Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov
MAN'S FATE
Evgenia Grigorievna Levitskaya
member of the CPSU since 1903
The first post-war spring on the Upper Don was unusually friendly and assertive. At the end of March, warm winds blew from the Azov region, and within two days the sands of the left bank of the Don were completely exposed, snow-filled ravines and gullies in the steppe swelled up, breaking the ice, steppe rivers leaped madly, and the roads became almost completely impassable.
During this bad time of no roads, I had to go to the village of Bukanovskaya. And the distance is small - only about sixty kilometers - but overcoming them was not so easy. My friend and I left before sunrise. A pair of well-fed horses, pulling the lines to a string, could barely drag the heavy chaise. The wheels sank right up to the hub into the damp sand mixed with snow and ice, and an hour later, white fluffy flakes of soap appeared on the horses’ sides and hips, under the thin harness straps, and in the morning fresh air there was a pungent and intoxicating smell of horse sweat and the warm tar of generously oiled horse harness.
Where it was especially difficult for the horses, we got off the chaise and walked. The soaked snow squelched under the boots, it was hard to walk, but along the sides of the road there was still crystal ice glistening in the sun, and it was even more difficult to get through there. Only about six hours later we covered a distance of thirty kilometers and arrived at the crossing over the Elanka River.
A small river, drying up in places in summer, opposite the Mokhovsky farm in a swampy floodplain overgrown with alders, overflowed for a whole kilometer. It was necessary to cross on a fragile punt that could carry no more than three people. We released the horses. On the other side, in the collective farm barn, an old, well-worn “Jeep” was waiting for us, left there in the winter. Together with the driver, we boarded the dilapidated boat, not without fear. The comrade remained on the shore with his things. They had barely set sail when water began to gush out in fountains from the rotten bottom in different places. Using improvised means, they caulked the unreliable vessel and scooped water out of it until they reached it. An hour later we were on the other side of Elanka. The driver drove the car from the farm, approached the boat and said, taking the oar:
If this damned trough doesn’t fall apart on the water, we’ll arrive in two hours, don’t wait earlier.
The farm was located far to the side, and near the pier there was such silence as only happens in deserted places in the dead of autumn and at the very beginning of spring. The water smelled of dampness, the tart bitterness of rotting alder, and from the distant Khoper steppes, drowned in a lilac haze of fog, a light breeze carried the eternally youthful, barely perceptible aroma of land recently freed from under the snow.
Not far away, on the coastal sand, lay a fallen fence. I sat down on it, wanted to light a cigarette, but, putting my hand into the right pocket of the cotton quilt, to my great chagrin, I discovered that the pack of Belomor was completely soaked. During the crossing, a wave lashed over the side of a low-lying boat and washed me waist-deep. muddy water. Then I had no time to think about cigarettes, I had to abandon the oar and quickly bail out the water so that the boat would not sink, and now, bitterly annoyed at my mistake, I carefully took the soggy pack out of my pocket, squatted down and began to lay it out one by one on the fence damp, browned cigarettes.
It was noon. The sun was shining hotly, like in May. I hoped that the cigarettes would dry out soon. The sun was shining so hotly that I already regretted wearing military cotton trousers and a quilted jacket for the journey. It was the first truly warm day after winter. It was good to sit on the fence like this, alone, completely submitting to silence and loneliness, and, taking off the old soldier’s earflaps from his head, drying his hair, wet after heavy rowing, in the breeze, mindlessly watching the white busty clouds floating in the faded blue.
Soon I saw a man come out onto the road from behind the outer courtyards of the farm. He led by the hand little boy, judging by his height, he is no more than five or six years old. They walked wearily towards the crossing, but when they caught up with the car, they turned towards me. A tall, stooped man, coming close, said in a muffled basso:
Hello, brother!
Hello. - I shook the large, callous hand extended to me.
The man leaned towards the boy and said:
Say hello to your uncle, son. Apparently, he is the same driver as your dad. Only you and I drove a truck, and he drives this little car.
Looking straight into my eyes with eyes as bright as the sky, smiling slightly, the boy boldly extended his pink, cold little hand to me. I shook her lightly and asked:
Why is it, old man, that your hand is so cold? It's warm outside, but you're freezing?
With touching childish trust, the baby pressed himself against my knees and raised his whitish eyebrows in surprise.
What kind of old man am I, uncle? I’m not a boy at all, and I don’t freeze at all, but my hands are cold - because I was rolling snowballs.
Taking the skinny duffel bag off his back and wearily sitting down next to me, my father said:
I'm in trouble with this passenger! It was through him that I got involved. If you take a wide step, he will already break into a trot, so please adapt to such an infantryman. Where I need to step once, I step three times, and we walk with him separately, like a horse and a turtle. But here he needs an eye and an eye. You turn away a little, and he’s already wandering across the puddle or breaking off an ice cream and sucking it instead of candy. No, it’s not a man’s business to travel with such passengers, and at a leisurely pace at that. “He was silent for a while, then asked: “What are you, brother, waiting for your superiors?”
It was inconvenient for me to dissuade him that I was not a driver, and I answered:
We have to wait.
Will they come from the other side?
Don't know if the boat will arrive soon?
In two hours.
In order. Well, while we rest, I have nowhere to rush. And I walk past, I look: my brother, the driver, is sunbathing. Let me, I think, I’ll come in and have a smoke together. One is sick of smoking and dying. And you live richly and smoke cigarettes. Damaged them, then? Well, brother, soaked tobacco, like a treated horse, is no good. Let's smoke my strong drink instead.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov is the author of famous stories about the Cossacks, the Civil War, and the Great Patriotic War. In his works, the author talks not only about the events that took place in the country, but also about people, very aptly characterizing them. Such is Sholokhov’s famous story “The Fate of a Man.” will help the reader to gain respect for the main character of the book, to know the depth of his soul.
A little about the writer
M. A. Sholokhov - Soviet writer who lived in 1905-1984. He witnessed many historical events events taking place in the country at that time.
Started my creative activity writer from feuilletons, then the author creates more serious works: “ Quiet Don", "Virgin Soil Upturned". Among his works on the war one can highlight: “They Fought for the Motherland,” “Light and Darkness,” “The Fight Continues.” Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of a Man” is on the same topic. Analysis of the first lines will help the reader mentally transport himself to that setting.
Meeting Andrei Sokolov, who had a real prototype
The work begins with an introduction to the narrator. He was traveling on a chaise to the village of Bukhanovskaya. Swam across the river with the driver. The narrator had to wait 2 hours for the driver to return. He positioned himself not far from a Willys car and wanted to smoke, but the cigarettes turned out to be damp.
A man with a child saw the narrator and approached him. It was main character narration - Andrey Sokolov. He thought that the person trying to smoke was a driver, like him, so he went up to talk to his colleague.
This begins Sholokhov’s short story “The Fate of a Man.” Analysis of the meeting scene will tell the reader that the story is based on real events. Mikhail Alexandrovich was hunting in the spring of 1946 and there he got into a conversation with a man who told him his fate. Ten years later, remembering this meeting, Sholokhov wrote a story in a week. Now it is clear that the narration is conducted on behalf of the author.
Biography of Sokolov
After Andrei treated the person he met to dry cigarettes, they started talking. Or rather, Sokolov began to talk about himself. He was born in 1900. During the Civil War he fought in the Red Army.
In 1922, he left for Kuban in order to somehow feed himself during this time of hunger. But his entire family died - his father, sister and mother died of hunger. When Andrei returned to his homeland from Kuban, he sold the house and went to the city of Voronezh. He first worked here as a carpenter and then as a mechanic.
Next he talks about a significant event in the life of his hero M. A. Sholokhov. “The Fate of Man” continues with the young man marrying a good girl. She had no relatives, and she was brought up in orphanage. As Andrei himself says, Irina was not particularly beautiful, but it seemed to him that she was better than all the girls in the world.
Marriage and children
Irina had a wonderful character. When the newlyweds got married, sometimes the husband would come home from work angry from fatigue, so he would lash out at his wife. But the smart girl did not respond to offensive words, but was friendly and affectionate with her husband. Irina tried to feed him better and greet him well. Having been in such a favorable environment, Andrei realized that he was wrong and asked his wife for forgiveness for his incontinence.
The woman was very flexible and did not scold her husband for sometimes drinking too much with friends. But soon he stopped even occasionally abusing alcohol, as the young couple had children. First a son was born, and a year later two twin girls were born. My husband began to bring his entire salary home, only occasionally allowing himself a bottle of beer.
Andrei learned to be a driver, began driving a truck, earning good money - the family’s life was comfortable.
War
So 10 years passed. The Sokolovs set themselves new house, Irina bought two goats. Everything was fine, but the war began. It is she who will bring a lot of grief to the family and make the main character lonely again. M. A. Sholokhov spoke about this in his almost documentary work. “The Fate of Man” continues with a sad moment - Andrei was called to the front. Irina seemed to feel that a big disaster was about to happen. Seeing off her beloved, she cried on her husband’s chest and said that they would not see each other again.
In captivity
After some time, 6 German machine gunners approached him and took him prisoner, but not him alone. First, the prisoners were taken to the west, then they were ordered to stop for the night in a church. Here Andrey was lucky - the doctor set his arm. He walked among the soldiers, asked if there were any wounded and helped them. These were among Soviet soldiers and officers. But there were others too. Sokolov heard one man named Kryzhnev threatening another, saying that he would hand him over to the Germans. The traitor said that in the morning he would tell his opponents that there were communists among the prisoners, and they shot members of the CPSU. What did Mikhail Sholokhov talk about next? “The Fate of a Man” helps to understand how indifferent Andrei Sokolov was, even to the misfortune of others.
The main character could not bear such injustice; he told the communist, who was a platoon commander, to hold Kryzhnev’s legs and strangle the traitor.
But the next morning, when the Germans lined up the prisoners and asked if there were commanders, communists, or commissars among them, no one handed anyone over, since more traitors it didn't turn out. But the Nazis shot four who looked very much like Jews. They mercilessly exterminated the people of this nation in those difficult times. Mikhail Sholokhov knew about this. “The Fate of Man” continues with stories about Sokolov’s two captive years. During this time, the main character was in many areas of Germany, he had to work for the Germans. He worked in a mine, at a silicate plant and in other places.
Sholokhov, “The Fate of Man.” Excerpt showing the heroism of a soldier
When, not far from Dresden, together with other prisoners, Sokolov was extracting stones at a quarry, arriving at his barracks, he said that the output was equal to three cubes, and one was enough for each person’s grave.
Someone conveyed these words to the Germans, and they decided to shoot the soldier. He was called to the command, but even here Sokolov showed himself to be a real hero. This is clearly visible when you read about the tense moment in Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of a Man.” Analysis of the following episode shows the fearlessness of the ordinary Russian person.
When camp commandant Müller said that he would personally shoot Sokolov, he was not afraid. Müller invited Andrei to drink German weapons for the victory, the Red Army soldier did not, but agreed for his death. The prisoner drank a glass of vodka in two sips and did not eat, which surprised the Germans. He drank the second glass in the same way, the third more slowly and bit off quite a bit of bread.
The amazed Müller said that he was giving such a brave soldier life and rewarded him with a loaf of bread and lard. Andrei took the treat to the barracks so that the food could be divided equally. Sholokhov wrote about this in detail.
“The Fate of Man”: a soldier’s feat and irreparable losses
Since 1944, Sokolov began working as a driver - he drove a German major. When an opportunity presented itself, Andrei rushed to his people in a car and brought the major with valuable documents as a trophy.
The hero was sent to the hospital for treatment. From there he wrote a letter to his wife, but received an answer from a neighbor that Irina and her daughters died back in 1942 - a bomb hit the house.
One thing now only warmed the head of the family - his son Anatoly. He graduated from the artillery school with honors and fought with the rank of captain. But fate was willing to take away the soldier and his son; Anatoly died on Victory Day - May 9, 1945.
Named son
After the end of the war, Andrei Sokolov went to Uryupinsk - his friend lived here. By chance, in a tea shop, I met a grimy, hungry orphan boy, Vanya, whose mother had died. After thinking, after some time Sokolov told the child that he was his dad. Sholokhov talks about this very touchingly in his work (“The Fate of Man”).
The author described the heroism of a simple soldier, talking about his military exploits, the fearlessness and courage with which he met the news of the death of his loved ones. He will certainly raise his adopted son to be as unbending as himself, so that Ivan can endure and overcome everything on his way.
Great Patriotic War even after many decades remains the greatest blow for the whole world. What a tragedy this is for the fighting Soviet people, who lost the most people in this bloody battle! The lives of many (both military and civilian) were ruined. Sholokhov's story “The Fate of Man” truthfully depicts these sufferings, not of an individual person, but of the entire people who stood up to defend their Motherland.
The story “The Fate of a Man” is based on real events: M.A. Sholokhov met a man who told him his tragic biography. This story was almost a ready-made plot, but did not immediately turn into literary work. The writer nurtured his idea for 10 years, but put it on paper in just a few days. And dedicated it to E. Levitskaya, who helped him print main novel his life "Quiet Don".
The story was published in the Pravda newspaper on the eve of the new year, 1957. And soon it was read on All-Union Radio and heard throughout the country. Listeners and readers were shocked by the power and truthfulness of this work, and it gained well-deserved popularity. In literary terms, this book opened up for writers new way reveal the theme of war through the fate of a little man.
The essence of the story
The author accidentally meets the main character Andrei Sokolov and his son Vanyushka. During the forced delay at the crossing, the men started talking, and a casual acquaintance told the writer his story. This is what he told him.
Before the war, Andrei lived like everyone else: wife, children, household, work. But then thunder struck, and the hero went to the front, where he served as a driver. One fateful day, Sokolov’s car came under fire and he was shell-shocked. So he was captured.
A group of prisoners was brought to the church for the night, many incidents happened that night: the shooting of a believer who could not desecrate the church (they didn’t even let him out “until the wind”), and with him several people who accidentally fell under machine gun fire, help from a doctor to Sokolov and others wounded. Also, the main character had to strangle another prisoner, since he turned out to be a traitor and was going to hand over the commissioner. Even during the next transfer to the concentration camp, Andrei tried to escape, but was caught by dogs, who stripped him of his last clothes and bit him so much that “the skin and meat flew into shreds.”
Then the concentration camp: inhuman work, almost starvation, beatings, humiliation - that’s what Sokolov had to endure. “They need four cubic meters of production, but for the grave of each of us, one cubic meter through the eyes is enough!” - Andrei said imprudently. And for this he appeared before Lagerführer Müller. They wanted to shoot the main character, but he overcame his fear, bravely drank three glasses of schnapps to his death, for which he earned respect, a loaf of bread and a piece of lard.
Towards the end of hostilities, Sokolov was appointed driver. And finally, an opportunity arose to escape, and even together with the engineer whom the hero was driving. Before the joy of salvation had time to subside, grief arrived: he learned about the death of his family (a shell hit the house), and all this time he lived only in the hope of a meeting. One son survived. Anatoly also defended his homeland, and Sokolov and he simultaneously approached Berlin from different directions. But right on the day of victory, the last hope was killed. Andrey was left all alone.
Subjects
The main theme of the story is a man at war. These tragic events are an indicator personal qualities: in extreme situations, those character traits that are usually hidden are revealed, it is clear who is who in reality. Before the war, Andrei Sokolov was not particularly different; he was like everyone else. But in battle, having survived captivity and constant danger to life, he proved himself. His truly heroic qualities were revealed: patriotism, courage, perseverance, will. On the other hand, a prisoner like Sokolov, probably also no different in ordinary peaceful life, was going to betray his commissar in order to curry favor with the enemy. Thus, the theme of moral choice is also reflected in the work.
Also M.A. Sholokhov touches on the topic of willpower. The war took away from the main character not only his health and strength, but also his entire family. He has no home, how can he continue to live, what to do next, how to find meaning? This question has interested hundreds of thousands of people who have experienced similar losses. And for Sokolov, caring for the boy Vanyushka, who was also left without a home and family, became a new meaning. And for his sake, for the sake of the future of his country, you need to live on. Here is the disclosure of the theme of the search for the meaning of life - its real man finds love and hope for the future.
Issues
- The problem of choice occupies an important place in the story. Every person faces a choice every day. But not everyone has to choose on pain of death, knowing that your fate depends on this decision. So, Andrei had to decide: to betray or remain faithful to the oath, to bend under the blows of the enemy or to fight. Sokolov was able to stay worthy person and a citizen, because he determined his priorities, guided by honor and morality, and not by the instinct of self-preservation, fear or meanness.
- The whole fate of the hero, in his life trials, reflects the problem of the defenselessness of the common man in the face of war. Little depends on him; circumstances are falling on him, from which he is trying to get out at least alive. And if Andrei was able to save himself, then his family was not. And he feels guilty about it, even though he isn't.
- The problem of cowardice is realized in the work through secondary characters. The image of a traitor who, for the sake of immediate gain, is ready to sacrifice the life of a fellow soldier, becomes a counterweight to the image of the brave and strong-willed Sokolov. And there were such people in the war, says the author, but there were fewer of them, that’s the only reason we won.
- The tragedy of war. Numerous losses were suffered not only by the military units, but also by civilians who could not defend themselves in any way.
- Andrey Sokolov – a common person, one of many who had to leave a peaceful existence in order to defend their homeland. He exchanges a simple and happy life for the dangers of war, without even imagining how he can remain on the sidelines. In extreme circumstances, he maintains spiritual nobility, shows willpower and perseverance. Under the blows of fate, he managed not to break. And find a new meaning in life, which reveals his kindness and responsiveness, because he sheltered an orphan.
- Vanyushka is a lonely boy who has to spend the night wherever he can. His mother was killed during the evacuation, his father at the front. Tattered, dusty, covered in watermelon juice - this is how he appeared before Sokolov. And Andrei could not leave the child, he introduced himself as his father, giving both himself and him a chance for a further normal life.
Characteristics of the main characters
What is the meaning of the work?
One of the main ideas of the story is the need to take into account the lessons of the war. The example of Andrei Sokolov shows not what war can do to a person, but what it can do to all of humanity. Prisoners tortured in concentration camps, orphaned children, destroyed families, scorched fields - this should never be repeated, and therefore should not be forgotten.
No less important is the idea that in any, even the most terrible situation, one must remain human and not become like an animal that, out of fear, acts only on the basis of instincts. Survival is the main thing for anyone, but if this comes at the cost of betraying oneself, one’s comrades, one’s Motherland, then the surviving soldier is no longer a person, he is not worthy of this title. Sokolov did not betray his ideals, did not break, although he went through something that is difficult for a modern reader to even imagine.
Genre
The story is short literary genre, revealing one storyline and several images of heroes. “The Fate of Man” refers specifically to him.
However, if you look closely at the composition of the work, you can clarify general definition, because this is a story within a story. First, the story is narrated by the author, who, by the will of fate, met and talked with his character. Andrei Sokolov himself describes his difficult life; the first-person narration allows readers to better understand the hero’s feelings and understand him. The author's remarks are introduced to characterize the hero from the outside (“eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes,” “I didn’t see a single tear in his seemingly dead, extinct eyes... only his large, limply lowered hands trembled slightly, his chin trembled, his hard lips trembled”) and show how deeply this strong man suffers.
What values does Sholokhov promote?
The main value for the author (and for readers) is peace. Peace between states, peace in society, peace in the human soul. The war destroyed the happy life of Andrei Sokolov, as well as many people. The echo of the war still does not subside, so its lessons must not be forgotten (although often in Lately this event is overestimated for political purposes that are far from the ideals of humanism).
Also, the writer does not forget about the eternal values of the individual: nobility, courage, will, desire to help. The time of knights and noble dignity has long passed, but true nobility does not depend on origin, it is in the soul, expressed in its ability to show mercy and empathy, even if the world is collapsing. This story - great lesson courage and morality for modern readers.
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Sholokhov Mikhail
Man's destiny
Mikhail Sholokhov
Man's destiny
Story
Evgenia Grigorievna Levitskaya,
member of the CPSU since 1903
The first post-war spring on the Upper Don was unusually friendly and assertive. At the end of March, warm winds blew from the Azov region, and within two days the sands of the left bank of the Don were completely exposed, snow-filled ravines and gullies in the steppe swelled up, breaking the ice, steppe rivers leaped madly, and the roads became almost completely impassable.
During this bad time of no roads, I had to go to the village of Bukanovskaya. And the distance is small - only about sixty kilometers - but overcoming them was not so easy. My friend and I left before sunrise. A pair of well-fed horses, pulling the lines to a string, could barely drag the heavy chaise. The wheels sank to the very hub into the damp sand mixed with snow and ice, and an hour later, on the horses’ sides and whips, under the thin belts of the harnesses, white fluffy flakes of soap appeared, and in the fresh morning air there was a sharp and intoxicating smell of horse sweat and warmed tar generously oiled horse harness.
Where it was especially difficult for the horses, we got off the chaise and walked. The soaked snow squelched under the boots, it was hard to walk, but along the sides of the road there was still crystal ice glistening in the sun, and it was even more difficult to get through there. Only about six hours later we covered a distance of thirty kilometers and arrived at the crossing over the Elanka River.
A small river, drying up in places in summer, opposite the Mokhovsky farm in a swampy floodplain overgrown with alders, overflowed for a whole kilometer. It was necessary to cross on a fragile punt that could carry no more than three people. We released the horses. On the other side, in the collective farm barn, an old, well-worn “Jeep” was waiting for us, left there in the winter. Together with the driver, we boarded the dilapidated boat, not without fear. The comrade remained on the shore with his things. They had barely set sail when water began to gush out in fountains from the rotten bottom in different places. Using improvised means, they caulked the unreliable vessel and scooped water out of it until they reached it. An hour later we were on the other side of Elanka. The driver drove the car from the farm, approached the boat and said, taking the oar:
“If this damned trough doesn’t fall apart on the water, we’ll arrive in two hours, don’t wait earlier.”
The farm was located far to the side, and near the pier there was such silence as only happens in deserted places in the dead of autumn and at the very beginning of spring. The water smelled of dampness, the tart bitterness of rotting alder, and from the distant Khoper steppes, drowned in a lilac haze of fog, a light breeze carried the eternally youthful, barely perceptible aroma of land recently freed from under the snow.
Not far away, on the coastal sand, lay a fallen fence. I sat down on it and wanted to light a cigarette, but putting my hand into the right pocket of the cotton quilt, to my great chagrin, I discovered that the pack of Belomor was completely soaked. During the crossing, a wave lashed over the side of a low-slung boat and doused me waist-deep in muddy water. Then I had no time to think about cigarettes, I had to abandon the oar and quickly bail out the water so that the boat would not sink, and now, bitterly annoyed at my mistake, I carefully took the soggy pack out of my pocket, squatted down and began to lay it out one by one on the fence damp, browned cigarettes.
It was noon. The sun was shining hotly, like in May. I hoped that the cigarettes would dry out soon. The sun was shining so hotly that I already regretted wearing military cotton trousers and a quilted jacket for the journey. It was the first truly warm day after winter. It was good to sit on the fence like this, alone, completely submitting to silence and loneliness, and, taking off the old soldier’s earflaps from his head, drying his hair, wet after heavy rowing, in the breeze, mindlessly watching the white busty clouds floating in the faded blue.
Soon I saw a man come out onto the road from behind the outer courtyards of the farm. He was leading a little boy by the hand; judging by his height, he was no more than five or six years old. They walked wearily towards the crossing, but when they caught up with the car, they turned towards me. A tall, stooped man, coming close, said in a muffled basso:
- Great, brother!
- Hello. - I shook the large, callous hand extended to me.
The man leaned towards the boy and said:
- Say hello to your uncle, son. Apparently, he is the same driver as your dad. Only you and I drove a truck, and he drives this little car.
Looking straight into my eyes with eyes as bright as the sky, smiling slightly, the boy boldly extended his pink, cold little hand to me. I shook her lightly and asked:
- Why is your hand so cold, old man? It's warm outside, but you're freezing?
With touching childish trust, the baby pressed himself against my knees and raised his whitish eyebrows in surprise.
- What kind of old man am I, uncle? I’m not a boy at all, and I don’t freeze at all, but my hands are cold - because I was rolling snowballs.
Taking the skinny duffel bag off his back and wearily sitting down next to me, my father said:
- I have trouble with this passenger. It was through him that I got involved. As soon as you take a wide step, he starts to trot, so please adapt to such an infantryman. Where I need to step once, I step three times, and we walk with him separately, like a horse and a turtle. But here he needs an eye and an eye. You turn away a little, and he’s already wandering across the puddle or breaking off an ice cream and sucking it instead of candy. No, it’s not a man’s business to travel with such passengers, and at a leisurely pace at that. “He was silent for a while, then asked: “What are you, brother, waiting for your superiors?”
It was inconvenient for me to dissuade him that I was not a driver, and I answered:
- We have to wait.
- Will they come from the other side?
- Yes.
- Do you know if the boat will come soon?
- In two hours.
- In order. Well, while we rest, I have nowhere to rush. And I walk past, I look: my brother, the driver, is sunbathing. Let me, I think, I’ll come in and have a smoke together. One is sick of smoking and dying. And you live richly and smoke cigarettes. Damaged them, then? Well, brother, soaked tobacco, like a treated horse, is no good. Let's smoke my strong drink instead.
He took out a worn raspberry silk pouch rolled into a tube from the pocket of his protective summer pants, unfolded it, and I managed to read the inscription embroidered on the corner: “To our dear fighter from 6th grade student Lebedyanskaya high school".
We lit a strong cigarette and were silent for a long time. I wanted to ask where he was going with the child, what need was driving him into such muddiness, but he beat me to it with a question:
- What, you spent the whole war behind the wheel?
- Almost all of it.
- At the front?
- Yes.
- Well, there I had to, brother, take a sip of goryushka up to the nostrils and above.
He put the big ones on his knees dark hands, hunched over. I looked at him from the side, and I felt something uneasy... Have you ever seen eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes, filled with such an inescapable mortal melancholy that it is difficult to look into them? These were the eyes of my random interlocutor.
Having broken out a dry, twisted twig from the fence, he silently moved it along the sand for a minute, drawing some intricate figures, and then spoke:
“Sometimes you don’t sleep at night, you look into the darkness with empty eyes and think: “Why, life, did you cripple me like that? Why did you distort me like that?” I don’t have an answer, either in the dark or in the clear sun... No, and I can’t wait! - And suddenly he came to his senses: gently nudging his little son, he said: - Go, dear, play near the water, big water There is always some kind of prey for the kids. Just be careful not to get your feet wet!
While we were still smoking in silence, I, furtively examining my father and son, noted with surprise one circumstance that was strange in my opinion. The boy was dressed simply, but well: and in the way he sat on him, lined with a light, well-worn long-skirted jacket, and the fact that the tiny boots were sewn with the intention of wearing them on wool sock, and a very skillful seam on the once torn sleeve of the jacket - everything betrayed feminine care, skillful motherly hands. But the father looked different: the padded jacket, burnt in several places, was carelessly and roughly darned, the patch on his worn-out protective trousers was not sewn on properly, but rather sewn on with wide, masculine stitches; he was wearing almost new soldier's boots, but his thick woolen socks were moth-eaten, they had not been touched by a woman's hand... Even then I thought: “Either he is a widower, or he lives at odds with his wife.”
But then he, following his little son with his eyes, coughed dully, spoke again, and I became all ears.
- At first, my life was ordinary. I am a native of the Voronezh province, born in 1900. IN civil war was in the Red Army, in the Kikvidze division. In the hungry year of twenty-two, he went to Kuban to fight the kulaks, and that’s why he survived. And the father, mother and sister died of hunger at home. One left. Rodney - even if you roll a ball - nowhere, no one, not a single soul. Well, a year later he returned from Kuban, sold his little house, and went to Voronezh. At first he worked in a carpentry artel, then he went to a factory and learned to be a mechanic. Soon he got married. The wife was brought up in an orphanage. Orphan. I got a good girl! Quiet, cheerful, obsequious and smart, no match for me. Since childhood, she learned how much a pound is worth, maybe this affected her character. Looking from the outside, she wasn’t all that distinguished, but I wasn’t looking at her from the side, but point-blank. And for me there was no one more beautiful and desirable than her, there was not in the world and there never will be!
You come home from work tired, and sometimes angry as hell. No, she will not be rude to you in response to a rude word. Affectionate, quiet, doesn’t know where to sit you, struggles to prepare a sweet piece for you even with little income. You look at her and move away with your heart, and after a while you hug her and say: “Sorry, dear Irinka, I was rude to you. You see, my work hasn’t gone well today.” And again we have peace, and I have peace of mind. Do you know, brother, what this means for work? In the morning I get up, disheveled, go to the factory, and any work in my hands is in full swing and fuss! This is what it means to have a smart wife-friend.
Once in a while after payday I had to have a drink with my friends. Sometimes it happened that you went home and made such pretzels with your feet that, from the outside, it was probably scary to look at. The street is too small for you, and even the coven, not to mention the alleys. I was a healthy guy then and strong as the devil, I could drink a lot, and I always got home on my own two feet. But it also happened sometimes that the last stage was at first speed, that is, on all fours, but he still got there. And again, no reproach, no shouting, no scandal. My Irinka only chuckles, and then carefully, so that I don’t get offended when I’m drunk. He takes me off and whispers: “Lie down against the wall, Andryusha, otherwise you’ll fall out of bed sleepy.” Well, I’ll fall like a sack of oats, and everything will float before my eyes. I only hear in my sleep that she is quietly stroking my head with her hand and whispering something affectionate, she is sorry, that means...
In the morning, she will get me up on my feet about two hours before work so that I can warm up. He knows that I won’t eat anything when I’m hungover, well, he’ll get a pickled cucumber or something else light and pour a cut glass of vodka. “Have a hangover, Andryusha, but no more, my dear.” But is it possible not to justify such trust? I’ll drink it, thank her without words, with just my eyes, kiss her and go to work like a sweetheart. And if she had said a word to me, drunkenly, shouted or cursed, and I, like God, would have gotten drunk on the second day. This happens in other families where the wife is a fool; I've seen enough of such sluts, I know.
Soon our children left. First a little son was born, a year later two more girls... Then I broke away from my comrades. I bring all the pay home, the family has become a decent number, there is no time for drinking. On the weekend I’ll drink a glass of beer and call it a day.
In 1929 I was attracted by cars. I studied the car business and sat behind the wheel of a truck. Then I got involved and no longer wanted to return to the plant. I thought it was more fun behind the wheel. He lived like that for ten years and didn’t notice how they passed. They passed as if in a dream. Why ten years! Ask any elderly person - did he notice how he lived his life? He didn't notice a damn thing! The past is like that distant steppe in the haze. In the morning I walked along it, everything was clear all around, but I walked twenty kilometers, and now the steppe was covered in haze, and from here you can no longer distinguish the forest from the weeds, the arable land from the grass cutter...
For these ten years I worked day and night. He earned good money, and we didn’t live worse than people. And the children were happy: all three studied with excellent marks, and the eldest, Anatoly, turned out to be so capable of mathematics that they even wrote about him in the central newspaper. Where he got such a huge talent for this science, I myself, brother, don’t know. But it was very flattering to me, and I was proud of him, so passionately proud!
Over the course of ten years, we saved up a little money and before the war we built you a house with two rooms, a storage room and a corridor. Irina bought two goats. What more do you need? The children eat porridge with milk, have a roof over their heads, are dressed, have shoes, so everything is in order. I just lined up awkwardly. They gave me a plot of six acres not far from the aircraft factory. If my shack were in a different place, maybe life would have turned out differently...
And here it is, war. On the second day there is a summons from the military registration and enlistment office, and on the third - welcome to the train. All four of my friends saw me off: Irina, Anatoly and my daughters Nastenka and Olyushka. All the guys behaved well. Well, the daughters, not without that, had sparkling tears. Anatoly just shrugged his shoulders as if from the cold, by that time he was already seventeen, a year old, and Irina is mine... That’s how I am her for all seventeen years of our life together never saw it. At night, the shirt on my shoulder and chest did not dry out from her tears, and in the morning it was the same story... They came to the station, but I couldn’t look at her out of pity: my lips were swollen from tears, my hair had come out from under my scarf, and the eyes are dull, meaningless, like those of a person touched by the mind. The commanders announced the landing, and she fell on my chest, clasped her hands around my neck and was trembling all over, like a felled tree... And the kids tried to persuade her, and I, too - nothing helps! Other women are talking to their husbands and sons, but mine clung to me like a leaf to a branch, and only trembles all over, but cannot utter a word. I tell her: “Pull yourself together, my dear Irinka! Tell me at least a word goodbye.” She says, and sobs behind every word: “My dear... Andryusha... we will not see each other... again... in this... world...”
Here my heart breaks to pieces out of pity for her, and here she is with these words. I should have understood that it’s not easy for me to part with them either; I wasn’t going to my mother-in-law’s for pancakes. Evil got me here! I forcibly separated her hands and lightly pushed her on the shoulders. It seemed like I pushed lightly, but I had the strength! was a fool; She backed away, took three steps back and again walked towards me in small steps, holding out her arms, and I shouted to her: “Is this really how they say goodbye? Why are you burying me alive ahead of time?!” Well, I hugged her again, I see that she’s not herself...
He abruptly stopped his story mid-sentence, and in the ensuing silence I heard something bubbling and gurgling in his throat. Someone else's excitement was transmitted to me. I looked sideways at the narrator, but did not see a single tear in his seemingly dead, extinct eyes. He sat with his head bowed dejectedly, only his large, limply lowered hands trembled slightly, his chin trembled, his hard lips trembled...
- Don’t, friend, don’t remember! “I said quietly, but he probably didn’t hear my words and, by some huge effort of will, overcoming his excitement, he suddenly said in a hoarse, strangely changed voice:
- Until my death, until my last hour, I will die, and I will not forgive myself for pushing her away then!..
He fell silent again for a long time. I tried to roll a cigarette, but the newsprint was torn and the tobacco fell onto my lap. Finally, he somehow made a twist, took several greedy drags and, coughing, continued:
“I pulled away from Irina, took her face in my hands, kissed her, and her lips were like ice. I said goodbye to the kids, ran to the carriage, and already on the move jumped onto the step. The train took off quietly; I should pass by my own people. I look, my orphaned children are huddled together, waving their hands at me, trying to smile, but it doesn’t come out. And Irina pressed her hands to her chest; her lips are white as chalk, she whispers something with them, looks at me, doesn’t blink, and she leans all forward, as if she wants to step against a strong wind... That’s how she remained in my memory for the rest of my life: hands pressed to her chest , white lips and wide open eyes, full of tears... For the most part, this is how I always see her in my dreams... Why did I push her away then? I still remember that my heart feels like it’s being cut with a dull knife...
We were formed near Bila Tserkva, in Ukraine. They gave me a ZIS-5. I rode it to the front. Well, you have nothing to tell about the war, you saw it yourself and you know how it was at first. I often received letters from my friends, but rarely sent lionfish myself. It happened that you would write that everything was fine, we were fighting little by little, and although we were retreating now, we would soon gather our strength and then let the Fritz have a light. What else could you write? It was a sickening time; there was no time for writing. And I must admit, I myself was not a fan of playing on plaintive strings and could not stand these slobbering ones that every day, to the point and not to the point, they wrote to their wives and sweethearts, smearing their snot on the paper. It’s hard, they say, it’s hard for him, and at any moment he’ll be killed. And here he is, a bitch in his pants, complaining, looking for sympathy, slobbering, but he doesn’t want to understand that these unfortunate women and children had it no worse than ours in the rear. The whole state relied on them! What kind of shoulders did our women and children have to have in order not to bend under such a weight? But they didn’t bend, they stood! And such a whip, a wet little soul, will write a pitiful letter - and a working woman will be like a ripple at her feet. After this letter, she, the unfortunate one, will give up, and work is not her job. No! That's why you're a man, that's why you're a soldier, to endure everything, to endure everything, if need calls for it. And if you have more of a woman’s streak in you than a man’s, then put on a gathered skirt to cover your skinny butt more fully, so that at least from behind you look like a woman, and go weed beets or milk cows, but at the front you are not needed like that, there there's a lot of stink without you!
But I didn’t even have to fight for a year... I was wounded twice during this time, but both times only lightly: once in the flesh of the arm, the other in the leg; the first time - with a bullet from an airplane, the second - with a shell fragment. The German made holes in my car both on top and on the sides, but my brother, I was lucky at first. I was lucky, and I got to the very end... I was captured near Lozovenki in May of '42 in such an awkward situation: the Germans were advancing strongly at the time, and one of our one hundred and twenty-two-millimeter howitzer batteries turned out to be almost without shells; They loaded my car to the brim with shells, and while loading I myself worked so hard that my tunic stuck to my shoulder blades. We had to hurry because the battle was approaching us: on the left someone’s tanks were thundering, on the right there was shooting, there was shooting ahead, and it was already starting to smell like something fried...
Our commander! The company leader asks: “Will you get through, Sokolov?” And there was nothing to ask here. My comrades may be dying there, but I’ll be sick here? “What a conversation!” I answer him. “I have to slip through, and that’s it!” “Well,” he says, “blow! Press all the hardware!”
I blew it. I’ve never driven like this in my life! I knew that I wasn’t carrying potatoes, that with this load, caution was needed when driving, but how could there be any caution when there were empty-handed guys fighting, when the entire road was being shot through by artillery fire. I ran about six kilometers, soon I had to turn onto a dirt road to get to the ravine where the battery stood, and then I looked - holy mother - our infantry was pouring across the open field to the right and left of the grader, and mines were already exploding in their formations. What should I do? Shouldn't you turn back? I'll push with all my might! And there was only a kilometer left to the battery, I had already turned onto a dirt road, but I didn’t have to get to my people, bro... Apparently, he had placed a heavy one near my car from a long-range one. I didn’t hear a burst or anything, it was just as if something had burst in my head, and I don’t remember anything else. I don’t understand how I stayed alive then, and I can’t figure out how long I lay about eight meters from the ditch. I woke up, but I couldn’t get to my feet: my head was twitching, I was shaking all over, as if I had a fever, there was darkness in my eyes, something was creaking and crunching in my left shoulder, and the pain in my whole body was the same as, say, for two days in a row. They hit me with whatever they got. For a long time I crawled on the ground on my stomach, but somehow I stood up. However, again, I don’t understand anything, where I am and what happened to me. My memory has completely disappeared. And I'm afraid to go back to bed. I'm afraid that I'll lie down and never get up again, I'll die. I stand and sway from side to side, like a poplar in a storm.
When I came to my senses, I came to my senses and looked around properly - it was as if someone had squeezed my heart with pliers: there were shells lying around, the ones I was carrying, nearby my car, all beaten to pieces, was lying upside down, and battle, battle already is coming behind me... How's that?
It’s no secret, it was then that my legs gave way on their own, and I fell as if I had been cut off, because I realized that I was a prisoner of the Nazis. This is how it happens in war...
Oh, brother, it’s not an easy thing to understand that you are not in captivity of your own free will. Anyone who hasn’t experienced this on their own skin will not immediately get into their soul so that they can understand in a human way what this thing means.
Well, so, I’m lying there and I hear: the tanks are thundering. Four German medium tanks at full throttle passed me to where I had come from with the shells... What was it like to experience it? Then the tractors with guns pulled out, field kitchen drove through, then the infantry came, not too many, so, no more than one beaten company. I’ll look, I’ll look at them out of the corner of my eye and again I’ll press my cheek to the ground and close my eyes: I’m sick of looking at them, and my heart is sick...
I thought that everyone had passed, I raised my head, and there were six of them machine gunners - there they were, walking about a hundred meters from me. I look, they turn off the road and come straight towards me. They walk in silence. “Here,” I think, “my death is approaching.” I sat down, reluctant to lie down and die, then stood up. One of them, a few steps short, jerked his shoulder and took off his machine gun. And this is how funny a person is: I had no panic, no timidity of heart at that moment. I just look at him and think: “Now he’ll fire a short burst at me, but where will he hit me? In the head or across the chest?” As if it’s not a damn thing to me, what place will he sew in my body.
A young guy, so good-looking, dark-haired, with thin, thread-like lips and squinted eyes. “This one will kill and not think twice,” I think to myself. That’s how it is: he raised his machine gun - I looked him straight in the eye, remained silent, and the other, a corporal, perhaps older than him in age, one might say elderly, shouted something, pushed him aside, came up to me, babbling. to his and right hand He bends mine at the elbow and feels the muscle. I tried it and said: “Oh-oh-oh!” - and points to the road, to the sunset. Stomp, you little working beast, to work for our Reich. The owner turned out to be a son of a bitch!
But the dark one took a closer look at my boots, and they looked good, and he gestured with his hand: “Take them off.” I sat down on the ground, took off my boots, and handed them to him. He literally snatched them out of my hands. I unwound the footcloths, handed them to him, and looked up at him. But he screamed, swore in his own way, and again grabbed the machine gun. The rest are laughing. With that, they departed peacefully. Only this dark-haired guy, by the time he got to the road, looked back at me three times, his eyes sparkling like a wolf cub, he’s angry, but what? It was as if I took his boots off, and not he took them off me.
Well, brother, I had nowhere to go. I went out onto the road, cursed with a terrible, curly, Voronezh obscenity and walked west, into captivity!.. And then I was a useless walker, no more than a kilometer an hour. You want to step forward, but you are rocked from side to side, driven along the road like a drunk. I walked a little, and a column of our prisoners, from the same division in which I was, caught up with me. They are being chased by about ten German machine gunners. The one who was walking in front of the column caught up with me and, without saying a bad word, backhanded me with the handle of his machine gun and hit me on the head. If I had fallen, he would have pinned me to the ground with a burst of fire, but our men caught me in flight, pushed me into the middle and held me by the arms for half an hour. And when I came to my senses, one of them whispered: “God forbid you fall! Walk with all your strength, otherwise they will kill you.” And I tried my best, but I went.
As soon as the sun set, the Germans strengthened the convoy, threw another twenty machine gunners onto the cargo truck, and drove us on an accelerated march. Our seriously wounded could not keep up with the rest, and they were shot right on the road. Two tried to escape, but they didn’t take into account that on a moonlit night you were in open field damn it, as far as you can see, well, of course, they shot these too. At midnight we arrived at some half-burnt village. They forced us to spend the night in a church with a broken dome. There is not a scrap of straw on the stone floor, and we are all without overcoats, wearing only tunics and trousers, so there is nothing to lay down. Some of them weren’t even wearing tunics, just calico undershirts. Most of them were junior commanders. They wore their tunics so that they could not be distinguished from the rank and file. And the artillery servants were without tunics. As they worked near the guns, spread out, they were captured.
I watered this at night heavy rain that we were all wet through. Here the dome was blown away by a heavy shell or bomb from an airplane, and here the roof was completely damaged by shrapnel; you couldn’t even find a dry place in the altar. So we loitered all night in this church, like sheep in a dark coat. In the middle of the night I hear someone touching my hand and asking: “Comrade, are you wounded?” I answer him: “What do you need, brother?” He says: “I’m a military doctor, maybe I can help you with something?” I complained to him that I had left shoulder It creaks and swells and hurts terribly. He firmly says: “Take off your tunic and undershirt.” I took all this off of me, and he began to probe my shoulder with his thin fingers, so much so that I didn’t see the light. I grind my teeth and tell him: “You are obviously a veterinarian, not a human doctor. Why are you pressing so hard on a sore spot, you heartless person?” And he probes everything and angrily answers: “It’s your job to keep quiet! Me too, he started talking. Hold on, now it will hurt even more.” Yes, as soon as my hand was jerked, red sparks began to fall from my eyes.
I came to my senses and asked: “What are you doing, you unfortunate fascist? My hand is smashed to pieces, and you pulled it like that.” I heard him laugh quietly and say: “I thought that you would hit me with the right, but you, it turns out, are a quiet guy. And your hand was not broken, but knocked out, so I put it in its place. Well, as it is now, Do you feel better?" And in fact, I feel within myself that the pain is going away somewhere. I thanked him sincerely, and he walked further in the darkness, quietly asking: “Are there any wounded?” This is what a real doctor means! He did his great work both in captivity and in the dark.
It was a restless night. They didn’t let us in until it was windy, the senior guard warned us about this even when they herded us into the church in pairs. And, as luck would have it, one of our pilgrims felt the urge to go out to relieve himself. He strengthened himself and strengthened himself, and then began to cry. “I can’t,” he says, “desecrate the holy temple! I’m a believer, I’m a Christian! What should I do, brothers?” And do you know what kind of people we are? Some laugh, others swear, others give him all sorts of funny advice. He amused us all, but this mess ended very badly: he started knocking on the door and asking to be let out. Well, he was interrogated: the fascist sent a long line through the door, its entire width, and killed this pilgrim, and three more people, and seriously wounded one; he died by morning.
Killed! We put everything in one place, sat down, became quiet and thoughtful: the beginning was not very cheerful... And a little later we started talking in a low voice, whispering: who was from where, what region, how they got captured; in the darkness, comrades from the same platoon or acquaintances from the same company became confused and began to slowly call out to each other. And I hear such a quiet conversation next to me. One says: “If tomorrow, before they drive us further, they line us up and call out commissars, communists and Jews, then you, platoon commander, don’t hide! Nothing will come of this matter. You think that if you took off your tunic, then "Will you pass for a private? It won't work! I don't intend to answer for you. I'll be the first to point you out! I know that you're a communist and you encouraged me to join the party, so answer for your affairs." This is said by the person closest to me, who is sitting next to me, to the left, and on the other side of him, someone’s young voice answers: “I always suspected that you, Kryzhnev, were a bad person. Especially when you refused to join the party, citing on your illiteracy. But I never thought that you could become a traitor. After all, you graduated from the seven-year school?” He lazily answers his platoon commander: “Well, I graduated, so what of this?” They were silent for a long time, then, based on his voice, the platoon commander quietly said: “Don’t give me away, Comrade Kryzhnev.” And he laughed quietly. “Comrades,” he says, “remained behind the front line, but I’m not your comrade, and don’t ask me, I’ll point you out anyway. My shirt is closer to my body.”
They fell silent, and I got chills from such subversiveness. “No, I think, I won’t let you, son of a bitch, betray your commander! You won’t leave this church with me, but they’ll pull you out by the legs like a bastard!” It has just dawned a little - I see: next to me, a big-faced guy is lying on his back, with his hands behind his head, and sitting next to him in his undershirt, hugging his knees, is such a thin, snub-nosed guy, and very pale. “Well,” I think, “this guy won’t be able to cope with such a fat gelding. I’ll have to finish him off.”
I touched him with my hand and asked in a whisper: “Are you a platoon commander?” He didn’t answer, he just nodded his head. "This one wants to give you away?" - I point to the lying guy. He nodded his head back. “Well,” I say, “hold his legs so he doesn’t kick! Just be quick!” - and I fell on this guy, and my fingers froze on his throat. He didn't even have time to shout. I held it under me for a few minutes and stood up. The traitor is ready, and his tongue is at his side!
Before that, I felt unwell after that, and I really wanted to wash my hands, as if I was not a person, but some kind of creeping reptile... For the first time in my life, I killed, and then my own... But what kind of one is he? He's worse than a stranger, a traitor. I stood up and said to the platoon commander: “Let’s get out of here, comrade, the church is great.”
As this Kryzhnev said, in the morning we were all lined up near the church, surrounded by machine gunners, and three SS officers began to select people who were harmful to them. They asked who the communists were, the commanders, the commissars, but there were none. There wasn’t even a bastard who could betray us, because almost half of us were communists, there were commanders, and, of course, there were commissars. Only four were taken from two hundred superfluous person. One Jew and three Russian privates. The Russians got into trouble because all three were dark-haired and had curly hair. So they come up to this and ask: “Yude?” He says that he is Russian, but they don’t want to listen to him. “Come out” - that’s all.
They shot these poor fellows, and they drove us further. The platoon commander, with whom we strangled the traitor, stayed close to me all the way to Poznan and on the first day, no, no, he even shook my hand. In Poznan we were separated for one such reason.
You see, what a deal, brother, from the first day I planned to go to my people. But I definitely wanted to leave. Until Poznan, where we were placed in a real camp, I never had a suitable opportunity. And in the Poznan camp, such a case was found: at the end of May, they sent us to a forest near the camp to dig graves for our own dead prisoners of war, then many of our brothers were dying of dysentery; I’m digging Poznan clay, and I’m looking around and I noticed that two of our guards sat down to have a snack, and the third was dozing in the sun. I quit! shovel and quietly went behind the bush... And then - run, holding straight for the sunrise...
Apparently, they didn’t realize it soon, my guards. But where I, so skinny, got the strength to walk almost forty kilometers in a day - I don’t know. But nothing came of my dream: on the fourth day, when I was already far from the damned camp, they caught me. The detection dogs followed my trail, and they found me in the uncut oats. At dawn I was afraid to walk through an open field, and the forest was at least three kilometers away, so I lay down in the oats for the day. I crushed the grains in my palms, chewed them a little and poured them into my pockets as reserves, and then I heard a dog barking, and a motorcycle was cracking... My heart sank, because the dogs were getting closer and closer. I lay down flat and covered myself with my hands so that they wouldn’t gnaw my face. Well, they ran up and in one minute they took off all my rags. I was left in what my mother gave birth to. They rolled me around in the oats as they wanted, and in the end one male stood on my chest with his front paws and aimed for my throat, but didn’t touch me yet.
The Germans arrived on two motorcycles. At first they beat me freely, and then they set the dogs on me, and only my skin and meat fell off in shreds. Naked, covered in blood, they brought him to the camp. I spent a month in a punishment cell for escaping, but still alive... I remained alive!..
It’s hard for me, brother, to remember, and even harder to talk about what I experienced in captivity. As you remember the inhuman torment that you had to endure there in Germany, as you remember all the friends and comrades who died, tortured there in the camps - your heart is no longer in your chest, but in your throat, and it becomes difficult to breathe...
Wherever they sent me during my two years of captivity! During this time he traveled through half of Germany: he was in Saxony, worked at a silicate plant, and rolled out coal at a mine in the Ruhr region, and in Bavaria earthworks The hump grew, and he spent time in Thuringia, and damn it, he had to walk everywhere on German soil. The nature is different everywhere, brother, but they shot and beat our brother the same way everywhere. And the god-damned bastards and parasites beat us in a way that we never beat animals. They beat them with their fists, and trampled them with their feet, and beat them with rubber sticks, and with every kind of iron they could get their hands on, not to mention rifle butts and other wood.
They beat you because you are Russian, because you still look at the world, because you work for them, the bastards. They also beat you for looking the wrong way, stepping the wrong way, or turning the wrong way. They beat him simply, in order to someday kill him to death, so that he would choke on his last blood and die from the beatings. There probably weren’t enough stoves for all of us in Germany.
And they fed us everywhere, as it was, the same way: one hundred and fifty grams of ersatz bread, half and half with sawdust, and liquid rutabaga gruel. Boiling water - where they gave it and where they didn’t. What can I say, judge for yourself: before the war I weighed eighty-six kilograms, and by the fall I was no longer weighing more than fifty. Only the skin remained on the bones, and it was impossible for them to carry their own bones. And give me work, and don’t say a word, but such work that it’s not the time for a draft horse.
At the beginning of September, we, one hundred and forty-two Soviet prisoners of war, were transferred from a camp near the city of Küstrin to camp B-14, not far from Dresden. By that time there were about two thousand of us in this camp. Everyone worked in a stone quarry, manually chiseling, cutting, and crushing German stone. The norm is four cubic meters per day per soul, mind you, for such a soul, which was already barely hanging on by one thread in the body. That’s where it began: two months later, from the one hundred and forty-two people of our echelon, there were fifty-seven of us left. How's that, bro? Famously? Here you don’t have time to bury your own, and then rumors spread around the camp that the Germans have already taken Stalingrad and are moving on to Siberia. One grief after another, and they bend you so much that you can’t raise your eyes from the ground, as if you were asking to go there, to a foreign, German land. And the camp guards drink every day, sing songs, rejoice, rejoice.
And then one evening we returned to the barracks from work. It rained all day, it was enough to wring out our rags; We were all chilled like dogs in the cold wind, a tooth wouldn’t touch a tooth. But there is nowhere to dry off, to warm up - the same thing, and besides, they are hungry not only to death, but even worse. But in the evening we were not supposed to have food.
I took off my wet rags, threw them on the bunk and said: “They need four cubic meters of output, but for the grave of each of us, one cubic meter through the eyes is enough.” That’s all I said, but some scoundrel was found among his own people and reported to the camp commandant about these bitter words of mine.
Our camp commandant, or, in their words, Lagerführer, was the German Müller. He was short, thick-set, blond, and he was all sort of white: the hair on his head was white, his eyebrows, his eyelashes, even his eyes were whitish and bulging. He spoke Russian like you and me, and even leaned on the “o” like a native Volga native. And he was a terrible master at swearing. And where the hell did he learn this craft? It used to be that he would line us up in front of the block - that’s what they called the barracks - he would walk in front of the line with his pack of SS men, holding his right hand in flight. He has it in leather glove, and the glove has a lead gasket so as not to damage your fingers. He goes and hits every second person in the nose, drawing blood. He called this “flu prevention.” And so every day. There were only four blocks in the camp, and now he’s giving “prevention” to the first block, tomorrow to the second, and so on. He was a neat bastard, he worked seven days a week. Only one thing he, a fool, could not figure out: before going to lay hands on him, in order to inflame himself, he swears for ten minutes in front of the formation. He swears in vain, and this makes us feel better: it’s like our words are ours, natural, like the wind is blowing from our native side... If he knew that his swearing gives us pure pleasure, he wouldn’t swear in Russian, but only in your own language. Only one of my Muscovite friends was terribly angry with him. “When he swears,” he says, “I close my eyes and it’s like I’m sitting in a pub in Moscow, on Zatsepa, and I want beer so much that even my head is spinning.”
So this same commandant, the day after I said about cubic meters, calls me. In the evening, a translator and two guards come to the barracks. "Who is Andrey Sokolov?" I responded. “March behind us, Herr Lagerführer himself demands you.” It’s clear why he demands it. On spray. I said goodbye to my comrades, they all knew that I was going to my death, I sighed and went. I walk through the camp yard, look at the stars, say goodbye to them, and think: “So you have suffered, Andrei Sokolov, and in the camp - number three hundred and thirty-one.” I somehow felt sorry for Irinka and the kids, and then this sadness subsided and I began to gather my courage to look into the hole of the pistol fearlessly, as befits a soldier, so that the enemies would not see at my last minute that I had to give up my life after all. difficult...
In the commandant's room there are flowers on the windows, it is clean, like in our good club. At the table are all the camp authorities. Five people are sitting, drinking schnapps and snacking on lard. On the table they have an open huge bottle of schnapps, bread, lard, soaked apples, open jars with various canned goods. I instantly looked at all this grub, and - you won’t believe it - I was so sick that I couldn’t vomit. I’m hungry like a wolf, I’m unaccustomed to human food, and here there’s so much goodness in front of you... Somehow I suppressed the nausea, but tore my eyes away from the table through great power.
A half-drunk Muller sits right in front of me, playing with a pistol, throwing it from hand to hand, and he looks at me and doesn’t blink, like a snake. Well, my hands are at my sides, my worn-out heels click, and I report loudly: “Prisoner of war Andrei Sokolov, on your orders, Herr Commandant, has appeared.” He asks me: “So, Russian Ivan, is four cubic meters of output a lot?” “That’s right,” I say, “Herr Commandant, a lot.” - “Is one enough for your grave?” - “That’s right, Herr Commandant, it’s quite enough and will even remain.”
He stood up and said: “I will do you a great honor, now I will personally shoot you for these words. It’s inconvenient here, let’s go into the yard, there you will sign.” “Your will,” I tell him. He stood there, thought, and then threw the pistol on the table and poured a full glass of schnapps, took a piece of bread, put a slice of bacon on it and gave it all to me and said: “Before you die, Russian Ivan, drink to the victory of German weapons.”
Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov
Man's destiny
MAN'S FATE
Evgenia Grigorievna Levitskaya,
member of the CPSU since 1903
The first post-war spring on the Upper Don was unusually friendly and assertive. At the end of March, warm winds blew from the Azov region, and within two days the sands of the left bank of the Don were completely exposed, snow-filled ravines and gullies in the steppe swelled up, breaking the ice, steppe rivers leaped madly, and the roads became almost completely impassable.
During this bad time of no roads, I had to go to the village of Bukanovskaya. And the distance is small - only about sixty kilometers - but overcoming them was not so easy. My friend and I left before sunrise. A pair of well-fed horses, pulling the lines to a string, could barely drag the heavy chaise. The wheels sank to the very hub into the damp sand mixed with snow and ice, and an hour later, on the horses’ sides and whips, under the thin belts of the harnesses, white fluffy flakes of soap appeared, and in the fresh morning air there was a sharp and intoxicating smell of horse sweat and warmed tar generously oiled horse harness.
Where it was especially difficult for the horses, we got off the chaise and walked. The soaked snow squelched under the boots, it was hard to walk, but along the sides of the road there was still crystal ice glistening in the sun, and it was even more difficult to get through there. Only about six hours later we covered a distance of thirty kilometers and arrived at the crossing over the Elanka River.
A small river, drying up in places in summer, opposite the Mokhovsky farm in a swampy floodplain overgrown with alders, overflowed for a whole kilometer. It was necessary to cross on a fragile punt that could carry no more than three people. We released the horses. On the other side, in the collective farm barn, an old, well-worn “Jeep” was waiting for us, left there in the winter. Together with the driver, we boarded the dilapidated boat, not without fear. The comrade remained on the shore with his things. They had barely set sail when water began to gush out in fountains from the rotten bottom in different places. Using improvised means, they caulked the unreliable vessel and scooped water out of it until they reached it. An hour later we were on the other side of Elanka. The driver drove the car from the farm, approached the boat and said, taking the oar:
If this damned trough doesn’t fall apart on the water, we’ll arrive in two hours, don’t wait earlier.
The farm was located far to the side, and near the pier there was such silence as only happens in deserted places in the dead of autumn and at the very beginning of spring. The water smelled of dampness, the tart bitterness of rotting alder, and from the distant Khoper steppes, drowned in a lilac haze of fog, a light breeze carried the eternally youthful, barely perceptible aroma of land recently freed from under the snow.
Not far away, on the coastal sand, lay a fallen fence. I sat down on it, wanted to light a cigarette, but putting my hand into the right pocket of the cotton quilt, to my great chagrin, I discovered that the pack of Belomor was completely soaked. During the crossing, a wave lashed over the side of a low-slung boat and doused me waist-deep in muddy water. Then I had no time to think about cigarettes, I had to abandon the oar and quickly bail out the water so that the boat would not sink, and now, bitterly annoyed at my mistake, I carefully took the soggy pack out of my pocket, squatted down and began to lay it out one by one on the fence damp, browned cigarettes.
It was noon. The sun was shining hotly, like in May. I hoped that the cigarettes would dry out soon. The sun was shining so hotly that I already regretted wearing military cotton trousers and a quilted jacket for the journey. It was the first truly warm day after winter. It was good to sit on the fence like this, alone, completely submitting to silence and loneliness, and, taking off the old soldier’s earflaps from his head, drying his hair, wet after heavy rowing, in the breeze, mindlessly watching the white busty clouds floating in the faded blue.
Soon I saw a man come out onto the road from behind the outer courtyards of the farm. He was leading a little boy by the hand; judging by his height, he was no more than five or six years old. They walked wearily towards the crossing, but when they caught up with the car, they turned towards me. A tall, stooped man, coming close, said in a muffled basso:
Hello, brother!
Hello. - I shook the large, callous hand extended to me.
The man leaned towards the boy and said:
Say hello to your uncle, son. Apparently, he is the same driver as your dad. Only you and I drove a truck, and he drives this little car.
Looking straight into my eyes with eyes as bright as the sky, smiling slightly, the boy boldly extended his pink, cold little hand to me. I shook her lightly and asked:
Why is it, old man, that your hand is so cold? It's warm outside, but you're freezing?
With touching childish trust, the baby pressed himself against my knees and raised his whitish eyebrows in surprise.
What kind of old man am I, uncle? I’m not a boy at all, and I don’t freeze at all, but my hands are cold - because I was rolling snowballs.
Taking the skinny duffel bag off his back and wearily sitting down next to me, my father said:
I'm in trouble with this passenger. It was through him that I got involved. As soon as you take a wide step, he starts to trot, so please adapt to such an infantryman. Where I need to step once, I step three times, and we walk with him separately, like a horse and a turtle. But here he needs an eye and an eye. You turn away a little, and he’s already wandering across the puddle or breaking off an ice cream and sucking it instead of candy. No, it’s not a man’s business to travel with such passengers, and at a leisurely pace at that. “He was silent for a while, then asked: “What are you, brother, waiting for your superiors?”
It was inconvenient for me to dissuade him that I was not a driver, and I answered:
We have to wait.
Will they come from the other side?
Don't know if the boat will arrive soon?
In two hours.
In order. Well, while we rest, I have nowhere to rush. And I walk past, I look: my brother, the driver, is sunbathing. Let me, I think, I’ll come in and have a smoke together. One is sick of smoking and dying. And you live richly and smoke cigarettes. Damaged them, then? Well, brother, soaked tobacco, like a treated horse, is no good. Let's smoke my strong drink instead.
From the pocket of his protective summer pants, he took out a raspberry silk worn pouch rolled into a tube, unfolded it, and I managed to read the inscription embroidered on the corner: “To a dear fighter from a 6th grade student at Lebedyansk Secondary School.”
We lit a strong cigarette and were silent for a long time. I wanted to ask where he was going with the child, what need was driving him into such muddiness, but he beat me to it with a question:
What, you spent the entire war behind the wheel?
Almost all of it.
At the front?
Well, there I had to, brother, take a sip of bitterness up the nostrils and up.
He placed his large dark hands on his knees and hunched over. I looked at him from the side, and I felt something uneasy... Have you ever seen eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes, filled with such an inescapable mortal melancholy that it is difficult to look into them? These were the eyes of my random interlocutor.
Having broken out a dry, twisted twig from the fence, he silently moved it along the sand for a minute, drawing some intricate figures, and then spoke:
Sometimes you don’t sleep at night, you look into the darkness with empty eyes and think: “Why, life, did you cripple me like that? Why did you distort it like that?” I don’t have an answer, either in the dark or in the clear sun... No, and I can’t wait! - And suddenly he came to his senses: gently pushing his little son, he said: - Go, dear, play near the water, there is always some kind of prey for the children near the big water. Just be careful not to get your feet wet!
While we were still smoking in silence, I, furtively examining my father and son, noted with surprise one circumstance that was strange in my opinion. The boy was dressed simply, but well: and in the way he sat on him, lined with a light, well-worn long-skirted jacket, and the fact that the tiny boots were sewn with the intention of putting them on a woolen sock, and the very skillful seam on the once torn sleeve of the jacket - everything betrayed feminine care, skillful motherly hands. But the father looked different: the padded jacket, burnt in several places, was carelessly and roughly darned, the patch on his worn-out protective trousers was not sewn on properly, but rather sewn on with wide, masculine stitches; he was wearing almost new soldier's boots, but his thick woolen socks were moth-eaten, they had not been touched by a woman's hand... Even then I thought: “Either he is a widower, or he lives at odds with his wife.”
But then he, following his little son with his eyes, coughed dully, spoke again, and I became all ears.
At first my life was ordinary. I am a native of the Voronezh province, born in 1900. During the civil war he was in the Red Army, in the Kikvidze division. In the hungry year of twenty-two, he went to Kuban to fight the kulaks, and that’s why he survived. And the father, mother and sister died of hunger at home. One left. Rodney - even if you roll a ball - nowhere, no one, not a single soul. Well, a year later he returned from Kuban, sold his little house, and went to Voronezh. At first he worked in a carpentry artel, then he went to a factory and learned to be a mechanic. Soon he got married. The wife was brought up in an orphanage. Orphan. I got a good girl! Quiet, cheerful, obsequious and smart, no match for me. Since childhood, she learned how much a pound is worth, maybe this affected her character. Looking from the outside, she wasn’t all that distinguished, but I wasn’t looking at her from the side, but point-blank. And for me there was no one more beautiful and desirable than her, there was not in the world and there never will be!