Shukshin stories quick search. Vasily Shukshin - stories

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Vasily Shukshin.Exam

Why were you late? - the professor asked sternly.

You know... excuse me, please... straight from work... there was an urgent order... - The student - a tall guy with a simple good face - stood in the doorway of the classroom, not daring to go further. The guy's eyes are truthful and intelligent.

Take a ticket. Number?

Seventeen.

What's there?

- “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” is the first question. Second…

Good ticket. - The professor felt a little ashamed of his severity. - Get ready.

The student bent over the paper and thought.

The professor watched him for some time. During his long life, more than one thousand of these guys passed before his eyes; he is used to thinking about them briefly - a student. But not one of this army of thousands resembled the other even remotely. All different.

"Everything changes. Ancient professors could call themselves teachers because they had students. And today we are only professors,” the professor thought.

Vasily Shukshin.Until the third roosters

Once in one library, in the evening, around six o'clock, they started arguing
characters of Russian classical literature. Back when the librarian was at
place, they looked at it with interest from their shelves - they waited.
The librarian finally talked to someone on the phone... She said
strange, the characters listened and did not understand. We were surprised.
No,” said the librarian, “I think it’s millet.” He's the same
goat... Let's go and trample. A? No, well, he's a goat. We'll trample
So? Then we'll go to Vladik... I know he's a sheep, but he has "Grundik" -
let's sit... The seal will come too, then this one will... an owl... Yes, I know,
that they are all assholes, but we need to waste time somehow! Well, well... I'm listening...
I don’t understand anything,” someone in a top hat said quietly, “either Onegin, or
then Chatsky - to his neighbor, a heavy landowner, it seems, Oblomov.

An old man was sitting on a bench by the gate. He's as tired and dull as
this warm day towards evening. And there was early sunshine for him, and he walked along
the ground and felt it easily under my feet. And now - a calm evening, with
smoke in the village.
A long-armed, thin guy with a wrinkled face sat down on the bench. Such
only seemingly weak, but in fact as hardy as horses.
The guy sighed heavily and began to light a cigarette.

My bed is in the corner, his is opposite. Between us there is a table, on the table there is a manuscript, thick and stupid. My manuscript. Novel. I just re-read the last chapter and felt sad: it’s so boring that my ears are withering.
Now I’m lying and thinking: on what basis does a person even sit down to write? Me, for example. Nobody asks me.
I reach out to the table, take a Belomorina out of the pack, and light a cigarette. Someone had a good idea - smoking.
... Yes, so on what basis does a person give up all other things and sit down to write? Why do you want to write? Why do you want to write so much - to the point of pain and anxiety? Let’s remember my friend Vanka Ermolaev, a mechanic. The man lived to be thirty years old but did not write. Then he fell in love (apparently, deeply) and began writing poetry.

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Vasily Shukshin.At the cemetery

Ah, glorious, glorious time!.. Warmth. Clear. The month of July... Top of the head
summer. Somewhere they timidly struck a bell... And its sound - slow, clear -
swam in the clear depths and died high. But not sad, no.

This story is about how Mikhail Aleksandrovich Egorov, Ph.D., a long, concentrated bespectacled man, almost got married.

There was a girl... a woman who slowly, affectionately called him Michelle. The bespectacled man was slightly offended that he was Michel, he was a smart Russian man, so all this... all this clinking alien set - “Michel”, “Bazil”, “Ange” - all this embarrassed him, he was ashamed, but he decided that he then, later, he will correct his friend, it will become simpler. While he endured “Michel” and much more. He felt good with his girlfriend, it was easy. Her name was Katya, but also damn it - Kat. Michel met Kat through some strangers. Something was being celebrated there, Kat’s birthday or something. Michel had a little too much, became bolder, somehow it just happened that he walked Kat home, walked in with her, and they giggled happily and chatted until the morning in her cute little apartment. Michel was pleasantly surprised that she was an intelligent woman, witty, brave... Although, again, this deliberately slow speech, lethargy, excessive languor... It’s not that it’s very stupid, but why? The candidate, sinfully, thought that Kat wanted to please him, and even in his heart he was proud of himself. He wants to seem very modern, interesting... Fool, Michel thought as he walked home in the morning, this is what modernity is all about! The candidate carried in his chest a strong feeling of confidence and freedom, a rare and precious feeling. His life suddenly took on an important new meaning. “I will gradually reveal to her a simple and eternal truth: what is interesting is what is natural. Whatever it takes, I’ll open it!” - thought the candidate.

A student at the medical institute, Volodya Prokhorov, was going home for the holidays. I rode, as usual, in a general carriage, and rode nicely. I passed the test well, people from the village wrote that everything was fine there, everyone was healthy - Volodya felt festive in his soul. And in the evening he went to the dining car to have dinner and maybe drink a hundred grams of vodka - such a desire arose. I walked through the carriages and in one, in the compartment, in the corridor, I saw my fellow countrywoman, also a student, it seems, from the pedagogical institute. She was from a neighboring village, the year before last they went together to the regional center to take exams in English and met there. Volodya even liked her then. He later heard that she also went to college, but in which and in what city, he didn’t really know. Actually, I somehow forgot about her. He was delighted to see her at the window, but was immediately taken aback: he forgot what to call her. He stopped and also turned to the window so that she wouldn’t recognize him yet... He began to remember the girl’s name. I strained my memory, trying out different names at random, but I couldn’t remember. Either Alla, or Olya... Something short and sweet. While he was wondering, staring out the window, the girl looked back and also recognized him.

State farm mechanic Roman Zvyagin liked to lie on his homemade sofa after work and listen to his son Va teach his homework. Roman forced his son to teach out loud, even Valerka solved problems out loud.
“Come on, come on, rock your eardrums—it’ll take longer,” said the father.
Roman especially loved the lessons of his native literature. Here my thoughts were at ease, free... I remembered my youth of no return. It became sad.
One day Roman was lying on the sofa, smoking and listening. Valerka was cramming “Rus-troika” from “Dead Souls”.

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Vasily Shukshin.Resentment

Across the steppe, crushing stunted, joyless bread, he sailed from the east
hot dry wind. The sky was deathly black, the grass was burning, gray dust flowed along the roads like snow, the earth's crust scorched by the sun was cracking, and the cracks, charred and deep, as on the lips of a man dying of thirst, bled with the deep salty smells of the earth.
The crop failure that came from the Black Sea swept through the grain with iron hooves.
People lived in the Dubrovinsky farm before modern times. They waited, languished, looking at the glazed blue of the sky, at the spiny sun, like a mustachioed ear of wheat-weight in a prickly rim of tendril-rays.
Hope burned out along with the bread.

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Vasily Shukshin.Master

Once upon a time in the village of Chebrovka Semka Lynx lived, a drunkard, but unsurpassed
carpenter Long, thin, big-nosed - he doesn't look like a hero at all. But here's Semka
takes off his shirt, remains in only a T-shirt, faded in the sun... And then,
when he, playing with a hatchet, barks merrily with the foreman, then you can see
all the terrifying strength and power of Semka. She is in her hands... Semka’s hands are not
lumpy, not lumpy, they are even from shoulder to hand, thick, like
cast. Beautiful hands. The hatchet in them is like a toy. It seems like you don't know
tired hands, and Semka, for courage, yells:
-What are we to you, machines? Then go start me - I'm stalled. But come
be careful - I'm kicking!

First acquaintance with the city.
Just before the war, our stepfather took us to town B. This is the closest one to us, almost all wooden, a former coupe, flat and dirty.
How sad it was for me to leave! I didn’t like my stepfather and, although I didn’t remember my own father, I thought: if he were with us, daddy, we wouldn’t have planned to go anywhere. To spite my stepfather (now I know: he was a man of a rare heart - kind, loving... Being a single guy, he took a mother with two children), so to spite my stepfather, to spite my father - so that he would get angry and in despair - I rolled up a huge cigarette, went into the restroom and began to “tar”—smoke. Smoke was still pouring out of the restroom. I saw the folder... He never hit me, but he always threatened that he would “throw me in.” He opened the door and, with his hands on his hips, began to silently look at me. He was a very handsome man, dark, strong, with brown, intelligent eyes... I threw down the cigarette and also began to look at him.

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Vasily Shukshin.Pardon me, madam!

When townspeople come to these parts to hunt and ask in the village who could go with them and show them places, they are told:
- But Bronka Pupkov... he is an expert in these matters. You won't get bored with him. - And they smile somehow strangely.
Bronka (Bronislav) Pupkov, still a strong, well-cut man, blue-eyed, smiling, easy on his feet and with his words. He is over fifty, he was at the front, but his crippled right hand - two fingers were shot off - was not from the front: the guy was still hunting, got thirsty (winter time), and began to chisel the ice near the shore with his butt. He held the gun by the barrel, two fingers covered the barrel. The safety catch of the Berdanka was on, it came off and one finger flew off completely, the other dangled on the skin. Bronka tore it off himself. He brought both fingers - index and middle - home and buried them in the garden. And he even said these words:

His wife called him Weird. Sometimes affectionately.
The weirdo had one peculiarity: something always happened to him.
He didn’t want this, he suffered, but every now and then he got involved in some kind of story -
small, however, but annoying.
Here are episodes from one of his trips.
Got a leave, decided to go to my brother in the Urals: about twelve years
See you.
“Where is this spinner... a subspecies of bityurya?!” shouted the Freak from the pantry.
- How should I know?
“Yes, they were all lying here!” The weirdo tried to look sternly round
blue-white eyes. “Everything is here, but this one, you see, is not there.”
- Does it look like bityurya?
- Well, pike.

It's coming! - Slavka shouted. - Crystal Goose is coming!
- Why are you yelling? - the mother said angrily. - There's no way
should you be quiet?.. Move away from there, don’t stick around.
Slavka moved away from the window.
- Play, or what? -- he asked,
- Play. Some... newer one.
- Which one? Maybe a march?
- I recently learned something!..
- I still beat the hay. Let's "Wither, disappear"?
- Play. She is sad?
- Help me take it off. Not particularly sad, but it will touch your soul.
The mother took the heavy button accordion from the cabinet and placed it on Slava’s lap. Warbler
began to play: “Withers, disappears.”

My sister studied with Pronka Lagutin in the city of N-sk. Once a month, Pronka went to her, delivered grub and paid the rent. He liked to chat with female students, his sister’s friends, bought them a couple of bottles of red wine and taught them:

The main thing is that you... look. The people here are different. If he comes to you: “You look at me, this and that, let me hold your hand,” you hit him on the hand: “Don’t interfere! I, they say, first need to learn, and then there are different things to do. “I have only studies on my mind for now.”

On one of these visits, Pronka, having seen the girls off to college in the morning, decided to wander around the city before the train. The train left in the evening.

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Vasily Shukshin.Accidental shot

The leg was dead. She was like this right away, from birth: thin, twisted... hanging like a dried-out whip. She just moved a little.
For the time being, Kolka did not attach any importance to this. When others learned to walk on two legs, he learned to walk on three - and that’s it. The crutches didn't interfere. He grew up with other kids, climbed into other people's gardens, played knucklebones - and how he played! - he will put aside one crutch, lean on it with his left hand, aim - bam! - half a dozen grandmas were not at stake for ages.
But the years passed. Kolka grew into a handsome, strong guy. The crutches began to get in the way. His peers were already escorting the girls out of the club, and he walked along the alley alone, creaking with his two hateful companions.

Vasily Shukshin.Space, the nervous system and fat

Old man Naum Evstigneich was sick with a hangover. He lay on the stove, moaning. Once every
month - since retirement - Evstigneich carefully got drunk and after that for three days
lay in bed. Cursed at God.
- Like devils pounding their hooves, mother and gentlemen. I'm running out...
Eighth-grader Yurka, a boarder, was sitting at a table covered with textbooks.
Evstigneich, taught lessons.
“I’m ending, Yurka, in the baptist, in God’s mother soul!”
- You shouldn't have gotten drunk.
- Young isho to talk about this.
Pause. Yurka creaks his pen.

His name was Vasek. Vaseka was: twenty-four years old, one eighty-five tall, a large duck nose... and an impossible character. He was a very strange guy - Vasek.

He did a lot of different jobs after the army! Shepherd, carpenter, trailer operator, fireman at a brick factory. At one time he accompanied tourists through the surrounding mountains. I didn't like it anywhere. After working for a month or two in a new place, Vaseka came to the office and took the payment.

It all started when Monya Kvasov read in some book that
a perpetual motion machine is impossible. For such and such reasons - because although
would be that there is friction. Monya... Here, by the way, it is necessary to explain why
- Monya. His name was Mitka, Dmitry, but his grandmother called him Mitriy, and
affectionately - Motka, Motya. And the friends changed it into Monya - it’s easier, except
Moreover, this name, Monya, somehow suited the restless Mitka better, it made him stand out
among others, emphasized his restlessness and obstinate character.

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Vasily Shukshin.Stepka

Vasily Shukshin.Court

Pimokat Valikov filed a lawsuit against his new neighbors, the Grebenshchikovs. Here is how it was.

Grebenshchikova Alla Kuzminichna, a young, smooth fool, on a fine spring day, laid out a greenhouse bed near the bathhouse, the wall of which overlooked the Grebenshchikovs’ garden. She brought in some manure, good land... And so that the manure warmed up well, she set fire to it, which was drier, from below with a blowtorch, and piled some raw materials on top and set it on overnight. In general, the bathhouse burned down by morning. Some other buildings burned down, a wood shed, dung, wattle fence... But Efim Valikov was especially sorry for the bathhouse: the bathhouse was brand new, it hadn’t been standing for a year, he used to roll pymas in it in the winter... The explanation with Grebenshchikova turned out to be stupid: Grebenshchikova hung curtains over her eyes and began to assure the insurance agent that the manure caught fire on its own.

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Vasily Shukshin.Psychopath

There lives a man in the world, his name is Psychopath. He has, of course, a name - Sergei Ivanovich Kudryashov, but in the large village of Krutilino, the former regional center, his name is Psychopath - in short and more precisely. He really is kind of crazy. It’s not like it’s completely dislocated, but it’s shifted.
One case, for example.
The Psychopath fell ill and caught a cold (he works as a librarian, he works well, he didn’t have a lock hanging on his door during working hours), but, in addition to work, he also goes around the villages - buys old books and magazines on the cheap, corresponds with some... then institutions in the city, from time to time they come to him from the city... On one of these trips to the villages, he got caught in the rain on the road, got wet and caught a cold. He was prescribed to go to the hospital for injections three times a day.
The injections were given by my sister, who was young, tall, shy, very pleasant in appearance, and kept blushing every now and then. She began to look for a vein in the Psychopath with a needle, poked and poked in the arm, blushed... The Psychopath clenched his teeth and was silent, he wanted to somehow cheer up his sister, because he saw that she herself was suffering.

On Sundays there was a special melancholy. Some kind of visceral
caustic... Maxim physically felt her, the reptile: as if unkempt, not
a completely healthy woman, unscrupulous, with a heavy odor from her breath, rummaged around
all over him with her hands - she caressed him and reached out to kiss him.
- Again!.. She fell.

Vasily Shukshin, story “I Believe!” - summary

On Sundays, Maxim Yarikov is overcome by terrible melancholy - he doesn’t want to live. The unkind, rude wife Lyuda does not understand and does not feel sorry for him. One day, in this state, Maxim goes to unwind with his neighbor, Ilya Lapshin, who is visiting a relative, a priest.

Pop, a large man with huge hands, treats Maxim to alcohol and also drinks it in large glasses. Over a drink, he reads a wise teaching to the contrite Yarikov that without evil in the world a person would not be aware of goodness, that without torment there would be no bliss. Life, according to the priest, must be accepted in all its manifestations (“Live, my son, cry and dance.”) The outwardly buffoonish speech of the priest contains a deep meaning. Pouring more and more glasses for himself and Maxim, the priest finally invites him to pray. They both get up. The priest begins to dance in a crouch, singing ditties with the refrain “I believe, I believe!” Maxim starts dancing after him. The scene of this “zeal,” where joy and pain, love and rage, despair and inspiration are combined, is where Shukshin’s story ends.

Vasily Shukshin

Vasily Shukshin, story “Wolves” - summary

Ivan Degtyarev and his boring and cunning father-in-law Naum Krechetov are traveling from the village to the forest to collect firewood. On the way, on the mountain, they suddenly meet five hungry wolves. The wolves rush to catch up with them. Naum turns his horse around and shouts “Robbing-ut!” takes off running. Ivan’s horse hesitates a little and lags behind. The wolves are quickly approaching Degtyarev and his horse. Ivan faces certain death.

Both axes are in my father-in-law's sleigh. With their help, you can fight off the wolves, but Naum, not caring about his son-in-law, is in a hurry to save only his own life. Having finally responded to Ivan’s loud screams, Krechetov throws one ax onto the side of the road. Ivan jumps out of the sleigh and grabs him. At this time, the wolves catch up and tear his horse apart, but the man with the ax, having had enough, does not touch him.

Leaving them on foot, Ivan meets his father-in-law around the bend, who threw him to the wolves. In his heart, he wants to beat this traitor, so that here, in the forest, he can shake off his rage and then not tell anyone about what happened. However, the father-in-law, whipping his horse, leaves for the village. Returning home, Ivan drinks a glass of vodka and goes to Naum to sort things out. His father-in-law, mother-in-law and wife are already waiting for him with a policeman, who, for Ivan’s benefit, puts him in the village jail for the night in order to release him the next morning when he calms down.

Vasily Shukshin, story “Strong Man” - briefly

A new warehouse is being built on the Gigant collective farm, transporting barrels and cement there from the old one - a seventeenth-century church, long closed by Bolshevik fighters for atheism. The zealous collective farm foreman Kolya Shurygin, a strong, healthy drinker, decides to demolish the vacant church in order to use its bricks for a pigsty. Shurygin believes that this way he will distinguish himself in front of his superiors and leave a long lasting memory in the village.

When the “strong man” drives three tractors to the church, the whole village comes running with indignant exclamations. However, the cries of his fellow countrymen only excite Shurygin not to give in. The temple collapses to the roar of tractor engines.

In the evening, the neighboring women curse the “devil” Shurygin. The saleswoman in the general store threatens to “hit him on the kumpol with a weight.” Kolya's mother scolds him. The wife, without preparing dinner, leaves home to join the neighbors. The narrow-minded foreman is already convinced himself that the church masonry, made conscientiously by his ancestors, cannot be broken up for a pigsty. Its bricks are destined to be overgrown with nettles. A dissatisfied Shurygin, having drunk a bottle of vodka in the evening, gets on a motorcycle and, singing a ditty, rides in the middle of the night to a neighboring village to continue drinking with the chairman of the collective farm.

Vasily Shukshin, story “Master” - summary

Syomka Lynx, an unsurpassed rural master carpenter, admires the beauty of the ancient church in the neighboring village of Talitsa. This church has long been closed and destroyed by the communists, but Syomka dreams of reviving it. Ready to work with his own hands, the master approaches the priest in the neighboring regional center with a plan for restoring the temple, and then to the metropolitan. But in Soviet conditions they cannot help him. Communists hostile to religion agree to restore churches only occasionally - and solely to propagate their pseudo-liberalism.

The Metropolitan advises Syomka to try his luck and make a request to the regional executive committee. The master is told there that the Talitsky temple “is of no value as an architectural monument.” Upset, Syomka never talks to anyone about his favorite church, and when driving past, he tries not to look in its direction.

Vasily Shukshin, story “Microscope” - summary

A poorly educated carpenter Andrei Erin, having a strong craving for science inside, dreams of buying himself a microscope. Andrey does not have free money for this, but he decides to deceive his wife and tells her that he accidentally lost 120 rubles taken from the book. Having heroically withstood a strong scandal with his wife and even beating her with a frying pan, a few days later Erin buys a microscope and brings it home. He assures his wife that he was awarded this device for success at work.

Vasily Shukshin “Microscope”. Video

Having forgotten about everything in the world, Andrei spends all his free time at the microscope, trying to discern microbes in droplets of water. He is overwhelmed by the dream of finding a way to exterminate harmful microorganisms, so that a person does not “stretch his legs” at 60-70 years old, but lives until 150. Andrei tries to pierce the microbes with a needle and destroy them with electric current. But the original experiments are put to an abrupt end by a visit to his home by a colleague, Sergei Kulikov, who lets slip to Erin’s wife that they were not given any bonuses for their labor successes. The wife guesses where the 120 “lost” rubles went and takes the microscope to the second-hand store.

Vasily Shukshin, story “Pardon me, madam” - summary

Dreamer Bronka Pupkov, who likes to repeat the saying “Mille pardon, madam!” every now and then, loves more than anything else to tell a fictitious story about how during the war he entered the bunker of Adolf Hitler himself, shot at him, but, unfortunately, missed. With this story, Bronka surprises the townspeople who come to relax in his village, for whom he specially volunteers to be a guide during forest walks.

Bronka narrates her fiction with extraordinary artistry. During the story he transforms. His eyes burn, his voice breaks. When it comes to the tragic mistake, Bronka's face becomes covered with tears.

An episode from the film based on the stories of Vasily Shukshin “Strange People” (1969). Bronka Pupkov's story about the assassination attempt on Hitler. In the role of Bronka - People's Artist of the USSR Evgeny Lebedev

His fellow villagers laugh at him. Bronka was convicted several times in the village council for lying. But the inspirational uplift he sincerely experienced during the story of the “attempt” is so vivid that he cannot resist repeating the same fictitious story to new listeners.

Vasily Shukshin, story “Letter” - summary

The old woman Kandaurova (Kuzmovna) has a “terrible” dream: she seems to be fervently praying to an empty corner without an icon. Waking up, she goes to the local dream-reader, Grandma Ilyichika. Having learned that Kuzmovna keeps her icon not on the wall, but in the closet, so that the party son-in-law who comes to see her with her daughter would not see it, Ilyichika gives her a severe reprimand. Having slightly quarreled with Ilyichikha, Kandaurova returns home, thinking about her daughter and her unsociable, silent husband.

In the evening she sits down to write them a letter. During this lesson, in the evening silence, to the sounds of a distant accordion, Kuzmovna recalls how in her distant youth Vaska Kandaurov asked her to marry him at a neighbor’s back street. All the difficult, but also such a unique life passes before Kuzmovna’s eyes. “I wish I could do it all again from the very beginning,” she thinks, shedding a little tears.

Vasily Shukshin, story “Boots” - summary

Driver Sergei Dukhanin, during a trip to the city to buy spare parts, notices beautiful women's boots in the store. They are expensive - 65 rubles, but Sergei suddenly awakens the desire to give a gift to his wife Claudia. He doesn’t know exactly what shoe size she wears, but the desire to show tenderness and kindness to her loved one overwhelms everything. Dukhanin buys boots.

Arriving home in the evening, he shows the gift to his wife and daughters. While they are looking at it with oohs and aahs, Sergei’s hands are shaking: the purchase price for his salary is very high. Claudia begins to try on the boots - and they turn out to be too small for her. Despite this misfortune, the evening in the family takes place in a special way: Sergei’s act creates a special atmosphere of warmth.

Vasily Shukshin, story “The Strong Go Further” - summary

Living in a village near Lake Baikal, bachelor Mitka Ermakov - a typical village joker and dreamer in Shukshin's stories - is completely mired in his own fantasies. He wants to find a way to become respected, famous and loved by women - for example, to discover a cure for cancer.

One stormy autumn day, Mitka sees a crowd of city “bespectacled” people admiring raging Baikal from the shore. The majestic appearance of the storm leads the townspeople to philosophical reflections, such as the fact that in “the storm of life, the strong go further,” those who row further from the shore survive longer than others.

Mitka listens to the intelligentsia’s “vain talk” with slight contempt. However, among the townspeople he notices a beautiful woman and decides to show her what those “strong” ones look like in person. Throwing off his clothes right in the autumn cold, Mitka rushes into the icy Baikal water and swims beautifully among the high waves. But one of them covers his head. While trying to swim out, Mitka shamefully loses his panties in the water and begins to drown.

Two bespectacled men jump into the water and save him. Mitka can barely be pumped out on the shore using artificial respiration. Having come to his senses and realizing that he was lying without panties in front of that same woman, he instantly jumped up and ran away. The townspeople laugh, and the incorrigible Mitka now begins to dream of inventing a machine for printing money and continues to make more and more jokes.

Vladimir Vysotsky. In memory of Vasily Shukshin

Vasily Shukshin, story “Cut” - briefly

Two pilots, one colonel, a correspondent, and a doctor left the village of Novaya... In Novaya they are proud of their eminent fellow countrymen, but they also feel some jealousy of their merits. During the visits of noble people to their homeland, fellow villagers often try to knock down their arrogance, to make it clear that those who remained in the village are also not bad!

Gleb Kapustin, a villager who likes to read newspapers and watch TV, has a special talent for deftly “prying” and “cutting off” prominent urban fellow countrymen in table conversations. Vasily Shukshin describes Kapustin’s “scientific” conversation with candidate of sciences Konstantin Ivanovich, who came to his mother. Gleb successfully contrasts urban education with rural ingenuity. Having started the conversation with “the primacy of spirit and matter,” he then moves it to “the problem of shamanism in certain regions of Siberia” and to a way to establish contact with intelligent beings who may be on the Moon. With skillful questions, Kapustin puts the visiting candidate into a complete deadlock - to the great pleasure of those gathered to listen to the “dispute” of the men. Stories then go around the village for a long time about how the “shabby” Gleb “cut off” a noble townsman. The dialogue between Kapustin and Konstantin Ivanovich in Shukshin’s story is distinguished by unforgettable wit.

Vasily Shukshin, story “The owner of the bathhouse and vegetable garden” - summary

Shukshin's sketch of village customs. A conversation between two men on a village heap. One came to the other’s bathhouse to wash because he was repairing his own. The owner of the bathhouse begins to imagine how his wife and neighbors will bury him when he dies. The conversation gradually turns to the characters and lives of fellow villagers, then to money - and ends in a scandal. The owner of the bathhouse claims that the interlocutor’s son is stealing carrots from his garden. The second man responds by calling him “turkey” and refusing to wash in his bathhouse.

Vasily Shukshin “Cherednichenko and the Circus” - briefly

40-year-old Soviet employee Cherednichenko has a good salary, a house made of larch and is graduating from an agricultural institute in absentia, which promises further career growth. Cherednichenko feels like the master of life in everything, except for one thing: he still doesn’t have a wife.

Arriving to relax at a southern resort, he notices the brave acrobat Eva in the circus. Cherednichenko takes a glass of wine for courage and goes to propose to her. He describes in detail to Eva his solid financial situation, tempting career prospects, and advises the acrobat to leave the corrupt artistic bohemia and start with him “a morally and physically healthy life.” Eva, at first perplexed, but then smiling, promises to give him an answer the next day in a note handed to the circus attendant.

Cherednichenko feels proud of how dashingly he handles the ladies. But upon returning home, he begins to be overwhelmed by doubts. Is Eva a worthy match? After all, it is possible that earlier she, with her familiar circus performers, went through all the depths of the decline of female morality, and he, without finding out anything about it, flew off to get married! With mixed feelings, Cherednichenko goes the next day to pick up Eva’s note - and unexpectedly reads the advice there to “be smarter at forty.” Slightly stung by the circus performer’s ridicule, but also relieved from yesterday’s heavy hesitations, Cherednichenko drinks a glass of wine at a kiosk and sits down to whistle the waltz “Amur Waves” on a bench.

Vasily Shukshin, story “Weirdo” - briefly

The strange, frivolous village projectionist Vasily is called Chudik by his fellow villagers and his wife for his special gift of constantly getting into unpleasant situations. Deciding to go from Siberia to his brother in the Urals, Vasily first loses a large sum of money (50 rubles) in a store, then almost dies in a plane accident and tries to send a playful, loving telegram to his wife from the airport. Chudik's brother's wife, a city barmaid, is not happy about the arrival of her village relative. To appease her, Vasily paints a baby stroller in his brother’s apartment with cranes and cockerels. But the squeamish daughter-in-law does not understand “folk art” and kicks Chudik out of the house. Not too upset, he returns back many hundreds of kilometers and runs home from the bus barefoot and singing a cheerful song.

Vasily Shukshin

Vasily Shukshin, story “Step wider, maestro” - summary

The young doctor Nikolai Solodovnikov, recently transferred from the institute to the rural outback, is full of young hopes for future creative work, rapid career growth, and important scientific discoveries. Solodovnikov's mood is lifted by the coming spring. He looks with slight irony at how his boss, the good-natured chief physician Anna Afanasyevna, is no longer busy with medical activities, but with obtaining medicines, sheet iron and heating batteries for the hospital. Filled with broad plans, Solodovnikov is confident: his work in the village is only the first step in a much more brilliant professional biography. Rushing towards her with all his soul, he mentally encourages himself: “Step wider, maestro!”

However, rural life takes its toll, returning from sublime dreams to everyday prose. Shukshin describes in his story one working day of doctor Solodovnikov. On this day, he has to ride a horse to the neighboring village for sheet iron, have a slight quarrel with one man over an armful of hay, talk with the director of the state farm about the difficulties of entering the medical institute, reprimand the storekeeper who is extorting a hangover and return to the hospital very tired. Shukshin shows that these seemingly small worries make up that working existence, which gives life no less vivid meaning than academic degrees, departments, professorships and scientific honor.

A circus has arrived in the southern resort town.

Planner Cherednichenko was vacationing in that town, he settled down nicely, felt at ease, and even became a little insolent - he reprimanded the saleswomen for warm beer. On Saturday evening Cherednichenko was at the circus.

The next day, Sunday, the circus gave three performances, and Cherednichenko went to all three.

He laughed heartily when a dark, long-haired clown with a non-Russian surname did various tricks, was worried when a young boy in a red shirt chased seven scary lions around the arena, fenced off from the audience by a high cage, and whipped them with a whip... But not for the sake of the clown and not for the sake of the scary ones. Cherednichenko snatched six rubles from the lions, no, not for the sake of the lions. He was deeply moved by the girl who opened the program. She climbed the rope high up and there, to the music, she spun, twirled, tumbled...

Never in his life had Cherednichenko been so worried as he was while watching the flexible, brave circus performer. He loved her. Cherednichenko was single, although he was already in his fifties. That is, he was once married, but something happened between him and his wife - they separated. This was a long time ago, but since then Cherednichenko began - not only to despise women, but became calm and even somewhat mocking with them. He was a proud and ambitious man, he knew that by the age of fifty he would become deputy director of a small furniture factory, where he now worked as a planner. Or, at worst, the director of a state farm. He graduated from the agricultural institute in absentia and waited patiently. He had an excellent reputation... Time was on his side. “I’ll be deputy director, everything will be there – including my wife.”

On the night from Saturday to Sunday, Cherednichenko could not fall asleep for a long time, smoked, tossed and turned... He lost himself in half sleep, and imagined God knows what - some kind of masks, the brass music of a circus orchestra sounded, lions were roaring... Cherednichenko woke up, remembering the circus performer, and his heart ached, ached, as if the circus performer was already his wife and was cheating on him with a fidgety clown.

On Sunday, the circus performer finished off the planner. He learned from the circus attendant, who did not allow strangers to see the artists and lions, that the circus girl was from Moldova, her name was Eva, she received one hundred and ten rubles, twenty-six years old, unmarried.

Cherednichenko left the last performance, drank two glasses of red wine at the kiosk and went to see Eva. He gave the attendant two rubles, and he told him how to find Eve. Cherednichenko spent a long time getting tangled under the tarpaulin roof in some ropes, belts, cables... He stopped some woman, she said that Eva had gone home, but she didn’t know where she lived. I only knew that it was somewhere in a private apartment, not in a hotel. Cherednichenko gave the attendant another ruble and asked him to find out Eva’s address from the administrator. The attendant found out the address. Cherednichenko drank another glass of wine and went to Eva’s apartment. “Adam went to Eve,” Cherednichenko joked to himself. He was not a very decisive person, he knew this and deliberately urged himself somewhere up the hill, up the hill, onto Zhdanov Street - so, they told him, he had to go. Eva was tired that day and was getting ready for bed.

- Hello! - Cherednichenko greeted her, putting a bottle of Kokura on the table. He screwed himself up along the way - he showed up bold and decisive. - Cherednichenko Nikolai Petrovich. Planner. And your name is Eva. Right?

Eva was quite surprised. Usually her fans did not spoil her. Of their entire troupe, fans besieged three or four: a dark-skinned clown, a horsewoman and, less often, the Gelikanov sisters, power acrobats.

- Am I in the way?

– Actually, I’m getting ready for bed... I’m tired today. And what? I don't understand a little...

- Yes, today is your day... Tell me, is this orchestra yours, doesn’t it bother you?

– I would still tone it down a bit: it gets on your nerves. Very loud, no joke...

– It’s okay for us... We’re used to it.

Cherednichenko noted that next to the circus performer she was not so beautiful, and this gave him courage. He seriously thought about taking the circus performer to his home and getting married.

They will hide the fact that she was a circus performer; no one will know.

“Would you allow me to offer it to you?” Cherednichenko took the bottle.

“No, no,” Eva said firmly. “I don’t drink.”

- At all?

- At all.

- Not at all?

- Not at all.

Cherednichenko left the bottle alone.

“A test of the pen,” he said to something. “I myself drink very moderately.” I have a neighbor, a design engineer... He drinks so much that there is no ruble to recover from a hangover in the morning. It's barely light, wearing only slippers, knocking on the gate. I have a separate house of four rooms, well, naturally, I close the gate at night, “Nikolai Petrovich, give me a ruble.” - “Vasily,” I say, “Martynych, dear, I don’t feel sorry for a ruble - I feel sorry for you. It’s hard to watch - a person with a higher education, a talented engineer, they say... What will you bring yourself to!”

- But are you giving me a ruble?

-Where are you going? In fact, he always gives. But really, it’s not the money I feel sorry for, I earn enough, I have a salary of one hundred and sixty rubles and bonuses... in general, we find ways. It’s not about the ruble, of course. It's just hard to look at a person. What he wears is what he wears to the store... People look... I myself will soon have a higher education - this should somehow be an obligation, as I understand it. Do you have a higher education?

- School.

“Hmmm.” Cherednichenko didn’t understand whether this was higher or not higher. However, he didn't care. As he presented information about himself, he became more and more convinced that there was no need to shake his curls for a long time - he needed to get down to business. Do you have parents?

- Eat. Why do you need all this?

“Perhaps you’ll still take a sip?” With a thimble?.. Mm? Otherwise I feel awkward alone.

- Pour from a thimble.

We drank. Cherednichenko drank half a glass. “I shouldn’t go overboard,” I thought.

– Do you see what’s the matter, Eva... Eva?..

- Ignatievna.

- Eva Ignatievna. - Cherednichenko stood up and began to walk around the tiny room - one step to the window, two steps to the door and back. - How much do you get?

- I have enough,

- Let's say. But one day... excuse me, just the opposite - one tragic day you will fall from there and be broken...

- Listen, you...

“No, listen, my dear, I saw it all perfectly and I know how it will all end - this applause, the flowers...” Cherednichenko really liked walking around the room like that and calmly, convincingly proving: no, my dear, you don’t know yet life. And we, mother, somehow studied her - from all sides. This is who he was missing in his life - this is Eva - Who will need you later? No one.

-Why did you come? And who gave you the address?

- Eva Ignatievna, I will be direct with you - such a character. I am a lonely person, I have a good position in society, my salary, I already told you, is up to two hundred in total. You are also alone... I have been watching you for the second day - you need to leave the circus. Do you know how much you will receive for disability? I can imagine...

- What are you doing? – asked Eva Ignatievna.

– I have a big house made of larch... But I’m alone in it. We need a housewife... That is, we need a friend, we need someone to warm this house. I want children’s voices to ring in this house, so that peace and tranquility settle in it. I have four and a half thousand in the book, a garden, a vegetable garden... True, it’s small, but there is a place to unwind my soul, to dig around for relaxation. I am from the village myself, I like to dig in the ground. I understand that I speak somewhat in resonance with your art, but, Eva Ignatievna... believe me; This is not life the way you live. Today here, tomorrow there... you huddle in little rooms like this, you also eat... some dry, some on the go. And the years go by...

“Are you wooing me, or what?” – I couldn’t understand the circus performer.

- Yes, I suggest you come with me.

Eva Ignatievna laughed.

- Fine! – Cherednichenko exclaimed. “You don’t have to take my word for it.” Fine. Take a week off at your own expense, come with me and take a look. Look, talk to your neighbors, go to work... If I deceived you in any way, I take my words back. I will cover the expenses – there and back. Do you agree?

Vasily Shukshin

Stories

Cherednichenko and the circus

A circus has arrived in the southern resort town.

The next day, Sunday, the circus gave three performances, and Cherednichenko went to all three.

- Am I in the way?

– Actually, I’m getting ready for bed... I’m tired today. And what? I don't understand a little...

- Yes, today is your day... Tell me, is this orchestra yours, doesn’t it bother you?

– I would still tone it down a bit: it gets on your nerves. Very loud, no joke...

– It’s okay for us... We’re used to it.

Cherednichenko noted that next to the circus performer she was not so beautiful, and this gave him courage. He seriously thought about taking the circus performer to his home and getting married.

They will hide the fact that she was a circus performer; no one will know.

“Would you allow me to offer it to you?” Cherednichenko took the bottle.

“No, no,” Eva said firmly. “I don’t drink.”

- At all?

- At all.

- Not at all?

- Not at all.

Cherednichenko left the bottle alone.

- But are you giving me a ruble?

- School.

- Eat. Why do you need all this?

“Perhaps you’ll still take a sip?” With a thimble?.. Mm? Otherwise I feel awkward alone.

- Pour from a thimble.

We drank. Cherednichenko drank half a glass. “I shouldn’t go overboard,” I thought.

– Do you see what’s the matter, Eva... Eva?..

- Ignatievna.

- Eva Ignatievna. - Cherednichenko stood up and began to walk around the tiny room - one step to the window, two steps to the door and back. - How much do you get?

- I have enough,

- Let's say. But one day... excuse me, just the opposite - one tragic day you will fall from there and be broken...

- Listen, you...

-Why did you come? And who gave you the address?