BOOKSHELF FOR TAKEERS OF THE USE IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
Dear applicants!
Having analyzed your questions and essays, I conclude that the most difficult thing for you is to select arguments from literary works. The reason is that you don't read much. I won’t say unnecessary words for edification, but I will recommend SMALL works, which you can read in a few minutes or an hour. I am sure that in these stories and stories you will discover not only new arguments, but also new literature.
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Tolstoy Alexey "Russian character"
Russian character! Go ahead and describe it... Should I talk about heroic deeds? But there are so many of them that you are at a loss as to which one to prefer. So one of my friends helped me out with a little story from his personal life. I won’t tell you how he beat the Germans, although he wears a Golden Star and half his chest in orders. He is a simple, quiet, ordinary person - a collective farmer from a Volga village in the Saratov region. But among others he is noticeable for his strong and proportionate build and beauty. You used to look at him when he climbed out of the tank turret - the god of war! He jumps from the armor to the ground, pulls off the helmet from his wet curls, wipes his grimy face with a rag and will certainly smile from spiritual affection.
In war, constantly hovering near death, people become better, all nonsense peels off from them, like unhealthy skin after a sunburn, and remains in the person - the core. Of course, some people have it stronger, others have it weaker, but even those who have a flawed core are drawn to it, everyone wants to be a good and faithful comrade. But my friend, Yegor Dremov, was of strict behavior even before the war, he extremely respected and loved his mother, Marya Polikarpovna, and his father, Yegor Yegorovich. “My father is a sedate man, first of all, he respects himself. “You, son, he says, will see a lot in the world and go abroad, but be proud of your Russian title...”
He had a bride from the same village on the Volga. We talk a lot about brides and wives, especially if there is calm at the front, it’s cold, the fire is smoking in the dugout, the stove is crackling and people have had dinner. If they say something like this here, it will make you laugh. They will start, for example: “What is love?” One will say: “Love arises on the basis of respect...” Another: “Nothing like that, love is a habit, a person loves not only his wife, but his father and mother and even animals...” - “Ugh, stupid! - the third will say, “love is when everything is boiling inside you, a person walks around as if drunk...” And so they philosophize for an hour and another, until the foreman, intervening, defines the very essence with a commanding voice. Egor Dremov, probably embarrassed by these conversations, only mentioned his bride to me in passing, - very, they say, good girl, and even if she said that she would wait, she would wait, at least he returned on one leg...
He also didn’t like to talk about military exploits: “I don’t want to remember such things!” He frowns and lights a cigarette. We learned about the combat performance of his tank from the words of the crew; the driver Chuvilev especially surprised the listeners.
“...You see, as soon as we turned around, I saw a tiger crawling out from behind a hill... I shouted: “Comrade Lieutenant, tiger!” - “Forward, screaming, full throttle!..” I’ll camouflage myself along the spruce tree - to the right, to the left... He moves the tiger’s barrel like a blind man, he hit it - missed... And the comrade lieutenant will hit him in the side, - spray! As soon as it hits the tower, - he raised his trunk... As it hits the third time, - smoke poured out of all the cracks of the tiger, - flames burst out of it a hundred meters up... The crew climbed through the emergency hatch... Vanka Lapshin fired his machine gun and they lay there, kicking their legs... For us, you know, the path has been cleared. Five minutes later we fly into the village. Here I just lost my life... The fascists are all over the place... And - it’s dirty, you know - another one will jump out of his boots and in only his socks - Pork. Everyone runs to the barn. Comrade lieutenant gives me the command: “Come on, move around the barn.” We turned the gun away, at full throttle I ran into a barn... Fathers! Beams rattled across the armor, boards, bricks, fascists who were sitting under the roof... And I also - and ironed it - the rest of my hands up - and Hitler was kaput...”
This is how Lieutenant Yegor Dremov fought until a misfortune happened to him. During the Battle of Kursk, when the Germans were already bleeding and faltering, his tank - on a hillock in a wheat field - was hit by a shell, two of the crew were immediately killed, and the tank caught fire from the second shell. The driver Chuvilev, who jumped out through the front hatch, again climbed onto the armor and managed to pull out the lieutenant - he was unconscious, his overalls were on fire. As soon as Chuvilev pulled the lieutenant away, the tank exploded with such force that the turret was thrown fifty meters away. Chuvilev threw handfuls of loose earth on the lieutenant’s face, head, and clothes to put out the fire. “Then I crawled with him from crater to crater to the dressing station... “Why did I drag him then? - Chuvilev said, “I hear his heart beating...”
Yegor Dremov survived and did not even lose his sight, although his face was so charred that bones were visible in places. He spent eight months in the hospital, he underwent plastic surgery one after another, his nose, lips, eyelids, and ears were restored. Eight months later, when the bandages were removed, he looked at his and now not his face. The nurse who handed him a small mirror turned away and began to cry. He immediately returned the mirror to her.
“It can be worse,” he said, “you can live with it.”
But he no longer asked the nurse for a mirror, he only often felt his face, as if he was getting used to it. The commission found him fit for non-combatant service. Then he went to the general and said: “I ask your permission to return to the regiment.” “But you are disabled,” said the general. “No way, I’m a freak, but this won’t interfere with the matter, I’ll restore my combat capability completely.” (The fact that the general tried not to look at him during the conversation, Yegor Dremov noted and only grinned with purple lips, straight as a slit.) He received a twenty-day leave to fully restore his health and went home to his father and mother. This was just in March of this year.
At the station he thought about taking a cart, but he had to walk eighteen miles. There was still snow all around, it was damp, deserted, the icy wind blew away the skirts of his overcoat, whistling in his ears with lonely melancholy. He came to the village when it was already dusk. Here was the well, the tall crane swayed and creaked. Hence the sixth hut is the parents' hut. He suddenly stopped, putting his hands in his pockets. He shook his head. I turned diagonally towards the house. Stuck knee-deep in the snow, bending over to the window, I saw my mother - in the dim light of a screwed-on lamp above the table, she was getting ready for dinner. Still in the same dark scarf, quiet, unhurried, kind. She was old, her thin shoulders stuck out... “Oh, if only I knew, every day she would have to write at least two little words about herself...” She gathered some simple things on the table - a cup of milk, a piece of bread, two spoons, a salt shaker and thought, standing in front of the table, his thin arms folded under his chest... Yegor Dremov, looking through the window at his mother, realized that it was impossible to frighten her, it was impossible for her old face to tremble desperately.
OK! He opened the gate, entered the courtyard and knocked on the porch. The mother answered outside the door: “Who’s there?” He replied: "Lieutenant, Hero Soviet Union Gromov."
His heart began to pound and he leaned his shoulder against the ceiling. No, the mother did not recognize his voice. He himself, as if for the first time, heard his own voice, which had changed after all the operations - hoarse, dull, unclear.
- Father, what do you want? - she asked.
- Marya Polikarpovna brought a bow from her son, Senior Lieutenant Dremov.
Then she opened the door and rushed towards him, grabbing his hands:
- Is my Yegor alive? Are you healthy? Father, come into the hut.
Yegor Dremov sat down on the bench at the table in the same place where he sat when his legs did not reach the floor and his mother used to stroke his curly head and say: “Eat, killer.” He began to talk about her son, about himself - in detail, how he eats, drinks, does not suffer need for anything, is always healthy, cheerful, and - briefly about the battles where he participated with his tank.
- Tell me, is it scary in war? - she interrupted, looking into his face with dark eyes that did not see him.
- Yes, of course, it’s scary, mom, but it’s a habit.
My father, Yegor Yegorovich, who had also passed over the years, came, and his beard felt like flour. Looking at the guest, he stomped on the threshold with his broken felt boots, slowly unwound his scarf, took off his sheepskin coat, walked up to the table, shook hands - ah, the familiar wide, fair parental hand! Without asking anything, because it was already clear why the guest was wearing orders, he sat down and also began to listen, with his eyes half-closed.
The longer Lieutenant Dremov sat unrecognizable and talked about himself and not about himself, the more impossible it was for him to open up, to stand up and say: acknowledge me, you freak, mother, father! He felt both good and offended at his parents’ table.
- Well, let's have dinner, mother, collect something for the guest. - Yegor Yegorovich opened the door of an old cupboard, where in the corner to the left lay fishing hooks in a matchbox - they lay there - and there was a teapot with a broken spout, it stood there, where it smelled of bread crumbs and onion skins. Yegor Yegorovich took out a bottle of wine - only two glasses, and sighed that he couldn’t get more. We sat down to dinner, as in previous years. And only at dinner, Senior Lieutenant Dremov noticed that his mother was especially closely watching his hand with a spoon. He grinned, the mother raised her eyes, her face trembled painfully.
We talked about this and that, what spring would be like and whether the people would be able to cope with sowing, and that this summer we had to wait for the end of the war.
- Why do you think, Yegor Yegorovich, that we must wait for the end of the war this summer?
“The people are angry,” answered Yegor Yegorovich, “they passed through death, now you can’t stop them, the Germans are kaput.”
Marya Polikarpovna asked:
“You didn’t say when he’ll be given leave to visit us on leave.” I haven’t seen him for three years, tea, he’s become an adult, he walks around with a mustache... So - every day - near death, tea, and his voice has become rough?
“But when he comes, maybe you won’t recognize him,” said the lieutenant.
They assigned him to sleep on the stove, where he remembered every brick, every crack in the log wall, every knot in the ceiling. It smelled of sheepskin, bread - that familiar comfort that is not forgotten even in the hour of death. The March wind whistled over the roof. Behind the partition my father was snoring. The mother tossed and turned, sighed, and did not sleep. The lieutenant was lying face down, his face in his hands: “Is it really that she didn’t recognize it,” I thought, “Is it really that she didn’t recognize it? Mom, mom..."
The next morning he woke up to the crackling of firewood, his mother was carefully fiddling around the stove; His washed foot wraps hung on an extended rope, and his washed boots stood by the door.
- Do you eat millet pancakes? - she asked.
He didn’t answer right away, got off the stove, put on his tunic, tightened his belt and, barefoot, sat down on the bench.
- Tell me, does Katya Malysheva, Andrei Stepanovich Malysheva’s daughter, live in your village?
- She graduated from courses last year and is our teacher. Do you need to see her?
“Your son definitely asked me to convey my regards to her.”
Her mother sent a neighbor girl to fetch her. The lieutenant didn’t even have time to put on his shoes when Katya Malysheva came running. Wide gray eyes her eyes sparkled, her eyebrows flew up in amazement, her cheeks were flushed with joy. When she threw the knitted scarf from her head onto her broad shoulders, the lieutenant even groaned to himself: I wish I could kiss those warm blonde hair!.. This is just how his girlfriend seemed to him - fresh, gentle, cheerful, kind, beautiful, so that she came in and the whole hut became golden...
- Did you bring a bow from Yegor? (He stood with his back to the light and just bowed his head because he couldn’t speak.) And I’m waiting for him day and night, so tell him...
She came close to him. She looked, and as if she had been lightly hit in the chest, she leaned back and got scared. Then he firmly decided to leave - today.
Mother baked millet pancakes with baked milk. He again talked about Lieutenant Dremov, this time about his military exploits, - he talked cruelly and did not raise his eyes to Katya, so as not to see the reflection of his ugliness on her sweet face. Yegor Yegorovich began to fuss to get a collective farm horse, but he left for the station on foot, as he had arrived. He was very depressed by everything that had happened, even stopping, hitting his face with his palms, repeating in a hoarse voice: “What should we do now?”
He returned to his regiment, which was stationed deep in the rear for replenishment. His comrades greeted him with such sincere joy that everything that had prevented him from sleeping, eating, or breathing fell away from his soul. I decided this: let his mother not know about his misfortune for a longer time. As for Katya, he will tear this thorn out of his heart.
About two weeks later a letter came from my mother:
“Hello, my beloved son. I’m afraid to write to you, I don’t know what to think. We had one person from you - a very good person, only with a bad face. I wanted to live and immediately packed up and left. Since then, son, I haven’t slept at night, it seems to me that you came. Yegor Yegorovich scolds me for this - he says, you’re an old woman who’s gone crazy: if he were our son, wouldn’t he have revealed himself... Why should he hide if it were him - with a face like this one, who he came to us, you should be proud. Yegor Yegorovich will persuade me, and my mother’s heart is all hers: he is it, he was with us! this!.. Egorushka, write to me, for Christ’s sake, give me some advice - what happened? Or really, I’ve gone crazy...”
Yegor Dremov showed this letter to me, Ivan Sudarev, and, while telling his story, wiped his eyes with his sleeve. I told him: “Here, I say, the characters clashed! You fool, you fool, write to your mother quickly, ask her for forgiveness, don’t drive her crazy... She really needs your image! This way she will love you even more.”
On the same day he wrote a letter: “My dear parents, Marya Polikarpovna and Yegor Yegorovich, forgive me for my ignorance, you really had me, your son...” And so on and so forth - on four pages in small handwriting - He could have written it on twenty pages - it would have been possible.
After some time, we are standing with him at the training ground, - the soldier comes running and - to Yegor Dremov: “Comrade captain, they are asking you...” The soldier’s expression is this, although he is standing in full uniform, as if a man is about to drink. We went to the village and approached the hut where Dremov and I lived. I see that he is not himself - he keeps coughing... I think: “Tanker, tanker, ah - nerves.” We enter the hut, he is in front of me and I hear:
“Mom, hello, it’s me!..” And I see that the little old woman fell on his chest. I look around, and it turns out there is another woman. I give honestly, there are other beauties somewhere, she’s not the only one, but I personally haven’t seen them.
He tore his mother away from him and approached this girl - and I already remembered that with all his heroic build he was the god of war. "Kate! - he says. - Katya, why did you come? You promised to wait for this, not this...”
Beautiful Katya answers him, and although I have gone into the hallway, I hear: “Egor, I am going to live with you forever. I will love you truly, I will love you very much... Don’t send me away..."
Yes, here they are, Russian characters! It seems like a simple person, but a severe misfortune comes, big or small, and rises in him great power- human beauty.
A.N. Tolstoy - story “Russian character”. The hero of the story, Lieutenant Yegor Dremov, was crippled at the front, burned in a tank, then lay in the hospital for a very long time, underwent many operations, as a result of which his appearance changed, his face was severely disfigured. At the same time, he was a very modest person, did not like to brag about his exploits, and tried not to burden others with anything. After everything that had happened, the lieutenant thought that now his parents would be afraid of his appearance, his fiancee Katya would abandon him. Therefore, when I came home on vacation, I called myself by someone else’s name. But for the parents and Katya, the most important thing was that he was alive, and not his appearance. The author admires Russian characters in this story. He notices that external simplicity, modesty of a person, unprepossessing appearance - all this is just the first impression of a person. And the depth of human nature is revealed in moments of severe trials: “It seems that a simple person, but a severe misfortune will come, and a great strength will rise in him - human beauty!”
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Russian character! Go ahead and describe it... Should I talk about heroic deeds? But there are so many of them that you are at a loss as to which one to prefer. So one of my friends helped me out with a little story from his personal life. I won’t tell you how he beat the Germans, although he wears a Golden Star and half his chest in orders.
Russian character! - For a short story The title is too meaningful. What can you do? I just want to talk to you about the Russian character.
Russian character! Go ahead and describe it... Should I talk about heroic deeds? But there are so many of them that you are at a loss as to which one to prefer. So one of my friends helped me out with a little story from his personal life. I won’t tell you how he beat the Germans, although he wears a Golden Star and half his chest in orders. He is a simple, quiet, ordinary person - a collective farmer from a Volga village in the Saratov region. But among others he is noticeable for his strong and proportionate build and beauty. You used to look at him when he climbed out of the tank turret - the god of war! He jumps from the armor to the ground, pulls off the helmet from his wet curls, wipes his grimy face with a rag and will certainly smile from spiritual affection.
In war, constantly hovering near death, people become better, all nonsense peels off from them, like unhealthy skin after a sunburn, and remains in the person - the core. Of course, some people have it stronger, others have it weaker, but even those who have a flawed core are drawn to it, everyone wants to be a good and faithful comrade. But my friend, Yegor Dremov, was of strict behavior even before the war, he extremely respected and loved his mother, Marya Polikarpovna, and his father, Yegor Yegorovich. “My father is a sedate man, first of all, he respects himself. “You, son, he says, will see a lot in the world and go abroad, but be proud of your Russian title...”
He had a bride from the same village on the Volga. We talk a lot about brides and wives, especially if there is calm at the front, it’s cold, the fire is smoking in the dugout, the stove is crackling and people have had dinner. If they say something like this here, it will make you laugh. They will start, for example: “What is love?” One will say: “Love arises on the basis of respect...” Another: “Nothing like that, love is a habit, a person loves not only his wife, but his father and mother and even animals...” - “Ugh, stupid! - the third will say, “love is when everything is boiling in you, a person walks around as if drunk...” And so they philosophize for an hour and another, until the foreman, intervening, defines the very essence with a commanding voice. Yegor Dremov, probably embarrassed by these conversations, only casually mentioned to me about his fiancée - she was, they say, a very good girl, and even if she said that she would wait, she would wait, at least he returned on one leg...
He also didn’t like to talk about military exploits: “I don’t want to remember such things!” He frowns and lights a cigarette. We learned about the combat performance of his tank from the words of the crew; the driver Chuvilev especially surprised the listeners.
“...You see, as soon as we turned around, I saw a tiger crawling out from behind a hill... I shouted: “Comrade Lieutenant, tiger!” - “Forward, shouting, full throttle!..” I’ll camouflage myself along the spruce tree - to the right, to the left... He moves the tiger’s barrel like a blind man, he hit it - missed... And the comrade lieutenant will hit him in the side, - spray! As soon as it hits the tower, he raised his trunk... As it hits the third time, smoke poured out of all the cracks of the tiger, and flames burst out of it a hundred meters up... The crew climbed through the emergency hatch... Vanka Lapshin led the way with a machine gun - they lay there, kicking their legs... For us, you know, the path has been cleared. Five minutes later we fly into the village. Here I just lost my life... The fascists are all over the place... And - it’s dirty, you know - another one will jump out of his boots and in only his socks - Pork. Everyone runs to the barn. Comrade lieutenant gives me the command: “Come on, move around the barn.” We turned the gun away, at full throttle I ran into a barn... Fathers! Beams rattled across the armor, boards, bricks, fascists who were sitting under the roof... And I also - and ironed it - the rest of my hands up - and Hitler was kaput...”
This is how Lieutenant Yegor Dremov fought until a misfortune happened to him. During the Battle of Kursk, when the Germans were already bleeding and faltering, his tank - on a hillock in a wheat field - was hit by a shell, two of the crew were immediately killed, and the tank caught fire from the second shell. The driver Chuvilev, who jumped out through the front hatch, again climbed onto the armor and managed to pull out the lieutenant - he was unconscious, his overalls were on fire. As soon as Chuvilev pulled the lieutenant away, the tank exploded with such force that the turret was thrown fifty meters away. Chuvilev threw handfuls of loose earth on the lieutenant’s face, head, and clothes to put out the fire. “Then I crawled with him from crater to crater to the dressing station... “Why did I drag him then? - Chuvilev said, “I hear his heart beating...”
Yegor Dremov survived and did not even lose his sight, although his face was so charred that bones were visible in places. He spent eight months in the hospital, he underwent plastic surgery one after another, his nose, lips, eyelids, and ears were restored. Eight months later, when the bandages were removed, he looked at his and now not his face. The nurse who handed him a small mirror turned away and began to cry. He immediately returned the mirror to her.
It can be worse,” he said, “you can live with it.”
But he no longer asked the nurse for a mirror, he only often felt his face, as if he was getting used to it. The commission found him fit for non-combatant service. Then he went to the general and said: “I ask for your permission to return to the regiment.” “But you are disabled,” said the general. “No way, I’m a freak, but this won’t interfere with the matter, I’ll restore my combat capability completely.” (The fact that the general tried not to look at him during the conversation, Yegor Dremov noted and only grinned with purple lips, straight as a slit.) He received a twenty-day leave to fully restore his health and went home to his father and mother. This was just in March of this year.
At the station he thought about taking a cart, but he had to walk eighteen miles. There was still snow all around, it was damp, deserted, the icy wind blew away the skirts of his overcoat, whistling in his ears with lonely melancholy. He arrived in the village when it was already dusk. Here was the well, the tall crane swayed and creaked. Hence the sixth hut is the parents' hut. He suddenly stopped, putting his hands in his pockets. He shook his head. I turned diagonally towards the house. Stuck knee-deep in the snow, bending over to the window, I saw my mother - in the dim light of a screwed-on lamp above the table, she was getting ready for dinner. Still in the same dark scarf, quiet, unhurried, kind. She was old, her thin shoulders stuck out... “Oh, if only I knew, every day she would have to write at least two little words about herself...” She gathered some simple things on the table - a cup of milk, a piece of bread, two spoons, a salt shaker and thought, standing in front of the table, his thin arms folded under his chest... Yegor Dremov, looking through the window at his mother, realized that it was impossible to frighten her, it was impossible for her old face to tremble desperately.
OK! He opened the gate, entered the courtyard and knocked on the porch. The mother answered outside the door: “Who’s there?” He replied: “Lieutenant, Hero of the Soviet Union Gromov.”
His heart began to pound and he leaned his shoulder against the ceiling. No, the mother did not recognize his voice. He himself, as if for the first time, heard his own voice, which had changed after all the operations - hoarse, dull, unclear.
Father, what do you want? - she asked.
Marya Polikarpovna brought a bow from her son, Senior Lieutenant Dremov.
Then she opened the door and rushed towards him, grabbing his hands:
Is my Yegor alive? Are you healthy? Father, come into the hut.
Yegor Dremov sat down on the bench near the table in the same place where he sat when his legs did not reach the floor and his mother used to stroke his curly head and say: “Eat, killer.” He began to talk about her son, about himself - in detail, how he eats, drinks, does not suffer need for anything, is always healthy, cheerful, and - briefly about the battles where he participated with his tank.
Tell me, is it scary in war? - she interrupted, looking into his face with dark eyes that did not see him.
Yes, of course, it’s scary, mom, but it’s a habit.
My father, Yegor Yegorovich, who had also passed over the years, came, and his beard felt like flour. Looking at the guest, he stamped on the threshold with his broken felt boots, slowly unwound his scarf, took off his sheepskin coat, walked up to the table, shook hands - ah, the familiar wide, fair parental hand! Without asking anything, because it was already clear why the guest was wearing orders, he sat down and also began to listen, with his eyes half-closed.
The longer Lieutenant Dremov sat unrecognizable and talked about himself and not about himself, the more impossible it was for him to open up, to stand up and say: acknowledge me, you freak, mother, father! He felt both good and offended at his parents’ table.
Well, let's have dinner, mother, pack something for the guest. - Yegor Yegorovich opened the door of an old cupboard, where in the corner to the left lay fishing hooks in a matchbox - they lay there - and there was a teapot with a broken spout, it stood there, where it smelled of bread crumbs and onion skins. Yegor Yegorovich took out a bottle of wine - only two glasses, and sighed that he couldn’t get more. We sat down to dinner, as in previous years. And only at dinner, Senior Lieutenant Dremov noticed that his mother was especially closely watching his hand with a spoon. He grinned, the mother raised her eyes, her face trembled painfully.
We talked about this and that, what spring would be like and whether the people would be able to cope with sowing, and that this summer we had to wait for the end of the war.
Why do you think, Yegor Yegorovich, that we must wait for the end of the war this summer?
The people got angry,” Yegor Yegorovich answered, “they passed through death, now you can’t stop them, the Germans are kaput.”
Marya Polikarpovna asked:
You didn’t say when he would be given leave to visit us on leave. I haven’t seen him for three years, tea, he’s become an adult, he walks around with a mustache... So - every day - near death, tea, and his voice has become rough?
“But when he comes, maybe you won’t recognize him,” said the lieutenant.
They assigned him to sleep on the stove, where he remembered every brick, every crack in the log wall, every knot in the ceiling. It smelled of sheepskin, bread - that familiar comfort that is not forgotten even in the hour of death. The March wind whistled over the roof. Behind the partition my father was snoring. The mother tossed and turned, sighed, and did not sleep. The lieutenant was lying face down, his face in his hands: “Is it really that she didn’t recognize it,” I thought, “Is it really that she didn’t recognize it? Mom, mom..."
The next morning he woke up to the crackling of firewood, his mother was carefully fiddling around the stove; his washed foot wraps hung on an extended rope, and his washed boots stood by the door.
Do you eat millet pancakes? - she asked.
He didn’t answer right away, got off the stove, put on his tunic, tightened his belt and, barefoot, sat down on the bench.
Tell me, does Katya Malysheva, Andrei Stepanovich Malysheva’s daughter, live in your village?
She graduated from courses last year and became our teacher. Do you need to see her?
Your son definitely asked to convey his regards to her.
Her mother sent a neighbor girl to fetch her. The lieutenant didn’t even have time to put on his shoes when Katya Malysheva came running. Her wide gray eyes sparkled, her eyebrows flew up in amazement, and there was a joyful blush on her cheeks. When she threw the knitted scarf from her head onto her broad shoulders, the lieutenant even groaned to himself: I wish I could kiss that warm blond hair!.. That’s just how his friend seemed to him - fresh, gentle, cheerful, kind, beautiful, so that the whole hut came in turned gold...
Did you bring a bow from Yegor? (He stood with his back to the light and just bowed his head because he couldn’t speak.) And I’m waiting for him day and night, so tell him...
She came close to him. She looked, and as if she had been lightly hit in the chest, she leaned back and got scared. Then he firmly decided to leave - today.
Mother baked millet pancakes with baked milk. He again talked about Lieutenant Dremov, this time about his military exploits, - he talked cruelly and did not raise his eyes to Katya, so as not to see the reflection of his ugliness on her sweet face. Yegor Yegorovich began to fuss to get a collective farm horse, but he left for the station on foot as he came. He was very depressed by everything that had happened, even when he stopped, he hit his face with his palms and repeated in a hoarse voice: “What should we do now?”
He returned to his regiment, which was stationed deep in the rear for replenishment. His comrades greeted him with such sincere joy that everything that had prevented him from sleeping, eating, or breathing fell away from his soul. I decided this: let his mother not know about his misfortune for a longer time. As for Katya, he will tear this thorn out of his heart.
About two weeks later a letter came from my mother:
“Hello, my beloved son. I’m afraid to write to you, I don’t know what to think. We had one person from you - a very good person, only with a bad face. I wanted to live and immediately packed up and left. Since then, son, I haven’t slept at night, it seems to me that you came. Yegor Yegorovich scolds me for this - he says, you’re an old woman who’s gone crazy: if he were our son, wouldn’t he have revealed himself... Why should he hide if it were him - with a face like this one, who he came to us, you should be proud. Yegor Yegorovich will persuade me, and a mother’s heart is all hers: he is it, he was with us! this!.. Egorushka, write to me, for Christ’s sake, give me some advice - what happened? Or really, I’ve gone crazy...”
Yegor Dremov showed this letter to me, Ivan Sudarev, and, while telling his story, wiped his eyes with his sleeve. I told him: “Here, I say, the characters clashed! You fool, you fool, write to your mother quickly, ask her for forgiveness, don’t drive her crazy... She really needs your image! This way she will love you even more.”
On the same day he wrote a letter: “My dear parents, Marya Polikarpovna and Yegor Yegorovich, forgive me for my ignorance, you really had me, your son...” And so on and so forth - on four pages in small handwriting - He could have written it on twenty pages - it would have been possible.
After some time, we are standing with him at the training ground, - the soldier comes running and - to Yegor Dremov: “Comrade captain, they are asking you...” The soldier’s expression is this, although he is standing in full uniform, as if a man is about to drink. We went to the village and approached the hut where Dremov and I lived. I see that he is not himself - he keeps coughing... I think: “Tanker, tanker, ah - nerves.” We enter the hut, he is in front of me and I hear:
“Mom, hello, it’s me!..” And I see that the little old woman fell on his chest. I look around, and it turns out there is another woman. I give my word of honor, there are other beauties somewhere, she’s not the only one, but I personally haven’t seen them.
He tore his mother away from him and approached this girl - and I already remembered that with all his heroic build he was the god of war. "Kate! - he says. - Katya, why did you come? You promised to wait for this, not this...”
Beautiful Katya answers him, and although I have gone into the hallway, I hear: “Egor, I am going to live with you forever. I will love you truly, I will love you very much... Don’t send me away..."
Yes, here they are, Russian characters! It seems that a simple person, but a severe misfortune will come, in big or small ways, and a great power rises in him - human beauty.
FROM "STORIES OF IVAN SUDAREV"
Russian character! - for a short story the title is too meaningful. What can you do - I just want to talk to you about the Russian character.
Russian character! Go ahead and describe it... Should I talk about heroic deeds? But there are so many of them that you are at a loss as to which one to prefer. So one of my friends helped me out with a little story from his personal life. I won’t tell you how he beat the Germans, although he wears a gold star and half his chest in orders. He is a simple, quiet, ordinary person - a collective farmer from a Volga village in the Saratov region. But among others he is noticeable for his strong and proportionate build and beauty. You used to look at him when he climbed out of the tank turret - the god of war! He jumps from the armor to the ground, pulls off the helmet from his wet curls, wipes his grimy face with a rag and will certainly smile from spiritual affection.
In war, constantly hovering near death, people become better, all nonsense peels off from them, like unhealthy skin after a sunburn, and remains in the person - the core. Of course, some people have it stronger, others have it weaker, but even those who have a flawed core are drawn to it, everyone wants to be a good and faithful comrade. But my friend, Yegor Dremov, was of strict behavior even before the war, he extremely respected and loved his mother, Marya Polikarpovna, and his father, Yegor Yegorovich. “My father is a sedate man, first of all, he respects himself. You, he says, son, will see a lot in the world and go abroad, but be proud of your Russian title...”
He had a bride from the same village on the Volga. We talk a lot about brides and wives, especially if there is calm at the front, it’s cold, the fire is smoking in the dugout, the stove is crackling and people have had dinner. If they say something like this here, it will make you laugh. They will start, for example: “What is love?” One will say: “Love arises on the basis of respect...” Another: “Nothing like that, love is a habit, a person loves not only his wife, but his father and mother, and even animals...” - “Ugh, stupid!” says the third , - love is when everything is boiling in you, a person walks around as if drunk..." And so they philosophize for an hour and another, until the foreman, intervening, with a commanding voice defines the very essence... Yegor Dremov, must be embarrassed by these conversations , just mentioned his fiancée to me in passing - she was a very nice girl, and even if she said that she would wait, she would wait until he returned on one leg...
He also didn’t like to talk about military exploits: “I don’t want to remember such things!” He frowns and lights a cigarette. We learned about the combat performance of his tank from the words of the crew; the driver Chuvilev especially surprised the listeners.
- ...You see, as soon as we turned around, I saw a tiger crawling out from behind a hill... I shouted: “Comrade Lieutenant, tiger!” - “Forward, shouting, full throttle!...” I’ll camouflage myself along the spruce forest - to the right, to the left... He moves the tiger’s barrel like a blind man, he hit it - missed... And the comrade lieutenant will hit him in the side, - splash! As soon as it hits the tower, he raised his trunk... As it hits the third time, smoke poured out of all the cracks of the tiger, and flames burst out of it a hundred meters up... The crew climbed through the emergency hatch... Vanka Lapshin led the way with a machine gun - they lay there, kicking their legs... For us, you know, the path has been cleared. Five minutes later we fly into the village. Here I just lost my life... The fascists are all over the place... And - it’s dirty, you know - another one will jump out of his boots and in only his socks - Pork. Everyone runs to the barn. Comrade lieutenant gives me the command: “Come on, move around the barn.” We turned the gun away, at full throttle I ran into a barn... Fathers! Beams rattled across the armor, boards, bricks, fascists who were sitting under the roof... And I also - and ironed it - the rest of my hands up - and Hitler was kaput...
This is how Lieutenant Yegor Dremov fought until a misfortune happened to him. During the Battle of Kursk, when the Germans were already bleeding and faltering, his tank - on a hillock, in a wheat field - was hit by a shell, two of the crew were immediately killed, and the tank caught fire from the second shell. The driver Chuvilev, who jumped out through the front hatch, again climbed onto the armor and managed to pull out the lieutenant - he was unconscious, his overalls were on fire. As soon as Chuvilev pulled the lieutenant away, the tank exploded with such force that the turret was thrown fifty meters away. Chuvilev threw handfuls of loose earth on the lieutenant’s face, head, and clothes to put out the fire. Then he crawled with him from crater to crater to the dressing station... “Why did I drag him then?” Chuvilev said, “I can hear his heart beating...”
Yegor Dremov survived and did not even lose his sight, although his face was so charred that bones were visible in places. He spent eight months in the hospital, he underwent plastic surgery one after another, his nose, lips, eyelids, and ears were restored. Eight months later, when the bandages were removed, he looked at his and now not his face. The nurse who handed him a small mirror turned away and began to cry. He immediately returned the mirror to her.
“It can be worse,” he said, “you can live with it.”
But he no longer asked the nurse for a mirror, he only often felt his face, as if he was getting used to it. The commission found him fit for non-combatant service. Then he went to the general and said: “I ask your permission to return to the regiment.” “But you are disabled,” said the general. “No way, I’m a freak, but this won’t interfere with the matter, I’ll restore my combat capability completely.” 
