Leonid Soshnin returned home in the worst mood. And although it was a long walk, almost to the outskirts of the city, to the railway village, he did not get on the bus - even though his wounded leg was aching, but walking would calm him down and he would think about everything that was told to him at the publishing house, he would think about and decide how he should continue to live. and what to do.
Actually, there was no publishing house as such in the city of Veisk; a branch of it remained; the publishing house itself was transferred to a larger city and, as the liquidators probably thought, more cultural, with a powerful printing base. But this base was exactly the same as in Veisk - a decrepit legacy of old Russian cities. The printing house was located in a pre-revolutionary building made of strong brown brick, stitched with bars of narrow windows at the bottom and shaped curved windows at the top, also narrow, but already raised upward like an exclamation mark. Half of the building of the Wei printing house, where there were typesetting shops and printing machines, had long since sunk into the bowels of the earth, and although fluorescent lamps were stuck on the ceiling in continuous rows, it was still uncomfortable in the typesetting and printing shops, it was chilly and somehow all the time, as if in the blocked ears, there was a squeaking sound, or a delayed-action explosive mechanism buried in the dungeon was working.
The publishing department huddled in two and a half rooms, creakingly allocated by the regional newspaper. In one of them, shrouded in cigarette smoke, a local cultural luminary, Oktyabrina Perfilyevna Syrovasova, twitched, squirmed on a chair, grabbed the phone, and littered with ashes, moving local literature forward and further. Syrokvasova considered herself the most knowledgeable person: if not in the whole country, then in Veisk she had no equal in intelligence. She made presentations and reports on current literature, shared plans for the publishing house through the newspaper, sometimes in newspapers, and reviewed books by local authors, inappropriately and inappropriately inserting quotes from Virgil and Dante, from Savonarola, Spinoza, Rabelais, Hegel and Exupery , Kant and Ehrenburg, Yuri Olesha, Tregub and Ermilov, however, she sometimes disturbed the ashes of Einstein and Lunacharsky, and did not ignore the leaders of the world proletariat.
Everything has long been decided with Soshnin’s book. Stories from it were published, albeit in thin, but metropolitan magazines, three times they were condescendingly mentioned in reviews critical articles, he stood “in the back of my head” for five years, got into the plan, established himself in it, all that remained was to edit and design the book.
Having set the time for a business meeting at exactly ten, Syrokvasova arrived at the publishing house at twelve. Smelling Soshnin with tobacco, out of breath, she rushed past him along the dark corridor - someone had “stole” the light bulbs, and hoarsely said, “Sorry!” and crunched the key in the faulty lock for a long time, swearing in a low voice.
Finally, the door creaked angrily, and the old, tightly closed tile let a crack of gray, dull light into the corridor: it had been light rain outside for the second week, washing away the snow into mush, turning the streets and alleys into coils.
Ice drift began on the river - in December!
His leg ached dully and continuously, his shoulder burned and dulled from a recent wound, fatigue pressed him, he was drawn to sleep - he couldn’t sleep at night, and again he saved himself with pen and paper. “This incurable disease is graphomania,” Soshnin grinned and seemed to doze off, but then the silence was shaken by a knock on the echoing wall.
- Galya! – Syrokvasova threw arrogantly into space. - Call this genius to me!
Galya is a typist, accountant and also a secretary. Soshnin looked around: there was no one else in the corridor, so he was the genius.
- Hey! Where are you here? – Opening the door with her foot, Galya stuck her short-cropped head out into the corridor. - Go. Name:
Soshnin shrugged his shoulders, straightened the new satin tie around his neck, and smoothed his hair to one side with his palm. In moments of excitement, he always stroked his hair - as a little boy, his neighbors and Aunt Lina stroked him a lot, so he learned to stroke himself. "Calmly! Calmly!" - Soshnin ordered himself and, coughing politely, asked:
- Can I come to you? “With the trained eye of a former operative, he immediately took in everything in Syrokvasova’s office: an antique chiseled bookcase in the corner; put on a turned wooden peak, a wet red fur coat, familiar to everyone in the city, hung humpbacked. The fur coat did not have a hanger. Behind the fur coat, on a planed but unpainted shelf, are the literary products of the united publishing house. In the foreground were several very well designed advertising and gift books in leather bindings.
“Take off your clothes,” Sirokvasova nodded at the old yellow wardrobe made of thick plank. - There are no hangers there, nails are driven in. “Sit down,” she pointed to the chair opposite her. And when Soshnin took off his cloak, Oktyabrina Perfilyevna irritably threw the folder in front of her, taking it out almost from under the hem.
Soshnin barely recognized the folder with his manuscript. Difficult creative path it has passed since he submitted it to the publishing house. With the gaze of the former operative, he noted that a kettle had been placed on it, and a cat was sitting on it; someone had spilled tea on the folder. If it's tea? Sirokvasova's prodigies - she has three sons from different creative producers - drew a dove of peace, a tank with a star and an airplane on the folder. I remember that he deliberately selected and saved the colorful daddy for his first collection of stories, made a little white sticker in the middle, and carefully wrote out the title, although not very original, with a felt-tip pen: “Life is more precious than anything else.” At that time, he had every reason to assert this, and he carried a folder to the publishing house with a feeling of as yet unknown renewal in his heart and a thirst to live, to create, to be useful to people - this happens with all people who have been resurrected, who have climbed out of “out there.”
The little white sticker turned gray in five years, someone picked at it with a fingernail, maybe the glue was bad, but festive mood and lightness in the heart - where is all this? He saw on the table a carelessly stored manuscript with two reviews, written on the fly by the lively local drunken thinkers who worked part-time for Syrovasova and saw the police, which was reflected in this colorful folder, most often in a sobering-up station. Soshnin knew how dearly human negligence costs every life, every society. Well, I got it. Firmly. Forever.
“Well, that means life is the most precious thing,” Syrokvasova pursed her lips and took a drag from her cigarette, became enveloped in smoke, quickly flipping through the reviews, repeating and repeating in thoughtful detachment: “More expensive than all... more expensive than all...
“I thought so five years ago.”
– What did you say? “Syrokvasova raised her head, and Soshnin saw flabby cheeks, sloppily blue eyelids, eyelashes and eyebrows sloppily lined with dry paint - small black lumps stuck in the already callous, half-lost eyelashes and eyebrows. Syrokvasova is dressed in comfortable clothes - a kind of modern woman's overalls: a black turtleneck - does not need to be washed often, a denim sundress on top - does not need to be ironed.
– I thought so five years ago, Oktyabrina Perfilyevna.
– Don’t you think so now? “Sarcasm was evident in the appearance and words of Syrokvasova, rummaging through the manuscript as if through cabbage waste. – Are you disappointed in life?
- Not quite yet.
- That's how it is! Interesting, interesting! Commendable, commendable! Not really, then?..
“But she forgot the manuscript! She is gaining time to at least somehow, on the go, get to know her again. Curious how she will get out? Very interesting!” Soshnin waited without answering the editor’s last half-question.
“I don’t think we can have a long conversation.” And there’s no point in wasting time. Manuscript in outline. I’ll correct something here, bring your work into perfect shape, and give it to the artist. This summer, I imagine you'll be holding your first printed creation in your hands. If, of course, they give you the paper, if nothing happens at the printing house, if they don’t cut down on the plan, both te de and te pe. But this is what I would like to talk to you about for the future. Judging by the press, you continue to work stubbornly, you publish, although infrequently, but topically, and your topic is relevant - mi-lyceum!
– Human, Oktyabrina Perfilyevna.
– What did you say? It's your right to think so. And to be honest, you are still so far away from human, especially universal, problems! As Goethe said: “Unerreichbar wi der Himmel.” High and inaccessible, like the sky.
Somehow Soshnin did not come across such a statement from the great German poet. Apparently, in the vanity of life, Syrovasova confused Goethe with someone else or quoted him inaccurately.
“You haven’t yet really learned what a plot is, and without it, excuse me, your police stories are chaff, chaff from threshed grain.” And the rhythm of prose, its, so to speak, quintessence is sealed under seven seals. There is also a form, an ever-renewing, mobile form...
– I know what form is.
– What did you say? – Syrokvasova woke up. During an inspired sermon, she closed her eyes, scattered ashes onto the glass, under which were the drawings of her brilliant children, a crumpled photograph of a visiting poet who hanged himself while drunk in a hotel three years ago and for this reason ended up in the fashionable, almost holy ranks of deceased personalities. The ashes got on the hem of the sundress, on the chair, on the floor, and even the sundress ash color, and all of Syrokvasova seems to be covered with ashes or decay of time.
“I said I know the form.” Wore it.
– I didn’t mean the police uniform.
– I didn’t understand your subtlety. Sorry. – Leonid stood up, feeling that rage was beginning to overwhelm him. - If you no longer need me, I will allow myself to take my leave.
“Yes, yes, if you please,” Syrokvasova was a little confused and switched to a businesslike tone: “They will write out an advance for you in the accounting department.” Sixty percent right away. But money is, as always, bad for us.
- Thank you. I receive a pension. I have enough.
- Pension? At forty years old?!
– I’m forty-two, Oktyabrina Perfilyevna.
– What age is this for a man? – Like any eternally irritated creature feminine, Syrokvasova caught herself, wagged her tail, tried to change the caustic tone to half-joking confidence.
But Soshnin did not accept the change in her tone, bowed, and wandered into the darkened corridor.
“I’ll hold the door open so you don’t get killed!” – Syrokvasova shouted after her.
Soshnin did not answer her, but went out onto the porch and stood under the canopy, decorated along the rim with ancient wooden lace. They are crumbled by bored hands, like rye gingerbread. Raising the collar of his insulated police raincoat, Leonid pulled his head into his shoulders and stepped under the silent pillowcase, as if into a sinkhole desert. He went into a local bar, where regular customers greeted him with an approving roar, took a glass of cognac, drank it in one fell swoop and walked out, feeling his mouth go stale and his chest warm. The burning sensation in his shoulder seemed to be erased by the warmth, but he seemed to have gotten used to the pain in his leg, perhaps he had simply come to terms with it.
“Should I have another drink? No, don’t,” he decided, “I haven’t done this for a long time, I’ll still get drunk...”
He walked through his hometown, from under the visor of his wet cap, as his service had taught him, he habitually noted what was happening around him, what stood, walked, and drove. Black ice slowed down not only movement, but also life itself. People sat at home, they preferred to work under the roof, it was pouring from above, it was squelching everywhere, it was flowing, the water did not run in streams or rivers, it was somehow colorless, solid, flat, unorganized: it lay, swirled, overflowed from puddle to puddle, from crack to gap. Covered trash was revealed everywhere: paper, cigarette butts, soggy boxes, cellophane flapping in the wind. Crows and jackdaws clung to black linden trees and gray poplars, they moved, another bird was dropped by the wind, and it immediately blindly and heavily clung to a branch, sleepily, with an old man's grumbling, rested on it and, as if choking on a bone, cackled and fell silent.
And Soshnin’s thoughts, matching the weather, slowly, thickly barely moved in his head, did not flow, did not run, but just moved sluggishly, and in this movement there was no distant light, no dreams, only anxiety, only concern: how to continue to live?
It was absolutely clear to him: he had served in the police and fought for himself. Forever! The usual line, well-worn, single-track - exterminate evil, fight criminals, provide peace for people - suddenly, like a railway dead end, near which he grew up and spent his childhood “as a railway worker”, broke off. The rails are over, the sleepers that connect them are gone, there is no direction beyond that, there is no path, then all the land is right behind the dead end - go in all directions, or turn around in place, or sit on the last one in the dead end, cracked with time, already and the weathered sleeper, not sticky from impregnation, and, immersed in thought, dozed or shouted at the top of their voices: “I’ll sit at the table and think about how to live alone in the world...”
How can a lonely person live in the world? It is difficult to live in the world without the usual service, without work, even without government-issued ammunition and a canteen; you even have to worry about clothes and food, somewhere to wash, iron, cook, wash dishes.
But this is not the main thing, the main thing is how to be and live among a people who have long been divided into a criminal world and a non-criminal world. Criminal, he is still familiar and one-sided, but this one? What is it like in its diversity, in its crowd, bustle and constant movement? Where? For what? What are his intentions? What is your temper? “Brothers! Take me! Let me in!” – Soshnin wanted to shout at first, seemingly as a joke, to make a habitual joke, but then the game ended. And it was revealed, the everyday life came close, its everyday life, oh, what everyday life they are, everyday life for people.
Soshnin wanted to go to the market to buy apples, but near the market gate with lopsided plywood letters on an arc: “Welcome,” a drunken woman nicknamed Urna was squirming and getting attached to passers-by. For her toothless, black and dirty mouth she received a nickname, no longer a woman, some kind of isolated creature with a blind, half-insane craving for drunkenness and disgrace. She had a family, a husband, children, she sang in an amateur performance at a railway recreation center near Mordasova - she drank everything away, lost everything, and became a shameful landmark in the city of Veisk. They didn’t take her to the police anymore, even in the reception center of the Internal Affairs Directorate, which was popularly called the “scourge”, and in the old rough times was called a prison for vagabonds, they didn’t keep her, they drove her out of the sobering-up center, they didn’t take her to a nursing home, because she was old only in appearance. She behaved in public places shamefully, ashamedly, with an insolent and vindictive defiance towards everyone. It is impossible and there is nothing to fight with Urna, even though she was lying on the street, sleeping in attics and on benches, she did not die or freeze.
A-ah, my vesse-olai laughter
Always a success... -
Urn screamed hoarsely, and the drizzle, the frozen spatiality did not absorb her voice, nature seemed to separate and push away its fiend. Soshnin walked past the market and the Urn. Everything just flowed, floated, oozed with brainy emptiness across the earth, across the sky, and there was no end to the gray light, the gray earth, the gray melancholy. And suddenly, in the middle of this hopeless, gray planet, there was a revival, talking and laughter were heard, a car cackled in fear at the intersection.
Along the wide street, which was only marked in autumn, or rather, along Mira Avenue, right in the middle of it, along the white dotted lines of the markings, a piebald horse with a collar on its neck slowly followed, occasionally whipping its wet, forcefully trimmed tail. The horse knew the rules of movement and clicked its horseshoes, like a fashionista with imported boots, across the very no man's land. Both the horse itself and the harness on it were tidy and well-groomed, the animal did not pay any attention to anyone or anything, leisurely stomping about its business.
The people unanimously followed the horse with their eyes, their faces brightened, they smiled, and they poured out the following remarks after the horse: “I fixed it up from the stingy owner!”, “I went to give myself up for sausage,” “Nope, to the sobering-up station - it’s warmer there than in the stable,” “Nothing.” similar! He’s going to report to Lavri the Cossack’s wife about his whereabouts”...
Soshnin also smiled from under his collar and followed the horse with his eyes - it was walking towards the brewery. That's where her stables are. Its owner, the horse carrier of the brewery Lavrya Kazakov, popularly known as Lavrya the Cossack, an old guard from the corps of General Belov, a holder of three Orders of Glory and many more military orders and medals, delivered citro and other non-alcoholic drinks to the “points”, sat down with the peasants on a permanent basis “point” - in the buffet of the Sazontyevskaya bathhouse - to talk about past military campaigns, about modern urban orders, about the ferocity of women and the spinelessness of men, and let his reasonable horse, so that the animal would not get wet and not tremble under the sky, go under its own power to the brewery. The entire Veysk police, and not only it, all the indigenous inhabitants of Veysk knew: where the brewery cart stood, there Lavrya the Cossack talked and rested. And his horse is learned, independent, understands everything and won’t let itself go to waste.
Now something has shifted in my soul, and the bad weather is not so oppressive, Soshnin decided, it’s time to get used to it - he was born here, in a rotten corner of Russia. What about a visit to the publishing house? Conversation with Syrokvasova? To hell with her! Well, you fool! Well, they'll remove it someday. The book is really not so hot - it’s the first, naive, very much tormented by imitation, and it’s outdated in five years. The next one needs to be done better in order to publish it in addition to Syrovasova; maybe even in Moscow itself...
Soshnin bought a loaf of bread, a jar of Bulgarian compote, a bottle of milk, and a chicken at the grocery store; if this mournfully closed, blue-naked creature, with many paws seemingly sticking out of its neck, can be called a chicken. But the price is downright outrageous! However, this is not a matter of annoyance. He’ll cook some noodle soup, take a sip of some hot water, and lo and behold, after hearty lunch according to Archimedes' law, to the monotonous drip from the battery, to the knocking of the old wall clock - don't forget to wind it - to the patter of rain, he reads to his heart's content for an hour and a half to two hours, then falls asleep and sits at the table all night - to create. Well, not to create, but still to live in some kind of separate world created by one’s imagination.
Soshnin lived in a new railway microdistrict, but in an old two-story wooden house at number seven, which they forgot to demolish, after oblivion they legalized it, hooked up the house to the main line with warm water, to gas, to sewer pipes - built in the thirties according to a simple architectural design, with an internal staircase dividing the house in two, with a sharp hut above the entrance , where there once was a glazed frame, the house, slightly yellow on the outer walls and brown on the roof, modestly closed its eyes and dutifully sank into the ground between the blind ends of two panel structures. A landmark, a milestone, a childhood memory and a kind shelter for people. Residents of a modern microdistrict orientated visiting people and themselves along it, a wooden proletarian building: “As you walk past the yellow house...”
Soshnin loved his native home or regretted it - it’s impossible to understand. He probably both loved and regretted it, because he grew up in it and didn’t know any other houses, didn’t live anywhere except dormitories. His father fought in the cavalry and also in Belov’s corps, together with Lavrey the Cossack, Lavrya was a private, his father was a platoon commander. My father did not return from the war; he died during a cavalry corps raid behind enemy lines. My mother worked in the technical office of the Weisk station in a large, flat, dimly lit room and lived with her sister in this house, apartment number four, on the second floor. The apartment consisted of two square rooms and a kitchen. Two windows of one room overlooked the railway line, two windows of the other room overlooked the courtyard. The apartment was once given to a young family of railway workers, his mother’s sister, Soshnina’s aunt, came from the village to work with him, he remembered her and knew her better than his mother because during the war all office workers were often assigned to unload wagons, for snow fighting, for harvesting on collective farms , my mother was rarely at home, she was overstrained during the war, at the end of the war she caught a bad cold, fell ill and died.
They were left alone with Aunt Lipa, whom Lenya, having made a mistake in early age, called her Lina, and that’s how Lina stuck in his memory. Aunt Lina followed in her sister’s footsteps and took her place in the technical office. They lived like everyone else honest people their village, neighboring potato plot outside the city, barely made it from pay to pay. Sometimes, if it happened to celebrate a renewal or take a walk on a holiday, they didn’t make it. The aunt did not get married and did not try to get married, repeating: “I have Lenya.” But she loved to take a wide, noisy, village-style walk, with songs, dancing, and screaming.
Who? What did he do to this pure, poor woman? Time? People? A fad? Perhaps it’s both, and the other, and the third. In the same office, at the same station, she moved to a separate desk, behind a partition, then she was transferred all the way up the mountain, to the commercial department of the Wei branch of the road. Aunt Lina started bringing home money, wine, food, became excited and cheerful, was late home from work, tried to force it, put on makeup. “Oh, Lenka, Lenka! If I disappear, you will disappear too!..” The gentlemen called my aunt. Lenka used to pick up the phone and, without saying hello, rudely ask: “Who do you want?” - “Linden tree.” - “We don’t have one like that!” - “How is it not?” - “No, that’s all!” Auntie scratches the pipe with her paw: “This is for me, for me...” - “Oh, do you want Aunt Lina? That's what they would say!.. Yes, please! You're welcome!" And not immediately, but after rubbing his aunt, he hands her the phone. She will squeeze her into a handful: “Why are you calling? I told you, then... Then, later! When, when?..” And laughter and sin. He has no experience, but he’ll just blurt out: “When Lenya goes to school.”
Lenya is already a teenager, with ambition: “I can leave now! For how long, tell me, and it’ll be done...” - “Screw you, Lenya! - Hiding her eyes, the aunt blushes. “They’re calling from the office, and God knows what…”
Forty-two-year-old Leonid Soshnin, a former criminal investigation operative, returns home from a local publishing house to an empty apartment, in the worst mood. The manuscript of his first book, “Life is More Precious than Everything,” after five years of waiting, has finally been accepted for production, but this news does not make Soshnin happy. A conversation with the editor, Oktyabrina Perfilyevna Syrovasova, who tried to humiliate the author-policeman who dared to call himself a writer with arrogant remarks, stirred up Soshnin’s already gloomy thoughts and experiences. “How to live in the world? Lonely? - he thinks on the way home, and his thoughts are heavy.
He served his time in the police: after two wounds, Soshnin was sent to a disability pension. After another quarrel, Lerka’s wife leaves him, taking with her his little daughter Svetka.
Soshnin remembers his whole life. He cannot answer his own question: why is there so much room in life for grief and suffering, but always close to love and happiness? Soshnin understands that, among other incomprehensible things and phenomena, he has to comprehend the so-called Russian soul, and he needs to start with the people closest to him, with the episodes he witnessed, with the destinies of the people with whom his life encountered... Why are Russian people ready to regret bonebreaker and bloodletter and not notice how a helpless war invalid is dying nearby, in the next apartment?.. Why does a criminal live so freely and cheerfully among such kind-hearted people?..
In order to escape from his gloomy thoughts at least for a minute, Leonid imagines how he will come home, cook himself a bachelor’s dinner, read, sleep a little so that he has enough strength for the whole night - sitting at the table, over a blank sheet of paper. Soshnin especially loves this night time, when he lives in some kind of isolated world created by his imagination.
Leonid Soshnin's apartment is located on the outskirts of Veysk, in an old two-story house where he grew up. From this house my father went to war, from which he did not return, and here, towards the end of the war, my mother also died from a severe cold. Leonid stayed with his mother's sister, Aunt Lipa, whom he had become accustomed to calling Lina since childhood. Aunt Lina, after the death of her sister, went to work in the commercial department of the Wei Railway. This department was “judged and replanted at once.” My aunt tried to poison herself, but she was saved and after the trial she was sent to a colony. By this time, Lenya was already studying at the regional special school of the Internal Affairs Directorate, from where he was almost kicked out because of his convicted aunt. But the neighbors, and mainly Father Lavrya’s fellow Cossack soldier, interceded for Leonid with the regional police authorities, and everything turned out okay.
Aunt Lina was released under an amnesty. Soshnin had already worked as a district police officer in the remote Khailovsky district, from where he brought his wife. Before her death, Aunt Lina managed to nurse Leonid’s daughter, Sveta, whom she considered her granddaughter. After Lina's death, Soshniny passed under the protection of another, no less reliable aunt named Granya, a switchwoman on the shunting hill. Aunt Granya spent her whole life taking care of other people’s children, and even little Lenya Soshnin learned in a unique way kindergarten the first skills of brotherhood and hard work.
Once, after returning from Khailovsk, Soshnin was on duty with a police squad at a mass celebration on the occasion of Railway Worker's Day. Four guys who were drunk to the point of losing their memory raped Aunt Granya, and if it weren’t for his patrol partner, Soshnin would have shot these drunken fellows sleeping on the lawn. They were convicted, and after this incident, Aunt Granya began to avoid people. One day she expressed to Soshnin the terrible thought that by convicting the criminals, they had thereby ruined young lives. Soshnin shouted at the old woman for feeling sorry for non-humans, and they began to avoid each other...
In the dirty and spit-stained entrance of the house to-
Soshnin is accosted by three drunks, demanding to say hello and then to apologize for his disrespectful behavior. He agrees, trying to cool their ardor with peaceful remarks, but the main one, a young bully, does not calm down. Fueled by alcohol, the guys attack Soshnin. He, having gathered his strength - his wounds and hospital “rest” took their toll - defeats the hooligans. One of them hits his head on the heating radiator when he falls. Soshnin picks up a knife on the floor, staggers into the apartment. And he immediately calls the police and reports the fight: “One hero’s head was split on a radiator. If so, don’t look for it. The villain is me."
Coming to his senses after what happened, Soshnin again remembers his life.
He and his partner were chasing a drunk on a motorcycle who had stolen a truck. The truck rushed like a deadly ram through the streets of the town, having already ended more than one life. Soshnin, the senior patrol officer, decided to shoot the criminal. His partner fired, but before he died, the truck driver managed to hit the motorcycle of the pursuing policemen. On the operating table, Soshnina’s leg was miraculously saved from amputation. But he remained lame; it took him a long time to learn to walk. During his recovery, the investigator tormented him for a long time and persistently with an investigation: was the use of weapons legal?
Leonid also remembers how he met his future wife, saving her from hooligans who were trying to take off the girl’s jeans right behind the Soyuzpechat kiosk. At first, life between him and Lerka went in peace and harmony, but gradually mutual reproaches began. His wife especially did not like his literary studies. “Such Leo Tolstoy with a seven-shooter pistol, with rusty handcuffs in his belt...” she said.
Soshnin recalls how one “took” a stray guest performer, a repeat offender, Demon, in a hotel in the town.
And finally, he remembers how Venka Fomin, who was drunk and returned from prison, put a final end to his career as an operative... Soshnin brought his daughter to his wife’s parents in a distant village and was about to return to the city when his father-in-law told him that a drunk man had locked him up in a neighboring village in the barn of old women and threatens to set them on fire if they do not give him ten rubles for a hangover. During the detention, when Soshnin slipped on manure and fell, the frightened Venka Fomin stabbed him with a pitchfork... Soshnin was barely taken to the hospital - and he barely escaped certain death. But the second group of disability and retirement could not be avoided.
At night Leonid is awakened from sleep terrible scream neighbor girl Yulka. He hurries to the apartment on the first floor, where Yulka lives with her grandmother Tutyshikha. Having drunk a bottle of Riga balsam from the gifts brought by Yulka’s father and stepmother from the Baltic sanatorium, Grandma Tutyshikha is already fast asleep.
At the funeral of grandmother Tutyshikha, Soshnin meets his wife and daughter. At the wake they sit next to each other.
Lerka and Sveta stay with Soshnin, at night he hears his daughter sniffling behind the partition, and feels his wife sleeping next to him, timidly clinging to him. He gets up, approaches his daughter, adjusts her pillow, presses his cheek to her head and loses himself in some kind of sweet grief, in a resurrecting, life-giving sadness. Leonid goes to the kitchen, reads “Proverbs of the Russian People” collected by Dahl - the section “Husband and Wife” - and is surprised at the wisdom contained in simple words.
"Dawn is damp, snowball was already rolling into the kitchen window when, enjoying the peace among the quietly sleeping family, with a feeling of long-unknown confidence in his capabilities and strength, without irritation or melancholy in his heart, Soshnin stuck to the table, placed a blank sheet of paper in the spot of light and froze for a long time over it.” .
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Dear friends, the program “One Hundred Years - One Hundred Books” reached 1986, little novel Viktor Astafiev " Sad detective».
It must be said that just as Russia had two thaws, relatively speaking, 1953-1958 and 1961-1964, so there were two perestroikas, Soviet and post-Soviet. Relatively speaking, they are divided into perestroika and glasnost, or there is even another division - glasnost and freedom of speech. First, perestroika was announced, glasnost came only later. At first, they carefully began to return forgotten Russian classics, Gumilev, for example, they began to publish Gorky’s “Untimely Thoughts”, Korolenko’s letters, then gradually they began to touch upon modernity. And the first two texts about modernity, which were sensational and determined a lot, were Rasputin’s story “Fire” and Astafiev’s novel “The Sad Detective”.
It must be said that Astafiev’s novel played a rather sad role in his fate. One of his best books, and in my opinion, the best, before the novel “Cursed and Killed,” was for some time, I won’t say that it was persecuted, I won’t say slandered, but it gave rise to very sad and very dark episodes, almost to the extent of the persecution to which Astafiev was subjected. The reason was that in the story “Catching Minnows in Georgia” and, accordingly, then in “The Sad Detective”, xenophobic attacks were found. The story about catching minnows, or crucian carp, I don’t remember exactly now, was considered Georgian-phobic, anti-Georgian, and the novel “The Sad Detective” contained a mention of “Jewish children,” which the historian Nathan Eidelman did not like, and he wrote a furious letter to Astafiev.
The letter was correct, the rage was hidden in the depths. They entered into a correspondence, this correspondence circulated widely, and Astafiev in it appeared, perhaps, somewhat irritable, perhaps over-the-top, but in general, he looked like an anti-Semite, which in life, of course, he was not. Real anti-Semites happily took advantage of this and tried to attract Astafiev to themselves, but nothing came of it. Astafiev remained that absolutely honest and lonely artist who, in general, did not join anyone and until the end of his life continued to say things that quarreled him with one or the other. But in any case, it was not possible to turn him into such a Russo-anti-Semitic.
Of course, “The Sad Detective” is not a book about the Jewish question or perestroika, it is a book about the Russian soul. And this is its amazing feature: then, at the beginning of the first perestroika, Soviet Union he was still looking for ways of salvation, he was not yet doomed, no one considered him a clear loser, clearly subject to, let’s say, historical disposal, there were non-obvious options for continuation on the board. No matter what anyone says today about the doom of the Soviet project, I remember well that in 1986 this doom was not yet obvious. In 1986, the Union had not yet had a funeral service, was not buried, no one knew that it had five years left, but they were trying to find ways of salvation. And Astafiev, with his unique flair, was the only person who proposed the image of a new hero - a hero who could somehow hold on to this spreading country.
And here it is main character, this Leonid Soshnin, this sad detective, a policeman, who is 42 years old, and who has been retired with the second group of disabilities, he is an aspiring writer, he is trying to publish some stories in Moscow in thin police magazines, now he may be able to book at home. He lives in Veisk, he once almost lost his leg when he was saving the population from a drunk truck driver hometown, this truck was rushing, and managed to hit many, and with difficulty he made the decision to liquidate, the decision to shoot this drunken driver, but he managed to push the police truck, and the hero’s leg was almost amputated. Then, after that, he somehow returned to duty, he was tormented for a long time with inquiries about why he shot, although his partner did, and whether the use of weapons was justified.
He serves for some time, and then as a result he saves the old women, who were locked in a hut by a local alcoholic and threatens to set fire to the barn if they don’t give him ten rubles to cure his hangover, but they don’t have ten rubles. And then this Leonid bursts into this village, runs to the barn, but slips on the manure, and then the drunk manages to plunge a pitchfork into him. After that, he was miraculously pumped out, and, of course, after that he could not serve, he was sent into retirement with the second group of disability.
He also has a wife, Lerka, whom he met when they took off her jeans behind a kiosk; he miraculously managed to save her. He has a daughter, Lenka, whom he loves very much, but Lerka leaves him after another quarrel because there is no money in the house. Then she returns, and everything ends almost idyllic. At night, this Leonid is awakened by the wild scream of a girl from the first floor, because her old grandmother died, not from an overdose, but from overdose, and at the wake for this grandmother, Lerka and Lenka return. And in the pitiful shack, in the pitiful apartment of this Soshnin, they fall asleep, and he sits over a sheet of blank paper. The novel ends with this rather pitiful idyll.
Why do people constantly die in this novel? Not only from drunkenness, not only from accidents, from neglect own life, not only from wild mutual anger. They are dying because there is universal brutality, loss of meaning, they have reached their apogee, there is no point in living. There is no need to take care of each other, there is no need to work, there is no need to do everything, this is...
You see, I recently watched a large selection of modern films at a film festival. Russian paintings. All this looks like a direct adaptation of episodes from The Sad Detective. We had a short period when, instead of “chernukha,” they started making stories about bandits, then melodramas, then TV series, and now again there is this wild wave of “chernukha.” I'm not complaining, because, listen, what else is there to show?
And now Astafiev for the first time unfolded before the reader the entire panorama of perestroika plots. There they drank themselves to death, here they kicked them out of work, here a disabled person has nothing to earn extra money, here is a lonely old woman. And there is a terrible thought that this Leonid thinks all the time: why are we such beasts to each other? This is what Solzhenitsyn expressed later, many years later, in the book “Two Hundred Years Together” - “we Russians are worse than dogs to each other.” Why is this so? Why is this, any kind of internal solidarity, completely absent? Why don’t you feel that the person living next to you is, after all, your fellow tribesman, peer, relative, he is your brother, in the end?
And, unfortunately, we can only rely on the conscience of people like this Leonid, this former operative. Where he got it from is not very clear. He grew up an orphan, his father did not return from the war, his mother fell ill and died. He is raised by Aunt Lipa, whom he calls Aunt Lina. Then they imprisoned her on false charges, she did not live long after that when she was released. And as a result, he went to another aunt, and this other aunt, the younger sister in the family, when he was already a young operative, she was raped by four drunken scum, he wanted to shoot them, but they didn’t let him. And she, here’s an amazing episode, when they were imprisoned, she cries that she ruined the lives of four young guys. This kind of somewhat foolish kindness, like that of Solzhenitsyn’s Matryona, which this hero cannot understand at all, he keeps calling her an old fool when she cries for them.
It is, perhaps, at this strange intersection of kindness, reaching the point of foolishness, and the feeling for a long time, reaching the point of fanaticism, which sits in this hero, it is probably at this intersection that the Russian character is maintained. But Astafiev’s book is about the fact that this character died, that he was killed. This book is perceived, oddly enough, not as hope, but as a requiem. And Astafiev, in one of the last entries in his, probably, spiritual will, said: “I came into a good world, full of warmth and meaning, but I am leaving a world full of cold and anger. I have nothing to say to you goodbye." These are terrible words, I saw the late Astafiev, knew him, spoke with him, and this feeling of despair that sat in him could not be masked by anything. All hope, all hope was in these heroes.
By the way, I asked him then: ““The Sad Detective” still gives the impression of some condensation, some exaggeration. Was it really like that?” He says: “There’s not a single episode that didn’t happen. Everything that they accuse me of, everything that they say, I invented, it happened before my eyes.” And indeed, yes, it probably was, because some things you can’t make up.
Astafiev finally, in his last years, this is a very rare case, reached incredible creative heights. He wrote everything he dreamed of, what he wanted, he told the whole truth about the time and about the people among whom he lived. And, unfortunately, I am afraid that his diagnosis is confirmed today, today that Leonid, on whom everything rests, that sad detective, twice wounded, almost killed and abandoned by everyone, he continues to hold on to himself, to the only, by the way, real vertical, continues to bear the brunt of Russian life. But how long it will last, I don’t know who will replace him, it’s still unclear. There is some hope for a new wonderful generation, but it is very difficult to say whether they connect their lives with Russia.
What cannot fail to be mentioned here is the incredible plasticity and incredible visual powers of this Astafievsky novel. When you read it, you feel this stench, this risk, this horror with your entire skin. There is a scene where Soshnin comes home from the publishing house, where he was just nearly kicked out, but they said that maybe he would have a book, he goes in a disgusting mood to eat his bachelor's dinner, and he is attacked by three mocking drunken teenagers . They just mock, they say that you are impolite, apologize to us. And this infuriates him, he remembers everything he was taught in the police, and begins to thrash them, and throws one so that he flies head-first into the corner of the battery. And he calls the police himself and says that it looks like one of them has a broken skull, don’t look for the villain, it’s me.
But it turned out that nothing broke there, everything ended relatively well for him, but the description of this fight, these mocking types... Then, when Astafiev wrote the story “Lyudochka”, about this same mocking drunken bastard who has bred so many, I think that Rasputin did not achieve such strength and fury. But this book, which all simply shines with white heat, with the inner trembling, rage, hatred that is in it, because this is a person who is truly well-mannered kind people, people of duty, and suddenly in front of him are those for whom there are no moral rules at all, for whom there is only one pleasure - to demonstratively be rude, mock, and constantly cross the border separating the beast from the man. This wild cynicism and this constant smell of shit and vomit that haunts the hero, it does not let the reader go for a long time. This is written with such graphic power that you can’t help but think about it.
You see, the generally accepted idea of Russian literature is that it is kind, loving, somewhat leafy, such as, remember, Georgy Ivanov wrote, “the sentimental masturbating Russian consciousness.” In fact, of course, Russian literature wrote its best pages with boiling bile. It was with Herzen, it was with Tolstoy, it was with the terrible, icy mocker Turgenev, with Saltykov-Shchedrin. Dostoevsky had so much of this, needless to say. Kindness in itself is a good incentive, but hatred, when mixed into ink, also gives literature some incredible power.
And to this day the light of this novel, I must say, is still going on and on. Not only because this book is still moderately optimistic, because it still has a struggling hero, but the main thing about it is that it brings joy, you won’t believe it, from a long silence finally resolved by speech. The man endured and endured, and finally said what he felt obliged to say. In this sense, "The Sad Detective" - highest achievement perestroika literature. And that’s why it’s so unfortunate that Astafiev’s hopes associated with his hero were dashed in the very near future, and perhaps not completely crushed.
Well, next time we’ll talk about the literature of 1987 and the novel “Children of the Arbat,” which separates glasnost from freedom of speech.
This story (the author called it a novel) is one of the most socially rich works Astafieva. It vividly depicts to us the moral state of an entire era in the life of the Russian province, as it was towards the end of the Soviet era (there was also a place for the tortured collective farm) - and during the transition to “perestroika”, with its renewed signs of distortion. The epithet “sad” in the title is weak for the main character Soshnin and too weak for the entire depressing surrounding situation - in the thick mass of upset, disorganized, twisted life, in many examples of this, picturesque cases and characters.
Already at that time, the “thieves” camp spirit victoriously invaded the existence of the Soviet “will”. The hero, a criminal police officer, was successfully chosen to observe this. The chain of crimes and criminal massacres stretches on and on. City front doors and internal staircases are defenseless from the presence of thieves, drunkenness and robbery. Whole fights on these stairs, types of hooligans and piggishness. The young brat stabbed three innocent people to death - and right there, next to him, he eats ice cream with appetite. Accordingly, the entire city (considerable, with institutions) is kept in debauchery and filth, and all city life is in debauchery. The merry “troops” of youth rape women, even very elderly ones, who turn up drunk. Drunk car thieves, and even dump trucks, knock down and crush dozens of people. And young people who are “advanced” in morals and fashion flaunt their intercepted style along the garbage streets. – But with particular pain, often, and with the greatest attention, Astafiev writes about the destruction of small children, their ugly upbringing, and especially in upset families.
At times (as in his other texts) Astafiev makes a direct moral appeal to the reader, with a question about the nature of human evil, then with a three-page monologue about the meaning of family, ending this story.
Unfortunately, in this story, too, the author allows himself careless liberties in the order of choosing the episodes depicted: in the general structure of the story you do not perceive integrity, even in the temporal order of its occurrence; random jumps and distortions of episodes and characters appear, fleeting, indistinct, the plots are fragmented. This shortcoming is further aggravated by frequent side digressions, anecdotal (here are fishing jokes, of course) distractions (and simply unfunny jokes) or ironic phrases that are in discord with the text. This fragments the feeling of cruel gloominess of the whole situation and violates the integrity of the linguistic flow. (Along with the vigorous thieves' jargon, folk sayings - suddenly abundant quotations from literature - and useless, clogged expressions from written speech - like: “does not react to anything”, “remove from the work collective”, “lead to conflicts”, “great survived the drama”, “subtleties of a pedagogical nature”, “waiting for mercy from nature.”) The author’s style is not created, whatever language is picked up.
Soshnin himself is a combat operative who almost lost his leg in one battle, almost died from the rusty pitchforks of a bandit in another and, one against two, unarmedly defeated two large bandits - this is with a gentle character and good feelings, – it is very clearly visible and new in our literature. But Astafiev added to him in a completely unappealing way - beginner writing and reading Nietzsche in German. It’s not that it was impossible, but it wasn’t born organically: Soshnin, supposedly, went into overdrive because of numerous explanatory notes, and then, you see, he entered the correspondence department of the philological department of the Pedagogical Institute. Yes, his soul strives for light, but is too overloaded with the abominations of his current life.
But, truly anecdotally, this involvement of Soshnin in the philology department cost the author dearly. In a passing phrase it is mentioned about Soshnin that he was at the philology department “toiling around with a dozen local Jewish children, comparing Lermontov’s translations with the original sources” - the most good-natured thing said! – but a prosperous metropolitan researcher Pushkin era Nathan Eidelman - ingeniously unscrewed this line and announced to the entire Soviet Union (and then it thundered in the West) that Astafiev came across here as a vile nationalist and anti-Semite! But the professor led skillfully: first, of course, with pain for offended Georgians, and the next step - to this terrifying line.
An excerpt from an essay about Viktor Astafiev from the “Literary Collection” written by
