Maxim Gorky: biography, photo, personal life

Maxim Gorky: biography of the writer

Alexey Maksimovich Gorky is one of the central figures of Russian literature. Gorky’s biography has been known to many since school, but some nuances of the life path of the prose writer and playwright remain in the shadows. We invite you to find out who was hiding under the pseudonym Maxim Gorky, how the writer’s fate is reflected in his works, and what mysteries his death conceals:

Childhood and youth

The biography of Maxim Gorky is clearly presented in his works. Many of them are autobiographical in nature or are figurative embodiments of the author’s life experiences. In 1913, on the pages of the magazine “Russian Word”, Gorky published “Childhood” - a story that gave rise to an autobiographical trilogy, which included “In People”, “My Universities”.

Text of the book "Childhood"

Maxim Gorky (Peshkov Alexey Maksimovich) Childhood

1868–1936

A book about the poverty and wealth of the human soul

This book is hard to read. Although, it would seem, none of us today would be surprised by the description of the most sophisticated cruelties in books and on the screen. But all these cruelties are comfortable: they are make-believe. And in M. Gorky’s story everything is true.

The story is called by the author very simply - “Childhood” (1913). But it is impossible to say unequivocally that it is addressed to children. Anyone who feels spiritually mature can read it, regardless of age.

What is this book about? About how the “humiliated and insulted” lived in the era of the birth of capitalism in Russia? No, this is about people who humiliated and insulted themselves, regardless of the system - capitalism or another “ism”. This book is about family, about the Russian soul, about God. That is, about you and me.

The writer Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov, who called himself Maxim Gorky (1868–1936), truly acquired bitter life experience. And for him, a man who had an artistic gift, a difficult question arose: what should he, a popular writer and already accomplished person, do - try to forget about his difficult childhood and youth, like a bad dream, or, once again stirring up his own soul, tell the reader an unpleasant the truth about the "dark kingdom". Maybe it will be possible to warn someone about how you cannot live if you are a human being. And what should a person who often lives dark and dirty do? Should you distract yourself from real life with beautiful fairy tales or realize the whole unpleasant truth about your life? And Gorky gives the answer to this question already in 1902 in his famous play “At the Lower Depths”: “Lies are the religion of slaves and masters, truth is the God of a free man!” Here, a little further, there is an equally interesting phrase: “We must respect a person!.. do not humiliate him with pity... we must respect him!”

It is unlikely that it was easy and pleasant for the writer to remember his own childhood: “Now, reviving the past, I myself sometimes find it hard to believe that everything was exactly as it was, and I want to dispute and reject a lot - the dark life of the “stupid tribe” is too rich in cruelty “. But truth is higher than pity, and I’m not talking about myself, but about that close, stuffy circle of terrible impressions in which I lived, and still live, a simple Russian man.”

The genre of autobiographical prose has long existed in fiction. This is the author's story about his own destiny. A writer can present facts from his biography with varying degrees of accuracy. “Childhood” by M. Gorky is a real picture of the beginning of the writer’s life, a very difficult beginning. Remembering his childhood, Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov tries to understand how his character was formed, who and what influence had on him in those distant years: “As a child, I imagine myself as a hive, where various simple gray people, like bees, carried the honey of their knowledge and thinking about life, generously enriching my soul in whatever way he could. Often this honey was dirty and bitter, but all knowledge is still honey.”

What kind of person is the main character of the story - Alyosha Peshkov? He was lucky to be born into a family where his father and mother lived in true love. That’s why they didn’t raise their son, they loved him. This charge of love, received in childhood, allowed Alyosha not to disappear, not to become bitter among the “stupid tribe.” It was very difficult for him, since his soul could not stand human savagery: “... other impressions only offended me with their cruelty and dirt, arousing disgust and sadness.” And all because his relatives and acquaintances are most often senselessly cruel and unbearably boring people. Alyosha often experiences a feeling of acute melancholy; He is even visited by the desire to leave home with the blind master Gregory and wander around begging, just to avoid seeing his drunken uncles, tyrant grandfather and downtrodden cousins. It was hard for the boy also because he had a developed sense of self-esteem: he did not tolerate any violence either towards himself or towards others. So, Alyosha says that he could not stand it when street boys tortured animals and mocked beggars; he was always ready to stand up for the offended. It turns out that this life is not easy for an honest person. And his parents and grandmother raised in Alyosha a hatred of all lies. Alyosha's soul suffers from the cunning of his brothers, the lies of his friend Uncle Peter, from the fact that Vanya Tsyganok steals.

So, maybe try to forget about the sense of dignity and honesty, and become like everyone else? After all, life will become easier! But this is not the hero of the story. There lives in him a keen sense of protest against untruth. In defense, Alyosha may even commit a rude act, as happened when, in revenge for his beaten grandmother, the boy spoiled his grandfather’s favorite Saints. Having matured a little, Alyosha enthusiastically takes part in street fights. This is no ordinary hooliganism. This is a way to relieve mental stress - after all, injustice reigns around. On the street, a guy in a fair fight can defeat his opponent, but in ordinary life, injustice most often avoids a fair fight.

People like Alyosha Peshkov are now called difficult teenagers. But if you look closely at the hero of the story, you will notice that this person is drawn to goodness and beauty. With what love he talks about mentally talented people: about his grandmother, Gypsy, about a company of faithful street friends. He even tries to find the best in his cruel grandfather! And he asks people for one thing - a kind human attitude (remember how this hunted boy changes after a sincere conversation with him from a kind man - Bishop Chrysanthus) ...

In the story, people often insult and beat each other. It’s bad when a person’s conscious life begins with the death of his beloved father. But it’s even worse when a child lives in an atmosphere of hatred: “Grandfather’s house was filled with the hot fog of mutual enmity of everyone with everyone; it poisoned adults, and even children took an active part in it.” Soon after arriving at the house of his mother’s parents, Alyosha received the first truly memorable impression of his childhood: his own grandfather beat him, a small child, half to death. “From those days, I developed a restless attention to people, and, as if the skin had been torn from my heart, it became unbearably sensitive to any insult and pain, my own and someone else’s,” the man no longer recalls one of the most memorable events in his life. first youth.

This family did not know any other way of education. The elders humiliated and beat the younger ones in every possible way, thinking that in this way they were gaining respect. But the mistake of these people is that they confuse respect with fear. Was Vasily Kashirin a natural monster? I think not. He, in his own wretched way, lived by the principle “it wasn’t started by us, it won’t end by us” (by which many still live today). Some kind of pride even sounds in his teaching to his grandson: “When a relative beats one of your own, it’s not an insult, but a science! Don’t give in to someone else’s, but don’t give in to yours! Do you think they didn't beat me? Olesha, they beat me so much that you wouldn’t even see it in your worst nightmare. I was so offended that, go figure, the Lord God himself looked and cried! What happened? An orphan, the son of a beggar mother, but he reached his place - he was made a shop foreman, a boss of people.”

Is it any wonder that in such a family “the children were quiet and unnoticeable; they are beaten to the ground like dust by rain.” There is nothing strange in the fact that the bestial Yakov and Mikhail grew up in such a family. A comparison of them with animals arises at the very first acquaintance: “.. the uncles suddenly jumped to their feet and, leaning over the table, began to howl and growl at grandfather, baring their teeth pitifully and shaking themselves like dogs...” And the fact that Yakov plays the guitar, doesn't make him human yet. After all, his soul yearns for this: “If Yakov were a dog, Yakov would howl from morning to night: Oh, I’m bored! Oh, I'm sad." These people do not know why they live, and therefore suffer from mortal boredom. And when one’s life is a heavy burden, a desire for destruction appears. So, Yakov beat his own wife to death (and not immediately, but through sophisticated torture for years); Another monster, Mikhail, is really tormenting his wife Natalya. Why are they doing that? Master Gregory answers this question to Alyosha: “Why? And he probably doesn’t even know... Maybe he beat her because she was better than him, and he was envious. The Kashirins, brother, don’t like good things, they envy him, but they can’t accept him, they destroy him!” In addition, since childhood, before my eyes is the example of my own father brutally beating his mother. And this is the norm! This is the most disgusting form of self-affirmation - at the expense of the weak. People like Mikhail and Yakov really want to look strong and courageous, but deep down they feel flawed. Such people, in order to feel self-confidence at least for a short time, swagger over their loved ones. But at their core, they are real losers, cowards. Their hearts, turned away from love, are fed not only by causeless rage, but also by envy. A cruel war begins between brothers for their father's property. (An interesting thing, after all, is the Russian language! In its first meaning, the word “good” means everything positive, good; in the second, it means junk that you can touch with your hands.) And in this war, all means will do, including arson and murder. But even after receiving an inheritance, the brothers do not find peace: you cannot build happiness on lies and blood. Mikhail, he generally loses all human appearance and comes to his father and mother with one goal - to kill. After all, in his opinion, it is not he himself who is to blame for living his life like a pig, but someone else!

Gorky in his book thinks a lot about why Russian people are often cruel, why they make their life “gray, lifeless nonsense.” And here is another one of his answers to himself: “Russian people, due to their poverty and poverty of life, generally love to amuse themselves with grief, play with it like children, and are rarely ashamed of being unhappy. In endless everyday life and grief there is a holiday, and fire is fun; in an empty place, a scratch is a decoration...” However, the reader is not always obliged to trust the author’s direct assessments.

The story is not about poor people (at least they don’t immediately become poor); their wealth will allow them to live humanly in every sense. But you will find truly good people in “Childhood”, most likely, among the poor: Grigory, Tsyganok, Good Delo, grandmother Akulina Ivanovna, who came from a poor family. This means that it is not a matter of poverty or wealth. The point is mental and spiritual poverty. After all, Maxim Savvateevich Peshkov did not have any wealth. But this did not stop him from being an amazingly beautiful person. Honest, open, reliable, hard-working, with self-esteem, he knew how to love beautifully and recklessly. I didn’t drink wine, which is rare in Russia. And Maxim became destiny for Varvara Peshkova. Not only did he not beat his wife and son, he had no thoughts of insulting them. And he remained the brightest memory and example for his son for the rest of his life. People were jealous of the happy and friendly Peshkov family. And this muddy envy pushes the degenerates Mikhail and Yakov to kill their son-in-law. But by a miracle, Maxim, who survived, shows mercy, saving his wife’s brothers from certain hard labor.

Poor, unfortunate Varvara! It’s true, God was pleased to give her such a man - the dream of every woman. She managed to escape from that suffocating swamp where she was born and raised, and to know true happiness. It didn't last long! Maxim passed away offensively early. And since then, Varvara’s life has gone awry. It happens that a woman’s lot develops in such a way that there is no replacement for the one and only one. It seemed that she could find, if not happiness, then peace with Evgeny Maximov, an educated man, a nobleman. But underneath his outer gloss hid, as it turned out, a nonentity, no better than the same Yakov and Mikhail.

The surprising thing about this story is that the author-narrator does not hate those who crippled his childhood. Little Alyosha learned well the lesson of his grandmother, who said about Yakov and Mikhail: “They are not evil. They are just stupid! This must be understood in the sense that they are, of course, evil, but also unhappy in their misery. Repentance sometimes softens these withered souls. Yakov suddenly begins to sob, hitting himself in the face: “What is this, what?...Why is this? Scoundrel and scoundrel, broken soul! Vasily Kashirin, a much smarter and stronger man, suffers more and more often. The old man understands that his cruelty was also inherited by his unsuccessful children, and in shock he complains to God: “In grief-stricken excitement, reaching the point of a tearful howl, he poked his head into the corner, towards the images, and hit the dry, echoing chest with all his might: “Lord, am I more sinful than others?” For what?’” However, this tough tyrant is worthy not only of pity, but also of respect. For he never put a stone instead of bread into the outstretched hand of an unlucky son or daughter. In many ways, he himself crippled his sons. But he also supported! Saved me from military service (which I bitterly regretted later), from prison; Having divided the property, he spent whole days in his sons’ workshops, helping to set up the business. And what about the episode when the brutal Mikhail and his friends, armed with stakes, break into the Kashirins’ house. The father in these terrible moments is mainly concerned with ensuring that his son is not hit on the head in the fight. He is also concerned about the fate of Varvara. Vasily Kashirin understands that his daughter’s life is not going well, and essentially gives his last, only to provide for Varvara.

As already mentioned, this book is not only about family life, about everyday life, but also about God. More precisely, about how an ordinary Russian person believes in God. But it turns out that you can believe in God in different ways. After all, not only did God create man in his own image and likeness, but man also constantly creates God according to his own standards. So, for grandfather Vasily Kashirin, a businesslike, dry and tough man, God is a strict overseer and judge. His God is precisely and first of all punishing and taking revenge. It is not for nothing that, remembering the Sacred History, the grandfather always tells episodes of the torment of sinners. Vasily Vasilyevich understands religious institutions as a soldier understands military regulations: memorize, do not reason and do not contradict. Little Alyosha's acquaintance with Christianity begins in his grandfather's family with cramming prayer formulas. And when the child begins to ask innocent questions about the text, Aunt Natalya interrupts him in fear: “Don’t ask, it’s worse! Just say after me: “Our Father...” For the grandfather, turning to God is a strict, but also a joyful ritual. He knows a huge number of prayers and psalms by heart and enthusiastically repeats the words of the Holy Scriptures, often without even thinking about what they mean. He, an uneducated person, is filled with joy by the fact that he speaks not in the crude language of everyday life, but in the sublime structure of “divine” speech.

Grandmother Akulina Ivanovna has a different God. She is not an expert on sacred texts, but this does not in the least prevent her from believing fervently, sincerely and childishly naively. For this is the only way true faith can be. It is said: “Unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 18:1). Grandmother's God is a merciful intercessor who loves everyone equally. And not at all omniscient and omnipotent, but often crying over the imperfections of the world, and himself worthy of pity and compassion. For grandmother, God is akin to the bright and fair hero of a folk tale. You can turn to him, as to the closest one, with your innermost thoughts: “Varvara would smile with such joy! How did she anger you, why was she more sinful than others? What is it: a woman is young, healthy, but lives in sadness. And remember, Lord, Grigory - his eyes are getting worse...” It is precisely this kind of prayer, albeit devoid of an established order, but sincere, that will reach God faster. And for all her hard life in a cruel and sinful world, the grandmother thanks the Lord, who helps people far and close, loves and forgives them.

M. Gorky’s story “Childhood” shows us, the readers, that it is possible and necessary in the most difficult life conditions not to become bitter, not to become a slave, but to remain Human.

V. A. Karpov

Childhood

I dedicate it to my son

I

In a dim, cramped room, on the floor, under the window, lies my father, dressed in white and unusually long; the toes of his bare feet are strangely spread out, the fingers of his gentle hands, quietly placed on his chest, are also crooked; his cheerful eyes are tightly covered with black circles of copper coins, his kind face is dark and scares me with his badly bared teeth.

Mother, half naked, in a red skirt, is on her knees, combing her father’s long soft hair from his forehead to the back of his head with a black comb, which I used to saw through the rinds of watermelons; the mother continuously says something in a thick, hoarse voice, her gray eyes are swollen and seem to melt, flowing down with large drops of tears.

My grandmother is holding my hand - round, big-headed, with huge eyes and a funny, doughy nose; she is all black, soft and surprisingly interesting; she also cries, singing along with her mother in a special and good way, she trembles all over and tugs at me, pushing me towards my father; I resist, hide behind her; I'm scared and embarrassed.

I had never seen big people cry before, and I did not understand the words repeatedly spoken by my grandmother:

- Say goodbye to your aunt, you will never see him again, he died, my dear, at the wrong time, at the wrong time...

I was seriously ill - I had just gotten back to my feet; During my illness - I remember this well - my father merrily fussed with me, then he suddenly disappeared and was replaced by my grandmother, a strange person.

-Where did you come from? – I asked her. She answered:

- From above, from Nizhny, but she didn’t come, but she arrived! They don't walk on water, shush!

It was funny and incomprehensible: upstairs in the house lived bearded, painted Persians, and in the basement an old yellow Kalmyk was selling sheepskins. You can slide down the stairs astride the railing, or when you fall, you can roll somersault - I knew that well. And what does water have to do with it? Everything is wrong and funny confused.

- Why am I pissed?

“Because you make noise,” she said, also laughing. She spoke kindly, cheerfully, smoothly. From the very first day I became friends with her, and now I want her to quickly leave this room with me.

My mother suppresses me; her tears and howls sparked a new, anxious feeling in me. This is the first time I see her like this - she was always strict, spoke little; she is clean, smooth and big, like a horse; she has a tough body and terribly strong arms. And now she is all somehow unpleasantly swollen and disheveled, everything on her is torn; the hair, lying neatly on the head, in a large light cap, scattered over the bare shoulder, fell on the face, and half of it, braided in a braid, dangled, touching his father’s sleeping face. I’ve been standing in the room for a long time, but she’s never looked at me, she combs her father’s hair and keeps growling, choking on tears.

Black men and a sentry soldier look in the door. He shouts angrily:

- Clean it up quickly!

The window is curtained with a dark shawl; it swells like a sail. One day my father took me on a boat with a sail. Suddenly thunder struck. My father laughed, squeezed me tightly with his knees and shouted:

- It’s okay, don’t be afraid, Luk!

Suddenly the mother threw herself up heavily from the floor, immediately sank down again, toppled over onto her back, scattering her hair across the floor; her blind, white face turned blue, and, baring her teeth like her father, she said in a terrible voice:

- Shut the door... Alexei - get out! Pushing me away, my grandmother rushed to the door and shouted:

- Dear ones, don’t be afraid, don’t touch me, leave for Christ’s sake! This is not cholera, the birth has come, for mercy, priests!

I hid in a dark corner behind a chest and from there I watched my mother squirm across the floor, groaning and gritting her teeth, and my grandmother, crawling around, said affectionately and joyfully:

– In the name of the Father and the Son! Be patient, Varyusha! Most Holy Mother of God, Intercessor...

I'm scared; They are fiddling around on the floor near their father, touching him, moaning and screaming, but he is motionless and seems to be laughing. This lasted a long time - fussing on the floor; More than once the mother rose to her feet and fell again; grandmother rolled out of the room like a big black soft ball; then suddenly a child screamed in the darkness.

– Glory to You, Lord! - said the grandmother. - Boy!

And lit a candle.

I must have fallen asleep in the corner - I don’t remember anything else.

The second imprint in my memory is a rainy day, a deserted corner of the cemetery; I stand on a slippery mound of sticky earth and look into the hole where my father’s coffin was lowered; at the bottom of the hole there is a lot of water and there are frogs - two have already climbed onto the yellow lid of the coffin.

At the grave - me, my grandmother, a wet guard and two angry men with shovels. Warm rain, fine as beads, showers everyone.

“Bury,” said the watchman, walking away.

Grandmother began to cry, hiding her face in the end of her headscarf. The men, bent over, hastily began to throw earth into the grave, water began to gush; Jumping from the coffin, the frogs began to rush onto the walls of the pit, clods of earth knocking them to the bottom.

“Move away, Lenya,” my grandmother said, taking me by the shoulder; I slipped out from under her hand; I didn’t want to leave.

“What are you, Lord,” the grandmother complained, either to me or to God, and stood silently for a long time, with her head down; The grave has already been leveled to the ground, but it still stands.

The men loudly splashed their shovels on the ground; the wind came and drove away, carried away the rain. Grandmother took me by the hand and led me to a distant church, among many dark crosses.

-Aren't you going to cry? – she asked when she went outside the fence. - I would cry!

“I don’t want to,” I said.

“Well, I don’t want to, so I don’t have to,” she said quietly.

All this was surprising: I cried rarely and only from resentment, not from pain; my father always laughed at my tears, and my mother shouted:

- Don't you dare cry!

Then we rode along a wide, very dirty street in a droshky, among dark red houses; I asked my grandmother:

- Won’t the frogs come out?

“No, they won’t get out,” she answered. - God be with them!

Neither father nor mother pronounced the name of God so often and so closely.

A few days later, I, my grandmother and my mother were traveling on a ship, in a small cabin; my newborn brother Maxim died and lay on the table in the corner, wrapped in white, swaddled with red braid.

Perched on bundles and chests, I look out the window, convex and round, like the eye of a horse; Behind the wet glass, muddy, foamy water flows endlessly. Sometimes she jumps up and licks the glass. I involuntarily jump to the floor.

“Don’t be afraid,” says grandma and, easily lifting me with soft hands, she puts me back on the knots.

There is a gray, wet fog over the water; Far away somewhere a dark land appears and disappears again into fog and water. Everything around is shaking. Only the mother, with her hands behind her head, stands leaning against the wall, firmly and motionless. Her face is dark, iron and blind, her eyes are tightly closed, she is silent all the time, and everything is somehow different, new, even the dress she is wearing is unfamiliar to me.

Grandmother more than once told her quietly:

- Varya, would you like to eat something, a little, eh? She is silent and motionless.

Grandma speaks to me in a whisper, and to my mother - louder, but somehow carefully, timidly and very little. It seems to me that she is afraid of her mother. This is clear to me and brings me very close to my grandmother.

“Saratov,” the mother said unexpectedly loudly and angrily. -Where is the sailor?

So her words are strange, alien: Saratov, sailor. A wide, gray-haired man dressed in blue came in and brought a small box. The grandmother took him and began to lay out his brother’s body, laid him down and carried him to the door on outstretched arms, but, being fat, she could only walk through the narrow door of the cabin sideways and hesitated funny in front of it.

- Eh, mother! - my mother shouted, took the coffin from her, and both of them disappeared, and I remained in the cabin, looking at the blue man.

- What, little brother left? - he said, leaning towards me.

- Who are you?

- Sailor.

– Who is Saratov?

- City. Look out the window, there he is!

Outside the window the ground was moving; dark, steep, it smoked with fog, resembling a large piece of bread that had just been cut from a loaf.

-Where did grandma go?

- To bury my grandson.

- Will they bury him in the ground?

- What about it? They will bury it.

I told the sailor how they buried live frogs when burying my father. He picked me up, hugged me tightly and kissed me.

- Eh, brother, you still don’t understand anything! - he said. – There is no need to feel sorry for the frogs, the Lord is with them! Have pity on the mother - look how her grief hurt her!

There was a hum and a howl above us. I already knew that it was a steamer and was not afraid, but the sailor hastily lowered me to the floor and rushed out, saying:

- We must run!

And I also wanted to run away. I walked out the door. The dark, narrow crevice was empty. Not far from the door, copper glittered on the steps of the stairs. Looking up, I saw people with knapsacks and bundles in their hands. It was clear that everyone was leaving the ship, which meant I had to leave too.

But when, together with a crowd of men, I found myself at the side of the ship, in front of the bridge to the shore, everyone began to shout at me:

- Whose is this? Whose are you?

- Don't know.

They pushed me, shook me, groped me for a long time. Finally a gray-haired sailor appeared and grabbed me, explaining:

- This is from Astrakhan, from the cabin...

He carried me into the cabin at a run, put me in some bundles and left, wagging his finger:

- I'll ask you!

The noise overhead became quieter, the steamer no longer trembled or thumped through the water. The window of the cabin was blocked by some kind of wet wall; it became dark, stuffy, the knots seemed to be swollen, oppressing me, and everything was not good. Maybe they will leave me alone forever on an empty ship?

I went to the door. It does not open, its copper handle cannot be turned. Taking the milk bottle, I hit the handle with all my might. The bottle broke, the milk poured over my feet and flowed into my boots.

Distressed by the failure, I lay down on the bundles, cried quietly and, in tears, fell asleep.

And when I woke up, the ship was thumping and shaking again, the cabin window was burning like the sun. Grandmother, sitting next to me, scratched her hair and winced, whispering something. She had a strange amount of hair, it thickly covered her shoulders, chest, knees and lay on the floor, black, tinged with blue. Lifting them from the floor with one hand and holding them in the air, she hardly inserted a rare-toothed wooden comb into the thick strands; her lips curled, her dark eyes sparkled angrily, and her face in this mass of hair became small and funny.

Today she seemed angry, but when I asked why her hair was so long, she said in yesterday’s warm and soft voice:

- Apparently, the Lord gave it as punishment - comb them, you damned ones! When I was young I boasted about this mane, I swear in my old age! And you sleep! It’s still early, the sun has just risen from the night...

- I don’t want to sleep!

“Well, don’t sleep otherwise,” she immediately agreed, braiding her hair and looking at the sofa, where her mother lay face up, stretched out like a string. - How did you crack the bottle yesterday? Speak quietly!

She spoke, singing the words in a special way, and they easily became stronger in my memory, like flowers, just as affectionate, bright, juicy. When she smiled, her pupils, dark as cherries, dilated, flashing with an inexpressibly pleasant light, her smile cheerfully revealed her strong white teeth, and, despite the many wrinkles in the dark skin of her cheeks, her whole face seemed young and bright. This loose nose with swollen nostrils and red at the end spoiled him very much. She sniffed tobacco from a black snuff box decorated with silver. She was all dark, but she shone from within - through her eyes - with an unquenchable, cheerful and warm light. She was stooped, almost hunchbacked, very plump, and she moved easily and deftly, like a big cat - she was as soft as this affectionate animal.

It was as if I was sleeping before her, hidden in the darkness, but she appeared, woke me up, brought me into the light, tied everything around me into a continuous thread, wove everything into multi-colored lace and immediately became a friend for life, the closest to my heart, the most understandable and dear person - it was her selfless love for the world that enriched me, saturating me with strong strength for a difficult life.

Forty years ago steamships moved slowly; We drove to Nizhny for a very long time, and I remember well those first days of being saturated with beauty.

The weather was fine; from morning to evening I am with my grandmother on the deck, under a clear sky, between the autumn-gilded, silk-embroidered banks of the Volga. Slowly, lazily and loudly thumping across the greyish-blue water, a light-red steamship with a barge in a long tow is stretching upstream. The barge is gray and looks like a woodlice. The sun floats unnoticed over the Volga; Every hour everything around is new, everything changes; green mountains are like lush folds on the rich clothing of the earth; along the banks there are cities and villages, like gingerbread ones from afar; golden autumn leaf floats on the water.

- Look how good it is! - Grandma says every minute, moving from side to side, and she’s all beaming, and her eyes are joyfully widened.

Often, looking at the shore, she forgot about me: she stood at the side, folded her arms on her chest, smiled and was silent, and there were tears in her eyes. I tug at her dark skirt, printed with flowers.

- Ass? - she perks up. “It’s like I dozed off and was dreaming.”

-What are you crying about?

“This, dear, is from joy and from old age,” she says, smiling. - I’m already old, in my sixth decade of summer and spring, my thoughts have spread and gone.

And, after sniffing tobacco, he begins to tell me some strange stories about good thieves, about holy people, about all kinds of animals and evil spirits.

She tells stories quietly, mysteriously, leaning towards my face, looking into my eyes with dilated pupils, as if pouring strength into my heart, lifting me up. He speaks as if he were singing, and the further he goes, the more complex the words sound. It is indescribably pleasant to listen to her. I listen and ask:

- More!

- And here’s how it happened: an old brownie was sitting in the pod, he hurt his paw with a noodle, he was rocking, whining: “Oh, little mice, it hurts, oh, little mice, I can’t stand it!”

Raising her leg, she grabs it with her hands, swings it in the air and wrinkles her face funny, as if she herself is in pain.

There are sailors standing around - bearded gentle men - listening, laughing, praising her and also asking:

- Come on, grandma, tell me something else! Then they say:

- Come have dinner with us!

At dinner they treat her with vodka, me with watermelons and melon; this is done secretly: a man travels on the ship who forbids eating fruit, takes it away and throws it into the river. He is dressed like a guard - with brass buttons - and is always drunk; people are hiding from him.

Mother rarely comes on deck and stays away from us. She is still silent, mother. Her large slender body, dark, iron face, heavy crown of blond hair braided in braids - all of her powerful and solid - are remembered to me as if through fog or a transparent cloud; Straight gray eyes, as large as grandma’s, look out of it distantly and unfriendly.

One day she said sternly:

– People are laughing at you, mother!

- And the Lord is with them! - Grandma answered carefree. - Let them laugh, for good health!

I remember my grandmother’s childhood joy at the sight of Nizhny. Pulling my hand, she pushed me towards the board and shouted:

- Look, look how good it is! Here it is, father, Nizhny! That's what he is, Gods! Those churches, look, they seem to be flying!

And the mother asked, almost crying:

- Varyusha, look, tea, huh? Look, I forgot! Rejoice!

The mother smiled gloomily.

When the steamer stopped opposite a beautiful city, in the middle of a river closely cluttered with ships, bristling with hundreds of sharp masts, a large boat with many people floated up to its side, hooked itself with a hook to the lowered ladder, and one after another the people from the boat began to climb onto the deck. A small, dry old man, in a long black robe, with a red beard like gold, a bird's nose and green eyes, walked quickly ahead of everyone.