Vladimir Fedorovich Tendryakov lived in 1923-1984. This is a Soviet writer who created 30 stories and novels. A Tale of Teenagers Spring shifters"The writer created in 1973. Tendryakov talks about schoolchildren and their relationships in his story. “Spring Changelings” (a brief summary of this work) will help you get acquainted with the plot. But reading the retelling will take only 5 minutes, and the original - 2 hours. In 1974, a feature film was made based on this work. It takes an hour and a half.
Spring changelings are a revolution in the consciousness of Dyushka, the main character of the story. Literally in one day, the boy grew up and began to think about the meaning of life. A thirteen-year-old teenager tried to solve a math problem, but it just didn’t work out. At this time, the child’s gaze fell on a collection of Pushkin’s works, and the young thinker read the lines that the great poet dedicated to his wife. Andrei looked up at the wall where the portrait of Natalya Goncharova hung, and suddenly realized how similar this woman was to the girl who went to school with Dyushka, Rimka Brateneva. A summary can help you quickly find out what happened next. “Spring Changelings” is a story about a kind-hearted child who knows how to admire beauty and keenly feels injustice.
Confrontation - moral and physical
In a lyrical mood, a teenager leaves the house and sees a group of guys led by the notorious hooligan Sanka. He came up with a disgusting entertainment - he tied a rope to a frog's leg and threw it at a target. Moreover, he tried to involve Dyushka Tyagunov in this terrible action, but he flatly refused. And Dyusha’s friend, Minka, could not resist the pressure of the bully. He killed the frog by throwing it at the target. Dyushka expressed everything he thinks about Sanka. The children looked at the boy, amazed at his courage. The story and its summary will help the reader understand how brave Dyushka was. “Spring Changelings” is a story about a child with a pure soul and thoughts. Even if the guy was scared, he didn’t show it.
Minka said that now Dyushka needs to be careful, since Sanka will not forgive him for speaking out against him. Andrey began to carry a brick in his backpack for self-defense, but never used it. One day, in the schoolyard, a guy from Sanka’s gang approached him and said that he would soon take revenge on him. Dyushka did not wait for this, but immediately went up to Sanka and slapped him in the face. A fight ensued. All direct and indirect participants in the incident were summoned to the director.
Tragedy and salvation
So the summary has come to its end. Spring changelings after winter were manifested in the behavior of not only Dyushka, but also Minka. The timid guy surprised everyone. When the director and the math teacher asked why Tyagunov was carrying a brick, Minka explained that it was for self-defense from Sanka, since he could stab him with a knife. The bully flared up and began to prove that he did not have a knife. Then timid Minka began to boldly accuse him and tell him how he abused animals. Sanka did not forgive the boy for this, and then he actually stabbed Minka with a knife. But everything ended well. Dyushka’s mother, a doctor, helped save the child.
This ends the retelling of the story “Spring Changelings”. Summary introduced the reader to the main points of the work in just a few minutes.
I was at the age of my hero Dyushka thirty-eight years ago, then the airplane was considered the highest achievement of technology, the pilot was the most romantic profession, and the recently deceased K. E. Tsiolkovsky was better known as the inventor of the all-metal airship, and not as a pioneer of astronautics.
However, even then the boys lived similar to the boys today, were fond of science fiction, believed in the power of science and did not do their homework, fell in love with someone and hated someone.
Perhaps I would be lying if I claimed that this story about today’s childhood does not contain my distant childhood. I. S. Turgenev once stated that the biography of the writer is in his works. And there is no exception to this rule.
The closer you get to old age, the more often you remember that, alas, transcendental time when the ordinary world for you begins to turn upside down in your consciousness: the familiar suddenly becomes incomprehensible, the incomprehensible becomes obvious. There is probably no person on earth who has not experienced a spiritual revolution in life. And most often it occurs during adolescence.
It’s as if I met my childhood again here and at the same time I wanted every reader, regardless of age, to meet his own.
Vladimir Tendryakov
Spring shifters
Dyushka Tyagunov knew what was good and what was bad, because he had already lived in the world for thirteen years. It’s good to study with straight A’s, it’s good to obey your elders, it’s good to do exercises every morning...
He studied so-so, he didn’t always listen to his elders, he didn’t do exercises, of course, he’s not an exemplary person - really! - however, there are many of them, he was not ashamed of himself, and the world around him was simple and understandable.
But then something strange happened. Somehow suddenly, out of the blue. And the clear, stable world began to play changelings with Dyushka.
He came from the street; he had to sit down for his homework. Vasya-in-the-cube set a problem for the house: two pedestrians left at the same time... I remembered the pedestrians, and felt sad. He took the first book that came to hand from the shelf. We came across “Works” by Pushkin. More than once, out of nothing to do, Dyushka read poetry in this thick old book, looked at rare pictures. I looked at one picture more often than others - a lady in a light dress, with hair curly at the temples.
My wishes came true. Creator
Natalya Goncharova, Pushkin’s wife, who doesn’t know, is a beauty that Tsar Nicholas himself had his eye on. And more than once it seemed like she looked like someone, someone I knew, but somehow I didn’t think it through to the end. Now I took a closer look and suddenly realized: Natalya Goncharova looks like... Rimka Brateneva!
Rimka lived in their house, was a year older, and studied a grade higher. He saw Rimka ten times a day. I just saw her, about fifteen minutes ago, standing with other girls in front of the house. She still stands there, through the unwashed spring double-glazed windows among other girlish voices - her voice.
Dyushka peered at Natalya Goncharova - curls at the temples, chiseled nose...
Sent you to me, you, my Madonna,
The purest example of pure beauty.
Dyushka rushed to the door and tore his coat off the hanger. We need to check: is Rimka really a beauty?
And on the street during these fifteen minutes something happened. The sky, the sun, sparrows, girls - everything is as it was, and everything is not as it was. The sky is not just blue, it pulls you in, it sucks you in, it seems like you’re about to rise on your tiptoes and stay that way for the rest of your life. The sun is suddenly shaggy, unkempt, cheerfully robber. And the street, recently freed from snow, crushed by trucks, sparkles with puddles, seems to be shivering, breathing, as if it is swelling from the inside. And under your feet something snorts, bursts, moves, as if you are standing not on the ground, but on something living, exhausting you. And dry, fluffy, warmed sparrows jump across the living earth, swearing annoyingly, cheerfully, almost understandably. The sky, the sun, the sparrows, the girls - everything was as it was. And something happened.
He didn’t immediately turn his eyes in her direction, for some reason he suddenly became scared. My heart beat unevenly: don’t, don’t, don’t! And my ears were ringing.
No need! But he overcame himself...
Every day I saw her ten times... Long, thin-legged, awkward. She has grown out of an old coat; from the hot tightness, through the short sleeves, arms break free, brittle and fragile, light, flying. And the thin neck falls steeply from under the knitted cap, and stray unruly hair curls at the temples. He himself suddenly felt hot and cramped in his unbuttoned coat, he himself suddenly felt the tickling of curly hair on his cropped temples.
And you can’t take your eyes off her easily and fearlessly flying hands. A frightened heart was pounding against my ribs: don’t, don’t!
And the overturned blue sky embraces the street, and the robber sun hangs overhead, and the living earth groans underfoot. I want to break away from this suffering earth at least an inch, to float through the air - there is such lightness inside.
But there’s a push from within - now the girls’ market will end, now Rimka will wave in last time with a light hand, will ring goodbye: “Hello, girls!” And turn in his direction! And it will pass by! And she will see his face, his eyes, and guess the rising lightness in him. You never know what he’ll guess... Dyushka turned to the sparrows in confusion.
- Hello, girls! - And weightless stomp, stomp, stomp behind his back, barely touching the ground.
He looked at the sparrows, but he saw her - with the back of her head through her winter hat: she was running with a skip, carefully carrying her hands ready to fly up at any moment, her stupid little nose was raised, her eyes were sparkling, her teeth were shining, the curls on her temples were trembling.
Stomp, stomp - weightless already on the steps of the porch, the door slammed, and the sparrows rushed out with a cascading noise.
He was relieved, but sighed, raised his head, and cast an unkind eye towards the girls. Everyone knows each other: Lyalka Sivtseva, Gulyaeva Galka, fat Ponyukhina from the other end of the street. Familiar, not scary, interesting only because they recently talked to her - face to face, eye to eye, of course!
And the hot street slowly cooled down - the sky became usually blue, the sun was not so shaggy. And Dyushka himself gained the ability to think.
What is this?
He just wanted to know: does Rimka look like Natalya Goncharova? “He sent you down to me, you, my Madonna...” He still doesn’t know whether he’s similar?
I saw her twenty minutes ago.
She couldn't change in those twenty minutes.
So it’s him himself... What’s wrong with him?
What if he goes crazy?
What if everyone finds out about this?
The worst thing is if she finds out.
Dyushka lived in the village of Kudelino on Jean-Paul Marat Street. Here he was born thirteen years ago. True, Jean-Paul Marat Street did not exist then, the village itself was also just being born - on the site of the village of Kudelino, which stood above a wild river.
Dyushka remembers how the low barracks were demolished, how two-story streets were built - Sovetskaya, Borovaya, named after Jean-Paul Marat, so named because the year when they began to build it was the anniversary of the French revolutionary.
Spring shifters
I was at the age of my hero Dyushka thirty-eight years ago, then the airplane was considered the highest achievement of technology, the pilot was the most romantic profession, and the recently deceased K. E. Tsiolkovsky was better known as the inventor of the all-metal airship, and not as a pioneer of astronautics.
However, even then the boys lived similar to the boys today, they were fond of science fiction, believed in the power of science and did not do their homework, fell in love with someone and hated someone.
Perhaps I would be lying if I claimed that this story about today’s childhood does not contain my distant childhood. I. S. Turgenev once stated that the biography of the writer is in his works. And there is no exception to this rule.
The closer you get to old age, the more often you remember that, alas, transcendental time when the ordinary world for you begins to turn upside down in your consciousness: the familiar suddenly becomes incomprehensible, the incomprehensible - obvious. There is probably no person on earth who has not experienced a spiritual revolution in life. And most often it occurs during adolescence.
It’s as if I met my childhood again here and at the same time I wanted every reader, regardless of age, to meet his own.
Vladimir Tendryakov
Spring shifters
Dyushka Tyagunov knew what was good and what was bad, because he had already lived in the world for thirteen years. It’s good to study with straight A’s, it’s good to obey your elders, it’s good to do exercises every morning...
He studied so-so, he didn’t always listen to his elders, he didn’t do exercises, of course, he’s not an exemplary person - really! - however, there are many of them, he was not ashamed of himself, and the world around him was simple and understandable.
But then something strange happened. Somehow suddenly, out of the blue. And the clear, stable world began to play changelings with Dyushka.
He came from the street; he had to sit down for his homework. Vasya-in-the-cube set a problem for the house: two pedestrians left at the same time... I remembered the pedestrians, and I felt sad. He took the first book that came to hand from the shelf. We came across “Works” by Pushkin. More than once, out of nothing to do, Dyushka read poetry in this thick old book and looked at rare pictures. I looked at one picture more often than others - a lady in a light dress, with hair curly at the temples.
My wishes came true. Creator
Sent you to me, you, my Madonna,
Natalya Goncharova, Pushkin’s wife, who doesn’t know, is a beauty that Tsar Nicholas himself had his eye on. And more than once it seemed like she looked like someone, someone she knew, but somehow I didn’t think it through to the end. Now I took a closer look and suddenly realized: Natalya Goncharova looks like... Rimka Brateneva!
Rimka lived in their house, was a year older, and studied a grade higher. He saw Rimka ten times a day. I just saw her, about fifteen minutes ago, standing with other girls in front of the house. She still stands there, through the unwashed spring double-glazed windows among other girlish voices - her voice.
Dyushka peered at Natalya Goncharova - curly hair at the temples, a chiseled nose...
Sent you to me, you, my Madonna,
The purest example of pure beauty.
Dyushka rushed to the door and tore his coat off the hanger. We need to check: is Rimka really a beauty?
And in those fifteen minutes something happened on the street. The sky, the sun, sparrows, girls - everything is as it was, and everything is not as it was. The sky is not just blue, it pulls, it sucks in, it seems that you are about to rise on tiptoe and stay like that for the rest of your life. The sun is suddenly shaggy, unkempt, cheerfully robber. And the street, recently freed from snow, crushed by trucks, sparkles with puddles, seems to be shivering, breathing, as if it is swelling from the inside. And under your feet something snorts, bursts, moves, as if you were standing not on the ground, but on something living, exhausting you. And dry, fluffy, warmed sparrows jump across the living earth, swearing annoyingly, cheerfully, almost understandably. The sky, the sun, the sparrows, the girls - everything was as it was. And something happened.
He didn’t immediately turn his eyes in her direction, for some reason he suddenly became scared. My heart beat unevenly: don’t, don’t, don’t! And my ears were ringing.
No need! But he overcame himself...
Every day I saw her ten times... Long, thin-legged, awkward. She has grown out of an old coat; from the hot tightness, through the short sleeves, arms break free, brittle, light, flying. And the thin neck falls steeply from under the knitted cap, and stray unruly hair curls at the temples. He himself suddenly felt hot and cramped in his unbuttoned coat, he himself suddenly felt the tickling of curly hair on his cropped temples.
And you can’t take your eyes off her easily and fearlessly flying hands. A frightened heart was pounding against my ribs: don’t, don’t!
And the overturned blue sky embraces the street, and the robber sun hangs overhead, and the living earth groans underfoot. I want to break away from this suffering earth at least an inch, to float through the air - there is such lightness inside.
But here’s a push from within - now the girls’ market will end, now Rimka will wave her light hand for the last time, ringing goodbye: “Hello, girls!” And turn in his direction! And it will pass by! And she will see his face, his eyes, and guess the rising lightness in him. You never know what he’ll guess... Dyushka turned to the sparrows in confusion.
Hello girls! - And weightless stomp, stomp, stomp behind his back, barely touching the ground.
He looked at the sparrows, but he saw her - with the back of her head through her winter hat: she was running with a skip, carefully carrying her hands ready to fly up at any moment, her stupid little nose was raised, her eyes were sparkling, her teeth were shining, the curls on her temples were trembling.
Stomp, stomp - weightless already on the steps of the porch, the door slammed, and the sparrows rushed out with a cascading noise.
He sighed freely, raised his head, and cast an unkind eye towards the girls. Everyone knows each other: Lyalka Sivtseva, Gulyaeva Galka, fat Ponyukhina from the other end of the street. Familiar, not scary, interesting only because they recently talked to her - face to face, eye to eye, of course!
And the hot street slowly cooled down - the sky became usually blue, the sun was not so shaggy. And Dyushka himself gained the ability to think.
What is this?
He just wanted to know: does Rimka look like Natalya Goncharova? “He sent you down to me, you, my Madonna...” He still doesn’t know - is he similar?
I saw her twenty minutes ago.
She couldn't change in those twenty minutes.
So it’s him himself... What’s wrong with him?
What if he goes crazy?
What if everyone finds out about this?
The worst thing is if she finds out.
Dyushka lived in the village of Kudelino on Jean-Paul Marat Street. Here he was born thirteen years ago. True, Jean-Paul Marat Street did not exist then; the village itself was also just being born - on the site of the village of Kudelino, which stood above a wild river.
Dyushka remembers how the low barracks were demolished, how two-story streets were built - Sovetskaya, Borovaya, named after Jean-Paul Marat, so named because the year when they began to build it was the anniversary of the French revolutionary.
The village had a timber transshipment base, a river pier, a railway station and stacks of logs. These stacks are a whole city, almost larger than the village itself, with its nameless streets and alleys, dead ends and squares; a stranger could easily get lost among them. But strangers rarely appeared in the village. And here even the boys were well versed in the forest - tare logs, fasteners, balance, resonance...
Above the entire village rises a narrow crane, like a lattice bayonet into the sky. It is so high that on other, especially gloomy days, its top hides in the clouds. It can be seen from all sides several kilometers from the village.
It is also visible from the windows of Dyushkina’s apartment. When the family sits down to dinner table, then it seems that a large crane is nearby, along with them. There are conversations about him at the table every day. Every day whole year my father complained about this crane: “It’s too heavy, Satan, the river bank can’t stand it, it’s sinking. He’ll drive me into a coffin, and there will be a monument for my grave worth half a million rubles!” The crane did not drive his father into the grave; his father now looks at him with pride: “My brainchild.” Well, Dyushka began to consider the big crane as his brother - at home with him, on the street, they never part with him, even when he falls asleep, he feels that the crane is waiting for him in the night outside the window.
Spring shifters
I was at the age of my hero Dyushka thirty-eight years ago, then the airplane was considered the highest achievement of technology, the pilot was the most romantic profession, and the recently deceased K. E. Tsiolkovsky was better known as the inventor of the all-metal airship, and not as a pioneer of astronautics.
However, even then the boys lived similar to the boys today, they were fond of science fiction, believed in the power of science and did not do their homework, fell in love with someone and hated someone.
Perhaps I would be lying if I claimed that this story about today’s childhood does not contain my distant childhood. I. S. Turgenev once stated that the biography of the writer is in his works. And there is no exception to this rule.
The closer you get to old age, the more often you remember that, alas, transcendental time when the ordinary world for you begins to turn upside down in your consciousness: the familiar suddenly becomes incomprehensible, the incomprehensible - obvious. There is probably no person on earth who has not experienced a spiritual revolution in life. And most often it occurs during adolescence.
It’s as if I met my childhood again here and at the same time I wanted every reader, regardless of age, to meet his own.
Vladimir Tendryakov
Spring shifters
Dyushka Tyagunov knew what was good and what was bad, because he had already lived in the world for thirteen years. It’s good to study with straight A’s, it’s good to obey your elders, it’s good to do exercises every morning...
He studied so-so, he didn’t always listen to his elders, he didn’t do exercises, of course, he’s not an exemplary person - really! - however, there are many of them, he was not ashamed of himself, and the world around him was simple and understandable.
But then something strange happened. Somehow suddenly, out of the blue. And the clear, stable world began to play changelings with Dyushka.
He came from the street; he had to sit down for his homework. Vasya-in-the-cube set a problem for the house: two pedestrians left at the same time... I remembered the pedestrians, and I felt sad. He took the first book that came to hand from the shelf. We came across “Works” by Pushkin. More than once, out of nothing to do, Dyushka read poetry in this thick old book and looked at rare pictures. I looked at one picture more often than others - a lady in a light dress, with hair curly at the temples.
My wishes came true. Creator
Natalya Goncharova, Pushkin’s wife, who doesn’t know, is a beauty that Tsar Nicholas himself had his eye on. And more than once it seemed like she looked like someone, someone she knew, but somehow I didn’t think it through to the end. Now I took a closer look and suddenly realized: Natalya Goncharova looks like... Rimka Brateneva!
Rimka lived in their house, was a year older, and studied a grade higher. He saw Rimka ten times a day. I just saw her, about fifteen minutes ago, standing with other girls in front of the house. She still stands there, through the unwashed spring double-glazed windows among other girlish voices - her voice.
Dyushka peered at Natalya Goncharova - curly hair at the temples, a chiseled nose...
Sent you to me, you, my Madonna,
The purest example of pure beauty.
Dyushka rushed to the door and tore his coat off the hanger. We need to check: is Rimka really a beauty?
And in those fifteen minutes something happened on the street. The sky, the sun, sparrows, girls - everything is as it was, and everything is not as it was. The sky is not just blue, it pulls, it sucks in, it seems that you are about to rise on tiptoe and stay like that for the rest of your life. The sun is suddenly shaggy, unkempt, cheerfully robber. And the street, recently freed from snow, crushed by trucks, sparkles with puddles, seems to be shivering, breathing, as if it is swelling from the inside. And under your feet something snorts, bursts, moves, as if you were standing not on the ground, but on something living, exhausting you. And dry, fluffy, warmed sparrows jump across the living earth, swearing annoyingly, cheerfully, almost understandably. The sky, the sun, the sparrows, the girls - everything was as it was. And something happened.
He didn’t immediately turn his eyes in her direction, for some reason he suddenly became scared. My heart beat unevenly: don’t, don’t, don’t! And my ears were ringing.
No need! But he overcame himself...
Every day I saw her ten times... Long, thin-legged, awkward. She has grown out of an old coat; from the hot tightness, through the short sleeves, arms break free, brittle, light, flying. And the thin neck falls steeply from under the knitted cap, and stray unruly hair curls at the temples. He himself suddenly felt hot and cramped in his unbuttoned coat, he himself suddenly felt the tickling of curly hair on his cropped temples.
And you can’t take your eyes off her easily and fearlessly flying hands. A frightened heart was pounding against my ribs: don’t, don’t!
And the overturned blue sky embraces the street, and the robber sun hangs overhead, and the living earth groans underfoot. I want to break away from this suffering earth at least an inch, to float through the air - there is such lightness inside.
But here’s a push from within - now the girls’ market will end, now Rimka will wave her light hand for the last time, ringing goodbye: “Hello, girls!” And turn in his direction! And it will pass by! And she will see his face, his eyes, and guess the rising lightness in him. You never know what he’ll guess... Dyushka turned to the sparrows in confusion.
Hello girls! - And weightless stomp, stomp, stomp behind his back, barely touching the ground.
He looked at the sparrows, but he saw her - with the back of her head through her winter hat: she was running with a skip, carefully carrying her hands ready to fly up at any moment, her stupid little nose was raised, her eyes were sparkling, her teeth were shining, the curls on her temples were trembling.
Stomp, stomp - weightless already on the steps of the porch, the door slammed, and the sparrows rushed out with a cascading noise.
He sighed freely, raised his head, and cast an unkind eye towards the girls. Everyone knows each other: Lyalka Sivtseva, Gulyaeva Galka, fat Ponyukhina from the other end of the street. Familiar, not scary, interesting only because they recently talked to her - face to face, eye to eye, of course!
And the hot street slowly cooled down - the sky became usually blue, the sun was not so shaggy. And Dyushka himself gained the ability to think.
What is this?
He just wanted to know: does Rimka look like Natalya Goncharova? “He sent you down to me, you, my Madonna...” He still doesn’t know - is he similar?
I saw her twenty minutes ago.
She couldn't change in those twenty minutes.
So it’s him himself... What’s wrong with him?
What if he goes crazy?
What if everyone finds out about this?
The worst thing is if she finds out.
Dyushka lived in the village of Kudelino on Jean-Paul Marat Street. Here he was born thirteen years ago. True, Jean-Paul Marat Street did not exist then; the village itself was also just being born - on the site of the village of Kudelino, which stood above a wild river.
Dyushka remembers how the low barracks were demolished, how two-story streets were built - Sovetskaya, Borovaya, named after Jean-Paul Marat, so named because the year when they began to build it was the anniversary of the French revolutionary.
Current page: 1 (book has 7 pages in total) [available reading passage: 2 pages]
Spring shifters
Preface
I was at the age of my hero Dyushka thirty-eight years ago, then the airplane was considered the highest achievement of technology, the pilot was the most romantic profession, and the recently deceased K. E. Tsiolkovsky was better known as the inventor of the all-metal airship, and not as a pioneer of astronautics.
However, even then the boys lived similar to the boys today, they were fond of science fiction, believed in the power of science and did not do their homework, fell in love with someone and hated someone.
Perhaps I would be lying if I claimed that this story about today’s childhood does not contain my distant childhood. I. S. Turgenev once stated that the biography of the writer is in his works. And there is no exception to this rule.
The closer you get to old age, the more often you remember that, alas, transcendental time when the ordinary world for you begins to turn upside down in your consciousness: the familiar suddenly becomes incomprehensible, the incomprehensible becomes obvious. There is probably no person on earth who has not experienced a spiritual revolution in life. And most often it occurs during adolescence.
It’s as if I met my childhood again here and at the same time I wanted every reader, regardless of age, to meet his own.
Vladimir Tendryakov
Spring shifters
Dyushka Tyagunov knew what was good and what was bad, because he had already lived in the world for thirteen years. It’s good to study with straight A’s, it’s good to obey your elders, it’s good to do exercises every morning...
He studied so-so, he didn’t always listen to his elders, he didn’t do exercises, of course, he’s not an exemplary person - really! - however, there are many of them, he was not ashamed of himself, and the world around him was simple and understandable.
But then something strange happened. Somehow suddenly, out of the blue. And the clear, stable world began to play changelings with Dyushka.
1
He came from the street; he had to sit down for his homework. Vasya-in-the-cube set a problem for the house: two pedestrians left at the same time... I remembered the pedestrians, and I felt sad. He took the first book that came to hand from the shelf. We came across “Works” by Pushkin. More than once, out of nothing to do, Dyushka read poetry in this thick old book and looked at rare pictures. I looked at one picture more often than others - a lady in a light dress, with hair curly at the temples.
My wishes came true. Creator
Natalya Goncharova, Pushkin’s wife, who doesn’t know, is a beauty that Tsar Nicholas himself had his eye on. And more than once it seemed like she looked like someone, someone she knew, but somehow I didn’t think it through to the end. Now I took a closer look and suddenly realized: Natalya Goncharova looks like... Rimka Brateneva!
Rimka lived in their house, was a year older, and studied a grade higher. He saw Rimka ten times a day. I just saw her, about fifteen minutes ago, standing with other girls in front of the house. She still stands there, through the unwashed spring double-glazed windows among other girlish voices - her voice.
Dyushka peered at Natalya Goncharova - curls at the temples, chiseled nose...
Sent you to me, you, my Madonna,
The purest example of pure beauty.
Dyushka rushed to the door and tore his coat off the hanger. We need to check: is Rimka really a beauty?
And in those fifteen minutes something happened on the street. The sky, the sun, sparrows, girls - everything is as it was, and everything is not as it was. The sky is not just blue, it pulls, it sucks in, it seems that you are about to rise on tiptoe and stay like that for the rest of your life. The sun is suddenly shaggy, unkempt, cheerfully robber. And the street, recently freed from snow, crushed by trucks, sparkles with puddles, seems to be shivering, breathing, as if it is swelling from the inside. And under your feet something snorts, bursts, moves, as if you were standing not on the ground, but on something living, exhausting you. And dry, fluffy, warmed sparrows jump across the living earth, swearing annoyingly, cheerfully, almost understandably. The sky, the sun, the sparrows, the girls - everything was as it was. And something happened.
He didn’t immediately turn his eyes in her direction, for some reason he suddenly became scared. My heart beat unevenly: don’t, don’t, don’t! And my ears were ringing.
No need! But he overcame himself...
Every day I saw her ten times... Long, thin-legged, awkward. She has grown out of an old coat; from the hot tightness, through the short sleeves, arms break free, brittle, light, flying. And the thin neck falls steeply from under the knitted cap, and stray unruly hair curls at the temples. He himself suddenly felt hot and cramped in his unbuttoned coat, he himself suddenly felt the tickling of curly hair on his cropped temples.
And you can’t take your eyes off her easily and fearlessly flying hands. A frightened heart was pounding against my ribs: don’t, don’t!
And the overturned blue sky embraces the street, and the robber sun hangs overhead, and the living earth groans underfoot. I want to break away from this suffering earth at least an inch, to float through the air - there is such lightness inside.
But here’s a push from within - now the girls’ market will end, now Rimka will wave her light hand for the last time, ringing goodbye: “Hello, girls!” And turn in his direction! And it will pass by! And she will see his face, his eyes, and guess the rising lightness in him. You never know what he’ll guess... Dyushka turned to the sparrows in confusion.
- Hello, girls! - And weightless stomp, stomp, stomp behind his back, barely touching the ground.
He looked at the sparrows, but he saw her - with the back of her head through her winter hat: she was running with a skip, carefully carrying her hands ready to fly up at any moment, her stupid little nose was raised, her eyes were sparkling, her teeth were shining, the curls on her temples were trembling.
Stomp, stomp - weightless already on the steps of the porch, the door slammed, and the sparrows rushed out with a cascading noise.
He sighed freely, raised his head, and cast an unkind eye towards the girls. Everyone knows each other: Lyalka Sivtseva, Gulyaeva Galka, fat Ponyukhina from the other end of the street. Familiar, not scary, interesting only because they recently talked to her - face to face, eye to eye, of course!
And the hot street slowly cooled down - the sky became usually blue, the sun was not so shaggy. And Dyushka himself gained the ability to think.
What is this?
He just wanted to know: does Rimka look like Natalya Goncharova? “He sent you down to me, you, my Madonna...” He still doesn’t know whether he’s similar?
I saw her twenty minutes ago.
She couldn't change in those twenty minutes.
So it’s him himself... What’s wrong with him?
What if he goes crazy?
What if everyone finds out about this?
The worst thing is if she finds out.
2
Dyushka lived in the village of Kudelino on Jean-Paul Marat Street. Here he was born thirteen years ago. True, Jean-Paul Marat Street did not exist then, the village itself was also just being born - on the site of the village of Kudelino, which stood above a wild river.
Dyushka remembers how the low barracks were demolished, how two-story streets were built - Sovetskaya, Borovaya, named after Jean-Paul Marat, so named because the year when they began to build it was the anniversary of the French revolutionary.
The village had a timber transshipment base, a river pier, a railway station and stacks of logs. These stacks are a whole city, almost larger than the village itself, with its nameless streets and alleys, dead ends and squares; a stranger could easily get lost among them. But strangers rarely appeared in the village. And here even the boys were well versed in the forest - tarot logs, fasteners, balance, resonance...
Above the entire village rises a narrow crane, like a lattice bayonet into the sky. It is so high that on other, especially gloomy days, its top hides in the clouds. It can be seen from all sides several kilometers from the village.
It is also visible from the windows of Dyushkina’s apartment. When the family sits down at the dinner table, it seems that a large crane is next to them, along with them. There are conversations about him at the table every day. Every day for a whole year my father complained about this crane: “It’s too heavy, Satan, the river bank can’t stand it, it’s sinking. He’ll drive me into a coffin, and there will be a monument for my grave worth half a million rubles!” The crane did not drive his father into the grave; his father now looks at him with pride: “My brainchild.” Well, Dyushka began to consider the big crane his brother - at home with him, on the street, they never part with him, even when he falls asleep, he feels that the crane is waiting for him in the night outside the window.
Dyushka's father was an engineer for mechanical unloading of timber, his mother was a doctor in a hospital, she was often called to see patients at night. There is also a grandmother - Klavdia Klimovna. This is not Dyushka’s own grandmother, but a visiting one. She has her own room on the ground floor in the same house, but Klimovna only spends the night in it. And once I didn’t even spend the night - I was babysitting Dyushka. Now Dyushka has grown up, there is no need to babysit him, Klimovna runs the household and suffers for everything: for the fact that her father’s bank under the tap is sagging, that her mother’s situation with the seriously ill Grinchenko has become even worse, that Dyushka has again grabbed a deuce. "Oh my God! – she constantly sighs doomedly. “Living life is not a field to cross.”
3
The unusual, as if heated, street cooled down and again became familiarly dirty and ordinary.
Wait, wait until Rimka jumps out of the house and the street flares up again, heats up.
No, run away, hide, because it’s a shame to wait for a girl.
I am ashamed and ready to spit on my shame.
Whether he wants it or not, even break it in half!
Or maybe he really tore into two parts, into two Dyushek, not at all similar friends on a friend?
Has this happened to others? Ask?.. No! They will laugh.
The swamp at the back of Jean-Paul Marat Street did not dry out even in the summer - there remained small swamps filled to the brim with black water.
Now on the outskirts of this swamp, like alarmed jackdaws, the guys were jumping over the hummocks. Among them, wearing a rafter’s canvas jacket and a shaggy “pure bear meat” hat, is Sanka Erakha. Dyushka immediately didn’t want to go.
Sanka was considered the strongest among the guys on the street. True, Levka Gaiser was stronger than Sanka. Levka, like Sanka, was already fifteen years old, he “worked” better than anyone in school on the horizontal bar, pumped up his muscles, and even, they say, knew the techniques of jiu-jitsu and karate. However, Levka knew everything in the world, especially mathematics. Vasya-in-the-cube, a mathematics teacher, said about him: “It’s from such and such that geniuses grow.” And Levka didn’t pay attention to Sanka, to Dyushka, to the other guys, no one dared to hurt him, he didn’t hurt anyone.
Dyushka among the guys from Jean-Paul Marat Street, if you count Levka, was the third strongest. Where Sanka was, he tried not to appear. And now it would be better to turn back, but the guys probably already noticed, turn around and they’ll think he’s chickened out.
Sanka always came up with strange games. Who will throw the cat the highest? And so that the cat did not run away, so as not to catch it after each throw, they tied it by the leg with a thin long string. Everyone took turns throwing the cat, it fell onto the trampled ground and could not escape. And Sanka threw higher than anyone else. Or if you're fishing, who will eat a live minnow? The minnows caught on a fishing rod smelled freshly of river mud, they fought in his hand, Dyushka could not even bring it to his mouth - he felt sick. And Sanka mocked: “Little sissy. Mama’s boy...” He himself killed the gudgeon with a crunch without blinking an eye - he won.
Now he has come up with a new game.
In the swamp there was an old, abandoned barn, left over from the time when Marata Street was just being built. There was a circle drawn in chalk on his plank wall, and the entire wall was covered in slimy stains. The guys caught frogs jumping over the hummocks. There were a great many of them here - the air boiled, splashed, and rattled with frog voices. It splashed and boiled to the side, and opposite the barn there was dead silence, the frogs hid from the hunters, but this did not save them.
Sanka, in his shaggy hat, frowning busily, accepted the helpfully offered frog, threw a rope loop around his paw, and sternly asked:
- Who's next? - And passed from hand to hand a string with a weakly floundering frog: - Hit!
Petka Goryunov, a quiet boy with a red, scalded face, accepted the rope. He spun the tied frog over his head, released the end of the rope from his hands... The frog crashed into the wall with a sickeningly wet slap. But not in the circle, far from it.
- Crooked! – Sanka spat. - Run for the rope!
Petka obediently jumped over the breathing hummocks to the wall of the barn.
Only now Sanka looked at Dyushka who had approached - his eyes were green, as if stained by a swamp, rarely blinking, erect. He looked and turned away: “Yeah, he came, well, that’s good...”
- They're all bullshit. Look how I am now... Let's frog! Hey there, cross-armed, bring the rope!
Kolka Lyskov, nimble, skinny, with a small, wrinkled, mobile face like a monkey’s, helpful to everyone, and especially to Sanka, handed over the caught frog. Petka, out of breath, brought a rope.
- Look, everyone!
Sanka was in no hurry, staring towards the barn with bulging, unblinking eyes, and lazily rocked the tied frog. And she was hanging on a rope upside down, spread out like a slingshot, frozen in anticipation of reprisal. And to the side, thousands of thousands of frogs immersed in the swamp were seething, gnashing, moaning, not knowing that one of them was dangling head down in Sanka Erakha’s hand.
For a second the frog stopped wobbling and hung motionless. Sanka got closer. And Dyushka suddenly, in that short second, noticed a little thing that had escaped until now: the frog crucified on a string was breathing strainedly from its yellow-white soft belly. She breathed and looked with her senselessly bulging golden eye. She lived upside down and dutifully waited...
Sanka straightened up, first slowly, then recklessly, furiously untwisted the string over his hat and... a soft wet slap on something hard, in a circle circled with chalk - a blot of mucus.
- Here! - Sanka said triumphantly.
Sanka has a wide, flat, pink face under his shaggy hat—“made of pure bear meat”—with a firm, decisive nose sticking out on it, and round, owl-like, green eyes. Dyushka could not bear his gaze and bowed his head to the ground.
Underfoot lay a brick, browned with age. Dyushka gradually took his eyes away from the brick and came across the shifting, red-faced, guilty Petka - “slant-armed, didn’t hit!” And Kolka Lyskov grinned and showed his uneven teeth: how cool are you, Erakha!
The air bubbled with the wet burr of frog voices. There’s no way to get the hanging frog out of your head, breathing with its soft belly, looking out with its rusty-golden eye. A wide pink face under a shaggy hat, and Sanka’s nose is gray, wooden, lifeless. Isn't anyone disgusted by Sanka? Petka hesitates guiltily, Kolka Lyskov helpfully bares his teeth. The frogs are screaming, the cry of the blind, not seeing, not hearing, not knowing anything but themselves. The guys are silent. All with Sanka. Sanka has a gray nose and green swamp eyes.
-Whose turn is it now? Well?..
“Now he’ll force me,” thought Dyushka and remembered the old brick under his feet. All picked up...
“Let me throw it,” Kolka Lyskov leaned up to Sanka, a touching smile on his bluish face. He's even nastier than Sanka!
- Minka didn’t throw. “It’s his turn,” Sanka answered and glanced sideways at Dyushka again.
Minka Bogatov is the smallest in stature, the weakest of the guys - a large melon head on a thin neck, a red pod nose, blue eyes. Dyushkin is the same age, they study in the same class.
If Minka leaves, then try to refuse after that. Not only Sanka - everyone will attack: “Little sissy, mama’s boy!” Everyone is with Sanka... There is a brick underfoot, but a brick will not help against everyone.
- I don’t want to, Sanka, let Kolka marry me. – Minka has a thin, girlish voice, and blue, suffering eyes, her narrow face is pale and distorted. But Minka is beautiful!..
Sanka pointed his wooden nose at Minka:
- I don’t want it!.. Everyone wants it, but you’re clean!
- Sanka, don’t... Kolka is asking. - Tears in my voice.
- Take the rope! Where is the frog?
The frog swamp screams, the guys are silent. Minka’s face is twisted - from fear, from disgust. Where can Minka get away from Sanka? If Sanka forces Minka...
And Dyushka said:
- Don't touch the man!
He said and glared into the swamp eyes.
Screams over the frog swamp. The cry of the blind. Sanka has a guarding pupil in the viscous green of his eyes, his nose is deadened, and spots have begun to bloom on his cheeks and flat chin. Petka Goryunov respectfully stepped back, Kolka Lyskov had an astonished joy on his old lady’s face - every wrinkle, every fold became sharper: “Well, what will happen!”
- Don't touch him, you bastard!
- Throw it yourself!
- And in the face?..
- Cattle! Executioner! I don't care about you!
To be convincing, Dyushka actually spat in Sanka’s direction.
Rigidly rounding his unclean green eyes, lowering his shoulders, moving his arms away from his body, with his head forward, Sanka moved towards Dyushka, carefully moving each leg, as if testing the strength of the earth. Dyushka quickly bent down and pulled out a brick from under his feet. The brick was heavy - it had been lying in the damp for so long that it was thoroughly saturated with water. And Sanka, having once again tested the strength of the earth with his foot, stopped, puzzled.
“Well?..” said Dyushka. - Let's!
And he leaned his body towards Sanka. Sanka looked at the brick with fascination and respect. The air bubbled and rattled with frog voices. The guys stood on the sidelines, not breathing, and Kolka Lyskov died in happy delight: “Well, it will happen!” The brick was reliably heavy.
Sanka awkwardly, as if he had become all made of wood and was about to creak, turned his back to Dyushka and, with the same groping gait, moved towards Minka. And Minka pulled his big head into his narrow shoulders.
- Take the rope! Well!
- Minka! Let him touch you! - Dyushka shouted and, hanging the brick, stepped forward.
Kolka Lyskov jumped to the side, but the happy expression on his shrunken face did not disappear; on the contrary, it became even stronger: “What will happen!”
- Take the rope, you bastard!
- Minka, here! Just let it hit you!
Minka did not move, pressed his head into his shoulders, looked at the ground. Sanka hung over him, moved his arms, shivered with his back, but did not touch Minka.
The frog swamp screamed loudly.
- Minka, let's get out of here!
Minka pressed his head into his shoulders and looked at the ground.
Minka did not move.
- You are a coward, Minka!
Minka was silent, the boys were silent, Sanka was shaking his back, the swamp was screaming.
- Stay! Serves you right!
Clutching a heavy brick in his hand, Dyushka walked sideways, stumbling on bumps, and moved away.
Heavy timber trucks, stained with acrid spring mud, walked along the street, bending it. They must have spent the whole day making their way from neighboring logging sites along washed-out roads, dragging fresh spruce and pine ridges filled with juice. They brought from the forest along with the logs the smell of pine needles, the smell of resin, the smell of foreign distances, the smell of freedom.
A large crane was on duty above the rooftops in the fading evening sky. Dyushkin's friend and brother. And behind the roar of the timber trucks one could hear an indistinct, gentle ringing dissolved in the air.
Dyushka threw an unnecessary brick. Dyushka wanted to cry. Sanka won't let me pass now. And Minka betrayed him. And Sanka will still force Minka to kill the frog. He wanted to cry, but not from fear of Sanka and certainly not from pity for Minka - that’s what he needed! - from the incomprehensible. Something happened to him today.
Whom to ask! No no! It is forbidden! Neither father nor mother, unless it’s a big crane...
And Dyushka felt emptiness around him - there was no one to rely on, nothing to grab onto, live on your own as best you can. How can you?.. The earth seems shaky.
And Rimka stands before his eyes - light flying hands, hair curling at his temples... And he can’t get the frog breathing from his stomach out of his head... and he hates Sanka! Everything is mixed up. What's wrong with him now?..
Timber trucks growl, drag heavy logs, and a large crane sleeps in the quiet sky. Dyushka Tyagunov stood in the middle of the street, a boy stunned by himself.
How does a boy know that with love comes hatred, along with a frantic desire for brotherhood - a bitter feeling of loneliness. Adults often have no idea about this either.
The timber trucks passed, but the smell of gasoline and pine forest remained, and the ringing sound remained dissolved in the air. It was the cry of frogs that came from the swamps. The cry of frantic love for life, the cry of frenzied passion for procreation, and drops from the roofs, and the movement of waters in the ground, and the noise of excited blood in the ears - everything merged into one ringing note, bursting the vault of heaven.