Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on a large Moscow road; he worked as an assistant to the chief blacksmith, because he could not see well with his eyes and had little strength in his hands. He carried water, sand and coal to the forge, fanned the forge with fur, held the hot iron on the anvil with tongs while the chief blacksmith forged it, brought the horse into the machine to forge it, and did any other work that needed to be done. His name was Efim, but all the people called him Yushka. He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face, instead of a mustache and beard, sparse gray hair; His eyes were white, like a blind man’s, and there was always moisture in them, like never-cooling tears.
Yushka lived in the apartment of the owner of the forge, in the kitchen. In the morning he went to the forge, and in the evening he went back to spend the night. The owner fed him for his work with bread, cabbage soup and porridge, and Yushka had his own tea, sugar and clothes; he must buy them for his salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. But Yushka didn’t drink tea or buy sugar, he drank water and wore clothes for many years the same one without changing: in the summer he wore trousers and a blouse, black and sooty from work, burned through by sparks, so that his white body was visible in several places, and barefoot, in the winter he put on over the blouse a sheepskin coat he had inherited to him from his deceased father, and he shod his feet in felt boots, which he had been hemming since the fall, and wore the same pair every winter all his life.
When Yushka walked down the street to the forge early in the morning, the old men and women got up and said that Yushka had already gone to work, it was time to get up, and they woke up the young people. And in the evening, when Yushka went to spend the night, people said that it was time to have dinner and go to bed - and Yushka had already gone to bed.
And small children and even those who became teenagers, seeing old Yushka walking quietly, stopped playing in the street, ran after Yushka and shouted:
There comes Yushka! There's Yushka!
The children picked up dry branches, pebbles, and rubbish from the ground in handfuls and threw them at Yushka.
Yushka! - the children shouted. - Are you really Yushka?
The old man did not answer the children and was not offended by them; he walked as quietly as before, and did not cover his face, which was hit by pebbles and earthen debris.
The children were surprised at Yushka that he was alive, and he himself was not angry with them. And they called out to the old man again:
Yushka, are you true or not?
Then the children again threw objects from the ground at him, ran up to him, touched him and pushed him, not understanding why he did not chase them, as all big people do. The children did not know another person like him, and they thought - is Yushka really alive? Having touched Yushka with their hands or hit him, they saw that he was hard and alive.
Then the children again pushed Yushka and threw clods of earth at him - he’d better be angry, since he really lives in the world. But Yushka walked and was silent. Then the children themselves began to get angry with Yushka. They were bored and it was not good to play if Yushka was always silent, did not scare them and did not chase them. And they pushed the old man even harder and shouted around him so that he would respond to them with evil and cheer them up. Then they would run away from him and, in fear, in joy, would again tease him from afar and call him to them, then running away to hide in the dusk of the evening, in the canopy of houses, in the thickets of gardens and vegetable gardens. But Yushka did not touch them and did not answer them.
When the children stopped Yushka altogether or hurt him too much, he told them:
What are you doing, my dears, what are you doing, dear ones!.. You must love me!.. Why do you all need me?.. Wait, don’t touch me, you hit me with dirt in my eyes, I can’t see.
The children did not hear or understand him. They still pushed Yushka and laughed at him. They were happy that they could do whatever they wanted with him, but he didn’t do anything to them.
Yushka was also happy. He knew why the children laughed at him and tormented him. He believed that children loved him, that they needed him, only they did not know how to love a person and did not know what to do for love, and therefore they tormented him.
At home, fathers and mothers reproached their children when they did not study well or did not obey their parents: “You will be just like Yushka!” You will grow up and walk barefoot in the summer, and in thin felt boots in the winter, and everything will torment you, and you will have tea with You won’t drink sugar, just water!”
Elderly adults, meeting Yushka on the street, also sometimes offended him. Adults had angry grief or resentment, or they were drunk, then their hearts were filled with fierce rage. Seeing Yushka going to the forge or to the yard for the night, an adult said to him:
Why are you walking around here so blessed and unlikeable? What do you think is so special?
Yushka stopped, listened and was silent in response.
You don't have any words, you're such an animal! You live simply and honestly, as I live, and don’t think anything secretly! Tell me, will you live the way you should? Won't you? Aha!.. Well okay!
And after a conversation during which Yushka was silent, the adult became convinced that Yushka was to blame for everything, and immediately beat him. Because of Yushka’s meekness, the adult became embittered and beat him more than he wanted at first, and in this evil he forgot his grief for a while.
Yushka then lay in the dust on the road for a long time. When he woke up, he got up on his own, and sometimes the daughter of the owner of the forge came for him, she picked him up and took him away with her.
It would be better if you died, Yushka,” said the owner’s daughter. - Why do you live?
Yushka looked at her in surprise. He did not understand why he should die when he was born to live.
“It was my father and mother who gave birth to me, it was their will,” Yushka answered, “I can’t die, and I’m helping your father in the forge.”
If only someone else could take your place, what a helper!
People love me, Dasha!
Dasha laughed.
Now you have blood on your cheek, and last week your ear was torn, and you say - the people love you!..
“He loves me without a clue,” says Yushka. - People's hearts can be blind.
Their hearts are blind, but their eyes are sighted! - Dasha said. - Go quickly, or something! They love according to the heart, but they strike according to their calculations.
According to calculations, they are angry with me, it’s true,” Yushka agreed. “They don’t tell me to walk on the street and they mutilate my body.”
Eh, you, Yushka, Yushka! - Dasha sighed. - But you, my father said, are not old yet!
How old I am!.. I have suffered from breast problems since childhood, it was because of my illness that I made a mistake in appearance and became old...
Due to this illness, Yushka left his owner for a month every summer. He went on foot to a remote remote village, where he must have had relatives. Nobody knew who they were to him.
Even Yushka himself forgot, and one summer he said that his widowed sister lived in the village, and the next that his niece was there. Sometimes he said that he was going to the village, and other times that he was going to Moscow itself. And people thought that Yushka’s beloved daughter lived in a distant village, as kind and unnecessary to people as her father.
In June or August, Yushka put a knapsack with bread on his shoulders and left our city. On the way, he breathed the fragrance of grasses and forests, looked at the white clouds born in the sky, floating and dying in the bright airy warmth, listened to the voice of the rivers muttering on the stone rifts, and Yushka’s sore chest rested, he no longer felt his illness - consumption. Having gone far away, where it was completely deserted, Yushka no longer hid his love for living beings. He bent to the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to breathe on them so that they would not be spoiled by his breath, he stroked the bark of the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles from the path that had fallen dead, and peered into their faces for a long time, feeling orphaned. But living birds sang in the sky, dragonflies, beetles and hard-working grasshoppers made cheerful sounds in the grass, and therefore Yushka’s soul was light, the sweet air of flowers smelling of moisture and sunlight entered his chest.
On the way, Yushka rested. He sat in the shade of a road tree and dozed in peace and warmth. Having rested and caught his breath in the field, he did not remember the illness and walked on cheerfully, like a healthy person. Yushka was forty years old, but illness had been tormenting him for a long time and had aged him before his time, so that he seemed decrepit.
And so every year Yushka left through fields, forests and rivers to a distant village or to Moscow, where someone was waiting for him or no one was waiting - no one in the city knew about this.
A month later, Yushka usually returned back to the city and again worked from morning until evening in the forge. He again began to live as before, and again children and adults, residents of the street, made fun of Yushka, reproached him for his unrequited stupidity and tormented him.
Yushka lived peacefully until the summer of next year, and in the middle of the summer he put his knapsack on his shoulders, put the money he had earned and saved in a year, a total of one hundred rubles, into a separate bag, hung that bag in his bosom on his chest and went to who knows where and who knows to whom.
But year after year, Yushka grew weaker and weaker, so the time of his life passed and passed, and chest illness tormented his body and exhausted him. One summer, when the time was approaching for Yushka to go to his distant village, he did not go anywhere. He wandered, as usual, in the evening, already dark, from the forge to the owner for the night. A cheerful passerby who knew Yushka laughed at him:
Why are you trampling our land, God’s scarecrow! If only I died, maybe it would be more fun without you, otherwise I’m afraid of getting bored...
And here Yushka became angry in response - probably for the first time in his life.
Why am I bothering you? Why am I bothering you!.. I was ordered to live by my parents, I was born according to the law, the whole world needs me, just like you, without me too, that means it’s impossible!..
The passer-by, without listening to Yushka, became angry with him:
What are you talking about? Why are you talking? How dare you equate me with yourself, you worthless fool!
“I don’t equal,” said Yushka, “but out of necessity we are all equal...
Don't tell me any wiser! - a passer-by shouted. - I’m wiser than you! Look, I'm talking, I'll teach you your wits!
Swinging his hand, the passer-by pushed Yushka in the chest with the force of anger, and he fell backward.
“Rest,” said the passerby and went home to drink tea.
After lying down, Yushka turned his face down and did not move or get up again.
Soon a man passed by, a carpenter from a furniture workshop. He called out to Yushka, then shifted him onto his back and saw Yushka’s white, open, motionless eyes in the darkness. His mouth was black; The carpenter wiped Yushka’s mouth with his palm and realized that it was caked blood. He also tested the place where Yushka’s head lay face down, and felt that the ground there was damp, it was filled with blood, gushing out of Yushka’s throat.
“He’s dead,” the carpenter sighed. - Goodbye, Yushka, and forgive us all. People rejected you, and who is your judge!..
The owner of the forge prepared Yushka for burial. The owner's daughter Dasha washed Yushka's body, and he was placed on the table in the blacksmith's house. All the people, old and young, all the people who knew Yushka and made fun of him and tormented him during his life, came to the body of the deceased to say goodbye to him.
Then Yushka was buried and forgotten. However, without Yushka, people’s lives became worse. Now all the anger and mockery remained among the people and wasted among them, because there was no Yushka, who unrequitedly endured all other people’s evil, bitterness, ridicule and ill will.
They remembered about Yushka again only in late autumn. One dark, bad day, a young girl came to the forge and asked the blacksmith owner: where could she find Efim Dmitrievich?
Which Efim Dmitrievich? - the blacksmith was surprised. “We’ve never had anything like this here.”
The girl, having listened, did not leave, however, and silently waited for something. The blacksmith looked at her: what kind of guest the bad weather brought him. The girl was frail in appearance and short in stature, but her soft, clear face was so gentle and meek, and her large gray eyes looked so sad, as if they were about to fill with tears, that the blacksmith’s heart warmed up, looking at the guest, and suddenly he realized :
Isn't he Yushka? That’s right - according to his passport he was written as Dmitrich...
Yushka,” the girl whispered. - This is true. He called himself Yushka.
The blacksmith was silent.
And who will you be to him? - A relative, or what?
I'm nobody. I was an orphan, and Efim Dmitrievich placed me, little, with a family in Moscow, then sent me to a boarding school... Every year he came to visit me and brought money for the whole year so that I could live and study. Now I have grown up, I have already graduated from the university, and Efim Dmitrievich did not come to visit me this summer. Tell me where he is - he said that he worked for you for twenty-five years...
Half a century has passed, we have grown old together,” said the blacksmith.
He closed the forge and led his guest to the cemetery. There the girl fell to the ground, in which lay the dead Yushka, the man who had fed her since childhood, who had never eaten sugar, so that she would eat it.
She knew what Yushka was sick with, and now she herself has completed her studies as a doctor and came here to treat the one who loved her more than anything in the world and whom she herself loved with all the warmth and light of her heart...
A lot of time has passed since then. The girl doctor remained forever in our city. She began working in a hospital for consumptives, she went to houses where there were tuberculosis patients, and did not charge anyone for her work. Now she herself has also grown old, but still all day long she heals and comforts sick people, without tiring of quenching suffering and delaying death from the weakened. And everyone in the city knows her, calling her the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.
Good books about sincere people who are ready for self-sacrifice touch the soul, teach decency and compassion. Such is the story of A.P. Platonov “Yushka”. A brief summary of the short story will introduce readers to this extraordinary creation.
The main character of the story
Andrei Platonovich Platonov wrote this amazing story in 1935. The author narrates in the first person, so the reader seems to know the main character of the work well.
His name was Efim, but everyone called him Yushka. This man looked old. There was already little strength in his hands, and his vision was failing - the man saw poorly. He worked in a forge at high road, stretching towards Moscow - carried out feasible tasks. Efim carried coal, water, sand, and fanned the forge with bellows. He also had other duties at the forge. This is how Yushka worked.
He lived with the owner of the forge in the apartment. He went to work early in the morning and came back late in the evening. For the good performance of his duties, the owner fed him porridge, cabbage soup, and bread. Yushka had to buy tea, sugar, and clothes with his salary, which was 7 rubles 60 kopecks.
How a blacksmith's assistant dressed
He didn't allow himself to spend money. Why? You will learn about this at the very end of the story “Yushka”. A brief summary of the work makes it possible to better examine the depth of this person’s soul. An elderly man drank water instead of sweet tea. He constantly refused to buy new clothes, so he always wore the same ones. In the summer, his poor wardrobe consisted of a blouse and trousers, which over time became heavily smoked and burned by sparks. Summer shoes the hero didn't have a story, so warm time For years he always walked barefoot.
The winter wardrobe was the same, only over the shirt the blacksmith’s assistant wore an old sheepskin coat, inherited from his father. On my feet were felt boots, which also had holes from time to time. But every autumn they were hemmed by the tireless Yushka.
Bullying a resigned person
Perhaps only the blacksmith and his daughter treated Yefim kindly. The rest of the town's residents took out all their accumulated anger on the generous man. Children were also unkind, out of boredom or because they learned this from adults. Andrei Platonov (“Yushka”) describes such scenes in his work. The summary of the story, namely the episodes presented below, draws the reader’s attention to this bleak moment.
When Efim passed by children and teenagers on their way to work or back, they ran up to him and began throwing earth, sticks, and stones at the middle-aged man. They were surprised that he never scolded them for what they had done, so they tried their best to piss Yushka off.
The old man was silent. When people hurt him severe pain, he spoke to them affectionately, calling them “darlings” and “relatives.” He was sure that they loved him, they needed him, since they attracted attention in this way. Efim thought that children simply do not know how to express their love in any other way, so they do this.
Adults who met Yushka on the street called him blessed and often beat him for no reason. He fell to the ground and could not get up for a long time. After some time, the blacksmith’s daughter came for Yefim, helped him get up and took him home. The reader can meet such a hero, who makes you sympathize and reconsider your views on life, in the story “Yushka” (Platonov). The summary of the work moves on to pleasant episodes in the life of this harmless man.
Efim and nature
To understand how open-hearted, sincere, capable of loving living things he was main character works, helps next part story.
Yefim walked for a long time, through forests, rivers and fields. When he found himself in nature, he was transformed. After all, Yushka suffered from consumption (tuberculosis), which is why he was so thin and exhausted. But, having dozed on a stump in the shade of the trees, he woke up rested. It seemed to him that the illness had subsided, and this man walked further with vigorous steps.
It turns out that Efim was only 40 years old, he looked so bad due to illness. Once a year, Yushka was entitled to leave, so in July or August he took a knapsack with bread and went somewhere for a month, saying at the same time that he was going to see his relatives in a distant village or going to Moscow itself.
The story “Yushka” tells about how reverently a person can treat all living things. A brief summary, namely some of the most striking episodes of the work, introduces readers to this rare phenomenon today.
Knowing that no one could see him, Yefim knelt down to the ground and kissed it, inhaling full breasts unique aroma of flowers. He picked up insects that did not move, looked at them and was sad that they were not alive.
But the forests and fields were full of sounds. Insects chirped and birds sang here. It was so good that the man stopped being upset and moved on. It should be noted that such touching moments make the reader better understand the broad soul of such unusual person like Yushka.
Platonov ( summary The story will not be silent about this either) decides to end his work with a rather tragic moment, which makes many of us rethink our entire lives.
They killed Yushka
A month later, Efim returned back to the city and continued to work. One evening he was walking home. He met a man who began pestering him with stupid conversations. Probably for the first time in his life, the blacksmith's assistant decided to answer the stranger. But the interlocutor did not like his words, although they were harmless, and the passer-by hit Yushka in the chest, and he himself went home to drink tea.
The fallen man never got up again. A furniture workshop worker walked past, leaned over Yushka and realized that he had died.
The owner of the forge and his daughter buried Efim with dignity, in a Christian manner.
Named Daughter
This is how Yushka died. The very brief summary of the story continues with an unexpected visit to the girl’s forge. She came in the fall and asked to call Efim Dmitrievich. The blacksmith did not immediately understand that she was talking about Yushka. He told the girl what happened. He asked who she was related to this man.
The girl replied that she was an orphan, and Efim Dmitrievich was not related to her. He took care of the girl from childhood, once a year he brought her the money he had saved up for living and studying.
Thanks to him, she graduated from university and became a doctor. And now she came to cure the person dear to her, but it was too late.
However, the girl did not leave the city; she began working here in a tuberculosis hospital, visiting the homes of all those in need for free, and treating them.
Even when she grew old, she did not stop helping people. In the city they nicknamed her the daughter of the good Yushka, realizing too late what an extraordinary and pure soul the man they had destroyed was.
“Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on the main Moscow road... as an assistant to the chief blacksmith...”
Blind and weak, he carried water, coal, inflated bellows - in a word, wherever he was sent.
His name was Efim, but people called him Yushka.
He lived in a blacksmith’s apartment and was fed bread, cabbage soup and porridge. They also paid him a salary so that he could buy himself sugar, tea and clothes. But Yushka drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years without changing, black and smoked from work. Barefoot in summer, wearing the same pair of felt boots in winter.
He went to work early - the old people used it to wake up the young, and returned late - Yushka was coming home from work, which meant it was time for everyone to sleep.
The children teased Yushka, threw sticks and clods of earth at him and were angry that he did not chase after them and did not scold them.
Strangely he answered them:
What are you doing, my dears, what are you doing, little ones!.. You must love me!.. Why do you all need me?.. Wait, don’t touch me, you hit me with dirt in my eyes, I can’t see.
Parents told disobedient children: “When you grow up, you will be like Yushka.”
Adults also offended Yushka, and when they got drunk, they even beat him.
The blacksmith's daughter lifted him out of the way and said:
It would be better if you died, Yushka.
But Yushka did not want to die - since he was born to live. And he also believed that his people loved him, but they just loved him without a clue.
In July or August, Yushka put a knapsack with bread on his shoulders and left the city. He admired the sky, the grass, kissed the flowers and stroked the trees. In nature, his illness - consumption - receded.
“But year after year Yushka grew weaker and weaker, so the time of his life passed and passed and chest illness tormented his body and exhausted him. IN -one summer When the time was already approaching for Yushka to go to his distant village, he did not go anywhere. He wandered, as usual, in the evening, already dark, from the forge to the owner for the night. A cheerful passerby who knew Yushka laughed at him:
Why are you trampling our land, God’s scarecrow! If only you were dead, it would be more fun without you, otherwise I’m afraid of getting bored...
Why am I bothering you? Why am I bothering you!.. I was ordered to live by my parents, I was born by law, the whole world needs me too, just like you, without me too, that means it’s impossible!”
This passer-by became angry with Yushka and pushed him in the chest. He fell on the road and never got up again.
“He’s dead,” the carpenter sighed. - Goodbye, Yushka, and forgive us all. People rejected you, and who is your judge!..
All the people, old and young, came to the body of the deceased to say goodbye to him, all the people who knew Yushka, and made fun of him, and tormented him during his life.
Then Yushka was buried and forgotten. However, without Yushka, people’s lives became worse. Now all the anger and mockery remained among the people and wasted among them, because there was no Yushka, who unrequitedly endured all other people’s evil, bitterness, ridicule and ill will.”
And after some time, a young girl came to this area and said that Yushka (she called him Efim Dmitrievich) placed an orphan completely alien to him in a boarding school and once a year came to her in Moscow to visit her and brought money earned for the year.
At the cemetery, “the girl fell to the ground in which lay the dead Yushka, the man who had fed her since childhood, who had never eaten sugar, so that she would eat it.
She knew what Yushka was sick with, and now she herself has completed her studies as a doctor and came here to treat the one who loved her more than anything in the world and whom she herself loved with all the warmth and light of her heart...
A lot of time has passed since then. The girl doctor remained forever in our city. She began working in a hospital for consumptives, she went to houses where there were tuberculosis patients, and did not charge anyone for her work.
Now she herself has also grown old, but still all day long she heals and comforts sick people, without tiring of quenching suffering and delaying death from the weakened. And everyone in the city knows her, calling her the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.”
Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on a large Moscow road; he worked as an assistant to the chief blacksmith, because he could not see well with his eyes and had little strength in his hands. He carried water, sand and coal to the forge, fanned the forge with fur, held the hot iron on the anvil with tongs while the chief blacksmith forged it, brought the horse into the machine to forge it, and did any other work that needed to be done. His name was Efim, but all the people called him Yushka. He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face, instead of a mustache and beard, sparse gray hairs grew separately; His eyes were white, like a blind man’s, and there was always moisture in them, like never-cooling tears. Yushka lived in the apartment of the owner of the forge, in the kitchen. In the morning he went to the forge, and in the evening he went back to spend the night. The owner fed him for his work with bread, cabbage soup and porridge, and Yushka had his own tea, sugar and clothes; he must buy them for his salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. But Yushka didn’t drink tea or buy sugar, he drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years without changing: in the summer he wore trousers and a blouse, black and sooty from work, burned through by sparks, so that in several places one could see his white body, and he was barefoot; in winter, he put on a sheepskin coat over his blouse, which he inherited from his deceased father, and his feet were shod in felt boots, which he hemmed in the fall, and wore the same pair every winter all his life. When Yushka walked down the street to the forge early in the morning, the old men and women got up and said that Yushka had already gone to work, it was time to get up, and they woke up the young people. And in the evening, when Yushka went to spend the night, people said that it was time to have dinner and go to bed - and Yushka had already gone to bed. And small children and even those who became teenagers, seeing old Yushka walking quietly, stopped playing in the street, ran after Yushka and shouted: “There comes Yushka!” There's Yushka! The children picked up dry branches, pebbles, and rubbish from the ground in handfuls and threw them at Yushka. - Yushka! - the children shouted. - Are you really Yushka? The old man did not answer the children and was not offended by them; he walked as quietly as before, and did not cover his face, which was hit by pebbles and earthen debris. The children were surprised at Yushka that he was alive, and he himself was not angry with them. And they called out to the old man again: “Yushka, are you true or not?” Then the children again threw objects from the ground at him, ran up to him, touched him and pushed him, not understanding why he did not chase them, as all big people do. The children did not know another person like him, and they thought - is Yushka really alive? Having touched Yushka with their hands or hit him, they saw that he was hard and alive. Then the children again pushed Yushka and threw clods of earth at him - he’d better be angry, since he really lives in the world. But Yushka walked and was silent. Then the children themselves began to get angry with Yushka. They were bored and it was not good to play if Yushka was always silent, did not scare them and did not chase them. And they pushed the old man even harder and shouted around him so that he would respond to them with evil and cheer them up. Then they would run away from him and, in fear, in joy, would again tease him from afar and call him to them, then running away to hide in the dusk of the evening, in the canopy of houses, in the thickets of gardens and vegetable gardens. But Yushka did not touch them and did not answer them. When the children stopped Yushka altogether or hurt him too much, he told them: “What are you doing, my dears, what are you doing, dear ones!.. You must love me!.. Why do you all need me?.. Wait, Don’t touch me, you hit me with dirt in my eyes, I can’t see. The children did not hear or understand him. They still pushed Yushka and laughed at him. They were happy that they could do whatever they wanted with him, but he didn’t do anything to them. Yushka was also happy. He knew why the children laughed at him and tormented him. He believed that children loved him, that they needed him, only they did not know how to love a person and did not know what to do for love, and therefore they tormented him. At home, fathers and mothers reproached their children when they did not study well or did not obey their parents: “You will be just like Yushka!” You will grow up and walk barefoot in the summer, and in thin felt boots in the winter, and everything will torment you, and you will have tea with You won’t drink sugar, just water!” Elderly adults, meeting Yushka on the street, also sometimes offended him. Adults had angry grief or resentment, or they were drunk, then their hearts were filled with fierce rage. Seeing Yushka going to the forge or to the courtyard for the night, an adult said to him: “Why are you so blessed, so different, walking here?” What do you think is so special? Yushka stopped, listened and was silent in response. - You don’t have any words, you’re such an animal! You live simply and honestly, as I live, and don’t think anything secretly! Tell me, will you live the way you should? Won't you? Aha!.. Well okay! And after a conversation during which Yushka was silent, the adult became convinced that Yushka was to blame for everything, and immediately beat him. Because of Yushka’s meekness, the adult became embittered and beat him more than he wanted at first, and in this evil he forgot his grief for a while. Yushka then lay in the dust on the road for a long time. When he woke up, he got up on his own, and sometimes the daughter of the owner of the forge came for him, she picked him up and took him away with her. “It would be better if you died, Yushka,” said the owner’s daughter. - Why do you live? Yushka looked at her in surprise. He did not understand why he should die when he was born to live. “It was my father and mother who gave birth to me, it was their will,” Yushka answered, “I can’t die, and I’m helping your father in the forge.” - There would be someone else to take your place, what a helper! - People love me, Dasha! Dasha laughed. “You have blood on your cheek now, and last week your ear was torn, and you say, the people love you!..” “He loves me without a clue,” says Yushka. - People's hearts can be blind. - Their hearts are blind, but their eyes are sighted! - Dasha said. - Go quickly, or something! They love according to the heart, but they strike according to their calculations. “According to their calculations, they are angry with me, it’s true,” Yushka agreed. “They don’t tell me to walk on the street and they mutilate my body.” - Oh, you, Yushka, Yushka! - Dasha sighed. - But you, my father said, are not old yet! - How old I am!.. I have been suffering from breast problems since childhood, it was because of my illness that I made a mistake in appearance and became old... Because of this illness, Yushka left his owner for a month every summer. He went on foot to a remote remote village, where he must have had relatives. Nobody knew who they were to him. Even Yushka himself forgot, and one summer he said that his widowed sister lived in the village, and the next that his niece was there. Sometimes he said that he was going to the village, and other times that he was going to Moscow itself. And people thought that Yushka’s beloved daughter lived in a distant village, as kind and unnecessary to people as her father. In June or August, Yushka put a knapsack with bread on his shoulders and left our city. On the way, he breathed the fragrance of grasses and forests, looked at the white clouds born in the sky, floating and dying in the bright airy warmth, listened to the voice of the rivers muttering on the stone rifts, and Yushka’s sore chest rested, he no longer felt his illness - consumption. Having gone far away, where it was completely deserted, Yushka no longer hid his love for living beings. He bent to the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to breathe on them so that they would not be spoiled by his breath, he stroked the bark of the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles from the path that had fallen dead, and peered into their faces for a long time, feeling orphaned. But living birds sang in the sky, dragonflies, beetles and hard-working grasshoppers made cheerful sounds in the grass, and therefore Yushka’s soul was light, the sweet air of flowers smelling of moisture and sunlight entered his chest. On the way, Yushka rested. He sat in the shade of a road tree and dozed in peace and warmth. Having rested and caught his breath in the field, he did not remember the illness and walked on cheerfully, like a healthy person. Yushka was forty years old, but illness had been tormenting him for a long time and had aged him before his time, so that he seemed decrepit. And so every year Yushka left through fields, forests and rivers to a distant village or to Moscow, where someone was waiting for him or no one was waiting - no one in the city knew about this. A month later, Yushka usually returned back to the city and again worked from morning until evening in the forge. He again began to live as before, and again children and adults, residents of the street, made fun of Yushka, reproached him for his unrequited stupidity and tormented him. Yushka lived peacefully until the summer of next year, and in the middle of the summer he put his knapsack on his shoulders, put the money he had earned and saved in a year, a total of one hundred rubles, into a separate bag, hung that bag in his bosom on his chest and went to who knows where and who knows to whom. But year after year, Yushka grew weaker and weaker, so the time of his life passed and passed, and chest illness tormented his body and exhausted him. One summer, when the time was approaching for Yushka to go to his distant village, he did not go anywhere. He wandered, as usual, in the evening, already dark, from the forge to the owner for the night. A cheerful passerby who knew Yushka laughed at him: “Why are you trampling our land, God’s scarecrow!” If only I died, maybe it would be more fun without you, otherwise I’m afraid of getting bored... And here Yushka became angry in response - probably for the first time in his life. - Why am I to you, why am I bothering you!.. I was assigned to live by my parents, I was born according to the law, the whole world needs me too, just like you, so it’s impossible without me!.. The passer-by, without listening to Yushka, got angry at him: - What are you talking about! Why are you talking? How dare you equate me with yourself, you worthless fool! “I don’t equal,” said Yushka, “but out of necessity we are all equal...” “Don’t tell me the wiser!” - a passer-by shouted. - I’m wiser than you! Look, I'm talking, I'll teach you your wits! Swinging his hand, the passer-by pushed Yushka in the chest with the force of anger, and he fell backward. “Rest,” said the passerby and went home to drink tea. After lying down, Yushka turned his face down and didn’t move or get up anymore. After lying down, Yushka turned his face down and didn’t move or get up anymore. Soon a man passed by, a carpenter from a furniture workshop. He called out to Yushka, then shifted him onto his back and saw Yushka’s white, open, motionless eyes in the darkness. His mouth was black; The carpenter wiped Yushka’s mouth with his palm and realized that it was caked blood. He also tested the place where Yushka’s head lay face down, and felt that the ground there was damp, it was filled with blood, gushing out of Yushka’s throat. “He’s dead,” the carpenter sighed. - Goodbye, Yushka, and forgive us all. People rejected you, and who is your judge!.. The owner of the forge prepared Yushka for burial. The owner's daughter Dasha washed Yushka's body, and he was placed on the table in the blacksmith's house. All the people, old and young, all the people who knew Yushka and made fun of him and tormented him during his life, came to the body of the deceased to say goodbye to him. Then Yushka was buried and forgotten. However, without Yushka, people’s lives became worse. Now all the anger and mockery remained among the people and wasted among them, because there was no Yushka, who unrequitedly endured all other people’s evil, bitterness, ridicule and ill will. They remembered about Yushka again only in late autumn. One dark, bad day, a young girl came to the forge and asked the blacksmith owner: where could she find Efim Dmitrievich? - Which Efim Dmitrievich? - the blacksmith was surprised. “We’ve never had anything like this here.” The girl, having listened, did not leave, however, and silently waited for something. The blacksmith looked at her: what kind of guest the bad weather brought him. The girl was frail in appearance and short in stature, but her soft, clear face was so gentle and meek, and her large gray eyes looked so sad, as if they were about to fill with tears, that the blacksmith’s heart warmed up, looking at the guest, and suddenly he realized : - Isn’t he Yushka? That’s right - according to his passport he was written as Dmitrich... “Yushka,” the girl whispered. - This is true. He called himself Yushka. The blacksmith was silent. - Who will you be to him? - A relative, or what? - I'm nobody. I was an orphan, and Efim Dmitrievich placed me, little, with a family in Moscow, then sent me to a boarding school... Every year he came to visit me and brought money for the whole year so that I could live and study. Now I have grown up, I have already graduated from the university, and Efim Dmitrievich did not come to visit me this summer. Tell me where he is, - he said that he worked for you for twenty-five years... - Half a century has passed, we grew old together, - said the blacksmith. He closed the forge and led his guest to the cemetery. There the girl fell to the ground, in which lay the dead Yushka, the man who had fed her since childhood, who had never eaten sugar, so that she would eat it. She knew what Yushka was sick with, and now she herself had completed her studies as a doctor and came here to treat the one who loved her more than anything in the world and whom she herself loved with all the warmth and light of her heart... A lot of time has passed since then. The girl doctor remained forever in our city. She began working in a hospital for consumptives, she went to houses where there were tuberculosis patients, and did not charge anyone for her work. Now she herself has also grown old, but still all day long she heals and comforts sick people, without tiring of quenching suffering and delaying death from the weakened. And everyone in the city knows her, calling her the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter. The girl doctor remained forever in our city. She began working in a hospital for consumptives, she went to houses where there were tuberculosis patients, and did not charge anyone for her work. Now she herself has also grown old, but still all day long she heals and comforts sick people, without tiring of quenching suffering and delaying death from the weakened. And everyone in the city knows her, calling her the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.
“Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on the main Moscow road... as an assistant to the chief blacksmith...”
Blind and weak, he carried water, coal, inflated bellows - in a word, wherever he was sent.
His name was Efim, but people called him Yushka.
He lived in a blacksmith’s apartment and was fed bread, cabbage soup and porridge. They also paid him a salary so that he could buy himself sugar, tea and clothes. But Yushka drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years without changing, black and smoked from work. Barefoot in summer, wearing the same pair of felt boots in winter.
He went to work early - the old people used it to wake up the young, and returned late - Yushka was coming home from work, which meant it was time for everyone to sleep.
The children teased Yushka, threw sticks and clods of earth at him and were angry that he did not chase after them and did not scold them.
Strangely he answered them:
What are you doing, my dears, what are you doing, little ones!.. You must love me!.. Why do you all need me?.. Wait, don’t touch me, you hit me with dirt in my eyes, I can’t see.
Parents told disobedient children: “When you grow up, you will be like Yushka.”
Adults also offended Yushka, and when they got drunk, they even beat him.
The blacksmith's daughter lifted him out of the way and said:
It would be better if you died, Yushka.
But Yushka did not want to die - since he was born to live. And he also believed that his people loved him, but they just loved him without a clue.
In July or August, Yushka put a knapsack with bread on his shoulders and left the city. He admired the sky, the grass, kissed the flowers and stroked the trees. In nature, his illness - consumption - receded.
“But year after year Yushka grew weaker and weaker, so the time of his life passed and passed and chest illness tormented his body and exhausted him. One summer, when the time was approaching for Yushka to go to his distant village, he did not go anywhere. He wandered, as usual, in the evening, already dark, from the forge to the owner for the night. A cheerful passerby who knew Yushka laughed at him:
Why are you trampling our land, God’s scarecrow! If only you were dead, it would be more fun without you, otherwise I’m afraid of getting bored...
Why am I bothering you? Why am I bothering you!.. I was ordered to live by my parents, I was born by law, the whole world needs me too, just like you, without me too, that means it’s impossible!”
This passer-by became angry with Yushka and pushed him in the chest. He fell on the road and never got up again.
“He’s dead,” the carpenter sighed. - Goodbye, Yushka, and forgive us all. People rejected you, and who is your judge!..
All the people, old and young, came to the body of the deceased to say goodbye to him, all the people who knew Yushka, and made fun of him, and tormented him during his life.
Then Yushka was buried and forgotten. However, without Yushka, people’s lives became worse. Now all the anger and mockery remained among the people and wasted among them, because there was no Yushka, who unrequitedly endured all other people’s evil, bitterness, ridicule and ill will.”
And after some time, a young girl came to this area and said that Yushka (she called him Efim Dmitrievich) placed an orphan completely alien to him in a boarding school and once a year came to her in Moscow to visit her and brought money earned for the year.
At the cemetery, “the girl fell to the ground in which lay the dead Yushka, the man who had fed her since childhood, who had never eaten sugar, so that she would eat it.
She knew what Yushka was sick with, and now she herself has completed her studies as a doctor and came here to treat the one who loved her more than anything in the world and whom she herself loved with all the warmth and light of her heart...
A lot of time has passed since then. The girl doctor remained forever in our city. She began working in a hospital for consumptives, she went to houses where there were tuberculosis patients, and did not charge anyone for her work.
Now she herself has also grown old, but still all day long she heals and comforts sick people, without tiring of quenching suffering and delaying death from the weakened. And everyone in the city knows her, calling her the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.”