Very briefly Years of the Civil War. A ten-year-old boy is going through dangerous adventures, he has to live among the homeless, steal. The director of the correctional school directs the boy on the right path.

Illustration by Ivan Kharkevich

Introduction

On that day, Volkov again drags Lyonka to steal, but this time they catch accomplices. Volkov manages to escape, but Lyonka fails to get out. The boy is taken to the police station and put in an empty, cold cell. After crying, Lyonka begins to remember how he came to such a life.

Chapter I

Lenka's father Ivan Adrianovich had a difficult character and a penchant for prolonged binges. Despite this, Lyonka loved his father for his honesty, directness and generosity. The only thing the boy knew about his past was that he served as a Cossack officer and participated in the Russo-Japanese War.

Ivan Adrianovich was born into an Old Believer St. Petersburg trading family. Against the will of his parents, he graduated from the Elisavetgrad military school, served in a dragoon regiment, managed to fight, but became disillusioned with officer life, after being wounded, he did not return to the regiment and began to trade in timber. He married Alexandra Sergeevna from an Orthodox trading family. She never could find mutual language with her husband, whom she was very afraid of.

Mother and father swore, lived apart, then converged again, and the boy's life went on as usual. Having learned to read early, Lyonka read everything that came into his hands. He was never a good boy, and always got into trouble. It became especially difficult for Alexandra Sergeevna to cope with her son when Ivan Adrianovich finally left the family.

Chapter II

Lenka's father died "in a foreign land", there was no funeral, and the boy always thought that his father would return. It was the third year of the First World War. In autumn, Lenka moved to the second grade of the preparatory school. Alexandra Sergeevna gave music lessons, and this was how the family lived.

The boy heard about the Bolsheviks from the housekeeper Stesha - she was going to vote for them. The whooping cough that he had suffered in the summer prevented Lyonka from properly preparing for the exams, but he entered the real school without difficulty. The students of the school were occupied not so much with studies as with politics and enmity with high school students.

Taking Active participation in the life of the school, Lyonka had time to read. He was drawn to serious books. On this basis, he met the realist Vladimir Volkov, a serious and arrogant boy from a wealthy family. He gave Lenka books and once called for him in his own carriage. During lunch at the Volkovs, Lenka learned that the Bolsheviks were "Teutonic spies" abandoned in Russia to sow confusion among the workers. The boy decided that Stesha was also a spy. Volkov, on the other hand, began to shun Lenka, having learned that his father was a simple cornet.

Lyonka began to follow Stesha and even opened her chest, where he found a brochure by the German Karl Marx - proof of Stesha's espionage activities. Soon everything opened up. Alexandra Sergeevna considered her son a thief, but he told his mother about the "spy" Stesha and lost consciousness.

Chapter III

While Lyonka was ill, the October Socialist Revolution took place. Returning to the school, Lyonka found that his class had thinned out a lot. Volkov also disappeared. High school students walked around the corridors in their overcoats, and lessons were often canceled. Having visited a friend, Lenka found out that the Volkovs had left for their estate.

Winter was hungry. Stesha went to work at the Triangle plant and helped Alexandra Sergeevna as much as she could. Lyonka read a lot and tried to compose poetry. In the spring, a letter arrived from a former nanny. She invited the whole family for the summer to her place, in the village of the Yaroslavl province. Stesha from St. Petersburg refused to leave - she remained to protect her property.

Chapter IV

The village where the nanny Sekletey Fedorovna lived was occupied by soldiers of the Green Army. The nanny said that in this army, fighting the Bolsheviks, were the sons of her godfather, the red-bearded Fyodor Glebov.

After revolutionary Petrograd, village life seemed calm and well-fed to Lyonka. His younger brother and sister, Vasya and Lyalya, quickly became friends with the village children, and the shy Lyonka watched them from the side for a long time. However, he soon joined the company of village children, where he met Glebov's youngest son Ignat.

Soon Lyonka met with the chairman of the Committee of the Poor, Vasily Fedorovich Krivtsov. He showed his garden where he tried to grow tomatoes. The plants lacked the very expensive Bordeaux mixture.

In mid-June, ataman Khokhryakov appeared in Cheltsovo. Lyonka rushed to warn Krivtsov, but he was not at home. The boy ran to the road, and saw that Krivtsov was already guarded by Ignashka Glebov, sent by his father. Fortunately for the chairman, the Khokhrakovites soon left the village. Returning home, Lyonka got drunk ice water and fell ill with diphtheria. Alexandra Sergeevna decided to take her ten-year-old son to the doctor in Yaroslavl.

Chapter V

Staying at the hotel "Europe", Alexandra Sergeevna called the pediatrician. He said that the boy should be hospitalized, but Lyonka never got to the hospital: the White Guards broke into Yaroslavl. The guests of "Europe" had to hide in the hotel basement. In a hurry, Alexandra Sergeevna did not have time to grab things and food. It soon became known that the power of the Bolsheviks had been overthrown, and a joyful revival reigned in the basement. Alexandra Sergeevna ventured to go for things. When she returned, the woman said that everything had been stolen from them.

Having gone to the toilet, Lyonka could not resist the temptation and went to the upper floors of the "Europe". On the way back, Lyonka got lost, went out onto the front stairs and stumbled upon the owner of the hotel, Poyarkov, and his son, a White Guard officer. Taking the boy for a thief, they took him to the basement to check whether he really lives here. Convinced that his mother had been looking for him for a long time, Poyarkov convinced people to leave the basement and promised refreshments at the expense of the hotel. In the morning, when Alexandra Sergeevna and Lenka were having breakfast at the Europe restaurant, shooting began again - the communists fired on Yaroslavl with cannons.

Chapter VI

One of the targets of shelling was the hotel "Europe". Only those who had nowhere to run remained in her basement, including Alexandra Sergeevna and Lyonka. On the fourth day, candles and food ran out, and the woman decided to look for something to eat. Lyonka followed her. Having risen, they found that people were living in a long hotel corridor, and settled down next to a heavy, strict woman, a village teacher, Nonna Ieronimovna Tirosidonskaya.

The meager reserves of Tirosidonskaya did not save from hunger. Soon there was no water in Yaroslavl. Once, having made their way into the city, the women got a lot of sugar and coffee. drinking water the son of a hotel porter was selling, and Alexandra Sergeevna sent Lyonka to him. Not finding a water carrier, the boy decided to go to the Volga for water himself.

Once on the street, Lyonka realized that he did not know how to get to the river, and went to wander around the city. Having gone through dangerous adventures and having obtained a jar of Bordeaux liquid, the boy returned to his mother, who was already going crazy. Arriving in the evening, Tirosidorskaya reported that the Reds had promised to release the civilian population from the city.

The next day they crossed the Volga in a small steamboat. Lyonka noticed several white officers on the same steamboat. After parting with Tirosidonskaya, Alexandra Sergeevna and Lyonka decided to spend the night in the village of Bykovka. In the morning, the Khokhrakovites attacked the village. The bandits wanted to shoot Lenka and his mother, but one of the bandits did not let the child be killed and allowed them to escape. Outside the village outskirts, the boy remembered the Bordeaux liquid and returned for it, almost again falling into the clutches of the Khokhryakovites. Lyonka did not guess to grab his mother's bag, and they were left without money. An angry old man ferried them across the Volga without taking a penny. Having reached Cheltsov, Lyonka learned that the chairman, severely beaten by the Khokhrakovites, had ended up in the hospital.

Chapter VII

Two weeks later, Alexandra Sergeevna again took Lenka to Yaroslavl to see a doctor. Leaving her son in the hospital garden, the mother went in search of a doctor. Suddenly, “brass music burst out around the corner of the building” - this was the burial of the Red Army soldiers who died during the mutiny. In the crowd, the boy saw Krivtsova and learned that the chairman had survived and was in the same hospital.

Lyonka was healthy. They returned to Cheltsovo on a steamboat, where the boy noticed the young Poyarkov. In August, Alexandra Sergeevna went to Petrograd several times to buy things that she exchanged for food. Lyonka no longer played with Glebov Jr. and again became addicted to reading. At the end of the summer, Lenka's aunt and her daughter Ira moved from Petrograd to Cheltsovo. Soon the village was occupied by the Red Army. Glebov Sr. was killed, and a few days later the captured Khokhrakovites, led by the ataman, were led through the village.

Alexandra Sergeevna spoke about the assassination attempt on Lenin and that Stesha had gone to the front. Famine came to the village, and the woman decided to go in search of a “bread place”, leaving the children in the care of a nanny and aunt. In the autumn, chairman Krivtsov returned to Cheltsovo, and Lyonka gave him the Bordeaux liquid saved with such difficulty.

Alexandra Sergeevna found a position as head music school"in a small Tatar town on the Kama River." She took both the children and her aunt and daughter.

Chapter VIII

Soon, Alexandra Sergeevna "already led the children's artistic education throughout the city." The family was given two large furnished rooms, and Vasya entered an agricultural school and lived outside the city in a boarding school. In early March, Alexandra Sergeevna left for Petrograd on a business trip. Lyonka at that time was in the hospital with typhus. The boy's aunt did not visit, but in last days Lyalya also stopped walking. Returning home, Lenka found that everyone was sick, but his mother had not returned. He took over the business. For two weeks he treated his aunt and Ira, ran to the hospital to Lyalya and cooked dinners. The aunt got better, and Lenka became a burden for her. At this time, a letter arrived from Vasya, who was very pleased with his studies and work, and the boy decided to go to his brother's "farm".

There were no vacancies in the agricultural school. Alexandra Sergeevna did not respond, the aunt became more and more angry, and Lyonka decided to go to the farm without accompanying papers, hoping for the help of his brother.

The director of the school, Nikolai Mikhailovich, did not accept the boy, and he remained "on bird's rights." Everyone stole here. The director, who seemed vaguely familiar to the boy, and the teachers robbed the students, and the students slaughtered livestock in the surrounding villages. Lyonka quickly learned this craft. The boy was not given agricultural business, and he often paid for his mistakes.

Once, while grazing pigs, Lyonka missed a thoroughbred boar, and he had to run away from school. Only now did the boy realize that the former White Guard Poyarkov Jr. was in charge of the school. Lyonka returned to his aunt, but she was not happy with him, and the boy went to the orphanage, where Lyalya already lived. The orphanage was housed in a former convent. Once the guys found things hidden by the nuns in the bell tower and tried to sell them in the market. So Lyonka ended up in the police, and then in another orphanage. At night, he escaped from there, taking women's shoes hidden from the guys, and went to St. Petersburg to look for his mother.

The money didn't last long. Lyonka was starving, eating alms. In an abandoned manor, he found boxes of books and sold them. One of the buyers was a German shoemaker. Upon learning that Lyonka was an orphan, he took him as an apprentice. If not for the hostess, who immediately disliked the boy, he would have stayed in Kazan forever.

Two months later, the boy boarded the first steamer that came across, ended up in the town of Pyany Bor and settled on the pier in the company of homeless children. Winter came. Lyonka was cold and starving until a cheerful guy picked him up on the street. So the boy ended up in the city committee of the RKSM, where he stayed all winter. Soon the guy, Yurka, offered Lyonka to enter a vocational school. Working specialties were not given to Lyonka, and he had not even heard of algebra. Having learned about the poor progress of the sponsored, Yurka undertook to “pull him up”. A few months later, Lyonka was already getting good grades.

Lenka's life began to improve when a kulak uprising broke out in the province, and all the Komsomol members left to fight. Yurka died, and Lyonka again felt like an orphan. In early spring, he again tried to get to St. Petersburg.

Chapter IX

Lyonka moved like a hare, clinging to the sled until his leg got under the runner. Having lost his warm boots, he hardly reached the nearest village and knocked on the door of the first hut, where he lay in a fever until late spring. An elderly peasant woman, Marya Petrovna Kuvshinnikova, came out to Lyonka. For some time the boy lived with the Kuvshinnikovs, but then he was again drawn into wanderings.

Now Lyonka traveled by train. In Belgorod, he was caught by the officer on duty, an agent of the Cheka. The security officer took pity on the boy, wrote out a document, according to which Lyonka could get to St. Petersburg without a ticket, and gave money. In the hut where Lyonka spent the night, he was robbed. The boy discovered the loss only on the train. He was dropped from the car at an unknown station. Lenka spent the whole autumn, winter and summer in Ukraine. He could not find a job and stole to survive. At the end of the summer the boy reached Petrograd.

Chapter X

Strangers lived in Lyonka's apartment, and the boy went to his mother's sister, where he found his family. Ten-year-old Lyalya has changed a lot. Vasya's agricultural school was closed - all the teachers turned out to be former White Guards. The boy moved to St. Petersburg and went to work in a pastry shop. He told how he had been looking for Lyonka in the forest for two days and decided that the wolves had bitten him.

Alexandra Sergeevna also spoke about her misadventures. She was already returning to the children when a deserter detachment attacked the train. The woman hid, burying herself in the coal chips, and then, half-dressed, made her way to the nearest station. On the way, she caught a cold, ended up in the hospital, where she contracted typhus and was ill for several months. Lenka also spoke about himself. Alexandra Sergeevna took an oath from her son that he would never steal again.

Now Lyonka dreamed of working at some factory, but finding such a place was not easy. Finally, the boy got a job at the Express factory, which produces drinks. Lyonka was appointed assistant to the elderly Zakhar Ivanovich. Together, they spent the whole day transporting bottles around the city in a heavy cart, receiving almost nothing for it.

Chapter XI

During one of the flights, Lenka met Volkov, who became a street thief. In amazement, the boy released the handle of the cart and broke several dozen bottles. The owner fined for broken bottles. Lyonka did not have that kind of money, and he had to urgently leave. Volkov helped the boy to hide in the crowd and offered to go along with him on business. Lenka agreed only to get rid of a friend who both attracted and repelled him. The boy did not want to steal.

At home Lenka was waiting for an unexpected guest - Stesha. She arranged for Alexandra Sergeevna to be the head of the musical circle in the club of the Triangle factory. The woman told Stesha about Lenka's adventures, and she decided to take the boy seriously.

Chapter XII

At the insistence of his aunt, Lyonka entered the United labor school, which was once a gymnasium, where the old teaching staff, gymnasium rules were preserved, and the children of wealthy Nepmen studied. Soon, rumors spread around the school about Lyonka's thieves' past. Despite this, Lyonka decided to stay at school, but the headmistress kicked the boy out because of the fight he started. On the same day, Lyonka came across the owner of the Express. He demanded to pay for the damage caused to him. The boy had no choice but to tell his mother about everything.

Alexandra Sergeevna gave Lyonka money. On the way to the Express, he saw a street roulette and lost everything he had. Not daring to return home, Lyonka went to wander around St. Petersburg, and met Volkov again. This time the boy did not refuse the offer to steal and firmly connected with him.

After an unsuccessful theft of the castle and a night in a cold cell, Lenka is released under the guarantee of Stesha. The boy tells everything without concealment, without giving out only the name of the accomplice. Thanks to Stesha, the case does not reach the court. She arranges the boy in a special school for difficult teenagers, headed by Viktor Nikolaevich Sorokin. The boy falls into good hands and many years later writes a story about the school named after Dostoevsky.

A story about the ordeal of a teenage boy. By coincidence, Lenka thundered into prison. He contacted a hooligan, whom he had known even before the war. Lenka had a hard life. He, like many others, had to endure war and famine. Besides, his mother had gone somewhere. Lyonka had to work in order to somehow exist. In the end, he finds his mother in Petrograd, returning to his homeland.

The main idea: if you want something, you will definitely achieve it.

Read the summary of Lenka Panteleev

The story begins with two boys walking through the streets on a winter evening, looking into courtyards. The lights were out in all the houses, but the boys saw one lit window. They climbed a steep staircase and suddenly one of the boys broke the lock. He took off running. A woman was chasing after him. Another boy, Lenka, did not follow the example of his friend, but, as if nothing had happened, began to ask the woman what had happened. Without thinking twice, the woman grabbed Lyonka and said that it was he who tore off the lock. Lyonka began to insist that he be taken to the police. At the age of fourteen, he already knew that the police were better than an angry mob of residents who fled to heart-rending screams.

The submissive Lyonka was taken to the police station by about ten people. The boy was not particularly worried, and then he remembered the knife lying in his pants. He decided that he needed to get rid of, and slowly ripped the gasket, threw it into the snow. It was another mistake. Someone noticed the knife and said it was evidence.

The police drew up a report, searched the boy, and finding some key from him, they put him in a cell. Lyonka generally drooped. He understood that now his mother would find out about everything, and they would inform the school. This made him feel really bad.

Lyonka learned to read very early, and when he went to school at the age of eight, he had already read many books that were in the bookcase. He grew up as a clumsy child: he could definitely break or break something. He was unbearable and terrible, and when his father left his family, Lyonka's mother became very hard.

He contacted Volkov a long time ago, often visited them at home, and sometimes they taught lessons together. It was Volkov who tore off the lock, because of which Lenka was now in prison.

During the war, they had a very hard time, and Lyonka's mother, with other desperate people, decided to escape along the Volga on a steamer, even under fire. Despite all the unrest, the refugees managed to get to a farmhouse alive. There was a terrible famine, and the inhabitants somehow survived and endured. Often they moved somewhere, and in the end they ended up far from Petrograd. Life was getting better: Lyonka went to school; mother, Alexandra Sergeevna, to work.

Once she went on a business trip and did not return for a very long time. Lyonka was forced to go looking for a job, so as not to remain hungry, and to earn his living. But he was not lucky: he endlessly got into some kind of trouble. So he ended up in an orphanage at the monastery. Once wandering around the city, he found a job as a courier. When he hurried to complete the task, he decided to move down the stairs from the second floor. Where the nail came from, the boy did not know, but he ended up in the hospital.

After the hospital, Lyonka went to study at a vocational school. This is where his torment began. Science was difficult, but the guy was persistent. He tried to remember what he once knew, for example, the banal multiplication table.

Lyonka, who from childhood was addicted to books, secretly from everyone, began to write a play. In the workshop, he learned to use carpentry tools. The school learned that Lyonka was writing a play, and decided to put it on stage. True, he was given only a small role, but he played it well.

Everything was fine, but Lenka had a dream to find his mother, and he went to Petrograd. After overcoming a lot of obstacles, the boy finally reached his destination. Here he met Alexandra Sergeevna! It turned out that when she was returning from a business trip, a bandit squad attacked their train, and she miraculously managed to escape.

IN hometown the boy again met with Volkov, who was a notorious bully. But Lyonka no longer wanted to hang out with him. He did not intend to rob or deceive anyone.

Now Lyonka was sitting in the cell, and sighed heavily. Turning his head, and having read all the inscriptions on the wall, the boy saw Alexandra Sergeevna, and did not know where to go from shame. Mom persuaded her son to tell everything about his adventures, and asked who else was with him. Lyonka told everything from the very beginning, but he did not give Volkov's name. He was released, but they took a written undertaking not to leave. Then they managed to attach him to a shelter, from which the boy decided to run away. But a miracle happened: he really liked this place. Reliable teachers picked him up and helped him become a man. The guy grew up and became a writer. He wrote many books, and this story is also about him.

Picture or drawing Lenka Panteleev

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The Republic of ShKID is one of the most famous children's books in Soviet literature. This is an autobiographical work written by a tandem of authors - Grigory Belykh and (real name - Alexei Yeremeev). The book tells about the years spent in a boarding school for

But there is a book that is inextricably linked with the "Republic of SHKID", although not so well known. The summary of the story "Lenka Panteleev" suggests that this is the first part of the dilogy, since one of the main characters in these books is common.

"Lenka Panteleev": events, time and characters

The book is not well known. Those who love the "Republic of SHKID" and are interested in the life of its authors know about its existence. Actually, according to the "Republic of SHKID" itself, it is possible, even without seeing the story, to reconstruct it summary. Lenka Panteleev himself briefly mentions his childhood, and the main milestones coincide with the chapters of the autobiographical story.

"Lenka Panteleev" is a story about the years preceding the events described in the "Republic of SHKID". This is the story of the author's childhood, his wanderings through the civil war-torn Russia. A picture of the world given through the eyes of a ten-year-old child - smart, kind, talented, but surprisingly unlucky and restless. Those who are interested in this period of history will certainly be interested in reading the story in its entirety, and not its summary. Lenka Panteleev writes about what he saw, and the world through children's eyes is very different from the thoughtful analysis of adult texts about that time.

Lenkin's family

Of course, the story was written at a time when, by definition, the positive heroes were supposed to be the Red Army, and the negative ones were the White Guards. This can be seen even just by looking at the summary. Lenka Panteleev feels sympathy for this side of the conflict. However, she may have been completely sincere.

Lenka Panteleev is the son of a retired military man and a music teacher. There was no mutual understanding between mother and father. The former military man had a difficult conflict character, his soft and timid mother was simply afraid of him. Quarrels constantly broke out in the family, in the end, the father left, only to later die far from home.

The family has fallen on hard times. There was little money, but it was necessary to provide the boy with the opportunity to study normally at a preparatory school. Lyonka is smart, he reads a lot, writes poetry, studies well, although he has behavioral problems.

School and sickness

At the school, he meets Volkov, a boy from a wealthy family. They have common interests, and Lenka began to visit the Volkovs. There he heard that the Bolsheviks were spies and conspirators. Since before that the boy realized that the housekeeper Stesha was connected with the Bolsheviks, this new knowledge frightened Lenka. At home, he managed to unlock the chest with Stesha's personal belongings and read the letters and brochures, not even being able to really comprehend their summary. Lenka Panteleev decided that the housekeeper was a spy. He told his mother about everything, but she was on the political convictions of the housekeeper, but she called her son a thief. The boy suddenly lost consciousness. Either Lyonka really fell ill with something, or the fever was caused by nervous overexertion, but the child lay delirious for 48 days. During this time there was a revolution, the country received a new government. Lenka, who recovered, realized with amazement that life around him had changed.

Country life

The former nanny, who left for a village near Yaroslavl, invited the family of the pupil, who was left with practically no means of subsistence, to stay for a summer. Exhausted by lack of money, Lenka's mother accepts this invitation. From this journey begins the acquaintance of the home boy Lenka with the wrong side of the revolution.

In the village, Lenka meets representatives of the Green Army - armed formations of unclear political convictions. The chairman of the committee of the poorest residents of the village of Cheltsov also lived there. Lyonka became friends with him and even selflessly tried to save him from the Green Army detachment, warning him of the attack. Fortunately, no help was needed, but Lenka caught a cold and fell ill with diphtheria. The boy needed serious treatment. His mother tried to take him to a hospital in Yaroslavl, but she failed. The city was just taken by the White Guard units, and the family was forced to hide in the basement of the hotel. During the hostilities, all their belongings were stolen from them, famine began in the city besieged by the red units, there was no water.

Lyonka helped his mother as best he could: he went for water, tried to look for food. They decided to return to the village, but on the way they were detained by a detachment of the Green Army. Everything worked out, but the family lost the bag with the money. The summary of the book "Lenka Panteleev" is, in fact, a list of losses and endless wanderings of the family.

Vagrancy

By the end of the summer, the desperate mother nevertheless found work in a small town on the Kama. She was offered the position of head of the music school. Life began to improve. But one fine day it was necessary to leave for official business in St. Petersburg. She left Lenka in the care of relatives. The aunt, who was supposed to look after the boy, fell ill, and two weeks later Lenka realized with horror that his mother would not return. He went after his aunt, got food, but when she recovered, it turned out that the boy was a burden to her.

The boy tried to get a job in an agricultural school and even lived there for some time, belatedly realizing that this was not at all educational institution, but a hangout. Then Lenka ended up in an orphanage, from where he escaped, then - in another orphanage. Finally, the boy decided that he would go to look for his mother.

From that moment on, the summary of the story “Lenka Panteleev” is just a list of places where the boy got in his wanderings and from where he always left. Lenka was tossed around the country, he was sick, things were stolen from him, he himself learned to steal, beg and hide. There were people who helped the boy, gave food and shelter, there were those who drove him away. Lenka wandered for almost a year, until he finally managed to get to St. Petersburg. There he found his family, but, alas, the bad habits that he acquired during his vagrancy took hold. The mother tried for a long time to cope with her son herself, but then admitted defeat. She took him to SHKID - the school named after Dostoevsky, a boarding school for difficult children. But this is where a completely different book begins.

Leonid Panteleev

"Lenka Panteleev"

Introduction

That day, Volkov again dragged Lyonka to steal electric bulbs in the front doors. In one of them they stole a brand new padlock. The accomplices did not have time to run out of the entrance, as the mistress of the castle made a fuss. Volkov managed to escape, but Lyonka failed to get out. The boy was taken to the police station and put in an empty, cold cell. After crying, Lyonka began to remember how he came to such a life.

Chapter I

In the family, Lenka was called Alyosha. His father Ivan Adrianovich had a difficult character. Ivan Adrianovich also had a penchant for prolonged binges. Despite this, Lyonka loved his father for his honesty, directness and generosity. The only thing the boy knew about his past was that he served as a Cossack officer and participated in the Russo-Japanese War.

Ivan Adrianovich was born into an Old Believer St. Petersburg family that traded bricks and panel tiles. Against the will of his parents, he graduated from the Elisavetgrad Military School, served in a dragoon regiment, managed to fight, but became disillusioned with officer life, after being wounded in the regiment he did not return and began to trade in timber. He married Alexandra Sergeevna from an Orthodox trading family. She was never able to find a common language with her husband, whom she was very afraid of.

Mother and father swore, lived apart, then converged again, and the boy's life went on as usual. Having learned to read early, Lyonka read everything that came into his hands. He was never a good boy, and always got into trouble. It became especially difficult for Alexandra Sergeevna to cope with her son's paternal disposition when Ivan Adrianovich finally left the family.

Chapter II

Lenka's father died "in a foreign land", there was no funeral, no commemoration, and the boy always thought that his father was about to return. It was the third year of the First World War. In autumn, Lenka moved to the second grade of the preparatory school and tried to write poetry. Alexandra Sergeevna gave music lessons, and this was how the family lived.

The boy heard about the Bolsheviks from the housekeeper, Stesha, who was going to vote for them. The whooping cough that he had suffered in the summer prevented Lyonka from properly preparing for the exams, but he entered the real school without difficulty. The students of the school were occupied not so much with studies as with politics and enmity with high school students.

Taking an active part in the life of the school, Lyonka had time to read. He was drawn to serious books. On this basis, he met the realist Vladimir Volkov, a serious and slightly arrogant boy from a wealthy family. He gave Lenka books and once called for him in his own carriage. During lunch at the Volkovs, Lenka learned that the Bolsheviks were "Teutonic spies" thrown into Russia to sow confusion among the workers. From that day on, the boy thought only of Stesha, who could turn out to be a spy. Volkov, on the other hand, began to shun Lenka, having learned that his father was a simple cornet.

Lyonka began to follow Stesha and even opened the chest where the girl kept her things. He considered the pamphlet of the German economist Karl Marx found there as evidence of Steshina's espionage activities. Soon everything opened up. Alexandra Sergeevna considered her son a thief, but he told his mother about the "spy" Stesha and lost consciousness.

Chapter III

Lyonka was ill for 48 days. The October Socialist Revolution took place when the boy was lying in a feverish delirium. Returning to the school before the Christmas holidays, Lyonka found that his class had thinned out a lot. Volkov also disappeared. High school students walked around the corridors in their overcoats, and lessons were often canceled. Having visited a friend, Lenka found out that the Volkovs had left for their estate.

Winter was hungry. Stesha went to work at the Triangle plant, and helped Alexandra Sergeevna as much as she could. Lyonka read a lot and tried to compose poetry. In the spring, when the boy moved to the second grade, a letter arrived from the former nanny. She invited the whole family for the summer to her place, in the village of the Yaroslavl province. Stesha from St. Petersburg refused to leave - she remained to protect property.

Chapter IV

At the station, the red-bearded godfather of the nanny Sekletei Fyodorovna was waiting for Alexandra Sergeevna with the children. On the road that went through the forest, robbers attacked their cart, but the red-bearded man managed to negotiate with them. They were soldiers of the Green Army, which now occupied the village. Upon arrival, the nanny said that the sons of the red-bearded Fyodor Glebov were in this army, fighting the Bolsheviks.

After revolutionary Petrograd, village life seemed calm and well-fed to Lyonka. Vasya and Lyalya quickly became friends with the village children, and the shy Lyonka watched them from the side for a long time. However, he soon joined the company of village children, where he met Glebov's youngest son Ignat.

Soon Lyonka also met with the chairman of the Committee of the Poor, Vasily Fedorovich Krivtsov. He told the boy that Nekrasov described the places around Cheltsov and showed him his garden where he tried to grow tomatoes. The plants lacked Bordeaux liquid, which was very expensive.

In mid-June, ataman Khohryakov showed up in the district, who soon appeared in Cheltsovo. Lyonka rushed to warn Krivtsov, but he was not at home. The boy ran to the road, and saw that Krivtsov was already guarded by Ignashka Glebov, sent by his father. Fortunately for the chairman, the Khokhrakovites soon left the village. Returning home, Lyonka drank ice water and fell ill with diphtheria. Alexandra Sergeevna decided to take her ten-year-old son to the doctor in Yaroslavl.

Chapter V

Staying at the hotel "Europe", Alexandra Sergeevna called the pediatrician. He gave Lyonka an injection and said that the boy should be hospitalized. However, Lenka never got to the hospital: the White Guards broke into Yaroslavl. The guests of "Europe" had to hide in the hotel basement. In a hurry, Alexandra Sergeevna did not have time to grab things and food. It soon became known that the power of the Bolsheviks had been overthrown, and a joyful revival reigned in the basement. Alexandra Sergeevna ventured to go for things. When she returned, the woman said that everything had been stolen from them.

Having gone to the toilet, Lyonka could not resist the temptation and went to the upper floors of the "Europe". On the way back, Lyonka got lost, went out onto the front staircase and stumbled upon the owner of the hotel, Poyarkov, and his son, a White Guard officer. Taking the boy for a thief, they took him to the basement to check if he really lives here. Convinced that his mother had been looking for him for a long time, Poyarkov convinced people to leave the basement and promised refreshments at the expense of the hotel. In the morning, when Alexandra Sergeevna and Lyonka were having breakfast at the Europe restaurant, shooting began again - the communists fired on Yaroslavl from cannons.

Chapter VI

One of the targets of shelling was the hotel "Europe". Only those who had nowhere to run remained in her basement, including Alexandra Sergeevna and Lyonka. On the fourth day, candles and food ran out, and the woman decided to look for something to eat. Lyonka followed her. Having risen, they found that people were living in a long hotel corridor, and settled down next to a heavy, strict woman, a village teacher, Nonna Ieronimovna Tirosidonskaya.

The meager reserves of Tirosidonskaya did not save from hunger. Soon there was no water in Yaroslavl. Once, having made their way into the city, the women got a lot of sugar and coffee. Drinking water was sold by the son of a hotel porter, and Alexandra Sergeevna sent Lyonka to him. Not finding a water carrier, the boy decided to go to the Volga for water himself.

Once on the street, Lyonka realized that he did not know how to get to the river, and went to wander around the city. On the way, he was almost detained by a sentry, then he ran away from a White Guard officer. Fleeing from bullets, Lyonka ran into an agricultural store, from where he took out a jar of Bordeaux liquid and several handfuls of hemp seeds. With difficulty finding a hotel, the boy returned to his mother, who was already going crazy. Arriving in the evening, Tirosidorskaya reported that the Reds had promised to release the civilian population from the city.

The next day they crossed the Volga in a small steamboat. Lyonka noticed that on the same steamboat several white officers had escaped from the besieged city. After parting with Tirosidonskaya, Alexandra Sergeevna and Lyonka decided to spend the night in the village of Bykovka. In the morning, the Khokhrakovites attacked the village. The bandits wanted to shoot Lenka and his mother, but one of the bandits did not let the child be killed and allowed them to escape. Outside the village outskirts, the boy remembered the Bordeaux liquid and returned for it, almost again falling into the clutches of the Khokhryakovites. Lyonka did not guess to grab his mother's bag, and they were left without money. An angry old man ferried them across the Volga without taking a penny. Having reached Cheltsov, Lyonka learned that the chairman, severely beaten by the Khokhrakovites, had ended up in the hospital.

Chapter VII

Two weeks later, Alexandra Sergeevna again took Lenka to Yaroslavl to see a doctor. Leaving her son in the hospital garden, the mother went in search of a doctor. Suddenly, “brass music burst out around the corner of the building” - this was the burial of the Red Army soldiers who died during the mutiny. In the crowd, the boy saw Krivtsova and learned that the chairman survived, having received eighteen wounds. The woman took the boy to her husband, who was in the same hospital. The doctor who unexpectedly approached recognized Lyonka, examined him and declared that he was "healthy as a bull."

Returning to Cheltsovo on a steamboat, Lyonka noticed young Poyarkov in the crowd, dressed in rags. In August, Alexandra Sergeevna went to Petrograd several times to buy things, which she then exchanged for food. Lyonka no longer played with Glebov Jr. - he again became addicted to reading. At the end of the summer, Lenka's aunt and her daughter Ira moved from Petrograd to Cheltsovo. Soon the village was occupied by the Red Army. Glebov Sr. was killed, and a few days later the captured Khokhrakovites, led by the ataman, were led through the village.

Alexandra Sergeevna brought news from St. Petersburg about the assassination attempt on Lenin and that Stesha had gone to the front. Famine came to the village, and the woman decided to go in search of a “bread place”, leaving the children in the care of a nanny and aunt. In the autumn, chairman Krivtsov returned to Cheltsovo, and Lyonka gave him the Bordeaux liquid saved with such difficulty.

Alexandra Sergeevna found work "in a small Tatar town on the Kama River." She was offered to head a children's music school. She took both the children and her aunt and daughter.

Chapter VIII

Soon, Alexandra Sergeevna "already led the children's artistic education throughout the city." The family was given two large furnished rooms, and Vasya entered an agricultural school and lived outside the city in a boarding school. In early March, Alexandra Sergeevna left for Petrograd on a business trip. Lyonka at that time was in the hospital with typhus. The boy's aunt did not visit, and in recent days Lyalya also stopped going. Returning home, Lenka found that everyone was sick, but his mother had not returned. He took over the business. For two weeks he treated his aunt and Ira, ran to the hospital to Lyalya and cooked dinners. Soon the aunt recovered, and Lyonka became a burden for her. At this time, a letter arrived from Vasya, who was very pleased with his studies and work, and the boy decided to go to his brother's "farm".

In the city zemstvo department, he learned that there were no vacancies in the agricultural school. Alexandra Sergeevna did not answer either letters or telegrams, her aunt became more and more angry, and Lyonka decided to go to the farm without accompanying papers, hoping for the help of his brother.

Vasya was little worried about household chores, but he did not drive his brother away. The director of the school, Nikolai Mikhailovich, did not accept the boy, and he remained "on bird's rights." Everyone stole here. The director, who seemed vaguely familiar to the boy, and the teachers robbed the students, and the students, in order to survive, slaughtered livestock in the surrounding villages. Lyonka also quickly learned this craft. The boy was not given agricultural business, and he often paid for his mistakes.

Once, while grazing pigs, Lyonka missed a thoroughbred boar, and he had to run away from school. Only now did the boy realize that the former White Guard Poyarkov Jr. was in charge of the school. Lyonka returned to his aunt, but she was not happy with him - they lived on the salary and rations of Ira. The boy went to the orphanage, where Lyalya already lived. The orphanage was housed in a former convent. Once the guys found things hidden by the nuns in the bell tower and tried to sell them in the market. So Lyonka ended up in the police, and then in another orphanage. At night, he escaped from there, taking women's shoes hidden from the guys, and went to St. Petersburg to look for his mother.

The money didn't last long. Lyonka was starving, eating alms. In an abandoned manor, he found boxes of books. Having settled in a boarded-up kiosk, the boy sold all the books. Its last buyer was a German who owned a shoe shop. Upon learning that Lenka was an orphan, he took him on as an apprentice. If not for the hostess, who immediately disliked the boy, he would have stayed in Kazan forever.

Having lived with a shoemaker for two months, the boy boarded the first steamer that came across, ended up in the town of Pyany Bor and settled on the pier in the company of homeless children. In the meantime, winter has come. Lyonka was cold and starving until a cheerful guy picked him up on the street. So the boy ended up in the city committee of the RKSM, where he stayed all winter. Soon the guy, whose name was Yurka, invited Lyonka to enter a vocational school. The boy was enrolled immediately in the third grade, but he was not given working specialties, and he had not even heard of algebra. Having learned about the poor progress of the sponsored, Yurka undertook to “pull him up”. A few months later, Lyonka was already getting good grades.

Lenka's life began to improve when a kulak uprising broke out in the province, and all the Komsomol members left to fight. Yurka died, and Lyonka again felt like an orphan. In early spring, he again tried to get to St. Petersburg.

Chapter IX

Lenka again did not get to Petrograd. The boy moved like a hare, clinging to the sled until his leg got under the runner. Having lost his warm boots, he hardly reached the nearest village and knocked on the first hut. There he lay in a fever until late spring. An elderly peasant woman, Marya Petrovna Kuvshinnikova, came out to Lyonka. For some time the boy lived with the Kuvshinnikovs, but then he was again drawn into wanderings.

Now Lyonka traveled by train. In Belgorod, he was caught by the officer on duty, an agent of Ch.K. Having interrogated the boy, the security officer took pity on him, wrote out a document by which Lenka could get to St. Petersburg without a ticket, and gave him money. Lyonka spent the night in a barrack, where he was robbed. The boy discovered the loss only on the train. He was dropped from the car at an unknown station. Lenka spent the whole autumn, winter and summer in Ukraine. He could not find a job and stole to survive. At the end of the summer the boy reached Petrograd.

Chapter X

Strangers lived in Lenka's apartment, and the boy went to the Catherine's Canal, where his mother's sister lived. There he found his family. Lyonka did not recognize the ten-year-old Lyalya who had grown up. Vasya's agricultural school was closed - all the teachers turned out to be former White Guards. The boy moved to St. Petersburg and went to work in a pastry shop. He told how he had been looking for Lyonka in the forest for two days and decided that the wolves had bitten him.

Alexandra Sergeevna also spoke about her misadventures. She was already returning to the children when a deserter detachment attacked the train. The woman hid, burying herself in the coal chips, and then, half-dressed, made her way to the nearest station. On the way, she caught a cold, ended up in the hospital, where she contracted typhus and was ill for several months. Lenka also spoke about himself. Alexandra Sergeevna took an oath from her son that he would never steal again.

Now Lyonka dreamed of working at some factory, but finding such a place was not easy. Finally, the boy got a job at the Express factory, which makes artificial mineral waters. Lyonka was appointed assistant to the elderly Zakhar Ivanovich. Together, they spent the whole day transporting bottles around the city in a heavy cart, receiving almost nothing for it.

Chapter XI

During one of the flights, Lenka met Volkov, who became a street thief. In amazement, the boy released the handle of the cart and broke several dozen bottles. The owner fined for broken bottles. Lyonka did not have that kind of money, and he had to urgently leave. Volkov helped the boy to hide in the crowd and offered to go along with him on business. Lenka agreed only to get rid of a friend who both attracted and repelled him. The boy did not want to steal.

An unexpected guest was waiting for Lenka at home - Stesha, who became Stepanida Timofeevna. She arranged for Alexandra Sergeevna to be the head of the musical circle in the club of the Triangle factory. The woman told Stesha about Lenka's adventures, and she decided to take the boy seriously.

Chapter XII

Soon, at the insistence of his aunt, Lenka entered the Unified Labor School, which was once a gymnasium, where the old teaching staff, gymnasium rules were preserved, and the children of wealthy Nepmen studied. Soon, rumors about Lyonkin's past spread around the school. The boy was called a thief. Despite this, Lyonka decided to stay at school. One day he saw some Boy Scouts turning upside down a portrait of Karl Marx, and he rushed into the fray. Taking advantage of this, the headmistress kicked the boy out. On the same day, Lyonka came across the owner of the Express. He demanded to pay for the damage caused to him. The boy had no choice but to tell his mother about everything.

Alexandra Sergeevna gave Lyonka money. On the way to the Express, he saw street roulette, and, tempted by easy money, lost everything he had. Not daring to return home, Lyonka went to wander around St. Petersburg, and soon met Volkov again. This time the boy did not refuse his offer.

Lenka firmly connected with Volkov. After an unsuccessful theft of the castle and a night in a cold cell, Lyonka was released under the guarantee of Stesha. The boy told everything without concealment, he did not give out only the name of the accomplice. Thanks to Stesha, the case did not go to court. She also got a ticket for the boy to a special school for difficult teenagers, headed by Viktor Nikolaevich Sorokin. The boy fell into good hands and many years later wrote a story about the school named after Dostoevsky.

The story begins with a short introduction. Lenka's acquaintance, Volkov, again drags him along to steal light bulbs in the front rooms. In one of them, the guy was grabbed and taken to the police, where Lenka begins to remember how he came to such a life.

Alyosha grew up in the family of a former Cossack officer who was prone to prolonged binges. But the boy loved his father, for his honesty, justice and generosity. Father and mother often fought. They then diverged, then converged again, and the boy's life went on as usual. Starting to read early, the boy studied everything that only fell into his hands. Soon the father finally left the family.

In the third year of the First World War, the boy moved to the second grade and tried to write poems. Lenka's mother worked as a tutor. She gave music lessons, which earned her family a living.

The boy took an active part in the life of the school, but did not forget to read. He liked serious books. At the school, he met Vladimir Volkov, who gave Lenka books. However, having learned that Alyosha was the son of a simple cornet, he begins to shun him. At this time, talk of the Bolsheviks was heard everywhere. Many called them spies of the West, and Lyonka, having learned that his housekeeper Stesha was going to vote for the Bolsheviks, began to follow her. Soon, he discovered a volume of Karl Marx in the girl's possession and considered this proof of Steshina's espionage activities. The mother considered the boy a thief, but he told her about his suspicions, fell unconscious. Lyonka was ill for a long time. At that moment, when Alyosha was delirious, a revolution took place.

Returning to the school, the boy noticed that many students were gone from the school. Volkov also disappeared. He left with his family to the estate, out of town. Stesha went to work at the factory and helped the boy's family as much as she could.

In the spring, the Lenka family moved to the Yaroslavl province, where they were invited by the boy's former nanny. Here he learned about the clashes between People's Army and White Guards. After some time, Lenya fell ill with diphtheria, and his mother decided to take him to Yaroslavl. In Yaroslavl began fighting, and the mother and the boy were forced to hide in the basement.

With difficulty getting out of the city, they safely reached their village, where Lyonka's aunt moved with her daughter Ira. Famine began in the country. Mother, in search of a bread place, began to look for work. She was offered to become a music teacher in one Tatar town, where she took her son, and her aunt and daughter.

Soon the boy's mother disappeared, and he was assigned to an orphanage. He decides to run away from the orphanage and goes in search of his mother. Having wandered around the country, he reached his native St. Petersburg, where he learned that strangers lived in his apartment. He remembered his mother's sister and leaned towards her, where he met his family. Then the boy got a job at a small factory, producing mineral water. He began to deliver water in a heavy cart, receiving a pittance for this.

During one of his flights, he met Volkov, who became a street thief. Volkov invited the boy to go with him on business. Lyonka agreed, but he did not want to steal. At home, the boy met Stesha, who helped her mother get a job as a music teacher in the circle of the Triangle factory and decided to educate Alyosha. Now Stesha was called by name and patronymic.

The boy was sent to a labor school, where many, having learned about his past, began to call Lyonka a thief. Taking advantage of the boy's accidental mistake, he was expelled from school, and the boy contacted Volkov again. After an unsuccessful theft in the front door, Lenka told the police everything, without giving out the name of the accomplice.

After that, he was assigned to a school for difficult teenagers. And a few years later, he wrote a story about the school named after Dostoevsky.

He was ill for forty-eight days. Three weeks of them he lay delirious, unconscious, in the struggle between life and death. And these were just those great days that shook the world and turned it upside down, as an earthquake turns mountains over.

Lenka was lying with a temperature of 39.9 on the day when the cruiser "Aurora" entered the Neva and dropped anchor at the Nikolaevsky bridge.

Lenin arrived at Smolny.

The Red Guard occupied railway stations, the telegraph office, and the state bank.

The Winter Palace, the citadel of the bourgeois government, was besieged by revolutionary troops and workers.

And the little boy, scattering pillows and sheets, groaned and choked in bed, fenced off from the rest of the room and from the whole outside world by a silk Japanese screen.

He didn't see or hear anything. But when the clouded consciousness briefly returned to him, delirium and nightmares began. Unaccountable fear attacked the boy at that moment. Someone was chasing him, something had to be saved from, something terrible, big-eyed, black-bearded, similar to Volkov the father, was advancing on him. And there was one salvation, one way out of this horror - it was necessary to knit a red cross from woolen threads. It seemed to him that it was so simple and so easy - to crochet a red cross, with which mittens and stockings are knitted, making it hollow, in the form of a bag, like those that are put on teapots and coffee pots ...

Sometimes at night he opened his inflamed eyes, saw his mother's emaciated face above him, and, licking his parched lips, whispered:

Mommy… pretty… tie me a red cross!..

Dropping her head into his chest, her mother wept softly. And he did not understand why she was crying and why she did not want to fulfill his request, so simple and so important.

… But now the boy's body coped with the disease, a turning point occurred, and gradually consciousness began to return to Lenka. True, it returned slowly, in shreds, in fits and starts, as if it was drowning, choking, going to the bottom, and only for a minute the terrible heaviness of the water let it go, and with efforts it floated to the surface - to take a breath of air, to see the sunlight, to feel alive. . But even in those moments he did not always understand where the dream is and where the reality is, where the delirium is and where the reality is ...

He opens his eyes and sees near his bed a fat man with a black mustache. He recognizes him: this is Dr. Tuwim from the Naval Hospital, their old family doctor. But why is he not in uniform, why are silver epaulettes with anchors and gold stripes not visible on his shoulders?

Dr. Tuvim holds Lenka by the hand, bends down to his face and, smiling with a wide friendly smile, says:

Wow! Are we awake? Well, how do we feel?

Lenka was amused before by this manner of Dr. Tuwim talking about other “we” ... For some reason, he will never say: “drink castor oil” or “put a mustard plaster”, but always - “we will drink castor oil” or “we will put a mustard plaster ”, - although at the same time he does not put mustard plasters on himself and does not drink castor oil.

We have no intention of eating? he asks, stroking Lenka's hand.

Lenka wants to answer, tries to smile, but he only has enough strength to move his lips. His head is spinning, Dr. Tuvim blurs, and Lenka falls again, sinking headlong into the water. The last thing he hears is an unfamiliar male voice saying:

Shooting at Lermontovsky again.

One night he woke up from a terrible ringing. A cold street wind blew into the dark room with hurricane force.

Stesha! Stesha! Where are you? Give me something... a pillow or a blanket...

Lady! Yes lady! Get away from the window! Stesha screamed.

He wanted to ask, “What? what's the matter?", wanted to raise his head, but his voice did not obey, and his head fell helplessly on the pillow.

…But now he was waking up more and more often.

He couldn't speak yet, but he could listen.

He heard the sound of a machine gun in the street. He heard how armored cars roared along the pavement, and saw how the light of their headlights ran menacingly and quickly across the white tiles of the stove.

He began to understand that something had happened.

Once, when Stesha gave him cold cranberry juice, he gained strength and asked her in a whisper:

She understood, laughed, and said loudly, as if to a deaf man:

Our power, Leshenka!..

He did not immediately understand what she was talking about. What is "our power"? Why "our government"? But then, as often happens after an illness, some kind of switch turned in Lenka's head, a bright beam illuminated his memory, and he remembered everything: he remembered the Bolshevik sailors from the guards crew, he remembered how he sneaked after Stesha along Sadovaya and along Kryukov channel, remembered the chest, and the castle, and encyclopedic Dictionary Brockhaus ... His ears lit up, and, rising above the pillow, he looked at the maid with a pitiful smile and whispered:

Stesha... forgive me...

Nothing, nothing... Enough for you... Lie down! Silly you, - the girl laughed, and it suddenly seemed to Lyonka that she had grown younger and prettier during this time. She had never laughed with such cheerful and free laughter before.

At this time, behind the door of the "dark" someone coughed loudly.

Who is it there? - whispered Lenka.

There is no one there, Leshenka. Lie down, - the girl laughed.

No, really... Someone is walking.

Stesha quickly bent down and, tickling his ear with her lips, said:

This is my brother, Leshenka!

The same one.

Lenka remembered the photograph with broken corners and a mustachioed man in a round, pie-like hat.

Alive, Leshenka. He came from Smolensk for three days. Leaving today.

The door creaked.

Stan, can you? - Lenka heard a soft male voice.

Stesha rushed to the door.

Sh-sh... Sh-sh... Where are you, kolobrod? Is it possible here?!

Where the hell did you put my Browning holster? the same voice asked softly.

What other holster? Ah, the holster?

Lenka raised his head, wanted to look, but saw no one - he only heard a slight smell of tobacco smoke seeping into the room.

And in the evening he woke up again. He was awakened by a lisping senile voice, which spoke with a breath over his head:

Poor little Kalmyk... What a terrible time he was born!..

He opens his eyes and shudders. He sees before him a terrible, black, soot-stained face. Who is it? Or what is it? He seems to be delusional again. But this is General's Silkova, an old widow, who lives in the wing, in the sixth room. He knows her well, he remembers this little, clean old woman, her ruddy face, framed by a mourning lace cap, her strict, orderly gait ... Why is she so terrible now? What happened to her? With a fixed gaze, he looks at the old woman, and she leans towards him, often blinks her small watery eyes and whispers:

Sleep, sleep, baby ... God bless you! ..

And a terrible bony hand rises over Lenka, and dirty, black, like a chimney sweep's fingers, cross him several times.

He screams and closes his eyes. And a minute later he hears how, behind the screen, the mother persuades the old woman in a loud whisper:

Augusta Markovna! .. Well, why are you? What are you doing? After all, after all, it’s unhygienic… After all, you can get sick…

No, no, don't talk, macher, - the old woman whispers in response. - No, no, dear... You don't know history very well. At times great revolution in France, the sans-culottes, the holos, recognized the aristocrats by their hands. Exactly. Exactly, exactly, you forgot, my dear, exactly like that.

- "Your hands, mistress!" - "Here are my hands." “Why are your hands white? Why are they so white? BUT?" And - to the lantern! Yes, yes, ma sher, to the lantern! A rope around his neck and - on a lantern, a la lantern! .. On a lantern! ..

Generalsha Silkova no longer speaks, but hisses.

And they will come to us, ma sher. You will see... And this cup will not pass us by... They will come, they will come...

"Who's going to come?" - thinks Lenka. And suddenly he realizes: the Bolsheviks! The old woman is afraid of the Bolsheviks. She deliberately does not wash her hands so that they would not know that she is an aristocrat, the widow of a tsarist general.

He's starting to get pissed off again. It's getting scary.

Good thing I'm not an aristocrat, he thinks as he falls asleep. And for some reason he suddenly remembers Volkov.

“And who is Volkov? Volkov - an aristocrat? Yes, there is someone who, and the Volkovs, of course, are the real aristocrats ... "

…He sleeps long and hard. And again wakes up from a roar. Someone imperiously knocks with iron on the iron gate. Voices are heard in the street. From the mother's bedroom, where Vasya and Lyalya moved for a while, a child's cry is heard.

Stesha! Stesha! Alexandra Sergeevna screams in a muffled voice. - What happened there? Dove, come and find out...

Well, Alexandra Sergeevna ... now ... I’ll find out, - Stesha calmly answers, and you can hear how they strike matches in the “dark one” ... Stesha’s bare feet slap. A minute later, the kitchen door slams.

Lenka lies, does not move, listens. It is quiet in the street and in the courtyard, but the boy’s inflamed imagination seems to hear voices, shots, groans ...

The door slammed again.

Stesha, is that you?

I am a lady.

Well, what is it?

Nothing, lady. Sailors and Red Guards walk. They came with a search. They are looking for weapons.

Where did they go?

In the sixth room, to Silkova.

My God! Unhappy! What is she going through, - Alexandra Sergeevna says with a sigh, and Lenka feels his hair move from horror on his head, or, rather, what is left of them after a haircut for a zero typewriter.

"To the lantern! To the lantern! - he recalls the lisping whisper of the general's wife. He throws off the covers, sits down, looks in the dark for his worn-out night shoes. He is scared, he is shaking all over, but at the same time he is unable to overcome his greedy curiosity and desire to see with his own eyes the last minutes of the unfortunate general's wife. He has no doubt that it is already hanging from the lantern. He clearly imagines her - sedate and strict, hanging with her arms folded on her chest and with a prayerful gaze directed to heaven.

Throwing a blanket over his shoulders and staggering from weakness, he makes his way on tiptoe into the hallway, the only window of which overlooks the courtyard. A poplar grows in front of the window, and under the poplar stands a gas lantern.

Squinting, Lenka approaches the window. He is afraid to open his eyes. He stands there for a full minute, squinting tightly, then gathers courage and opens both eyes at once.

There is no one else at the lantern. It is raining outside, the lantern glows brightly, and raindrops run askew across its trapezoidal glass.

Somewhere in the back of the yard, in an outbuilding, a door slammed muffledly. Lenka is pressed against the glass. He sees some black figures walking across the yard. Something glitters in the dark. And again it seems to him that groans, tears, muffled cries come from the darkness ...

“They’re going to hang them,” he guesses, and presses his forehead against the cold glass with such force that the glass creaks, trembles and bends under his weight.

"Come to us!" - he thinks. And, having slipped off the windowsill like an eel, losing his shoes on the way, he runs to the nursery. A muffled song comes from my mother's bedroom. While rocking Lyalya, Alexandra Sergeevna sings in an undertone:

Sleep, my beautiful baby,

Baiushki bye…

Silent light...

Mother! - shouts Lenka. - Mom! .. Mommy ... They are coming to us ... Search! ..

And before he has time to say it, an impetuous bell rings in the kitchen.

With a beating heart Lenka runs into the nursery. The blanket slides off his shoulders. He pulls it up - and suddenly sees his hands.

They are white, pale, even paler than usual. Thin blue veins appear on them, like rivers on geographical map.

Lenka thinks for a few seconds, looks at his hands, then rushes to the stove, squats down and, burning himself, opens the red-hot copper door.

Red embers still flicker in the depths of the stove. The ash hasn't cooled down yet. Without thinking, he takes handfuls of this warm soft mass and smears his hands with it up to the very elbows. Then he does the same with the face.

Who lives? - Lyonka hears a sharp, rough voice.

Teacher, - answers Stesha.

Opening the door half an inch, Lenka looks out into the kitchen.

At the front door stands a tall, stately sailor who looks like Peter the Great. Black antennae famously twisted up. The chest is crossed with machine-gun belts. A rifle in his hand, a wooden holster on his belt, a cleaver in a leather sheath on his left side.

Several other people crowd behind the sailor: two or three sailors, one civilian with a red armband and a woman in high boots. All of them with rifles.

Alexandra Sergeevna appears in the kitchen. With her right hand, she holds Lyalya, who has fallen asleep on her shoulder, with her left she fastens the hood and straightens her hair.

Hello, she says. - What's the matter?

She speaks calmly, as if a postman or a plumber had come into the kitchen, but Lyonka sees that her mother is still worried, her hands are trembling slightly.

A tall sailor puts his hand to his peakless cap.

Will you be the owner of the apartment?

Teacher?

Yes. Teacher.

Do you live alone?

Yes. With three children and servants.

Yes, I am a widow.

The giant looks at the woman with sympathy. In any case, it seems so to Lenka.

And what are you, pardon my curiosity, teaching? What subject?

I am a music teacher.

Yeah. Clear. Piano or guitar?

Yes... on the piano.

I understand, - the sailor repeats and, turning to his companions, gives the command:

Set aside! Vira…

Then once again he throws his hand up to his cap, on the ribbon of which the faded gold letters “Dawn of Freedom” gleam dully, and says, turning to the hosts:

I'm sorry to trouble you. They woke up ... But nothing can be done about the revolutionary duty! ..

Lyonka looks at the handsome sailor as if spellbound. He no longer feels any fear. On the contrary, he is sorry that now this hero will leave, hide, dissolve, like a dream ...

At the door the sailor turns around once more.

Of course, there are no weapons? he says with a delicate smile.

No, - Alexandra Sergeevna answers with a smile. “Except for the table knives and forks…”

Thank you. Forks are not required.

And then Lenka bursts into the kitchen.

Mom, he whispers, tugging at his mother's sleeve. - You forgot. We also have…

The sailor, who did not have time to leave, turns sharply.

Ugh, he says, eyes wide. What kind of chimpanzee is this?

His comrades squeeze into the kitchen and also look with surprise at the strange dark-faced creature wrapped in a green quilted blanket.

Lyosha!.. What have you done to yourself? What happened to your face? And hands! Look at his hands!..

Mom, we have one, - Lyonka mutters, pulling his mother by the sleeve of the hood. - You forgot. We do have.

What do we have?

Oguzhie…

And, not hearing the laughter that stands behind him, he runs into the corridor.

The chest upholstered in brass is cluttered with things almost to the very ceiling. Climbing onto it, Lenka hurriedly dumps baskets, trunks, bundles, hat cartons on the floor ... With the same haste, he lifts the heavy lid of the chest. The toxic smell of mothballs hits the nose hard. Squeezing his eyes shut and sneezing, Lenka frantically rummages through things, pulls out old checkers, pouches, stirrups, spurs from the chest ...

Loaded with this Cossack ammunition, he returns to the kitchen. The green blanket trails behind him like the train of a lady's dress...

Again he is greeted with laughter.

What's this? - says the giant sailor, looking at the things brought to Lenka with a smile. - Where did you get this junk?

These are the things of my late husband, - says Alexandra Sergeevna. - In the year nine hundred and four, he fought with the Japanese.

Clear. No, boy, we don't need that. You'd better take it to some museum. And yet ... wait ... Perhaps this saber will come in handy ...

And, turning a crooked Cossack saber in his hands, the sailor famously thrusts it into his belt, on which weapons are already hung for a good half a platoon.

... Ten minutes later Lenka is sitting in bed. On a stool near him stands a bowl of warm water, and Alexandra Sergeevna, rolling up her sleeves, washes the boy with a spongy Greek sponge. Stesha helps her.

And you know, Stesha, - says Alexandra Sergeevna. - Perhaps, these Red Guards are not so terrible at all. They are even nice. Especially this one, which is in charge of them, with hussar mustaches ...

Well, mistress, - Stesha answers offendedly. - What are they - robbers, or what? It's not from Kanava any. This is revolutionary protection. And because they wake up good people at night, because some of the bourgeoisie have taken the habit of hiding their weapons. Do you know what they found in the corner house of a state councilor the other day?

Soapy water flows into Lenka's ears. He is afraid to listen, breaks out of Stesha's hands and asks:

What? What did you find?

And, to you, by God! - says Stesha. - Splattered all over. Don't jump, please!.. She had a whole machine gun in her bathtub. And two thousand rounds of ammunition. That's what!..

... These nightly adventures could end badly for the sick boy. But, probably, he had been ill for so long that the diseases eventually got tired of messing with him and left him. After a week, he felt so good that Dr. Tuwim allowed him to stand up. And two weeks later, wrapped up to his very nose in scarves and hoods, he went out into the yard for the first time.

It has been snowing for a long time. He lay on the roofs, on the cornices, on the branches of an old poplar, on the crossbeams of a lantern...

Lenka stood at the entrance and, with his head up like a jackdaw, swallowed with pleasure the clean, frosty air, smelling of smoke and Antonov apples.

The snow crunched. He looked back. Walking across the yard, leaning on a stick, was General Silkova. Her clean, ruddy face turned even more red in the cold. A white lace collar peeked out from under a red fox boa, the tail of which hung on Silkova's chest, and a bug-eyed, sharp muzzle with a protruding pink tongue stared at the back of the general's head.

Lyonka looked at Silkova like she was a ghost.

When the old woman passed by, he shuffled with difficulty deep snow foot and said:

Hello, madam ... So you were not hanged?

What are you saying baby? - Asked, stopping, Silkova.

I say: you were not hanged?

No, poor child, - the old woman answered and, sighing heavily, she went on.

... Lenka returned to the school just before the Christmas holidays. He missed more than two months and, although he had been working hard at home for the last two weeks, he was still afraid that he was far behind the class. However, when he came to the real and saw what orders reigned there, he realized that he had absolutely nothing to fear.

The first thing that caught his eye was that his class had thinned out a lot. Many of the desks were occupied by one student, and some were empty at all.

Where have all the boys gone? - he asked his neighbor Tuzov II.

Do not know. It's been like that for a long time, - answered Tuzov-second. - Who is sick, who does not go for domestic reasons, and who has stopped exercising altogether.

And Volkov?

Volkov, it seems, has not appeared for a whole month.

“Probably, he is also sick,” Lenka decided.

It was cold in the school. The steam heating batteries barely warmed up. In many of the windows, the glass was pierced by rifle bullets and hastily patched up with round wooden patches. During the break, Lenka noticed that many high school students were walking around the corridor of the school in overcoats.

As before, the main center of school life was in the lavatory. As before, there were debates all day long, but it seemed to Lenka that now these disputes and skirmishes had become much sharper. Swear words were heard more often. Brawls arose more often ... And Lenka made one more observation: in these disputes and brawls, the one who dared to defend the Bolsheviks suffered the most ...

Before the big break, the class teacher Bodrov came to the class and announced that there would be no more lessons today, the students could go home.

No one, except for Lenka, was surprised.

Why? What happened? he asked the boy who was walking out of the classroom with him. It was a funny, always smiling boy - Kolya Markelov, the grandson of the school watchman.

And what? Nothing happened,” Markelov smiled. - We now have such a bagpipe almost every day. For some reason, the stoker does not work, then teachers sabotage, then high school students go on strike.

“How are they striking? - Lenka did not understand. “Workers are on strike in factories, but how can students, and even more so teachers, go on strike?”

... Leaving the school, Lenka decided not to go home right away, but to roam the streets a little. He spent so long in the four walls that he could not deny himself this pleasure.

Having circled the huge Trinity Cathedral, admiring, as always, the monument of Glory, made of one hundred and twenty-eight cannons, he went to Izmailovsky, crossed the bridge and wandered along Voznesensky towards Sadovaya.

The day was bright and wintry. The snow crunched nicely underfoot. The runners of the cabbies creaked. From somewhere behind Lenka's back, from behind the tower of the Warsaw Station, the tinned winter sun shone coldly.

At first glance, no special changes on the streets have occurred during this time. Trade was going on briskly in the Alexander market. On the newspaperman's locker at the black with tiled turrets of the City House, the corner of Sadovaya and Voznesensky, lay all the same newspapers: Novoye Vremya, Rech, Russkaya Volya, Petrogradsky Leaf ... True, there was no longer Kuzkina's Mother ”, But on the other hand, newspapers appeared that Lenka had not seen before: Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet, Pravda, Soldatskaya Pravda ...

There was a long line at the door of Filippov's bakery. A sentinel's sheepskin coat loomed on the watchtower of the Spasskaya section. A modest funeral procession was walking along Sadovaya from Pokrov... On the site opposite the Nikolsky market, a village boy, girded with a red sash, was selling Christmas trees. Everything was the same as last year, as it was five years ago. But not everything was the same. There were changes that were noticeable.

The street crowd has become easier. There were no smart reckless drivers, sledges with bear cavities, elegant ladies, brilliant officers. Lyonka even shuddered when he saw a short, stout gentleman suddenly walking towards him in a beaver hat, with gold pince-nez on his nose, and in high black boots. He saw this gentleman at the Volkovs' in the autumn. He already wanted to bow, but then he noticed that this gentleman was not walking alone - on the right and left of him were walking two very stern-looking men with rifles and with red armbands on their sleeves.

Lenka shivered. Again he remembered Volkov.

"I'll go in and find out what's wrong with him," he decided. Moreover, the Kryukov Canal was very close.

Climbing up the shuffled carpet to the mezzanine, he stood for a long time in front of the high front door and pressed the bell button. Nobody opened it for him.

As he was going downstairs, a round-shouldered, unshaven old man in felt boots and a black cap with gold lace came out of the Swiss room.

Who are you to? he asked Lenka.

Do you know where the Volkovs from the first issue went? - said Lenka. - I called, called, no one answers.

And they won’t answer,” the porter replied sullenly.

How? Why won't they answer? Where are they?

The porter looked at the frail realist, as if considering whether it was worth it to explain himself to such a Karapet, then he relented and answered:

They left with the whole family to the south, to their estate.

The next day at the school, Lenka reported this to Markelov, who asked him if he had seen Volkov.

Volkov went south, he said.

Left?! Markelov laughed. - Tell me better - they didn’t leave, but washed off!

How did it get washed away? - Lenka did not understand.

Then these thieves, "thieves" words appeared in large numbers not only in the everyday life of boys, but also in spoken language many adults. This is explained by the fact that the Provisional Government, before its fall, released criminals from prisons. This dark people, scattered throughout the cities and villages of the country, occupied not the last place among the enemies with whom the young Soviet power.

What does flushed mean? Lenka asked in surprise.

Freak! Markelov laughed. - Well, they ran away, they asked the strekach. Now your brother - you know - amba! And Volkov-dad also probably has a stigma in fluff! ..

Which our brother? Lenka was offended. - Are you arguing? I am not an aristocrat.

And who are you? What party are you?

I am a Cossack, - Lenka answered out of habit.

This winter has been very difficult. On the outskirts of the country began Civil War. In Petrograd and in other cities, hunger made itself felt more and more strongly. Food prices have risen. Horsemeat appeared on the market. Black bread, which until recently Lenka was forced to eat at dinner with soup and roast, imperceptibly turned into a delicacy, like a cake or pastries.

Lenka's mother continued to run around the lessons, which became more difficult to get every day. She still had toothache. And in the evenings, when she, as always, kissed and baptized the children before going to bed, Lenka felt the nauseatingly sugary smell of garlic and lily of the valley.

In the middle of winter, Stesha went to work at the Triangle plant. She did not leave Lenka’s family, she continued to live in the “dark one”, she even helped Alexandra Sergeevna as much as she could. At a little light, long before the factory whistle, she got up to take a line for bread or milk at the Landlord store on Izmailovsky. Returning from work, she washed the dishes, took out the trash, washed the floors in the kitchen and in the corridors ... Alexandra Sergeevna tried to do the housework herself. She knew how to cook, as she once studied, in the first years of her marriage, at culinary courses. But when she once tried to wash the children's floor, by the evening her back ached so much that Lenka had to hastily run to the Kalinkin bridge for Dr. Tuvim.

Winter, which dragged on for an infinitely long time, seemed somehow unreal to Lenka. And they didn't really study. And they didn't eat like they used to. And the ovens were not always warm.

Who is to blame for all this, where is the cause of the devastation that has begun. Lenka did not understand, and did not really think about it. At the age of ten, a person lives his own interests, often much more complex than those of adults. True, even at this age Lenka was not like his peers. He did not run to the skating rink, did not make friends in the yard or on the street, was not fond of French wrestling, did not collect stamps ... As before, the place dearest to his heart was his small, school desk-like desk. He still read voraciously, wrote poetry, and even compiled a small pamphlet called What is Love, which dealt mainly with maternal love and cited examples from Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, and Tolstoy. He forced Vasya to rewrite this philosophical treatise by hand in ten copies, who had already been studying in the preparatory classes for the second year and who could take on this monstrous work only out of great respect for his brother. Vasya himself, who grew up and got healthy by leaps and bounds, had no inclinations for literary pursuits.

In the spring, when Lenka successfully moved to the second grade (which was not at all difficult in those conditions), a letter arrived from the nanny. She wrote that the children need to rest, and difficult times have come, everything is expensive, and it is unlikely that Alexandra Sergeevna will rent a summer house this year. Will she gather with the guys for the summer to her village?

In the evening, when everyone gathered in the dining room, Alexandra Sergeevna read out this letter in front of her household.

Well, what do you think: are we going or not going? she asked her chicks.