school and comrades.

How much in life did Vasyutka want to know and see? A lot of. Will he find out? Will he get out of the taiga? Lost in it like a grain of sand. What now at home? There, behind the taiga, people seem to be in another world: they watch movies, eat bread... maybe even candy. They eat as much as they want. The school is probably now preparing to welcome students. A new poster has already been hung above the school doors, on which it is written in large letters: “Welcome!”

Vasyutka was completely depressed. He felt sorry for himself and began to feel remorse. So he didn’t listen in class and during recess he almost walked on his head... Children from all over the area come to school: here are the Evenks, here are the Nenets, and the Nganasans. They have their own habits. It happened that one of them would take out a pipe during class and light a cigarette without further consideration.

First-graders are especially guilty of this. They just came from the taiga and don’t understand any discipline. If teacher Olga Fedorovna begins to explain to such a student about the harmfulness of smoking, he becomes offended; If the phone is taken away, it roars. Vasyutka himself smoked and gave them tobacco.

“Oh, I wish I could see Olga Feodorovna now...” Vasyutka thought out loud. “I wish I could shake out all the tobacco.”

Vasyutka was tired during the day, but sleep did not come. He added some wood to the fire and lay down on his back again. The clouds have disappeared. Distant and mysterious, the stars winked, as if calling me somewhere. One of them rushed down, traced the dark sky and immediately melted away. “The star went out, which means someone’s life was cut short,” Vasyutka recalled the words of grandfather Afanasy.

Vasyutka felt completely sad.

“Maybe our people saw her?” - he thought, pulling his padded jacket over his face, and soon fell into a restless sleep.

Vasyutka woke up late, from the cold, and saw neither the lake, nor the sky, nor the bushes. Again there was a sticky, motionless fog all around. Only loud and frequent slaps were heard from the lake: it was fish playing and feeding.

Vasyutka stood up, shivered, dug out the ducks, fanned the coals. When the fire flared up, he warmed his back, then cut off a piece of bread, took one duck and began to eat quickly. The thought that bothered Vasyutka last night came into his head again: “Where are there so many white fish in the lake?” He had heard more than once from fishermen that some lakes supposedly contained white fish, but these lakes must be or were once flowing. "What if?…"

Yes, if the lake is flowing and a river flows out of it, it will eventually lead it to the Yenisei. No, it's better not to think. Yesterday I was overjoyed - Yenisei, Yenisei - and saw a marsh cone. No, it’s better not to think.

Having finished with the duck, Vasyutka still lay by the fire, waiting for the fog to subside. The eyelids were stuck together. But even through the viscous, dull drowsiness it was possible to say: “Where did the river fish come from in the lake?”

- Ugh, devilry! – Vasyutka swore. – I’m attached like a leaf. “Where from, where from?” Well, maybe the birds brought caviar on their feet, well, maybe they brought fry, well, maybe... Oh, that’s it for the leshaks! - Vasyutka jumped up and, angrily cracking the bushes, bumping into fallen trees in the fog, began to make his way along the shore. I didn’t find yesterday’s killed duck on the water, I was surprised and decided that it had been carried away by a kite or eaten by water rats.

It seemed to Vasyutka that in the place where the shores meet was the end of the lake, but he was mistaken. There was only an isthmus there. When the fog dissolved, a large, sparsely overgrown lake opened in front of the boy, and the one near which he spent the night was just a bay - an echo of the lake.

- Wow! – Vasyutka gasped. “That’s where the fisheries are, probably... Here we wouldn’t have to waste water with nets.” I wish I could get out and tell you. “And, encouraging himself, he added: “What?” And I will go out! I’ll go, I’ll go and...

Then Vasyutka noticed a small lump floating near the isthmus, came closer and saw a stricken duck. He was stunned: “Is it really mine? How did it get here?!” The boy quickly broke the stick and scooped the bird towards him. Yes, it was a wigeon duck with a cherry-colored head.

- My! My! – Vasyutka muttered in excitement, throwing the duck into the bag. - My duck! “He even started to feel feverish.” - Since there was no wind, and the duck was carried away, it means there is a draft, a flowing lake!

It was both joyful and somehow scary to believe in it. Hastily stepping from hummock to hummock, Vasyutka made his way through the windfall and dense berry patches. In one place, almost from under our feet, a huge wood grouse flew up and sat down nearby. Vasyutka showed him the fig:

- Don’t you want this? I'll be damned if I contact your brother again!

The wind was rising.

Dry trees that had outlived their days swayed and creaked. Leaves picked up from the ground and torn from trees began to swirl above the lake in a wild flock. The loons moaned, signaling bad weather. The lake became wrinkled, shadows on the water swayed, clouds covered the sun, everything around became gloomy and uncomfortable.

As a boy, Viktor Astafiev got lost in the taiga and spent many days alone. And when everyone at school was writing an essay about how the summer went, a fifth-grader wrote about all this. Soon the essay was published in the school magazine “Alive”. This is how the first story for children “Vasyutkino Lake” by Viktor Petrovich Astafiev appeared...

The best stories for children

Vasyutkino Lake

You won't find this lake on the map. It's small. Small, but memorable for Vasyutka. Still would! It's no small honor for a thirteen-year-old boy to have a lake named after him! Even though it is not big, not like, say, Baikal, Vasyutka himself found it and showed it to people. Yes, yes, don’t be surprised and don’t think that all the lakes are already known and that each has its own name. There are many, many more nameless lakes and rivers in our country, because our Motherland is great, and no matter how much you wander around it, you will always find something new and interesting.

The fishermen from the brigade of Grigory Afanasyevich Shadrin - Vasyutka’s father - were completely depressed. Frequent autumn rains swollen the river, the water in it rose, and the fish began to be difficult to catch: they went deeper.

The cold frost and dark waves on the river made me sad. I didn’t even want to go outside, let alone swim out to the river. The fishermen fell asleep, became tired from idleness, and even stopped joking. But then a warm wind blew from the south and seemed to smooth out people’s faces. Boats with elastic sails glided along the river. Below and below the Yenisei the brigade descended. But the catches were still small.

“We don’t have any luck today,” grumbled Vasyutkin’s grandfather Afanasy. - Father Yenisei has become impoverished. Previously, we lived as God commanded, and the fish moved in clouds. And now the steamships and motorboats have scared away all the living creatures. The time will come - the ruffs and minnows will disappear, and they will only read about omul, sterlet and sturgeon in books.

Arguing with grandfather is useless, that’s why no one contacted him.

The fishermen went far to the lower reaches of the Yenisei and finally stopped.

The boats were pulled ashore, the luggage was taken to a hut built several years ago by a scientific expedition.

Grigory Afanasyevich, in high rubber boots with turned-down tops and a gray raincoat, walked along the shore and gave orders.

Vasyutka was always a little timid in front of his big, taciturn father, although he never offended him.

- Sabbath, guys! - said Grigory Afanasyevich when the unloading was completed. “We won’t wander around anymore.” So, to no avail, you can walk to the Kara Sea.

He walked around the hut, for some reason touched the corners with his hand and climbed into the attic, straightened the sheets of bark on the roof that had slid to the side. Having gone down the decrepit stairs, he carefully shook off his pants, blew his nose and explained to the fishermen that the hut was suitable, that they could calmly wait for the autumn fishing season in it, and in the meantime they could fish by ferries and nets. Boats, seines, floating nets and all other gear must be properly prepared for the big move of fish.

Monotonous days dragged on. Fishermen repaired seines, caulked boats, made anchors, knitted, and pitched.

Once a day they checked the lines and paired nets - ferries, which were placed far from the shore.

The fish that fell into these traps were valuable: sturgeon, sterlet, taimen, and often burbot, or, as they were jokingly called in Siberia, settler. But this is calm fishing. There is no excitement, daring and that good, hard-working fun that bursts out of the men when they pull out several centners of fish with a half-kilometer net for one ton.

Vasyutka’s life began to be completely boring. There is no one to play with - no friends, nowhere to go. There was one consolation: the school year would soon begin and his mother and father would send him to the village. Uncle Kolyada, the foreman of the fish collection boat, has already brought new textbooks from the city. During the day, Vasyutka will look into them out of boredom.

In the evenings the hut became crowded and noisy. The fishermen had dinner, smoked, cracked nuts, and told tales. By nightfall there was a thick layer of nutshells on the floor. It crackled underfoot like autumn ice on puddles.

Vasyutka supplied the fishermen with nuts. He has already chopped all the nearby cedars. Every day we had to climb further and further into the forest. But this work was not a burden. The boy liked to wander. He walks through the forest alone, hums, and sometimes fires a gun.

Vasyutka woke up late. There is only one mother in the hut. Grandfather Afanasy went somewhere. Vasyutka ate, leafed through his textbooks, tore off a piece of the calendar and happily noted that there were only ten days left until the first of September.

The mother said displeasedly:

“You have to prepare for school, but you disappear in the forest.”

-What are you doing, mom? Should someone get the nuts? Must. After all, fishermen want to click in the evening.

- “Hunt, hunt”! They need nuts, so let them go on their own. We got used to pushing the boy around and littering in the hut.

The mother grumbles out of habit because she has no one else to grumble at.

When Vasyutka, with a gun on his shoulder and a cartridge belt on his belt, looking like a stocky little man, came out of the hut, his mother, as usual, sternly reminded:

“Don’t stray too far from your plans, you’ll perish.” Did you take any bread with you?

- Why do I need him? I bring it back every time.

- Do not speak! Here's the edge. She won't crush you. It has been this way since time immemorial; it is still too early to change the taiga laws.

You can't argue with your mother here. This is the old order: if you go into the forest, take food, take matches.

Vasyutka obediently put the edge into the bag and hurried to disappear from his mother’s eyes, otherwise he would find fault with something else.

Whistling merrily, he walked through the taiga, followed the marks on the trees and thought that, probably, every taiga road begins with a hole. A man will make a notch on one tree, move away a little, hit it again with an ax, then again. Other people will follow this person; They will knock the moss off the fallen trees with their heels, trample down the grass and berry patches, make footprints in the mud - and you will get a path. The forest paths are narrow and winding, like the wrinkles on grandfather Afanasy’s forehead. Only some paths become overgrown with time, and the wrinkles on the face are unlikely to heal.

Vasyutka, like any taiga dweller, developed a penchant for lengthy reasoning. He would have thought for a long time about the road and about all sorts of taiga differences, if not for the creaking quacking somewhere above his head.

“Kra-kra-kra!..” came from above, as if they were cutting a strong branch with a dull saw.

Vasyutka raised his head. At the very top of an old disheveled spruce I saw a nutcracker. The bird held a cedar cone in its claws and screamed at the top of its lungs. Her friends responded to her in the same vociferous manner. Vasyutka did not like these impudent birds. He took the gun off his shoulder, took aim and clicked his tongue as if he had pulled the trigger. He didn't shoot. He had had his ears torn out more than once for wasted cartridges. The fear of the precious “supply” (as Siberian hunters call gunpowder and shot) is firmly drilled into Siberians from birth.

- “Kra-kra!” - Vasyutka mimicked the nutcracker and threw a stick at it.

The guy was annoyed that he couldn’t kill the bird, even though he had a gun in his hands. The nutcracker stopped screaming, leisurely plucked itself, raised its head, and its creaky “kra!” rushed through the forest again.

- Ugh, damned witch! – Vasyutka swore and walked away.

Feet walked softly on the moss. There were cones scattered here and there, spoiled by nutcrackers. They resembled lumps of honeycombs. In some of the holes of the cones, nuts stuck out like bees. But there is no use in trying them. The nutcracker has an amazingly sensitive beak: the bird does not even remove empty nuts from the nest. Vasyutka picked up one cone, examined it from all sides and shook his head:

- Oh, what a dirty trick you are!

Vasyutka scolded like that for the sake of respectability. He knew that the nutcracker is a useful bird: it spreads cedar seeds throughout the taiga.

Finally Vasyutka took a fancy to a tree and climbed it. With a trained eye, he determined: there, in the thick pine needles, were hidden entire broods of resinous cones. He began to kick the spreading branches of the cedar with his feet. The cones just started falling down.

Vasyutka climbed down from the tree and collected them in a bag. Then he looked around the surrounding forest and took a fancy to another cedar.

“I’ll cover this one too,” he said. “It will probably be a little hard, but that’s okay, I’ll tell you.”

Suddenly something clapped loudly in front of Vasyutka. He shuddered in surprise and immediately saw a large black bird rising from the ground. "Capercaillie!" – Vasyutka guessed, and his heart sank. He shot ducks, waders, and partridges, but he had never shot a wood grouse.

The capercaillie flew across a mossy clearing, swerved between the trees and sat down on a dead tree. Try sneaking up!

The boy stood motionless and did not take his eyes off the huge bird. Suddenly he remembered that wood grouse are often taken with a dog. Hunters said that a capercaillie, sitting on a tree, looks down with curiosity at the barking dog, and sometimes teases it. Meanwhile, the hunter quietly approaches from the rear and shoots.

Vasyutka, as luck would have it, did not invite Druzhka with him. Cursing himself in a whisper for his mistake, Vasyutka fell on all fours, barked, imitating a dog, and began to carefully move forward. His voice broke from excitement. The capercaillie froze, watching this interesting picture with curiosity. The boy scratched his face and tore his padded jacket, but did not notice anything. Before him in reality is a wood grouse!

... It's time! Vasyutka quickly got down on one knee and tried to land the worried bird on the fly. Finally, the trembling in my hands subsided, the fly stopped dancing, its tip touched the capercaillie... Bang! - and the black bird, flapping its wings, fell down. Without touching the ground, she straightened up and flew into the depths of the forest.

“Wounded!” – Vasyutka perked up and rushed after the shot wood grouse.

Only now did he realize what the matter was and began to reproach himself mercilessly:

– He banged it with small shot. Why is he petty? He's almost like Druzhka!..

The bird left on short flights. They became shorter and shorter. The capercaillie was weakening. Now he, unable to lift his heavy body, ran.

“Now I’ll catch up!” – Vasyutka decided confidently and started running harder. It was very close to the bird.

Quickly throwing the bag off his shoulder, Vasyutka raised his gun and fired. In a few leaps I found myself near the wood grouse and fell on my stomach.

- Stop, darling, stop! – Vasyutka muttered joyfully. – You won’t leave now! Look, he's so quick! Brother, I also run – be healthy!

Vasyutka stroked the capercaillie with a satisfied smile, admiring the black feathers with a bluish tint. Then he weighed it in his hand. “It will be five kilograms, or even half a pound,” he estimated and put the bird in the bag. “I’ll run, otherwise my mother will hit me on the back of the neck.”

Thinking about his luck, Vasyutka, happy, walked through the forest, whistling, singing, whatever came to mind.

Suddenly he realized: where are the lines? It's time for them to be.

He looked around. The trees were no different from those on which the notches were made. The forest stood motionless and quiet in its sad reverie, just as sparse, half-naked, entirely coniferous. Only here and there were frail birch trees with sparse yellow leaves visible. Yes, the forest was the same. And yet there was something alien about him...

Vasyutka turned sharply back. He walked quickly, carefully looking at each tree, but there were no familiar notches.

- Ffu-you, damn it! Where are the places? – Vasyutka’s heart sank, perspiration appeared on his forehead. - All this capercaillie! “I rushed like crazy, now think about where to go,” Vasyutka spoke out loud to drive away the approaching fear. - It’s okay, now I’ll think about it and find the way. Soooo... The almost bare side of the spruce means that direction is north, and where there are more branches - south. Soooo...

After that, Vasyutka tried to remember on which side of the trees the old notches were made and on which side the new ones were made. But he didn’t notice this. Stitch and stitch.

- Oh, dumbass!

Fear began to weigh even more heavily. The boy spoke out loud again:

- Okay, don't be shy. Let's find a hut. We have to go one way. We must go south. The Yenisei makes a turn at the hut, you can’t pass by it. Well, everything is fine, but you, weirdo, were afraid! – Vasyutka laughed and cheerfully commanded himself: “Arsh step!” Hey, two!

But the vigor did not last long. There were no problems and there were no problems. At times the boy thought he could clearly see them on the dark trunk. With a sinking heart, he ran to the tree to feel with his hand a notch with droplets of resin, but instead he discovered a rough fold of bark. Vasyutka had already changed direction several times, poured pine cones out of the bag and walked, walked...

The forest became completely quiet. Vasyutka stopped and stood listening for a long time. Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock-knock... - the heart beat. Then Vasyutka’s hearing, strained to the limit, caught some strange sound. There was a buzzing sound somewhere.

It froze and a second later came again, like the hum of a distant plane. Vasyutka bent down and saw the rotted carcass of a bird at his feet. An experienced hunter - a spider stretched a web over a dead bird. The spider is no longer there - it must have gone away to spend the winter in some hollow, and abandoned the trap. A well-fed, large spitting fly got into it and beats, beats, buzzes with weakening wings.

Something began to bother Vasyutka at the sight of a helpless fly stuck in a snare. And then it hit him: he was lost!

This discovery was so simple and stunning that Vasyutka did not immediately come to his senses.

He had heard many times from hunters scary stories about how people wander in the forest and sometimes die, but this was not how he imagined it at all. It all worked out very simply. Vasyutka did not yet know that terrible things in life often begin very simply.

The stupor lasted until Vasyutka heard some mysterious rustling in the depths of the darkened forest. He screamed and started running. How many times he stumbled, fell, got up and ran again, Vasyutka did not know. Finally, he jumped into a windfall and began to crash through the dry, thorny branches. Then he fell from the fallen trees face down into the damp moss and froze. Despair overwhelmed him, and he immediately lost his strength. “Come what may,” he thought detachedly.

Night flew into the forest silently, like an owl. And with it comes the cold. Vasyutka felt his sweat-soaked clothes getting cold.

“Taiga, our nurse, doesn’t like flimsy people!” – he remembered the words of his father and grandfather. And he began to remember everything that he had been taught, that he knew from the stories of fishermen and hunters.

First things first, you need to light a fire. It's good that I brought matches from home. Matches came in handy.

Vasyutka broke off the lower dry branches of the tree, groped for a bunch of dry bearded moss, chopped up the twigs into small pieces, put everything in a pile and set it on fire. The light, swaying, crawled uncertainly along the branches. The moss flared up and everything around became brighter. Vasyutka threw more branches. Shadows scurried between the trees, the darkness receded further. Itching monotonously, several mosquitoes flew onto the fire - it’s more fun with them.

We had to stock up on firewood for the night. Vasyutka, not sparing his hands, broke branches, dragged dry dead wood, and turned out an old stump. Pulling a piece of bread out of the bag, he sighed and thought sadly: “He’s crying, go ahead, mother.”

He also wanted to cry, but he overcame himself and, plucking the capercaillie, began to gut it with a penknife. Then he raked the fire to the side, dug a hole in the hot spot and put the bird there. Covering it tightly with moss, he sprinkled it with hot earth, ash, coals, put flaming brands on top and added firewood.

About an hour later he unearthed a wood grouse. The bird gave off steam and an appetizing smell: a capercaillie drowned in its own juice - a hunting dish! But without salt, what would the taste be? Vasyutka struggled to swallow the unleavened meat.

- Eh, stupid, stupid! How much of this salt is in barrels on the shore! What did it take to pour a handful into your pocket! - he reproached himself.

Then he remembered that the bag he took for the cones was from salt, and hastily turned it out. He picked out a pinch of dirty crystals from the corners of the bag, crushed them on the butt of the gun and smiled forcefully:

After dinner, Vasyutka put the rest of the food in a bag, hung it on a branch so that mice or anyone else wouldn’t get to the grub, and began to prepare a place to spend the night.

He moved the fire to the side, removed all the coals, threw on branches with pine needles, moss and lay down, covering himself with a padded jacket.

It was heated from below.

Busy with chores, Vasyutka did not feel loneliness so keenly. But as soon as I lay down and thought, anxiety began to overcome me with renewed vigor. The polar taiga is not afraid of animals. The bear is a rare resident here. There are no wolves. The snake too. Sometimes there are lynxes and lascivious arctic foxes. But in the fall there is plenty of food for them in the forest, and they could hardly covet Vasyutka’s reserves. And yet it was creepy. He loaded the single-barreled breaker, cocked the hammer and laid the gun down next to him. Sleep!

Not even five minutes had passed when Vasyutka felt that someone was sneaking towards him. He opened his eyes and froze: yes, he’s sneaking! A step, a second, a rustle, a sigh... Someone walks slowly and carefully through the moss. Vasyutka fearfully turns his head and, not far from the fire, sees something dark and large. Now it stands and does not move.

The boy peers intently and begins to make out either hands or paws raised towards the sky. Vasyutka is not breathing: “What is this?” My eyes ripple from tension, I can no longer hold my breath. He jumps up and points his gun at this dark one:

- Who it? Come on, or I’ll hit you with buckshot!

There was no sound in response. Vasyutka stands motionless for some time, then slowly lowers the gun and licks his dry lips. “Really, what could be there?” – he suffers and shouts again:

– I say, don’t hide, otherwise it will get worse!

Silence. Vasyutka wipes the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and, plucking up courage, resolutely heads towards the dark object.

- Oh, damned one! – he sighs with relief, seeing a huge inversion root in front of him. - Well, I’m a coward! I almost lost my mind over this kind of nonsense.

To finally calm down, he breaks off shoots from the rhizome and carries them to the fire.

The August night in the Arctic is short. While Vasyutka was busy with the firewood, the darkness, thick as pitch, began to thin out and hide deeper into the forest. Before it had time to completely dissipate, fog had already crawled out to replace it. It got colder. The fire hissed from the dampness, clicked, and began to sneeze, as if it was angry at the thick veil that shrouded everything around. The mosquitoes that had been bothering me all night had disappeared. Not a breath, not a rustle.

Everything froze in anticipation of the first sound of the morning. What kind of sound this will be is unknown. Perhaps the timid whistle of a bird or the light sound of the wind in the tops of bearded spruce trees and gnarled larches, perhaps a woodpecker knocking on a tree or a wild deer trumpeting.

Something must be born from this silence, someone must awaken the sleepy taiga. Vasyutka shivered chillily, moved closer to the fire and fell fast asleep, never waiting for the morning news.

The sun was already high. The fog fell like dew on the trees, on the ground, fine dust sparkled everywhere.

“Where am I?” – Vasyutka thought in amazement and, finally waking up, heard the lively taiga.

Throughout the forest, nutcrackers shouted anxiously in the manner of market women. Somewhere, Zhelna began to cry childishly. Above Vasyutka's head, titmice were gutting an old tree, squeaking busily. Vasyutka stood up, stretched and scared away the feeding squirrel. She, clattering in alarm, rushed up the trunk of the spruce, sat down on a branch and, without ceasing to clack, stared at Vasyutka.

- Well, what are you looking at? I did not recognize? – Vasyutka turned to her with a smile.

The squirrel moved its fluffy tail.

- But I got lost. He foolishly rushed after a wood grouse and got lost. Now they are looking for me all over the forest, my mother is roaring... You don’t understand anything, talk to you! Otherwise I would have run and told our people where I was. You are so agile! “He paused and waved his hand: “Get out, redhead, I’ll shoot!”

Vasyutka raised his gun and fired into the air. The squirrel, like a feather caught in the wind, darted and went to count the trees.

After watching her go, Vasyutka fired again and waited a long time for an answer. Taiga didn't respond. The nutcrackers were still annoyingly and discordantly bawling, a woodpecker was working nearby, and drops of dew were clicking as they fell from the trees.

There are ten cartridges left. Vasyutka no longer dared to shoot. He took off his padded jacket, threw his cap over it and, spitting on his hands, climbed up the tree...

Taiga... Taiga... She stretched endlessly in all directions, silent, indifferent. From above it seemed like a huge dark sea. The sky did not end immediately, as it happens in the mountains, but stretched far, far away, pressing closer and closer to the tops of the forest. The clouds overhead were sparse, but the longer Vasyutka looked, the thicker they became, and finally the blue openings disappeared completely. The clouds lay like compressed cotton wool on the taiga, and it dissolved in them.

For a long time Vasyutka looked with his eyes for a yellow strip of larch among the motionless green sea (deciduous forest usually stretches along the banks of the river), but all around was dark coniferous forest. Apparently, the Yenisei, too, was lost in the remote, gloomy taiga. Vasyutka felt very small and cried out with anguish and despair:

- Hey, mom! Folder! Grandfather! I'm lost!..

Vasyutka slowly came down from the tree, thought and sat there for half an hour. Then he shook himself, cut off the meat and, trying not to look at the small edge of the bread, began to chew. Having refreshed himself, he collected a bunch of pine cones, crushed them and began to pour nuts into his pockets. The hands did their job, and the question was being solved in the head, one single question: “Where to go?” Now the pockets are full of nuts, the cartridges have been checked, a belt is attached to the bag instead of a strap, but the issue is still not resolved. Finally, Vasyutka threw the bag over his shoulder, stood for a minute, as if saying goodbye to the place he lived in, and walked due north. He reasoned simply: the taiga stretches for thousands of kilometers to the south, you will get completely lost in it. And if you go north, then after a hundred kilometers the forest will end and the tundra will begin. Vasyutka understood that going out into the tundra was not salvation. Settlements there are very rare, and you are unlikely to come across people soon. But at least he can get out of the forest, which blocks the light and oppresses him with its gloominess.

The weather was still good. Vasyutka was afraid to think about what would happen to him if autumn raged. By all indications, the wait won't be long.

The sun was setting when Vasyutka noticed skinny stems of grass among the monotonous moss. He quickened his pace. Grass began to appear more often and no longer in individual blades, but in bunches. Vasyutka became worried: grass usually grows near large bodies of water. “Is the Yenisei really ahead?” – Vasyutka thought with surging joy. Noticing birches, aspen trees, and then small bushes between the coniferous trees, he could not restrain himself, ran and soon burst into dense thickets of bird cherry, creeping willow, and currant. Tall nettles stung his face and hands, but Vasyutka did not pay attention to this and, protecting his eyes from the flexible branches with his hand, he made his way forward with a crash. A gap flashed between the bushes.

The shore is ahead... Water! Not believing his eyes, Vasyutka stopped. He stood like that for some time and felt that his legs were getting stuck. Swamp! Swamps most often occur near the shores of lakes. Vasyutka’s lips trembled: “No, it’s not true! There are swamps near the Yenisei too.” A few jumps through thicket, nettles, bushes - and here he is on the shore.

No, this is not the Yenisei. Before Vasyutka’s eyes is a small, dull lake, covered with duckweed near the shore.

Vasyutka lay down on his stomach, scooped up the green mush of duckweed with his hand and greedily pressed his lips to the water. Then he sat down, with a tired movement took off the bag, began to wipe his face with his cap, and suddenly, clinging to it with his teeth, he burst into tears.

... Vasyutka decided to spend the night on the shore of the lake. He chose a drier place, hauled in some wood, and lit a fire. It's always more fun with a light, and even more so alone. Having fried the cones in the fire, Vasyutka rolled them out of the ash with a stick, one after another, like a baked potato. His tongue was already hurting from the nuts, but he decided: as long as he had enough patience, not to touch the bread, but to eat nuts and meat, whatever he had to.

Evening was falling. Through the dense coastal thickets, reflections of the sunset fell on the water, stretched in living streams into the depths and were lost there, without reaching the bottom. Saying goodbye to the day, here and there titmice tinkled sadly, a jay cried, and loons moaned. And yet, it was much more fun by the lake than in the thick of the taiga. But there are still many mosquitoes here. They began to pester Vasyutka. Waving them off, the boy carefully watched the ducks diving on the lake. They were not at all frightened and swam near the shore with a masterly quack. There were a lot of ducks. There was no reason to shoot one at a time. Vasyutka, grabbing a gun, went to the toe that jutted into the lake and sat down on the grass. Next to the sedge, on the smooth surface of the water, circles kept blurring. This caught the boy's attention. Vasyutka looked into the water and froze: fish were swarming around the grass, densely, one next to the other, moving their gills and tails. There were so many fish that Vasyutka began to doubt: “Algae, probably?” He touched the grass with a stick. Schools of fish moved away from the shore and stopped again, lazily working with their fins.

Vasyutka had never seen so many fish before. And not just any lake fish - pike, sorog or perch - no, by their wide backs and white sides he recognized peleds, whitefish, and whitefish. This was the most amazing thing. There are white fish in the lake!

Vasyutka knitted his thick eyebrows, trying to remember something. But at that moment a herd of wigeon ducks distracted him from his thoughts. He waited until the ducks were level with the cape, singled out a pair and fired. Two elegant wigeons turned upside down with their bellies and often moved their paws. Another duck, its wing protruding, swam sideways from the shore. The rest were alarmed and noisily flew to the other side of the lake. For about ten minutes, herds of frightened birds flew over the water.

The boy pulled out a couple of ducks with a long stick, but the third managed to swim far away.

“Okay, I’ll get it tomorrow,” Vasyutka waved his hand.

The sky had already darkened and twilight was falling in the forest. The middle of the lake now resembled a hot stove. It seemed that if you put slices of potatoes on the smooth surface of the water, they would instantly bake and smell burnt and delicious. Vasyutka swallowed his saliva, looked again at the lake, at the bloody sky and said with alarm:

- There will be wind tomorrow. What if it still rains?

He plucked the ducks, buried them in the hot coals of the fire, lay down on the fir branches and began cracking nuts.

The dawn has burned out. There were sparse motionless clouds in the darkened sky. The stars began to appear. A small, nail-like moon appeared. It became lighter. Vasyutka remembered the words of his grandfather: “Started - to the cold!” – and his soul became even more anxious.

To drive away bad thoughts, Vasyutka tried to think first about home, and then he remembered school and comrades.

How much in life did Vasyutka want to know and see? A lot of. Will he find out? Will he get out of the taiga? Lost in it like a grain of sand. What now at home? There, behind the taiga, people seem to be in another world: they watch movies, eat bread... maybe even candy. They eat as much as they want. The school is probably now preparing to welcome students. A new poster has already been hung above the school doors, on which it is written in large letters: “Welcome!”

Vasyutka was completely depressed. He felt sorry for himself and began to feel remorse. So he didn’t listen in class and during recess he almost walked on his head... Children from all over the area come to school: here are the Evenks, here are the Nenets, and the Nganasans. They have their own habits. It happened that one of them would take out a pipe during class and light a cigarette without further consideration.

First-graders are especially guilty of this. They just came from the taiga and don’t understand any discipline. If teacher Olga Fedorovna begins to explain to such a student about the harmfulness of smoking, he becomes offended; If the phone is taken away, it roars. Vasyutka himself smoked and gave them tobacco.

“Oh, I wish I could see Olga Feodorovna now...” Vasyutka thought out loud. “I wish I could shake out all the tobacco.”

Vasyutka was tired during the day, but sleep did not come. He added some wood to the fire and lay down on his back again. The clouds have disappeared. Distant and mysterious, the stars winked, as if calling me somewhere. One of them rushed down, traced the dark sky and immediately melted away. “The star went out, which means someone’s life was cut short,” Vasyutka recalled the words of grandfather Afanasy.

Vasyutka felt completely sad.

“Maybe our people saw her?” - he thought, pulling his padded jacket over his face, and soon fell into a restless sleep.

Vasyutka woke up late, from the cold, and saw neither the lake, nor the sky, nor the bushes. Again there was a sticky, motionless fog all around. Only loud and frequent slaps were heard from the lake: it was fish playing and feeding.

Vasyutka stood up, shivered, dug out the ducks, fanned the coals. When the fire flared up, he warmed his back, then cut off a piece of bread, took one duck and began to eat quickly. The thought that bothered Vasyutka last night came into his head again: “Where are there so many white fish in the lake?” He had heard more than once from fishermen that some lakes supposedly contained white fish, but these lakes must be or were once flowing. "What if?…"

Yes, if the lake is flowing and a river flows out of it, it will eventually lead it to the Yenisei. No, it's better not to think. Yesterday I was overjoyed - Yenisei, Yenisei - and saw a marsh cone. No, it’s better not to think.

Having finished with the duck, Vasyutka still lay by the fire, waiting for the fog to subside. The eyelids were stuck together. But even through the viscous, dull drowsiness it was possible to say: “Where did the river fish come from in the lake?”

- Ugh, evil spirits! – Vasyutka swore. – I’m attached like a leaf. “Where from, where from?” Well, maybe the birds brought caviar on their feet, well, maybe they brought fry, well, maybe... Oh, that’s it for the leshaks! - Vasyutka jumped up and, angrily cracking the bushes, bumping into fallen trees in the fog, began to make his way along the shore. I didn’t find yesterday’s killed duck on the water, I was surprised and decided that it had been carried away by a kite or eaten by water rats.

It seemed to Vasyutka that in the place where the shores meet was the end of the lake, but he was mistaken. There was only an isthmus there. When the fog dissolved, a large, sparsely overgrown lake opened in front of the boy, and the one near which he spent the night was just a bay - an echo of the lake.

- Wow! – Vasyutka gasped. “That’s where the fisheries are, probably... Here we wouldn’t have to waste water with nets.” I wish I could get out and tell you. “And, encouraging himself, he added: “What?” And I will go out! I’ll go, I’ll go and...

Then Vasyutka noticed a small lump floating near the isthmus, came closer and saw a stricken duck. He was stunned: “Is it really mine? How did it get here?!” The boy quickly broke the stick and scooped the bird towards him. Yes, it was a wigeon duck with a cherry-colored head.

- My! My! – Vasyutka muttered in excitement, throwing the duck into the bag. - My duck! “He even started to feel feverish.” - Since there was no wind, and the duck was carried away, it means there is a draft, a flowing lake!

It was both joyful and somehow scary to believe in it. Hastily stepping from hummock to hummock, Vasyutka made his way through the windfall and dense berry patches. In one place, almost from under our feet, a huge wood grouse flew up and sat down nearby. Vasyutka showed him the fig:

- Don’t you want this? I'll be damned if I contact your brother again!

The wind was rising.

Dry trees that had outlived their days swayed and creaked. Leaves picked up from the ground and torn from trees began to swirl above the lake in a wild flock. The loons moaned, signaling bad weather. The lake became wrinkled, shadows on the water swayed, clouds covered the sun, everything around became gloomy and uncomfortable.

Far ahead, Vasyutka noticed a yellow groove of deciduous forest entering the depths of the taiga. So there is a river there. His throat was dry from excitement. “Again, some kind of lake gut. “I’m imagining things, that’s all,” Vasyutka doubted, but he walked faster. Now he was even afraid to stop for a drink: what if he leaned towards the water, raised his head and did not see a bright groove ahead?

After running for a kilometer along a barely noticeable bank overgrown with reeds, sedges and small bushes, Vasyutka stopped and took a breath. The thickets disappeared, and high, steep banks appeared in their place.

- Here it is, the river! Now without deception! – Vasyutka was delighted.

True, he understood that streams could flow not only into the Yenisei, but also into some other lake, but he did not want to think about it. The river that he had been looking for for so long must lead him to the Yenisei, otherwise... he will become weak and disappear. Look, for some reason I’m feeling sick...

To drown out the nausea, Vasyutka picked bunches of red currants as he walked, popping them into his mouth along with the stems. My mouth was cramping from the sourness and my tongue, scratched by the nut shell, was stinging.

Rain is coming. At first the drops were large and sparse, then it thickened all around, it poured, it poured... Vasyutka noticed a fir tree growing widely among the small aspen trees, and lay down under it. There was neither the desire nor the strength to move, to start a fire. I wanted to eat and sleep. He picked out a small piece from the stale edge and, in order to prolong the pleasure, did not swallow it immediately, but began to suck. I wanted to eat even more. Vasyutka snatched the remains of the pink salmon from the bag, grabbed it with his teeth and, chewing poorly, ate it all.

The rain did not let up. The fir tree swayed from strong gusts of wind, shaking cold drops of water over Vasyutka’s collar. They crawled down my back. Vasyutka hunched over and pulled his head into his shoulders. His eyelids began to close on their own, as if heavy weights had been hung on them, the kind that are tied to fishing nets.

When he woke up, darkness, mixed with rain, was already descending on the forest. It was still just as sad; it became even colder.

- Well, loaded it, damned one! – Vasyutka cursed the rain.

He put his hands in his sleeves, pressed himself closer to the fir trunk and fell into a heavy sleep again. At dawn, Vasyutka, his teeth chattering from the cold, crawled out from under the fir tree, breathed on his chilled hands and began looking for dry firewood. The aspen forest stripped almost naked overnight. Like thin slices of beets, dark red leaves lay on the ground. The water in the river has noticeably increased. Forest life fell silent. Even the nutcrackers did not vote.

Having straightened the flaps of his padded jacket, Vasyutka protected a pile of branches and a piece of birch bark from the wind. There are four matches left. Without breathing, he struck a match on the box, let the fire flare up in his palms and brought it to the birch bark. She began to writhe, curled up into a tube and began to work. A tail of black smoke stretched out. The knots flared up, hissing and crackling. Vasyutka took off his leaky boots and unwound his dirty footcloths. My legs were weak and wrinkled from the dampness. He warmed them up, dried his boots and foot wraps, tore off the ribbons from his underpants and tied them up with the sole of his right boot, which was held on by three nails.

While warming himself near the fire, Vasyutka suddenly caught something similar to a mosquito squeak and froze. A second later the sound was repeated, at first long-drawn, then several times short.

“Beep! – Vasyutka guessed. - The steamer is humming! But why is it heard from there, from the lake? Oh, I see".

The boy knew these taiga tricks: the whistle always responds to a nearby body of water. But the steamship on the Yenisei is humming! Vasyutka was sure of this. Hurry, hurry, run there! He was in such a hurry as if he had a ticket for this very ship.

At noon, Vasyutka raised a herd of geese from the river, hit them with buckshot and knocked out two. He was in a hurry, so he roasted one goose on a spit, and not in a pit, as he had done before. There were two matches left, and Vasyutka’s strength was running out. I wanted to lie down and not move. He could have moved two or three hundred meters away from the river. There, through the open forest, it was much easier to get through, but he was afraid of losing sight of the river. The boy walked, almost falling from fatigue. Suddenly the forest parted, revealing the sloping bank of the Yenisei before Vasyutka. The boy froze. It even took his breath away - so beautiful, so wide was his native river! And before, for some reason, she seemed ordinary to him and not very friendly. He rushed forward, fell on the edge of the bank and began to grab the water with greedy gulps, slap his hands on it, and plunge his face into it.

- Yeniseyushko! Nice, good... - Vasyutka sniffed and smeared tears down his face with his dirty, smoke-smelling hands. Vasyutka went completely crazy with joy. He started jumping and throwing up handfuls of sand. Flocks of white gulls rose from the shore and circled over the river with dissatisfied cries.

Just as unexpectedly, Vasyutka woke up, stopped making noise and even became somewhat embarrassed and looked around. But there was no one anywhere, and he began to decide where to go: up or down the Yenisei? The place was unfamiliar. The boy never came up with anything. It’s a shame, of course: maybe the house is close, there is a mother, grandfather, father, as much food as you want, but here you sit and wait for someone to swim by, but people don’t swim in the lower reaches of the Yenisei very often.

Vasyutka looks up and down the river. The banks stretch towards each other, want to close and get lost in the vastness. Over there, in the upper reaches of the river, smoke appeared. Small, like a cigarette. There is more and more smoke... Now a dark point has appeared under it. The ship is coming. There's still a long wait for him. To somehow pass the time, Vasyutka decided to wash himself. A boy with sharpened cheekbones looked at him from the water. The smoke, dirt and wind made his eyebrows even darker and his lips chapped.

- Well, you’ve reached it, friend! – Vasyutka shook his head.

What if I had to wander longer?

The steamer was getting closer and closer. Vasyutka already saw that this was not an ordinary steamship, but a double-decker passenger ship. Vasyutka tried to make out the inscription and, when he finally succeeded, he read aloud with pleasure:

- “Sergo Ordzhonikidze.”

Dark figures of passengers loomed on the ship. Vasyutka rushed about on the shore.

- Hey, stop! Take me! Hey!.. Listen!..

One of the passengers noticed him and waved. Vasyutka followed the ship with a confused look.

- Eh, you guys are still called captains! “Sergo Ordzhonikidze”, but you don’t want to help the person...

Vasyutka understood, of course, what long haul from Krasnoyarsk, the “captains” saw a lot of people on the shore, you couldn’t stop near everyone - and yet it was insulting. He started collecting firewood for the night...

This night was especially long and anxious.

It seemed to Vasyutka that someone was sailing along the Yenisei. Now he heard the slap of oars, now the knock of a motorboat, now the whistles of steamships.

In the morning, he actually caught evenly repeating sounds: but-but-but-but... Only the exhaust pipe of a fish-collecting boat could knock like that.

- Did you really wait? “Vasyutka jumped up, rubbed his eyes and shouted: “It’s knocking!” - And again he listened and began to sing, dancing and singing: - The bot is knocking, knocking, knocking!..

He immediately came to his senses, grabbed his gear and ran along the shore towards the boat. Then he rushed back and began to put all the wood he had stored into the fire: he guessed that he would be noticed more quickly by the fire. Sparks flew up and flames rose high. Finally, a tall, clumsy silhouette of a bot emerged from the predawn darkness.

Vasyutka desperately shouted:

- On the bot! Hey, on the bot! Stop! I'm lost! Hey! Guys! Who's alive there? Hey, helmsman!..

He remembered the gun, grabbed it and started firing upward: bang! Bang! Bang!

-Who's shooting? – a booming, suppressed voice rang out, as if the man was speaking without opening his lips. This was asked through a bullhorn from a bot.

- Yes, it’s me, Vaska! I'm lost! Please stop! Land quickly!..

But Vasyutka could not believe it and fired the last cartridge.

- Uncle, don’t leave! - he shouted. - Take me! Take it!..

The boat departed from the boat.

Vasyutka rushed into the water, walked towards him, swallowing tears and saying:

- I got lost, completely lost...

Then, when they dragged him into the boat, he hurried:

- Hurry up, guys, swim quickly, otherwise another boat will leave! There was just a glimpse of the steamer yesterday...

- What did you say, little guy?! - a thick bass was heard from the stern of the boat, and Vasyutka recognized the foreman of the Igarets boat by his voice and funny Ukrainian accent.

- Uncle Kolyada! It is you? And it’s me, Vaska! – the boy stopped crying and spoke.

- Who is Vaska?

- Yes, Shadrinsky. Do you know Grigory Shadrin, the fishing foreman?

- Tu-u! How did you get here?

And when in the dark cockpit, devouring bread with dried sturgeon on both cheeks, Vasyutka talked about his adventures, Kolyada slapped his knees and exclaimed:

- Ay, said lad! Why did that capercaillie give up? I shouted obscenities and curses at my dad.

- Also my grandfather...

Kolyada shook with laughter:

- Oh, what about Toby! He remembered Dida too! Ha ha ha! What an encore soul! Do you know if it took you out?

– Sixty kilometers below your camp.

- Otse tobi and well! Go to bed, let's go to sleep, my dear grief...

Vasyutka fell asleep on the sergeant major’s bunk, wrapped in a blanket and clothes that were available in the cockpit.

And Kolyada looked at him, spread his arms and muttered:

- Wow, the capercaillie hero is sleeping, and his father and mother are crazy...

Without ceasing to mutter, he went up to the helm and ordered:

– There will be no stop on Peschany Island and at Korasikha. Go straight to Shadrin.

- It’s clear, comrade sergeant major, we’ll get the lad in immediately!

Approaching the parking lot of foreman Shadrin, the helmsman turned the siren handle. A piercing howl echoed over the river. But Vasyutka did not hear the signal.

Grandfather Afanasy came down to the shore and took the chin from the boat.

- Why are you alone today? - asked the sailor on watch, throwing down the ladder.

“Don’t talk, soaring,” the grandfather responded sadly. - We have trouble, oh trouble!.. Vasyutka, my grandson, is lost. We've been looking for five days. Oh-ho-ho, what a boy he was, what a smart, sharp-eyed boy!..

-What is this? - the grandfather perked up and dropped the pouch from which he was scooping up tobacco with a pipe. - You... you, soaring, don’t laugh at the old man. Where could Vasyutka come from on the bot?

“I’m telling the truth, we picked him up on the shore!” He made such a mess there - all the devils hid in the swamp!

- Don't chatter! Where is Vasyutka? Give it quickly! Is he whole?

- Tse-el. The foreman went to wake him up.

Grandfather Afanasy rushed to the ladder, but immediately turned sharply and trotted upstairs to the hut:

- Anna! Anna! Found a minnow! Anna! Where are you? Run quickly! He was found...

Vasyutka’s mother appeared in a colorful apron, with her scarf askew. When she saw the ragged Vasyutka coming down the ladder, her legs gave way. She sank onto the stones with a groan, stretching out her arms to meet her son.

... And now Vasyutka is at home! The hut is so heated that it is impossible to breathe. They covered him with two quilts, a reindeer's fur and a down shawl.

Vasyutka lies on the trestle bed, exhausted, and his mother and grandfather are busy around him, kicking the cold out of him. His mother rubbed him with alcohol, his grandfather steamed some roots that were bitter, like wormwood, and forced him to drink this potion.

– Maybe you can eat something else, Vasenka? - the mother asked tenderly, like a patient.

- Yes, mom, there’s nowhere to go...

- What if the jam is blueberry? You love him!

– If it’s blueberry, maybe two spoons will do.

- Eat, eat!

- Oh, Vasyukha, Vasyukha! - Grandfather stroked his head. - How did you go wrong? Since this is the case, there was no need to rush around. They would find you soon. Well, okay, that's a thing of the past. Flour - forward science. Yes, you say you killed the wood grouse after all? Case! We'll buy you a new gun for next year. You'll still kill the bear. Mark my words!

- Not my God! – the mother was indignant. “I won’t let you close to the hut with a gun.” Buy an accordion, a receiver, but don’t even have the nerve to have a gun!

- Let's talk women's talk! – Grandfather waved his hand. - Well, the guy got lost a little. So now, in your opinion, don’t even go to the forest?

The grandfather winked at Vasyutka: he said, don’t pay attention, there will be a new gun - and that’s the whole story!

The mother wanted to say something else, but Druzhok barked on the street, and she ran out of the hut.

Grigory Afanasyevich walked out of the forest, shoulders wearily slumped, in a wet raincoat. His eyes were sunken, his face, overgrown with thick black stubble, was gloomy.

“It’s all in vain,” he waved his hand dismissively. - No, the guy disappeared...

- Found! He's at home...

Grigory Afanasyevich stepped towards his wife, stood confused for a minute, then spoke, holding back his excitement:

- Well, why cry? Found - and good. Why get wet? Is he healthy? - And, without waiting for an answer, he headed towards the hut.

His mother stopped him:

– You, Grisha, are not particularly strict with him. He's been through enough. I told you about it, it gave me goosebumps...

- Okay, don’t teach!

Grigory Afanasyevich went into the hut, put the gun in the corner, and took off his raincoat.

Vasyutka, sticking his head out from under the blanket, timidly and expectantly watched his father. Grandfather Afanasy coughed, smoking his pipe.

- Well, where are you, tramp? – the father turned to Vasyutka, and a barely noticeable smile touched his lips.

- Here I am! – Vasyutka jumped up from the trestle bed, bursting into tears happy laughter. “My mother wrapped me up like a girl, but I didn’t catch a cold at all.” Feel it, dad. “He extended his father’s hand to his forehead.

Grigory Afanasyevich pressed his son’s face to his stomach and lightly patted him on the back:

- He started chattering, Varnak! Ooh, swamp fever! You've caused us trouble, spoiled our blood!.. Tell me, where have you been?

“He keeps talking about some lake,” said grandfather Afanasy. - Pisces, he says, are visible and invisible in him.

“We know a lot of fish lakes even without him, but you won’t suddenly end up on them.”

“And you can swim to this one, dad, because a river flows out of it.”

- River, you say? – Grigory Afanasyevich perked up. - Interesting! Come on, come on, tell me what kind of lake you found there...

Two days later, Vasyutka, like a real guide, walked up the bank of the river, and a team of fishermen in boats rose after him.

The weather was very autumnal. Furry clouds rushed somewhere, almost touching the tops of the trees; the forest rustled and swayed; The alarming cries of birds moving south were heard in the sky. Now Vasyutka didn’t care about any bad weather. Wearing rubber boots and a canvas jacket, he stayed close to his father, adjusting to his step, and said:

- They, geese, are all going to take off at once, I’ll give it to you! Two fell on the spot, and one still hobbled and hobbled and fell in the forest, but I didn’t follow him, I was afraid to leave the river.

Clods of mud stuck to Vasyutka’s boots, he was tired, sweaty and no, no, and even started to trot to keep up with his father.

- And I kicked them in the air, they were geese...

The father did not respond. Vasyutka wandered off in silence and began again:

- And what? It turns out it’s even better to fly in and shoot: you hit a few at once!

- Don't boast! – the father noticed and shook his head. - And what kind of braggart are you growing into? Trouble!

“Yes, I’m not bragging: since it’s true, so should I boast,” Vasyutka muttered in embarrassment and turned the conversation to something else. “And soon, dad, there will be a fir tree under which I spent the night.” Oh, and I was chilled then!

“But now, I see, he’s all gone.” Go to grandpa's boat and brag about the geese. He loves to listen to stories. Go, go!

Vasyutka fell behind his father and waited for the boat, which was being pulled by fishermen. They were very tired, wet, and Vasyutka was embarrassed to swim in the boat and also took up the line and began to help the fishermen.

When a wide lake, lost in the deep taiga, opened up ahead, one of the fishermen said:

- Here is Lake Vasyutkino...

From then on it went: Vasyutkino Lake, Vasyutkino Lake.

There really were a lot of fish in it. Grigory Shadrin’s brigade, and soon another collective farm brigade, switched to lake fishing.

In winter, a hut was built near this lake. Through the snow, collective farmers threw fish containers, salt, and nets there and opened a permanent fishery.

Another blue spot, the size of a fingernail, appeared on the district map, under the words: “Vasyutkino Lake.” On the regional map this is a speck about the size of a pinhead, without a name. On the map of our country, only Vasyutka himself will be able to find this lake.

Maybe you saw spots on the physical map in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, as if a careless student had splashed blue ink from his pen? Somewhere among these blots there is one that is called Vasyutka Lake.

Why did I kill the corncrake?

It was a long time ago, maybe forty years ago. In early autumn, I was returning from fishing through a mown meadow and near a small hollow that had dried out over the summer, overgrown with willow grass, I saw a bird.

She heard me, crouched down in the sloping bristles of the sedge, hid, but felt my eye, was frightened by it, and suddenly began to run, clumsily falling to the side.

There is no need to run away from the boy, like from a hound dog - he will certainly give chase, and a wild passion will be kindled in him. Beware then, living soul!

I caught up with the bird in the furrow and, blind from the chase and the passion of the hunt, I killed it with a damp rod.

I picked up a bird with a withered, seemingly boneless body. Her eyes were pinched with dead, colorless eyelids, her neck dangled like a leaf caught in the frost. The feather on the bird was yellowish, with rust on the sides, and its back seemed to be sprinkled with darkish rotten debris.

I recognized the bird - it was a corncrake. Twitchy in our opinion. All his twitch friends left our places and went to warmer climes to spend the winter. But this one couldn’t leave. He was missing one leg - he fell under a Lithuanian blanket in the hayfield. That's why he ran away from me so clumsily, that's why I caught up with him.

And the thin, almost weightless body of the bird, or the simple coloring, or maybe the fact that it was missing a leg, but I felt so sorry for it that I began to rake out a hole in the furrow with my hands and bury it so simply, the foolishly ruined living creature.

I grew up in a hunter's family and later became a hunter myself, but I never shot unless necessary. With impatience and guilt, already inveterate, every summer I wait for the corncrakes to go home to the Russian lands.

The bird cherry tree has already bloomed, the kupava has fallen off, the hellebore has put on its fourth leaf, the grass has moved into its stem, daisies are strewn across the hills and the nightingales are finishing their songs on their last breath.

But something is still missing early summer, it lacks something, it’s not fully formed in some way, or something.

And then one day, on a dewy morning, across the river, in the meadows covered with still young grass, the creak of a corncrake was heard. The tramp has arrived! I finally got there! It jerks and creaks! This means that summer has begun in full, which means haymaking is coming soon, which means everything is in order.

And every year like this. I languish and wait for the corncrake, I convince myself that this old jerk has somehow miraculously survived and is giving me his voice, forgiving that foolish, gambling boy.

Now I know how difficult the life of the crake is, how far it has to get to us in order to notify Russia about the beginning of summer.

The corncrake winters in Africa and already in April leaves it, hurries there, “... where the poppy dawns wither like the heat of a forgotten fire, where green-haired forests are drowning in the blue dawn, where the meadow has not yet been touched by the scythe, where the cornflower blue eyes...” He goes to twine nest and hatch offspring, feed them and quickly get away from the disastrous winter.

Not adapted for flight, but fast on the run, this bird is forced to fly across the Mediterranean Sea twice a year. Many thousands of corncrakes die on the way, and especially when flying across the sea.

How the corncrake goes, where, in what ways – few people know. Only one city gets in the way of these birds - a small ancient city in the south of France. The city's coat of arms depicts a corncrake. On those days when corncrakes are going through the city, no one works here. All people celebrate the holiday and bake figurines of this bird from dough, just as we, in Rus', bake larks for their arrival.

The crake bird in the French ancient city is considered sacred, and if I had lived there in ancient years, I would have been sentenced to death.

But I live far from France. I’ve been living here for many years and I’ve seen everything. I was at war, I shot at people, and they shot at me.

But why, why, when I hear the creak of a corncrake across the river, my heart trembles and one old torment falls upon me again: why did I kill the corncrake? For what?

Cutie and the cat Gromilo

Fierce, more voracious and more insidious than all the pests on the poultry farm was a rat with yellowish, as if singed, fur on its back and a short tail. She must have lost half of her tail during her wild youth - maybe the rats tore it off in a fight, or maybe she left it in a trap.

This rat kept all the inhabitants of the poultry house in fear. The mice scattered around when a fat, muzzled person appeared among them. She was the formidable mistress of the dark kingdom, which, contrary to all laws, existed under the floor. Uncle Kuzya sometimes heard noise and fussing under the floorboards. This noise was drowned out by an imperious shrill voice. After the fight, the rats whined for a long time and pitifully in the corners.

Uncle Kuzya nicknamed the bob-tailed rat Milakha.

From the outside it might seem that the relationship between Uncle Kuzya and Milakha is the most amiable and peaceful.

But this is only from the outside. In fact, they hated each other fiercely. Milakha hated Uncle Kuzya because he undermined her authority in the rat group. And Uncle Kuzya hated the formidable chieftain because for many years she and her gang had been robbing the collective farm with impunity. The gang grew larger every day, and Milakha herself became more impudent and cheekier.

The rats did not touch the poison. Apparently, their leader knew what this brown, appetizing-looking mass meant. Only stupid mice fell into traps. Uncle Kuzya understood that the whole problem was in Milakh. Once a gang is deprived of its leader, discord will begin within it, and it will inevitably die.

When Uncle Kuzya came to feed the chickens, the entire family of rats and mice scattered in the corners, scurried into holes and became quiet. But Milakha calmly ran around the poultry house, ate from the troughs, not paying the slightest attention to the old man.

The cutie stopped eating, turned her head towards the voice and bared her teeth angrily.

The old man began to collect eggs from the boxes and, as if inadvertently, moved with the automatic egg-collecting unit towards Milakha. But this tactic was so old and primitive that the rat was in no hurry to disappear. When the distance between her and Uncle Kuzya was reduced to five steps, she slowly, impudently wagging her fat butt, went into the hole. There, right away, a plaintive squeak was heard. The cutie would take her anger out on her “subordinates” and bite them as a warning or for some other reason.

And Uncle Kuzya, hitting his cap on the floor, stomped his feet, spat, raised his hands to the ceiling, calling on God, the godlings and the entire “heavenly office” to either calm him down with Christian death, or punish the “evil spirits.”

But then Uncle Kuzya moved with his restless “public,” as he called the chickens and roosters, into the new poultry farm building and sighed with relief. All! Left the gluttonous gang. However, Uncle Kuzya hastened to calm down. Three days later, he heard Milakha’s sharp and, as it seemed to the old man, concerned voice running under the floor. Uncle Kuzya almost cried from impotent rage.

And at night, crackling, rustling, and grinding sounds were heard throughout the poultry house. These numerous predators, led by Milakha, gnawed the floor, dug holes, and settled in the new room with all the amenities. They were very hungry for last days, and the work turned out to be hard: I had to chew on strong floorboards and logs. Having burst into the new poultry house, the mice spent the oats in the barrels and boxes, leaving chaff instead. Rats killed several sick chickens. And soon it was discovered that they were killing not only birds.

One evening Uncle Kuzya went to the bathhouse, took a steam bath and, tired and exhausted, wandered to his poultry house. Here he trimmed his mustache with scissors and combed his curls in front of a round mirror, turned off the radio, lay down on the bed and dozed off.

Some suspicious rustling woke him up.

Uncle Kuzya thought that there were mice running around the walls. They love to pull moss out of the grooves and make secret passages and loopholes there. But instead of mice, Uncle Kuzya saw Milakha. She hurriedly climbed up the wall into the bottom drawer, one of those where Uncle Kuzya laid out the eggs from the machine before handing them over to the collective farm storeroom. The cutie sniffed the eggs and, grabbing one of them with her paws, dragged it to the edge.

Uncle Kuzya pretended to be asleep: he closed his eyes and even began to snore. The cutie looked around, moved her gray mustache, estimated the distance to the floor, and suddenly, turning around, fell on her back. She was unable to hold the egg and released it from her paws. The egg cracked and broke.

Uncle Kuzya thought that this was all the rat needed, but he was mistaken. She thought of something and quickly ducked under the floor.

A minute later the chieftain appeared, accompanied by three “subordinates.” They lay down on their backs in a row, and Milakha climbed into the box, rolled the egg to the edge, took aim and dropped it onto the soft bellies of the rats. They jumped up and immediately rolled the egg under the floor.

Soon they returned, and everything repeated all over again.

Uncle Kuzya could not stand it:

- Cleverly, there’s a rope floating in the tea!

The rats scattered, leaving an egg on the floor. Uncle Kuzya took it in his hands, examined it and thought about it. He had long suspected that rats carried eggs, but he had never seen how they did it.

In the morning, Uncle Kuzya went to the collective farm board to talk about the tricks of the rats. People here loved to hear about what happened at the poultry farm and often asked the old man:

- Well, how is your cutie doing?

He always answered with a chuckle:

- She lives, chews collective farm bread, what does she need?

But this time Uncle Kuzya was gloomy and answered the usual cheerful question without laughing:

- She lives and chews more than one bread.

Many did not believe the message. However, there were people who began to tell even more amusing stories about rats, for example, about how in one store rats drank red wine from a barrel through a straw, and the police blamed the store manager for this... In a word, the conversation turned out to be interesting, but Uncle Kuzya, to To the surprise of everyone, he did not support him and even abruptly interrupted him:

“Well, that’s not in good faith, they didn’t stop you from lying,” the storytellers were offended.

Then Uncle Kuzya exploded: if that’s the case, he won’t go to that damned poultry house again, but let the chairman go there. Sweetie and her company will quickly bring him to fits.

Why does he, Uncle Kuzya, iron Man, and his nerves are so shaken that he sometimes cannot vouch for himself. To confirm this, Uncle Kuzya slammed the door so hard that the inkwell fell from the accountant’s desk.

During the day, the chairman of the collective farm visited the poultry house. Uncle Kuzya showed him broken egg, damaged floor, many holes. In the end he complained that he had to take his food outside and eat frozen bread. And with his teeth you can’t even chew a fresh one. This was the first time the chairman had heard Uncle Kuzi complain about “personal things” and was therefore amazed:

- Yes, this is really a problem! - And, after thinking, he suggested: - Listen, take our Muska for a while, she’s really lazy, but they say that rats, and especially mice, are afraid of the cat’s smell.

The Chairman's cat Muska turned out to be not only lazy, but also cowardly. She couldn't stand even one night in the poultry house.

At first she sniffed and wagged her tail. But then it got dark, the rats started fussing under the floor, squealing and running around.

Muska - under the bed.

However, even there she found it creepy. She jumped onto Uncle Kuza's bed, but was thrown out of there with contempt.

Uncle Kuzya scolded her last words, and mercilessly shamed the chairman for keeping such useless cattle in the house and raising a bourgeois lady on collective farm grain.

In the morning Muska came to the door and meowed: let me go, for God’s sake, you’ll be lost here! Uncle Kuzya opened the door, gave the sleek cat a final kick and spat after it.

Soon Uncle Kuzya went to the city to the market and saw there a homeless skinny cat with one ear and wild eyes.

The cat wandered around the market, made daring raids on the meat aisles and, in front of the public, grabbed a sparrow dozing under the roof of the dairy pavilion.

People waved their arms, stomped, and tried to intimidate the tramp.

The cat settled on the crossbar, and from there feathers flew onto the heads of the market women.

Having eaten the bird, the cat wiped it with its paw and took up further hunting, and Uncle Kuzya, grabbing his neighbors by the hands, shouted with delight:

- This is it! This is thunder! I would like one like this for the farm.

- So take it, who doesn’t tell you to? The entire market is crying bitterly because of him.

- Where can you catch something like this? – Uncle Kuzya said with respect. “He’s probably been beaten so much that he’s afraid of people more than fire.”

But still, Uncle Kuzya found the boys at the market and promised them a ruble for delivering the cat. Half an hour later the boys brought the market pirate to Uncle Kuza and, showing their bloody scratched hands, demanded:

- Add, grandfather, another coin, or something, they suffered.

So the stray cat ended up on the farm and, with the light hand of Uncle Kuzy, received a formidable name - Gromilo.

The cat liked it at the poultry farm. He looked around, to begin with, he pulled a piece of lard off the table, secretly crushed it, and fell into a barrel of oats to sleep.

Uncle Kuzya did not scold or punish the cat for lard. He curried favor with this homeless tramp, tried to soften his hard soul with affection and care. He even tried to pet the cat, but it dug its claws into the old man’s hand. Uncle Kuzya endured this too. He was ready to undergo any humiliation and torment in order for the cat to take root on the farm.

Having slept, Thug sipped some water, yawned and suddenly instantly transformed. His tail began to move silently from side to side, like a rudder. The neck has shortened. He shrank, tensed up and made an unexpected throw into the corner, towards the barrels. There was a squeak, and a minute later the Bruiser appeared with a mouse in his teeth.

His eyes burned with a merciless green fire!

No, he didn't play with the caught mouse. This stern fighter did not know that there was entertainment in the world. But Gromilo knew well what hunger was. Before he had time to dispose of the prey, he became alert again and made the jump again.

Uncle Kuzya quietly rejoiced:

- All! The gang is missing! Krants!

In the morning, Uncle Kuzya found a bunch of mice near the stove. They were of all stripes and breeds. The cat Gromilo himself, with a suspiciously swollen belly, was dozing on the stove, tired from the night's work.

Uncle Kuzya did not even warm up the tea, so as not to disturb the hunter. He grabbed the bottle and silently jumped out of the poultry house.

An hour later the old man returned from the village with milk. During this time, all the collective farmers managed to find out that the cat Gromilo had appeared in these parts, who would restore order not only on the farm, but throughout the entire village.

Uncle Kuzya poured milk into a can and, when the cat woke up, timidly asked:

- I would like to drink some milk to the fullest.

The big man didn’t have to ask himself, he lapped up all the milk and climbed into the barrel of oats to top it up.

At night he hunted again.

The squeals under the floor died down, the fussing and running stopped.

Rats and mice came under siege, rarely stole, lived in constant fear, screamed at night. Probably, the face of the cat Bruiser, glowing with eerie green lights, appeared to them in a dream.

Sometimes Gromilo would go with Uncle Kuzya to the poultry house, where he would look at the chickens, not entirely indifferently.

Uncle Kuzya once reproached the cat:

- Why, brother, doesn’t Milahu take your tooth? You have fun with mice and little rats. You catch her, anathema, then you will live up to your name entirely.

But the enemy went underground and did not accept open battle. Then Uncle Kuzya cemented all the holes in both halves of the poultry house and left only one, in the feed kitchen. This made the work of the cat Brute much easier.

The cutie didn't show up. But there was no doubt that she lived and acted. Sometimes a struggle arose under the floor and the old chieftain’s voice, sharp as the creak of a saw, was heard again.

Uncle Kuzya ran to look, but it turned out to be just Milakha’s “subordinates,” whom she apparently sent on reconnaissance.

The cat Gromilo had become so fat that it was possible, although doubtful, to be allowed alone among the chickens. Uncle Kuzya once locked the cat in the poultry house.

In the middle of the night, a commotion arose in the half where the Bruiser was left. The chickens flapped their wings and the roosters crowed. Uncle Kuzya put his feet in felt boots and hurried there.

In a dim corner of the poultry house, under the boxes of laying hens, he discovered a bitten, bloody cat Bruiser. The cat diligently licked his wounds. At some distance from him, Milakha was lying with her head torn to pieces.

The brute didn't even look at her.

Uncle Kuzya bent over the wounded cat. Not daring to stroke or caress him, the old man only expressed his admiration in words:

- Bruiser! You are a great warrior! You destroyed the pest!.. You saved thousands of collective farms, and for this you are entitled to a large bonus in the form of milk and fish. Do they give bonuses to border dogs for faithful service? They do. So I demand it for you too. If I don’t demand it, it means I’m not an old red partisan, and then let me be kicked out of the post of farm manager.

Received the Gromilo Award. The rumor about the heroic cat spread throughout all the surrounding villages. People came to marvel at the cat Bruiser, a whole class of schoolchildren arrived. The teacher wrote a poem about the cat Bruiser, but it was rejected in the regional newspaper; they replied that the newspaper reflected the heroic deeds of people, not animals. Because of this, the district newspaper lost another reader: Uncle Kuzya stopped subscribing to it.

Boye

Of my own free will and desire, I rarely have to travel to my homeland anymore. More and more people are invited there for funerals and wakes - a lot of relatives, a lot of friends and acquaintances - this is good, you will receive and give a lot of love in life, but it’s good until the time comes for the people close to you to fall, like over-stayed pines fall in an old forest, with heavy crunch and long exhale...

However, I have had occasion to visit the Yenisei without the call of brief mournful telegrams, and to listen to more than just lamentations. There were happy hours and nights around the fire on the banks of the river, trembling with the lights of the buoys, pierced to the bottom with golden drops of stars; listen not only to the splash of waves, the sound of the wind, the roar of the taiga, but also the leisurely stories of people around a fire in nature, especially open, stories, revelations, memories until dark, and even until the morning, occupied by the calm light behind distant passes, until nothing will arise, sticky fogs will not creep in, and words will become viscous, heavy, the tongue will become clumsy, and the fire will die out, and everything in nature will acquire that long-awaited peace when only its infantile, pure soul can be heard. In such moments, you are left, as it were, alone with nature and with a slightly fearful secret joy you feel: you can and should finally trust everything that is around you, and imperceptibly for yourself you will soften, like a leaf or a blade of grass under the dew, you will fall asleep easily, soundly and, falling asleep before the first ray of light, until the bird's test flock by the summer water, which has kept since the evening steam heat, you will smile at a long-forgotten feeling - so it was free for you, when you had not yet loaded your memory with any memories, and you hardly remembered yourself, you only felt the world around you with your skin, got used to it with your eyes, attached yourself to the tree of life with the short stem of that same leaf, how I felt now, in a rare moment of mental peace...

But this is how a person works: while he is alive, his heart and head work in an agitated manner, having absorbed not only the burden of his own memories, but also the memory of those who met on the outskirts of life and forever sank into the seething human whirlpool or became attached to the soul so, that you can’t tear it away, you can’t separate either his pain or joy from your pain, from your joy.

... At that time, order travel tickets were still in effect, and, having received the reward money accumulated during the war, I went to Igarka to take my grandmother from Sisima from the Arctic.

My uncles Vanya and Vasya died in the war, Kostka served in the navy in the north, my grandmother from Sisima lived as a housekeeper for the manager of a port store, a kind but fertile woman, she was mortally tired of children, so she asked me in a letter to rescue her from the north, from strangers , albeit good people.

I expected a lot from that trip, but the most significant thing about it was that I disembarked from the ship at the moment when something was burning in Igarka again, and it seemed to me that I had never left anywhere, many years had not flown by, everything was the same. it stood and still stands in place, even such a familiar fire blazes without causing discord in the life of the city, without causing a disruption in the rhythm of work. Only closer to the fire, some people were crowding and running, red cars were gunning, according to the established custom here, pumping water from the pits and lakes located between the houses and streets, a building was loudly cracking, black smoke was billowing, which, to my complete surprise, turned out to be next to that house , where the grandmother from Sisima lived as housekeepers.

The owners were not at home. The grandmother from Sisima was in tears and in a panic: the neighbors began to take property out of the apartments just in case, but she didn’t dare - it wasn’t her property, what if something got lost?...

We didn’t have time to fall over, kiss, or cry, following the custom. I immediately began to tie up other people's property. But soon the door opened, an obese woman collapsed through the threshold, crawled on all fours to the cabinet, took a sip of valerian straight from the bottle, caught her breath a little and with a weak wave of her hand indicated to stop preparing for the evacuation: on the street the fire bell was ringing reassuringly - what needs to burn, then burned, The fire, thank God, did not spread to the neighboring premises; the cars drove away, leaving one on duty, from which the smoking firebrands were slowly watered. Around the fire stood silent townspeople, accustomed to everything, and only a flat-backed old woman, soiled with soot, holding a rescued cross-saw by the handle, was shouting at someone or something.

The owner came home from work, a Belarusian, a healthy guy, with an airy face and character that was unexpected for his height and nationality. He and the hostess and I drank heavily. I plunged into memories of the war, the owner, looking at my medal and order, said with melancholy, but without any anger, however, that he, too, had awards and ranks, but they floated away.

The next day was a day off. The owner and I were sawing wood in Bear's Log. The grandmother from Sisima was getting ready to go on the road, grumbling under her breath: “My name is not enough, so it’s ishsho and the palnya will pay!” But I was sawing wood in a hurry, we were joking with the owner, we were about to go to dinner, when a grandmother from Sisima appeared above the log, searched the lowland with her not yet completely crying eyes and, having found us, dragged herself down, clutching at the branches. Trailing behind her was a thin boy, alarmingly familiar to me, in an eight-piece cap, with frilly pants hanging on him. He smiled shyly and welcomingly at me. The grandmother from Sisima said biblically:

- This is your brother.

- Kolka!

Yes, this was the same guy who, before he even learned to walk, could already swear, and with whom we once almost burned to death in the ruins of the old Igara drama theater.

My relationship after returning from the orphanage to the bosom of my family again did not work out. God knows, I tried to put them together, for some time I was humble, helpful, worked, fed myself, and often my stepmother and children - dad, as before, drank every penny and, following the free laws of vagabonds, played tricks around the world, not taking care of children and home.

Besides Kolka, Tolka was already in the family, and the third, as is clear from a popular modern song, whether he wants it or not, “must leave,” although at any age, at the age of seventeen it is especially scary to leave on all four sides - a boy He has not yet overcome himself, the guy has not taken power over him - his age is confusing, unstable. During these years, guys, and girls too, commit the most insolence, stupidity and desperate acts.

But I left. Forever. So as not to be a “lightning rod”, into which all the empty and fiery energy of the ghoul dad and year after year the increasingly wild, unbridled stepmother, was inserted, he left, but quietly remembered: I have some kind of parents, most importantly, guys, brothers and sisters, Kolka said - already five! Three boys and two girls. The pre-war boys and girls were created after, having fought at Stalingrad as part of the thirty-fifth division as a commander of the forty-five, dad was wounded in the head and was sent home.

I was inflamed with the desire to see my brothers and sisters, but what to hide, I also wanted to see my dad. The grandmother from Sisima admonished me with a sigh:

- Go, go... father of all, marvel that you don’t have to be like that yourself...

Dad worked as a foreman at a wood harvesting site, fifty miles from Igarka, near the Sushkovo machine tool. We sailed on an ancient boat, “Igarets”, which I had known for a long time. It was all smoking, the iron was rattling, the pipe, tied with stretched wires, was shaking, and was about to fall off; from stern to bow, the Igarets smelled of fish, the winch, anchor, pipe, bollards, every board, nail, and seemingly even the engine, openly splashing mushroom-like valves, smelled invincibly of fish. Kolka and I lay on soft white nets dumped in the hold. Between the boardwalk and the salt-corroded bottom of the boat, rusty water squelched and sometimes splashed out, clogged with slimy small fish, intestines, the pump pipe was clogged with fish scales, it did not have time to pump out the water, the boat tilted on its side in a turn, and for a long time it walked like this, honking strainedly, trying to straighten out on my belly, and I listened to my brother. But what new could he tell me about our family? Everything was as it was, so it is, and therefore I no longer heard him, but the car, the bot, and now I was just beginning to understand that a lot of time had passed, that I had grown up and, apparently, had finally separated myself from everything that I had seen and I heard in Igarka what I see and hear on the way to Sushkovo. And then the “Igarets” gurgled, shuddered, did its usual work with senile difficulty, and I felt so sorry for this stinking vessel.

I began to repent that I had gone to Sushkovo, but my heart trembled and fluttered when, near a lonely and flat barrack standing on a low bank, I saw a club-footed, already gray-haired man, clean-shaven, with spots of a butterfly mustache under a sensitive and often sniffing nose. No, no one and nothing has yet canceled or overcome the feeling in us that occupies a place in the heart against our will. My heart sensed me first, recognized my parent! A little to the side, on a green splash, a slender woman, still looking young, was stomping around with a scarf folded onto the back of her head. Towards the river, towards the boat “Igarets”, which had stopped at anchor in exhaustion, but still continued to smoke in all the holes, churning up the yellow smoke of sand scattered by the winds, children rushed, shod and dressed in all sorts of clothes, followed by a white dog, barking...

We didn’t send a telegram to Sushkovo, and it wouldn’t have gotten here. Kolya, who was going to enroll in the Igar school and accidentally picked me up there, jumped out onto the shore and, often choking, shouted, pointing to the gangway:

- Folder! Folder! Look who I brought!..

My father stomped on the spot, swayed his feet, fussed with his hands, suddenly broke loose, easily, as in his youth, ran towards me, hugged me, for which he had to rise on tiptoe, kissed me ineptly, which embarrassed me greatly - the last time he kissed his own child was about fourteen years old back, returning from the great construction of the White Sea Canal.

- Alive! Thank God, alive! – Weakness rolled down the parent’s face, frequent tears. - And someone wrote or told me that you died at the front, went missing, or something...

Like this: “either he died, or he went missing, or something...” Eh, dad! Dad!..

The stepmother still stood aloofly on the splash, not moving from her place, her head twitched more often and more anxiously.

I walked up and kissed her on the cheek.

“We really thought he was gone,” she said. And it was impossible to understand whether he was sorry or happy.

- IM married. I have my own family. “I came to see you,” I hastened to reassure my parents and, feeling their and my own relief, I cursed myself: “You’re still looking, you little thing, for something you didn’t lose!”

The forest kids, a bit wild from being deserted, didn’t immediately get used to me, but once they got used to it, as usual, they stuck to me, showed me fishing rods, self-propelled guns, and dragged me to the river and into the forest. Kolya did not leave me a single step. This is someone who knew how to be spiritually devoted to every person, and devoted to his relatives to the point of painfulness. Following his brother like a shadow was a male dog named Boye. Boye or Baye means friend in Evenki. Kolya called the dog in his own way - “Boyo”, and because he was speaking so often in the forest there was a continuous sound of “yo-yo-oh-oh-oh”.

From the breed of northern huskies, white, but with gray front paws, as if stained with ash, and with a gray stripe along the forehead, Boyer is not mercenary in appearance. All his beauty and intelligence were in his eyes, colorful, wisely calm, constantly asking something. But it’s not worth talking about what kind of intelligent eyes dogs and especially huskies have, that’s all said. I will only repeat the northern belief: a dog, before becoming a dog, was a good person, of course. This childishly naive, but holy belief does not apply at all to bed mongrels, to dogs fattened to the size of a calf, hung with medals for their thoroughbred origin. Among dogs, as well as among people, there are parasites, biting villains, empty nesters, grabbers - the nobility was never eradicated here, it took on only indoor forms.

Boyer was a hard worker, and an unrequited worker. He loved the owner, although the owner himself did not know how to love anyone but himself, but this is what nature intended for a dog - to be attached to a person, to be his faithful friend and helper.

Harsh northern nature born, he proved his loyalty to Boye with deeds, did not tolerate affection, did not demand handouts for work, ate scraps from the table, fish, meat, which he helped to obtain for a person, slept all year round on the street, in the snow, and only in the most severe frosts, when his wet, sensitive nose, although covered with a fluffy tail, was sealed by the cold, he delicately scratched at the door and, let into the warmth, immediately hid under the bench, picked up his paws, squeezed into balled up and timidly watched people - was he in the way? Having caught someone's eye, with a short wave of his tail he asked him to excuse the intrusion and the dog smell, which was especially thick and pungent in cold weather. The kids tried to give something to the dog and feed it from their hands. Boyer adored children and, realizing that it was impossible for small people with such a gentle scent to cause offense by refusing, but it also did not suit him to take advantage of their handouts, with his ears pressed to his head, he looked at the owner, as if saying: “I wouldn’t be flattered by the treat.” , but children are unreasonable...” And, having received neither permission nor refusal, but guessing that the owner, although he did not favor pampering, would not contradict him, Boyer politely removed a greasy piece of sugar or a crust of bread from the child’s hand, crunching barely audibly under the bench, he gratefully scraped his pink palm with his tongue, and at the same time his face, and quickly closed his eyes, making it clear that he had had his fill and had fallen asleep. In fact, he watched everyone, saw and heard everything.

With what relief the dog tumbled out of the hut's cramped conditions when it was a little warmer in the yard. He rolled around in the snow, shook himself off, knocking out the stagnant spirit of cramped human habitation. The ears, which had withered in the warmth, were again set back with a hatchet and, looking around at the hut to see if the owner was seeing, he ran after Kolka, catching his padded jacket with his teeth. Kolka was the only creature in the world with whom Boyer allowed himself to play, and even then, due to his youth, after renouncing all games, he moved away from the children and turned his back to them. If they were really persistent, it wasn’t very menacing, rather warning, he bared his teeth, growled in his throat and at the same time made it clear with his eyes that he was annoyed not out of malice, out of fatigue...

Boyer could not live without hunting. If father or Kolka for some reason did not go into the forest for a long time, Boye would drop his tail, his lop-eared head would hang, he wandered restlessly, could not find a place for himself, even squealed and whined as if he were sick.

They shouted at him, and he obediently fell silent, but the languor and anxiety did not leave him. Sometimes Boye ran away alone into the taiga and disappeared there for a long time. Somehow he pinned a wood grouse in his teeth, trailed the arctic fox through the first snow, drove him to the barracks and drove the poor little animal around the woodpile so much that when the owner came out amid the commotion and barking, the little sand stuck between his legs, looking for salvation and protection.

Boyer walked over a bird, over a squirrel, dived into the water after a wounded muskrat, and all his lips were torn by the fearless animals. He knew how to do everything in the taiga and understood how an animal was not supposed to, which drove the forest people into superstition - they were afraid of him, suspecting an unclean deed. More than once he saved and helped out Boye Kolka, his friend. He once ran so hard after a wounded wood grouse that it was dark in the taiga, and the dashing hunter would have frozen in the snow, but Boye first found it and then brought people to him.

End of introductory fragment.