Online reading of the book Golden Rose Old Man in the station buffet. The Story of Life - Golden Rose Old Man in the Station Buffet Main Characters

In general, there are many preconceived notions and prejudices about writing. Some of them can lead to despair with their vulgarity.

What is most vulgarized is inspiration.

Almost always it appears to the ignorant in the form of a poet’s eyes bulging in incomprehensible admiration, directed to the sky, or a goose feather bitten between his teeth.

Many people obviously remember the film “The Poet and the Tsar”. There Pushkin sits, dreamily raising his eyes to the sky, then frantically grabs the pen, begins to write, stops, raises his eyes again, chews on the goose quill and again writes hastily.

How many images have we seen of Pushkin where he looks like an enthusiastic maniac!

At one art exhibition, I heard an interesting conversation near a sculpture of a short-haired and seemingly permanently curled Pushkin with an “inspired” gaze. The little girl looked at this Pushkin for a long time, wincing, and asked her mother:

- Mom, is he dreaming? Or what?

“Yes, daughter, Uncle Pushkin dreams a dream,” the mother answered tenderly.

Uncle Pushkin is “dreaming a dream”! That Pushkin who said about himself: “And for a long time I will be kind to the people because I awakened good feelings with my lyre, because in our cruel age I glorified freedom and called for mercy for the fallen”!

And if “holy” inspiration “overshadows” (necessarily “holy” and necessarily “overshadows”) the composer, then he, lifting his eyes, smoothly conducts for himself those enchanting sounds that undoubtedly sound now in his soul - exactly as on the cheesy Tchaikovsky monument in Moscow.

No! Inspiration is a strict working state of a person. Emotional elation is not expressed in theatrical posture and elation. Just like the notorious “pangs of creativity.”

Pushkin said about inspiration precisely and simply: “Inspiration is the disposition of the soul to the lively acceptance of impressions, and, consequently, to the quick understanding of concepts, which contributes to the explanation of them.” “Critics,” he added, “confuse inspiration with admiration.” Just as readers sometimes confuse truth with plausibility.

That wouldn't be so bad. But when other artists and sculptors mix inspiration with “veal delight,” it looks like complete ignorance and disrespect for the hard work of writing.

Tchaikovsky argued that inspiration is a state when a person works with all his strength, like an ox, and does not at all flirtatiously wave his hand.

Please excuse me for this digression, but everything I said above is not a trifle at all. This is a sign that the vulgar and common man is still alive.

Every person, at least several times in his life, has experienced a state of inspiration - elation, freshness, a vivid perception of reality, fullness of thought and awareness of his creative power.

Yes, inspiration is a strict working state, but it has its own poetic coloring, its own, I would say, poetic subtext.

Inspiration enters us like a radiant summer morning, just casting off the mists of a quiet night, splashed with dew, with thickets of damp foliage. It gently breathes its healing coolness into our faces.

Inspiration is like first love, when the heart beats loudly in anticipation of amazing meetings, unimaginably beautiful eyes, smiles and omissions.

Then our inner world is finely tuned and true, like some kind of magical instrument, and responds to everything, even the most hidden, most imperceptible sounds of life.

Many excellent lines have been written about inspiration by writers and poets. “But only a divine verb will touch sensitive ears” (Pushkin), “Then the anxiety of my soul is humbled” (Lermontov), “The sound approaches, and, submissive to the aching sound, the soul becomes younger” (Blok). Fet said very accurately about inspiration:

Drive away a living boat with one push

From sands smoothed by the tides,

Rise in one wave into another life,

Feel the wind from the flowering shores.

Interrupt a dreary dream with a single sound,

Suddenly revel in the unknown, dear,

Give life a sigh, give sweetness to secret torments,

Feel someone else’s instantly as your own...

Turgenev called inspiration “the approach of God,” the illumination of a person by thought and feeling. He spoke with fear of the unimaginable torment for a writer when he begins to translate this insight into words.

Tolstoy said about inspiration, perhaps, most simply: “Inspiration consists in the fact that suddenly something that can be done is revealed. The brighter the inspiration, the more painstaking work must be required to fulfill it.”

But no matter how we define inspiration, we know that it is fruitful and should not disappear fruitlessly without gifting people with it.

REVOLT OF HEROES

In the old days, when people moved from apartment to apartment, prisoners from the local prison were sometimes hired to carry things.

We children always waited for the appearance of these prisoners with burning curiosity and pity.

The prisoners were brought in by mustachioed guards with huge bulldog revolvers on their belts. We looked with all our eyes at the people in gray prison clothes and gray round caps. But for some reason we looked with special respect at those prisoners who had ringing thin shackles tied to their belts with a strap.

It was all very mysterious. But the most surprising thing seemed to be the fact that almost all the prisoners turned out to be ordinary, exhausted people and so good-natured that it was impossible to believe that they were villains and criminals. On the contrary, they were not only polite, but simply delicate, and most of all they were afraid of hurting someone when carrying bulky furniture or breaking something.

We, children, in agreement with adults, developed a cunning plan. Mom took the guards into the kitchen to drink tea, and at that time we hurriedly stuffed bread, sausage, sugar, tobacco, and sometimes money into the prisoners’ pockets. Our parents gave them to us.

We imagined that this was a risky business, and were delighted when the prisoners thanked us in a whisper, winking towards the kitchen, and hid our gifts further away, in secret inner pockets.

Sometimes prisoners would quietly give us letters. We put stamps on them and then went in a crowd to throw them in the mailbox. Before throwing the letter into the box, we looked around to see if there was a bailiff or policeman nearby? As if they could find out what kind of letter we were sending.

Among the prisoners, I remember a man with a gray beard. He was called the headman.

He was in charge of carrying things. Things, especially wardrobes and pianos, got stuck in the doors, it was difficult to turn them around, and sometimes they would not move to their new place, no matter how much the prisoners fought with them. Things were clearly resisting. In such cases, the headman said about some closet:

“Put him where he wants.” Why are you making fun of him! I have been translating things for five years and I know their character. Since the thing doesn’t want to stand here, no matter how much you press on it, it won’t give way. It will break, but not give in.

I remembered this maxim of the old prisoner in connection with the literary plans and actions of literary heroes. There is something in common in the behavior of things and these heroes. Heroes often fight with the author and almost always defeat him. But we are still talking about this.

Of course, almost all writers make plans for their future things. Some develop them in detail and accurately. Others are very approximate. But there are writers whose outline consists of only a few words, as if they have no connection with each other.

And only writers with the gift of improvisation can write without a preliminary plan. Among Russian writers, Pushkin possessed such a gift to a high degree, and among contemporary prose writers, Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

I admit that a brilliant writer can also write without any plan. A genius is so internally rich that any topic, any thought, incident or object evokes in him an inexhaustible stream of associations.

Young Chekhov told Korolenko:

- Here you have an ashtray on the table. Do you want me to write a story about her right now?

And he would have written it, of course.

One can imagine that a person, picking up a crumpled ruble on the street, will begin his novel with this ruble, as if jokingly, starting easily and simply. But soon this novel will go both in depth and breadth, filled with people, events, light, colors and will begin to flow freely and powerfully, driven by the imagination, demanding more and more sacrifices from the writer, demanding that the writer give him precious reserves of images and words.

And now in the narrative, which began with an accident, thoughts arise, the complex fate of people arises. And the writer is no longer able to cope with his excitement. He, like Dickens, cries over the pages of his manuscript, groans in pain like Flaubert, or laughs like Gogol.

So in the mountains, from an insignificant sound, from a shot from a hunting rifle, snow begins to fall down a steep slope in a shiny stripe. Soon it turns into a wide snowy river rushing down, and after a few minutes an avalanche breaks into the valley, shaking the gorge with a roar and filling the air with sparkling dust.

Many writers mention this ease of emergence of a creative state among people of genius and, moreover, those with the gift of improvisation.

No wonder Baratynsky, who knew well how Pushkin worked, said about him:

... Pushkin is young, this brilliant windy man,

Everything under his pen is jokingly life-giving...

I mentioned that some plans seem like a bunch of words.

Here's a small example. I have a story "Snow". Before writing it, I wrote on a piece of paper, and from these notes the story was born. What do these records look like?

“The forgotten book about the north. The main color of the north is foil. Steam over the river. Women rinse clothes in ice holes. Smoke. The inscription on Alexandra Ivanovna’s bell: “I’m hanging at the door, ring more cheerfully!” “And the bell, a gift from Valdai, rings sadly under the arc.” They are called "Darvaldays". War. Tanya. Where is she, in what remote town? One. The dim moon behind the clouds is a terrible distance. Life is compressed into a small circle of light. From the lamp. All night something is humming in the walls. The branches scratch the glass. We very rarely leave the house in the dead of winter night. This needs to be checked... Loneliness and waiting. Old disgruntled cat. Nothing can please him. Everything seems to be visible - even the twisted candles (olive) on the roll, but so far there is nothing else. I was looking for an apartment with a piano (singer). Evacuation. A story about waiting. Someone else's house. Old-fashioned, cozy in its own way, ficus trees, the smell of old Stamboli or Mesaksudi tobacco. An old man lived and died. Walnut desk with yellow spots on green cloth. Girl. Cinderella. Nurse. There is no one else yet. Love, they say, attracts from a distance. You can write a story just about waiting. What? Whom? She doesn't know this herself. It's heartbreaking. At the intersection of hundreds of roads, people accidentally collide, not knowing that their entire past life was preparation for this meeting. Probability theory. Applied to human hearts. It's simple for fools. The country is drowning in snow. The inevitability of the emergence of man. Everyone receives letters from someone addressed to the deceased. They are stacked on the table. This is the key. What letters? What's in them? Sailor. Son. Fear that he will come. Expectation. There is no limit to the kindness of her heart. The letters became reality. Twisted candles again. In a different capacity. Notes. Towel with oak leaves. Piano. Birch smoke. Tuner, all Czechs are good musicians. Covered up to the eyes. All clear!"

Here is what can, with great stretch, be called the outline of this story. If you read this entry without knowing the story, it will become clear that this, although slow and unclear, is a persistent groping for a theme and plot.

What happens to the most accurate, thoughtful and verified writing plans? To tell the truth, their lives are mostly short.

As soon as people appear in the begun thing and as soon as these people come to life by the will of the author, they immediately begin to resist the plan and enter into a fight with it. The thing begins to develop according to its internal logic, the impetus for which, of course, was given by the writer. The characters act in a way consistent with their character, despite the fact that the creator of these characters is the writer.

If the writer forces the heroes to act not according to the internal logic that has arisen, if he forcefully returns them to the framework of the plan, then the heroes will begin to die, turning into walking schemes, into robots.

This idea was expressed very simply by Leo Tolstoy.

One of the visitors to Yasnaya Polyana accused Tolstoy of treating Anna Karenina cruelly, forcing her to throw herself under a train.

Tolstoy smiled and replied:

– This opinion reminds me of the case with Pushkin. One day he said to one of his friends: “Imagine what kind of thing Tatyana ran away with me. She got married. I never expected this from her.” I can say the same about Anna Karenina. In general, my heroes and heroines sometimes do things that I wouldn’t want! They do what they should do in real life and as happens in real life, and not what I want.

All writers are well aware of this inflexibility of heroes. “I’m in the midst of work,” said Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, “I don’t know what the hero will say in five minutes. I watch him in amazement."

It happens that a secondary character displaces the others, becomes the main character himself, turns the entire course of the narrative and leads it along.

A thing truly, with all its strength, begins to live in the writer’s mind only while working on it. Therefore, there is nothing special and nothing tragic in the breakdown and collapse of plans.

On the contrary, it is natural and only testifies to the fact that genuine life has broken through, filled the writer’s scheme and expanded and broken the framework of the writer’s original plan with its living pressure.

This in no way discredits the plan, nor does it reduce the role of the writer to merely writing down everything according to life’s promptings. After all, the life of the images in his work is determined by the consciousness of the writer, his memory, imagination, and his entire internal structure.

THE HISTORY OF ONE STORY

"Planet Marz"

I’ll try to remember how the idea for my story “Kara-Bugaz” came about. How did this all happen?

During my childhood in Kyiv, on Vladimirskaya Hill above the Dnieper, every evening an old man appeared in a dusty hat with a hanging brim. He brought a shabby telescope and took a long time to install it on three bent iron legs.

This old man was called “Stargazer” and was considered an Italian because he deliberately distorted Russian words into a foreign way.

Having installed the telescope, the old man spoke in a studied, monotonous voice:

- Dear senors and signorinas! Buona giorno! For five kopecks you are carried away from the Earth to the Moon and various stars. I especially recommend watching the ominous planet Marz, which has the tone of human blood. Anyone born under the sign of Martz can immediately die in war from a Fusilier bullet.

Once I was with my father on Vladimir Hill and looked through a telescope at the planet Mars.

I saw a black abyss and a reddish ball fearlessly hanging without any support in the middle of this abyss. While I was looking at it, the ball began to approach the edge of the telescope and hid behind its copper rim. The Stargazer turned the telescope slightly and returned Mars to its original place. But he again began to move towards the copper rim.

- Well, how? - asked the father. – Do you see anything?

“Yes,” I answered. “I can even see the channels.”

I knew that people live on Mars - Martians - and that they dug huge canals on their planet for unknown reasons.

End of free trial.

The soul asked for mercy...

Reflection lesson

based on the story by K. Paustovsky

» Old man in the station cafeteria »

Sculpture garden of the Odessa Literary Museum. Paustovsky, depicted as a sphinx, knowing everything in this life and keeping secret knowledge: about the world, about people, about Odessa, looks at those around him with philosophical wisdom.

“The Sphinx is a symbol of time, the keeper of wisdom.”

Marlene Dietrich , who visited the Soviet Union, knelt before the writer and kissed his hand, although she had only read one of his short stories - “Telegram”. “Only a great master can write like this,” the actress said in an interview with one of the Soviet newspapers.

The writer Paustovsky did not live here, Why is everyone around singing about him? Why among the mossy everyday life, Stupefied by endless troubles, People strive for this house, Like butterflies from darkness into light? And not with the curiosity of mouthless people, And with hope, timid as a chick, To a truly people's museum We go, completely distraught. To warm your soul from the cold And scoop up a living word, So that through the thunderstorms the Golden Rose She showed the way for everyone. This quiet corner of Moscow, Kuzminsky park, wooden house... The writer Paustovsky lives here -
Come for tea in the evening .

Konstantin Georgievich was called a wizard. He knew how to write in such a way that a person reading his books would have the eyes became magical.
They also said about him that “in the official and boring sea of newspapers, he was an island with flowering grass.”

The lights on the platform remain on until late.
Express trains and the wind rush past...
He sits and sits by the window all evening -
Who showed him this place?
Are there any brothers and children somewhere?
Nameless village. Deserted station.
Man in the station cafeteria.
There is no briefcase in my hands, no suitcase at my feet,
No worries about a reserved seat ticket.
As if he had crossed the threshold of alienation,
Man in the station cafeteria.
The Orbit program is a detective story.
The “third” man stood exhausted near the counter.
He is emotionless and dry. And silent as a shadow
Man in the station cafeteria.

“Don’t you dare take a crumb from them! - said the old man.

He began frantically rummaging in his pockets, took out some silver and copper change and began counting it on his palm, blowing away debris stuck to coins . His fingers were shaking.”

There is no more destructive vice
How to shelter indifference in the heart
To cure this heart disease
Don't be afraid to have compassion, pity, love.

Indifference is the most terrible disease of the soul

Alexis Tocqueville

The only person who showed concern for the old man was the saleswoman.
Young people can be called indifferent because they behaved rudely, tactlessly towards an elderly, possibly sick person, mocking and humiliating him.
The old man’s already difficult situation was aggravated by their ridicule even greater awareness of his loneliness and defenselessness.
However, despite this, one can note the dignity of the old man, his independence, and pride.

The mood of the heroes

Old man

Dog

Sitting dejectedly, he called quietly
The voice trembled with grief

She sat, pressed against her leg, trembling, could not stand it, ingratiatingly began to look into her mouth
she him
hears and apologizes, looks away

The dog quickly shook its tail several times, as if letting the old man know that she heard him and apologized, but could not help it. She did not look at the old man and even looked away in a completely different direction. She seemed to be saying: “I myself know that this is not good. But you can’t buy me such a sandwich.”

lonely

independent

proud

old man

poor

sense of dignity

THE YOUTH

BARMAID

Good
Heart
Understanding
Feeds
Sympathizes
Generous

Human

Indifferent
Rough
Soulless
Humiliate
Insult
Drinking

Hams

Why does the dog beg?
What is the relationship between a dog and an old man?
What is the life of an old man like, what details speak about it
How does an old man react to a dog begging, and what does he experience?

How do young people feel about the old man and the dog?
Why do they still throw food at her?
How do they behave?

Why doesn't the dog take food from the hands of young people?
-Why is she taking a sandwich from the barmaid?
-What is the role of landscape in the story?

Not gold and silver ,
And in life above everything else
Goodness was valued in people.
Good and a hearth under the roof.
And no matter how much anyone wants,
Let it be in the safes
And it didn’t mean
The goodness of selfless deeds
It was paid with spiritual tribute.
And with this simple faith,
Suddenly looking around the whole world,
Become wise like Leo Tolstoy
Explosive, like Blok's poems.
And everyone of yours will find your trace
(All good things will not be lost)
Immortality is brought to the earth
People who create joy...
Dropping hair silver
And rushing into endless distances,
Hurry up to do good
While you are not tired yet.

What impression did the story make on you? Why?
Which of the heroes showed responsiveness to the old man?
Can young people be called indifferent? Why?

What is the difference between responsiveness and indifference?
What human qualities contribute to the manifestation of responsiveness?
Have you ever encountered indifference?
What can an indifferent attitude towards others lead to? ?

There are many evil ones
In any human destiny.
And they will only say a kind word -
And your heart is lighter.
But such a kind word
Not everyone knows how to find
To cope with a friend's sadness,
You can overcome adversity along the way.
There is no kind word more valuable
The cherished word of that
But rarely, my friends, still
We say it out loud.

How easy it is to offend an old man! You say something awkward to him - Immediately the look of a homeless puppy: Nobody needs me now! You've forgotten what you said And there is a burning wound in his heart, Tears come to my eyes, Like a child from deception. Life is gone. And tomorrow night will come. He'll pick it up. Neither get up nor look back. But it’s so easy to help him - Just smile like a child! What awaits us? Perhaps HEAVEN or HELL? It may be that nothing will happen. The old people are standing right above the abyss. Always remember this, PEOPLE!

Formula and portrait of kindness.
ACTIONS + WORDS = KINDNESS A

Learning to be kind is difficult. The path to kindness is not easy, so a person should stop more often and reflect on the actions he has done and the words he has spoken. Every person, big and small, has their own path to Kindness.
So take care of your soul and do not let it become overgrown with weeds, fill your soul with sunshine, kind words and good deeds. Hurry up to do good before it's too late. You have to hurry with the good, otherwise it may be left without an address.

Paustovsky Tarus was buried, She carried it in her arms and didn’t drop it, didn’t scream, didn’t rush, only tear after tear rolled down. Everyone left, she was left alone And then a thunderstorm struck...

Over a high fresh grave the sky groaned, thunder roared, blazed with furious force. The funeral service was held for Paustovsky's era.

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At the station buffet

A thin old man with spiky stubble on his face sat in the corner of the station buffet. Winter squalls swept across the bay in whistling stripes. There was thick ice off the coast. Through the snowy smoke, one could hear the crashing surf, hitting the strong ice crust.

The old man went into the buffet, apparently to warm up. He didn’t order anything and sat dejectedly on the wooden sofa, with his hands in the sleeves of his clumsily patched fishing jacket.

A white furry dog came with the old man. She sat pressed against his leg and trembled.

Young people were drinking beer next to the table. The snow melted on their hats, and the meltwater dripped into glasses of beer and onto smoked sausage sandwiches. But the young people were arguing about a football match and did not pay any attention to it.

When one of the young men took a sandwich and bit off half at once, the dog could not stand it. She walked up to the table, stood on her hind legs and began to look ingratiatingly into the young man’s mouth.

- Petit! - the old man called quietly. - Aren `t you ashamed! Why are you bothering people?

But Petya continued to stand, and only her front paws trembled and sagged from fatigue. When they touched the wet belly, the dog remembered and picked them up again.

But the young people did not notice her. They were deep in conversation and kept pouring ice-cold beer into their glasses.

- Petit! - the old man called again. - Come here!

The dog quickly shook its tail several times, as if giving

the old man understands that she hears him and apologizes, but she can’t help herself. She did not look at the old man and even looked away in a completely different direction. She seemed to be saying: “I myself know that this is not good. But you can’t buy me a sandwich like that.”

- Eh, Petit! - the old man said in a whisper, and his voice trembled with grief.

Petit wagged her tail again and looked pleadingly at the old man. She seemed to ask him not to call her again and not to shame her. She herself is not feeling well in her soul, and if it were not for the extremes, she would never have asked strangers.

Finally one of the young men noticed the dog.

Are you begging? Where is your master? Citizen, if you keep a dog, you should feed it that way. Otherwise it turns out uncivilized: the dog is begging for alms from you!

The young people laughed. One of them threw a piece of sausage to the dog.

Petya, don't you dare! - the old man shouted. His weathered face and thin, sinewy neck turned red.

The dog shrank and, lowering its tail, walked up to the old man, without even looking at the sausage. At this time, the old man began to frantically rummage in his pockets, took out some change and counted it in his palm, blowing off the debris stuck to the coins. His fingers were trembling.

Still offended! How proud he was! - said one of the group of young people.

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The old man didn't say a word. Approaching the counter, he said hoarsely:

One sandwich.

The saleswoman served two sandwiches on a plate.

- One! - said the old man.

The woman answered quietly:

- Take it. I won't go broke on you.

Thank you.

The old man took the sandwiches and went out onto the platform. There was no one there. He sat down on a bench, gave one sandwich to Petya, and wrapped the other in a gray handkerchief and hid it in his pocket.

The dog ate frantically, and the old man, looking at her, said:

- Petit, Petit! Stupid dog!

But the dog did not listen to him. She was just eating. The old man looked at her and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. They were probably watering because of the wind. (521 words)

According to K. Paustovsky

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IN truck body

IN In July of one thousand nine hundred and forty-one, I was driving a military truck to Tiraspol.

Brown dust, heated by the sun, exploded in clouds under the wheels of the car. The sun smoked in the bleached sky. The water in the aluminum flask was hot and smelled like rubber. A cannonade thundered beyond the Dniester.

Several young lieutenants were riding in the back. Sometimes they started banging their fists on the roof and shouting: “Air!” The driver stopped the car, we jumped out, ran away from the road and lay down. Immediately, with a malicious howl, black German planes dived onto the road.

Sometimes they noticed us and fired machine guns. But, fortunately, no one was hurt. The planes disappeared, and all that remained was the heat in the whole body from the hot earth, the roaring in the head and desperate thirst.

After one of these raids, the driver suddenly asked me:

- What do you think about when you're lying under bullets? Do you remember?

- “I remember,” I answered.

- “And I remember,” the driver said, after a short silence. - I remember our forests.

- “I also remember my forests,” I answered.

The driver pulled his cap over his forehead and stepped on the gas. We didn't talk anymore.

Perhaps I have never remembered my favorite places with such poignancy as during the war. I found myself impatiently waiting for the night when, lying in the back of a truck and covered with an overcoat, I could return my thoughts to these places and walk through them slowly and calmly, breathing in the pine air. I told myself: “Today I will go to the Black Lake, and tomorrow, if I’m alive, to the banks of the Pra.” And my heart sank with anticipation of these imaginary trips. In my dreams, I always left my home early in the morning and walked along a deserted village street past old huts. It seemed to me that there could be no greater happiness in life than to see these places again and walk through them, forgetting about all worries and hardships, listening to how easily my heart beats in my chest. That's what I thought as I lay in the back of the truck.

Late night. Explosions are heard from the direction of the station - there is a bombing going on there. A bluish star falls overhead like a tracer projectile. I find myself involuntarily watching her and listening, when will she explode? But the star does not explode, but silently goes out above the earth itself. How far is it from here to the familiar birch copse, to the solemn forests! There is now night there too, but soundless, blazing with the lights of the constellations, smelling not of gasoline fumes and gunpowder gases, but of deep water settled in forest lakes and juniper needles. I would like to sit by the fire now, listen to the quiet crackling of branches and think that life is incredibly good if you are not afraid of it and accept it with an open soul.

So I wandered in memories through the forests, then along the strict embankments of the Neva or along the flax-blue hills of the harsh Pskov land. I thought about all these places with such pain, as if I had lost them forever, as if I would never see them again in my life. Obviously, from this feeling they acquired an extraordinary charm in my mind.

I asked myself why I hadn’t noticed this before, and immediately realized that, of course, I saw and felt all this, but only in separation did the features of my native landscape appear before my inner gaze in all their heart-stopping beauty. (498 words)

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According to K. Paustovsky

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It is difficult to imagine Russian literature of the 20th century without the work of the outstanding writer K. N. Paustovsky. Each work of Paustovsky makes the reader think about the world around him, about the events that people face and about the role a person plays in the mystery of life.

For Paustovsky, literature acts as a tool with the help of which he tries to sow seeds of goodness, justice and morality in the hearts of people. Konstantin Grigorievich's stories contain the wisdom that we often lack.

The work “The Old Man in the Stationary Buffet” vividly reflects all the realities of modern life. Maybe some of the readers will see themselves in this story, because often we do not notice our own cruelty and indifference.

Summary

The action takes place in one of the small towns of Latvia. An old man with a small dog came into a small buffet, which is located next to the railway station. The man sat down at an empty table and began to wait for the end of the rain to continue his journey with his little companion.

At the next table sat a group of young people who were enthusiastically discussing football. The young men did not notice how a dog ran up to them and began to ask for a piece of the sandwich that they were eating. The dog, despite the prohibitions of its owner, continued to ingratiatingly jump around the table of young people.

One of those sitting looked at the animal, after which he insulted its owner. His friend still handed the dog a piece of sausage, but also could not resist sarcastic insults towards the elderly man, calling him a poor old man who cannot even feed his pet.

The old man took his dog back and did not accept the young man's treat. He took the last few coins out of his pocket and ordered a sandwich from the barmaid. The woman who observed this situation took pity on the man and gave him another sandwich for free, emphasizing that she would not become poor if she treated the small dog.

When the old man went outside, he fed his little dog. Looking at how she greedily eats, he sadly begins to reproach her for her behavior, without uttering a single offensive word against his offenders. On such a sad note, the story ends.

The meaning of the story

This story tells us how cruel people can be sometimes. Instead of helping the disadvantaged man, they began to insult him. At the same time, the old man, being poor and unhappy, did not lose his moral values.

This person prefers hunger and poverty to servility. He did not exchange his honor for food for his favorite, because he understood that by doing so he would betray both himself and her. The good news is that there are still people in the world who understand the true meaning of things.

The kindness of the barmaid is a vivid example of this: the woman realized that the old man had nothing to feed his dog, not to mention himself. By offering two sandwiches, the barmaid seemed to thank the man for being able to resist temptation and act according to his conscience.

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Of course, Tolstoy was largely an improviser. His thought got ahead of his hand.

All writers must know that wonderful state during work when a new thought or picture appears suddenly, as if bursting like flashes to the surface from the depths of consciousness. If they are not written down immediately, they may also disappear without a trace.

There is light and awe in them, but they are fragile, like dreams. Those dreams that we remember only for a split second after waking up, but then immediately forget. No matter how much we suffer and try to remember them later, we fail. What remains from these dreams is only the feeling of something extraordinary, mysterious, something “wonderful,” as Gogol would say.

We need to have time to write it down. The slightest delay - and the thought, flashing, will disappear.

Perhaps this is why many writers cannot write on narrow strips of paper, on galleys, as journalists do. You cannot take your hand off the paper too often, because even this insignificant delay of a fraction of a second can be disastrous. Obviously, the work of consciousness is carried out with fantastic speed.

The French poet Beranger wrote his songs in cheap cafes. And Ehrenburg, as far as I know, also liked to write in cafes. It's clear. Because there is no better loneliness than among a lively crowd, unless, of course, no one and nothing directly takes you away from your thoughts and does not encroach on your concentration.

Andersen loved to make up his fairy tales in the forests. He had good, very strong vision. Therefore, he could look at a piece of bark or an old pine cone and see on them, as if through a magnifying lens, details from which a fairy tale could easily be composed.

In general, everything in the forest - every mossy stump and every red robber ant that drags, like a kidnapped pretty princess, a small midge with transparent green wings - all this can turn into a fairy tale.

I would not like to talk about my own literary experience. This is unlikely to add anything significant to what has already been said. But still I will add a few words of my own.

If we want to achieve the highest flourishing of our literature, then we must understand that the most fruitful form of social activity of a writer is his creative work. Hidden from everyone before the publication of the book, the work of the writer turns after its publication into a universal matter.

We need to save the time, energy and talent of writers, and not waste them on exhausting literary fuss and meetings.

A writer, when he works, needs peace and, if possible, freedom from worries. If there is any, even remote, trouble ahead, then it is better not to take up the manuscript. The pen will fall from your hands, or tortured empty words will creep out from under it.

Several times in my life I have worked with a light heart, focused and leisurely.

Once I sailed in winter on a completely empty ship from Batum to Odessa. The sea was gray, cold, quiet. The shores were drowning in ashen darkness. Heavy clouds, as if in a lethargic sleep, lay on the ridges of distant mountains.

I wrote in the cabin, sometimes I got up, went to the porthole, looked at the shores. Mighty machines sang quietly in the iron womb of the ship. The seagulls were squeaking. It was easy to write. No one could tear me away from my favorite thoughts. I didn’t have to think about anything, absolutely nothing, except about the story I was writing. I felt this as the greatest happiness. The open sea protected me from any interference.

And the awareness of movement in space, the vague expectation of port cities where we were supposed to go, the premonition of, perhaps, some kind of non-tiring and short meetings, also helped a lot.

The motor ship cut the pale winter water with its steel stem, and it seemed to me that it was carrying me to inevitable happiness. It seemed so to me, obviously, because the story was a success.

And I also remember how easy it was to work on the mezzanine of a village house, in the fall, alone, with the crackling of a candle.

The dark and windless September night surrounded me and, like the sea, protected me from any interference.

It’s hard to say why, but it really helped to write knowing that the old village garden was flying around the wall all night long. I thought of him as a living being. He was silent and patiently waited for the time when I would go to the well late in the evening to get water for the kettle. Perhaps it was easier for him to endure this endless night when he heard the clanking of a bucket and the steps of a man.

But, in any case, the feeling of a lonely garden and cold forests stretching beyond the outskirts for tens of kilometers, forest lakes, where on such a night, of course, there cannot be a single human soul, but only the stars are reflected in the water, as a hundred and a thousand years ago - this feeling helped me. Perhaps I can say that on these autumn evenings I was truly happy.

It’s good to write when something interesting, joyful, loved awaits you ahead, even such a trifle as fishing under black willows on a remote oxbow river.

Old man in the station cafeteria

A thin old man with prickly stubble on his face sat in the corner of the station cafeteria in Majori. Winter squalls swept over the Gulf of Riga with hanging streaks. There was thick ice off the coast. Through the snowy smoke one could hear the crashing surf, hitting the strong ice edge.

The old man went into the buffet, apparently to warm up. He didn’t order anything and sat dejectedly on the wooden sofa, with his hands in the sleeves of his clumsily patched fishing jacket.

A white furry dog came with the old man. She sat pressed against his leg and trembled.

Nearby, at a table, young men with tight, red heads were noisily drinking beer. The snow melted on their hats. Melt water dripped into glasses of beer and onto smoked sausage sandwiches. But the young people were arguing about a football match and did not pay attention to it.

When one of the young men took a sandwich and bit off half at once, the dog could not stand it. She walked up to the table, stood on her hind legs and, ingratiatingly, began to look into the young man’s mouth.

- Petit! – the old man called quietly. – Aren’t you ashamed! Why are you bothering people, Petya?

But Petya continued to stand, and only her front paws kept trembling and drooping from fatigue. When they touched the wet belly, the dog remembered and picked them up again.

But the young people did not notice her. They were deep in conversation and kept pouring cold beer into their glasses.

Snow covered the windows, and a shiver ran down the spine at the sight of people drinking completely ice-cold beer in such cold weather.

- Petit! – the old man called again. - And Petit! Come here!

- Eh, Petit! Petit! – the old man said in a whisper, and his voice trembled slightly with chagrin.

Petya wagged her tail again and glanced casually, pleadingly at the old man. She seemed to ask him not to call him again and not to shame him, because she herself was not feeling well in her soul and, if not for the extreme, she would, of course, never have asked strangers.

Finally, one of the young men, with high cheekbones and a green hat, noticed the dog.

-Are you asking, bitch? - he asked. -Where is your master?

Petit happily wagged her tail, looked at the old man and even squealed a little.

- What are you doing, citizen! - said the young man. – If you keep a dog, you should feed it that way. Otherwise it turns out uncivilized. The dog is begging you for alms. Begging is prohibited by law in our country.

The young people laughed.

- Well, I’ve soaked it, Valka! – one of them shouted and threw a piece of sausage to the dog.

- Petya, don’t you dare! - the old man shouted. His weathered face and skinny, sinewy neck turned red.

The dog shrank and, lowering its tail, walked up to the old man, without even looking at the sausage.

“Don’t you dare take a crumb from them!” - said the old man.

He began frantically rummaging in his pockets, took out some silver and copper change and counted it in his palm, blowing off the debris stuck to the coins. His fingers were trembling.

- He’s still offended! - said the high-cheeked young man. – How independent, please tell me.

- Oh, leave him alone! What did you give it to! – one of his comrades said conciliatoryly, pouring beer for everyone.

The old man didn't say a word. He walked over to the counter and placed a few coins on the wet counter.

- One sandwich! - he said hoarsely.

The dog stood next to him with its tail between its legs.

The saleswoman served the old man two sandwiches on a plate.

- One! - said the old man.

- Take it! – the saleswoman said quietly. - I won’t go broke on you...

- Paldies! - said the old man. - Thank you!

He took the sandwiches and went out onto the platform. There was no one there. One squall passed, the second was approaching, but was still far on the horizon. Even weak sunlight fell on the white forests beyond the Lielupe River.

The old man sat down on a bench, gave one sandwich to Petya, and wrapped the other in a gray handkerchief and hid it in his pocket.

The dog ate frantically, and the old man, looking at her, said:

- Oh, Petit, Petit! Stupid dog!

But the dog did not listen to him. She was just eating. The old man looked at her and wiped his eyes with his sleeve - they were probably watering from the wind.

That, in fact, is the whole little story that happened at Majori station on the Riga seaside.

Why did I tell it?

Reflecting on the meaning of details in prose, I remembered this story and realized that if I told it without one main detail - without the dog apologizing to its owner with all its appearance, without this ingratiating gesture of the little creature, then this story would become rougher than it was was actually.

And if we throw out other details - a clumsily patched jacket, indicating widowhood or loneliness, drops of melt water falling from the hats of young people, ice-cold beer, small money with rubbish stuck to it from the pocket, and, finally, even squalls that came from the sea in white walls, then the story would become much drier and bloodless.

In recent years, details have begun to disappear from our fiction, especially from younger writers.

But without details, a thing cannot live. Any story then turns into that dry smoked whitefish stick that Chekhov mentioned. The whitefish itself is missing, but one skinny sliver sticks out.

The meaning of detail is that, according to Pushkin, a little thing that usually eludes the eye will flash large and become visible to everyone.

On the other hand, there are writers who suffer from tedious and boring observation. They fill their writings with piles of details - without selection, without understanding that detail has the right to live and is necessary only if it is characteristic, if it can immediately, like a ray of light, snatch any person or any phenomenon from the darkness.

For example, to give an idea of the heavy rain that had begun, it is enough to write that its first drops clicked loudly on the newspaper lying on the ground under the window.

Or, to convey the terrible feeling of the death of an infant, it is enough to say about it as Alexei Tolstoy said in “Walking through Torment”:

Exhausted, Dasha fell asleep, and when she woke up, her child was dead.

“I grabbed him and turned him around; his blond and thin hair stood on end on his high skull.

...Dasha told her husband:

- While I was sleeping, death came to him... Understand - his hair stood on end... One was suffering... I was sleeping...

No amount of persuasion could drive away from her the vision of the boy’s lonely struggle with death.”

This detail (the light child's hair standing on end) is worth many pages of the most accurate description of death.

Both of these details are right on target. This is the only detail that should be—determining the whole and, moreover, mandatory.

In the manuscript of one young writer I came across the following dialogue:

“Great, Aunt Pasha! - Alexey said as he entered. (Before this, the author says that Alexey opened the door to Aunt Pasha’s room with his hand, as if the door could be opened head.)

– Hello, Alyosha,– Aunt Pasha exclaimed warmly, looked up from her sewing and looked at Alexei. - Why haven’t you come in for a long time?

- Yes, there’s no time. I held meetings all week.

– All week you say?

– Exactly, Aunt Pasha! Whole week. Is Volodka missing? – Alexey asked, looking around the empty room.

– No. He's in production.

– Well, then I went. Goodbye, Aunt Pasha. Stay healthy.

– “Goodbye, Alyosha,” answered Aunt Pasha. - Be healthy.

Alexei went to the door and opened it and left. Aunt Pasha looked after him and shook her head.

- A lively guy. Motor".

This entire passage consists, in addition to carelessness and sloppy manner of writing, of completely unnecessary and empty things (they are underlined). All these are unnecessary, uncharacteristic, non-defining details.

The search and definition require the strictest selection.

Detail is closely related to what we call intuition.

I imagine intuition as the ability to reconstruct a picture of the whole from a single particular, from a detail, from one property.

Intuition helps the authors of historical works to recreate not only the true picture of the life of past eras, but their very unique flavor, the feelings of people, their psyche, which, in comparison with ours, was, of course, somewhat different.

Intuition helped Pushkin, who had never been to Spain or England, to write magnificent Spanish poetry, to write “The Stone Guest”, and in “A Feast in the Time of Plague” to give a picture of medieval England, no worse than Walter Scott or Burns could have done - natives of this foggy country.

Good detail also gives the reader an intuitive and correct idea of the whole - about a person and his condition, about an event or, finally, about an era.

White Night

The old steamer left the pier in Voznesenye and went out into Lake Onega.

The white night spread all around. For the first time I saw this night not over the Neva and the palaces of Leningrad, but among the northern wooded spaces and lakes.

A pale moon hung low in the east. She gave no light.

The waves from the steamer silently ran away into the distance, shaking pieces of pine bark. On the shore, probably in some ancient churchyard, the watchman struck the clock on the bell tower - twelve strokes. And although it was far from the shore, this ringing reached us, passed the steamer and went along the water surface into the transparent darkness where the moon hung.

I don’t know what better way to call the languid light of the white night. Mysterious? Or magical?

These nights always seem to me to be an excessive bounty of nature - there is so much pale air and the ghostly shine of foil and silver in them.

Man cannot come to terms with the inevitable disappearance of this beauty, these enchanted nights. Therefore, it must be that white nights cause a slight sadness with their fragility, like everything beautiful when it is doomed to live short-lived.

It was my first time traveling north, but everything here seemed familiar to me, especially the piles of white bird cherry trees that were blooming that late spring in the dead gardens.

There was a lot of this cold and odorous bird cherry on Ascension. No one here tore it off and put it in jugs on the tables.

I was going to Petrozavodsk. At that time, Alexey Maksimovich Gorky decided to publish a series of books under the heading “History of Factories and Plants.” He attracted many writers to this work, and it was decided to work in teams - then this word first appeared in literature.

Gorky offered me several factories to choose from. I stopped at the old Petrovsky plant in Petrozavodsk. It was founded by Peter the Great and existed first as a cannon and anchor factory, then engaged in bronze casting, and after the revolution it switched to the production of road cars.

I refused to work as a team. I was sure then (as now) that there are areas of human activity where team work is simply unthinkable, especially work on a book. At best, the result may be a collection of disparate essays rather than a coherent book. In it, in my opinion, despite the peculiarities of the material, the individuality of the writer with all the qualities of his perception of reality, his style and language should still be present.

I believed that just as it was impossible for two or three people to play the same violin at the same time, it was also impossible to write the same book together.

I told Alexey Maksimovich about this. He frowned, drummed his fingers on the table, as usual, thought and answered:

“You, young man, will be accused of being overconfident.” But, in general, go ahead! But you can’t be embarrassed—be sure to bring the book. Absolutely!

On the ship I remembered this conversation and believed that I would write a book. I really liked the north. This circumstance, as it seemed to me then, should have made the work much easier. Obviously, I hoped to bring into this book about the Petrovsky Plant the features of the north that captivated me - white nights, quiet waters, forests, bird cherry trees, the melodious Novgorod dialect, black canoes with curved noses similar to swan necks, rocker arms painted with multi-colored herbs.

Petrozavodsk was quiet and deserted at that time. Large mossy boulders lay in the streets. The city was all sort of mica - probably from the faint shine emanating from the lake, and from the whitish, nondescript, but lovely sky.

In Petrozavodsk, I sat down in the archives and library and began reading everything related to the Petrovsky plant. The history of the plant turned out to be complex and interesting. Peter the Great, Scottish engineers, our talented serf craftsmen, the Carron method of casting, water engines, unique customs - all this provided abundant material for the book.

First of all, I sketched out her plan. It had a lot of history and descriptions, but not enough people.

I decided to write a book right there in Karelia, and therefore I rented a room from a former teacher, Serafima Ionovna, a completely empty-nesting old woman who was nothing like the teacher, except for glasses and knowledge of the French language.

I began to write the book according to plan, but no matter how much I struggled, the book simply crumbled under my hands. I couldn’t manage to solder the material, cement it, or give it a natural flow.

The material was spreading. Interesting pieces sagged, unsupported by adjacent interesting pieces. They stood alone, not supported by the only thing that could breathe life into these archival facts - picturesque detail, the air of time, human fate close to me.

I wrote about water machines, about production, about craftsmen, I wrote with deep melancholy, realizing that until I had my own attitude to all this, until at least the faintest lyrical breath brought this material to life, nothing would come of the book. And there will be no book at all.

(By the way, at that time I realized that we need to write about cars the same way we write about people - feeling them, loving them, rejoicing and suffering for them. I don’t know about anyone, but I always feel physical pain for the car, at least for "Victory", when she, straining herself, takes on a steep climb with all her strength. I get tired of this, perhaps, no less than the car. Maybe this example is not very successful, but I am convinced that cars, if If you want to write about them, you have to treat them like living beings. I noticed that good craftsmen and workers treat them that way.)

There is nothing more disgusting and difficult than helplessness in front of the material.

I felt like a man who had taken on his own business, as if I had to perform in a ballet or edit the philosophy of Kant.

But my memory, no, no, and even pricked me with Gorky’s words: “But you can’t be embarrassed—be sure to bring the book.”

I was also depressed because one of the foundations of writing, which I sacredly revered, was crumbling. I believed that only one who can easily and without losing his individuality master any material can be a writer.

This state of mine ended with me deciding to give up, not write anything and leave Petrozavodsk.

“You used to be like my stupid high school students before the exam,” she told me. “They fill their heads so much that they don’t see anything and can’t understand what’s important and what’s nonsense.” We were just overtired. I don’t know your writing business, but it seems to me that you won’t get anything here with pressure. You'll only get on your nerves. And this is both harmful and downright dangerous. Don't leave rashly. Relax, travel around the lake, walk around the city. Ours is nice and simple. Maybe it will work out.

But I still decided to leave. Before leaving, I went to wander around Petrozavodsk. Until then, I hadn’t really seen him properly.

I wandered north along the lake and reached the outskirts of the city. The houses are gone. Vegetable gardens have sprung up. Among them, here and there, crosses and grave monuments could be seen.

Some old man was weeding carrot beds. I asked him what kind of crosses these were.

“There used to be a cemetery here,” answered the old man. – It seems that foreigners were buried here. And now this land has been used for vegetable gardens, the monuments have been removed. What remains is not for long. They will last until next spring, no longer.

There were, however, few monuments - only five or six. One of them was surrounded by a cast iron fence of magnificent heavy casting.

I approached him. An inscription in French was visible on the broken granite column. A tall burdock covered almost the entire inscription.

I broke the burdock and read: “Charles-Eugene Lonseville, artillery engineer of the Grand Army of Emperor Napoleon. Born in 1778 in Perpignan, he died in the summer of 1816 in Petrozavodsk, far from his homeland. May peace descend upon his tormented heart.”

I realized that in front of me was the grave of an extraordinary man, a man with a sad fate, and that it was he who would help me out.

I returned home, told Serafima Ionovna that I was staying in Petrozavodsk, and immediately went to the archives.

A completely wizened, even transparent old man in glasses, a former mathematics teacher, worked there. The archive had not yet been completely dismantled, but the old man managed it perfectly.

I told him what happened to me. The old man was terribly excited. He was used to issuing, and even then rarely, boring certificates, mainly extracts from church registers, but now he had to carry out a difficult and interesting archival search - to find everything related to the mysterious Napoleonic officer, who for some reason died in Petrozavodsk more than a hundred years ago .

The old man and I were both worried. Will there be any traces of Lonseville in the archive so that it would be more or less likely to reconstruct his life? Or will we find nothing?

In general, the old man unexpectedly announced that he would not go home for the night, but would rummage through the archive all night. I wanted to stay with him, but it turned out that outsiders were not allowed to be in the archive. Then I went to the city, bought bread, sausage, tea and sugar, brought all this to the old man so that he could eat at night, and left.

The search lasted nine days. Every morning the old man showed me a list of things to do, where, according to his guesses, there might be some mention of Lonseville. He put “birds” against the most interesting cases, but called them, like a mathematician, “radicals.”

Only on the seventh day was an entry found in the cemetery book about the burial under somewhat strange circumstances of the captured French army captain Charles-Eugene Lonseville.

On the ninth day, references to Lonseville were found in two private letters, and on the tenth, a torn, unsigned report from the Olonets governor about the short stay in Petrozavodsk of the wife of “the said Lonseville, Maria Cecilia Trinite, who came from France to install a monument on his grave.”

The materials were exhausted. But what the old archivist, beaming with this luck, found was enough to make Lonseville come to life in my imagination.

As soon as Lonseville appeared, I immediately sat down to the book - and all the material on the history of the plant, which until recently had been so hopelessly scattered, suddenly fell into place. He settled down tightly and as if by himself around this artilleryman, a participant in the French Revolution and Napoleonic campaign in Russia, captured by the Cossacks near Gzhatsk, exiled to the Petrozavodsk plant and died there of fever.

This is how the story “The Fate of Charles Lonseville” was written.

The material was dead until man came along.

In addition, the entire pre-planned plan for the book was shattered into pieces. Now Lonseville confidently led the narrative. Like a magnet, he attracted to himself not only historical facts, but also much of what I saw in the north.

The story contains a scene of mourning for the deceased Lonseville. I took the words of the woman’s crying over him from genuine lamentations. This incident is worth mentioning.

I was traveling by boat up the Svir, from Lake Ladoga to Onega. Somewhere, it seems in Sviritsa, a simple pine coffin was carried onto the lower deck from the pier.

In Sviritsa, it turns out, the oldest and most experienced pilot on Svir died. His pilot friends decided to carry the coffin with his body along the entire river - from Sviritsa to Voznesenye, so that the deceased would say goodbye to his beloved river. And besides, to give the coastal residents the opportunity to say goodbye to this very respected in those places, a kind of famous person.

The fact is that the Svir is a rapid and rapid river. Steamboats without an experienced pilot cannot pass the Svir rapids. Therefore, for a long time there has been a whole tribe of pilots on the Svir, very closely related to each other.

When we passed the rapids, our ship was pulled by two tugs, despite the fact that it itself was working at full speed.

Downstream, the steamships moved in the opposite order - both the steamer and the tugboat worked in reverse against the current in order to slow down the descent and not run into the rapids.

A telegram was sent up the river that a deceased pilot was being transported on our steamer. Therefore, at every pier the steamer was greeted by crowds of residents. In front stood the old mourning women in black scarves. As soon as the ship approached the pier, they began to mourn the deceased in high, yearning voices.

The words of this poetic lament have never been repeated. In my opinion, every cry was improvised.

Here is one of the laments:

“Why did he fly away from us in the mortal direction, why did he leave us orphans? Why didn’t we welcome you, didn’t we greet you with a kind and affectionate word? Look at the Svir, father, look for the last time - the steep slopes are caked with ore in blood, a river flows from only our women’s tears. Oh, why did death come to you at such an inopportune time? Oh, why are funeral candles burning all over the Svir River?”

So we sailed until the Ascension, accompanied by this crying, which did not stop even at night.

And on Ascension, stern people - pilots - boarded the ship and removed the lid from the coffin. There lay a gray-haired, powerful old man with a weather-beaten face.

The coffin was lifted on linen towels and carried ashore to the sound of loud crying. A young woman walked behind the coffin, covering her pale face with a shawl. She led the white-headed boy by the hand. Behind her, a few steps behind, was a middle-aged man in the uniform of a river captain. These were the daughter, grandson and son-in-law of the deceased.

The flag on the ship was lowered, and when the coffin was carried to the cemetery, the ship blew several long whistles.

And one more impression was reflected in this story. There was nothing significant in this impression, but for some reason it is firmly connected in my memory with the north. This is the extraordinary brilliance of Venus.

Never before have I seen the brilliance of such intensity and purity. Venus shimmered like a drop of diamond moisture in the green pre-dawn sky.

It was truly a messenger from heaven, a harbinger of a beautiful morning dawn. In the middle latitudes and in the south, I somehow never noticed it. And here it seemed that she alone sparkled in her virgin beauty over the wastelands and forests, alone ruled in the early morning hours over the entire northern land, over Onega and Zavolochye, over Ladoga and Zaonezhye.

Online reading of the book Golden Rose Old Man in the station buffet. The Story of Life - Golden Rose Old Man in the Station Buffet Main Characters

At the station buffet

Summary

The meaning of the story

Old man in the station cafeteria

White Night

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