The house will sing from unusual but beautiful sounds. Creaky floorboards - presentation. Creaky floorboards and beautiful orchestration. Tchaikovsky House

Paustovsky's stories

A summary of the story "Squeaky floorboards":

Story about interesting case from the life of Tchaikovsky: he had an estate in a pine forest. It was an old withered house in which he loved to compose music. Tchaikovsky had a servant and a housekeeper who lived with him and helped him. Once Vasily ran to Tchaikovsky's house and said that his landowner had sold all the forest to a Kharkov merchant, who ordered the entire forest to be axed. Vasily tearfully asked Tchaikovsky to help preserve the forest. Pyotr Ilyich immediately went to the governor, but he said that he could not help in this matter, since everything is legal, the forest is the property of the merchant, which means he can do whatever he wants with it. Then Pyotr Ilyich decided to outbid the timber from the merchant Troshchenko, but he set a very high price. Tchaikovsky did not have such money, and the merchant refused to accept the bill on the security of his music. Then Pyotr Ilyich decided to leave the estate for Moscow so as not to see this barbarism. In the evening, Vasily came to his house, realized that Tchaikovsky could not protect the forest and left, and at that time the merchant Troshchenko approached the house. He and Vasily had a fight and the merchant left.

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The story "Squeaky Floorboards" - read:

The house has dried up from old age. Or maybe it was from the fact that he was standing in a clearing in a pine forest and from the pines that the whole summer was drawn by heat. Sometimes the wind blew, but it did not even penetrate the open mezzanine windows. He only rustled in the tops of the pines and carried over them lines of cumulus clouds.

Tchaikovsky liked this wooden house. The rooms smelled faintly of turpentine and white carnations. They bloomed in abundance in the clearing in front of the porch. Disheveled, dry, they did not even look like flowers, but resembled shreds of fluff stuck to the stems.

The only thing that annoyed the composer was the creaky floorboards. To get from the door to the piano, one had to step over five wobbly floorboards. From the outside it must have looked funny when the elderly composer made his way to the piano, peering at the floorboards with narrowed eyes.

If it was possible to pass in such a way that none of them creaked, Tchaikovsky sat down at the piano and grinned. The unpleasant is left behind, and now the amazing and cheerful will begin: the crumbling house will sing from the very first sounds of the piano. Dry rafters, doors and an old chandelier who has lost half of their crystals, similar to oak leaves, will respond to any key with the finest resonance.

The simplest music theme was played by this house like a symphony.

"Wonderful orchestration!" thought Tchaikovsky, admiring the melodiousness of the tree.

For some time now, Tchaikovsky began to think that the house was already waiting in the morning for the composer, having drunk coffee, to sit at the piano. The house was bored without sounds.

Sometimes at night, waking up, Tchaikovsky heard crackling sound of one or the other floorboard, as if remembering his daytime music and snatching out of it his favorite note. It was also reminiscent of the orchestra before the overture, when the orchestra musicians tune their instruments. Here and there - now in the attic, now in a small hall, now in a glazed hallway - someone was touching a string. Tchaikovsky, through his sleep, caught the melody, but when he woke up in the morning, he forgot it. He strained his memory and sighed: what a pity that the night chirping of a wooden house cannot be lost now! Play the uncomplicated song of a dry tree, window panes with fallen putty, wind knocking a branch on the roof.

Listening to the sounds of the night, he often thought that life was passing by, and nothing had really been done yet. Everything written is just a poor tribute to his people, friends, beloved poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. But he has never yet managed to convey that slight delight that arises from the spectacle of the rainbow, from the haunches of peasant girls in the thicket, from the simplest phenomena of the surrounding life.

The simpler what he saw, the more difficult it was to fit into the music. How to convey at least yesterday's case, when he took refuge from the pouring rain in the hut of the patrolman Tikhon!

Fenya ran into the hut - Tikhon's daughter, a girl of about fifteen. Raindrops dripped from her hair. Two drops hung on the tips of the little ears. When the sun hit from behind a cloud, the drops in Fenya's ears shone like diamond earrings.

Tchaikovsky admired the girl. But Fenya shook off the drops, everything was over, and he realized that no music could convey the charm of these fleeting drops.

And Fet sang in his poems: "Only you, poet, winged words the sound is enough on the fly and suddenly fixes the dark delirium of the soul, and the vague smell of herbs ... "

No, obviously, this is not given to him. He never expected inspiration. He worked, worked like a day laborer, like an ox, and inspiration came from work.

Perhaps most of all he was helped by the forests, the forest house where he stayed this summer, glades, thickets, abandoned roads - in their rain-filled ruts, the sickle of the month was reflected in the twilight - this amazing air and always a little sad Russian sunsets.

He would not trade these misty dawns for any of Italy's magnificent gilded sunsets. He gave his heart to Russia without a trace - its forests and villages, outskirts, paths and songs. But every day he is more and more tormented by the impossibility of expressing all the poetry of his country. He must achieve this. You just need not to spare yourself.

Fortunately, there are amazing days in life - just like today. He woke up very early and did not move for several minutes, listening to the chime of the forest larks. Without even looking out the window, he knew that there were dewy shadows in the forest.

A cuckoo was crowing on a nearby pine tree. He got up, went to the window, lit a cigarette.

The house stood on a hillock. The woods went down into the merry distance, where the lake lay among the thickets. There the composer had a favorite place - it was called Rudy Yar.

The road to Yar itself has always caused excitement. Sometimes, in winter, in a damp hotel in Rome, he woke up in the middle of the night and began to remember this road step by step: first along the clearing where pink willow tea blooms near the stumps, then with birch mushroom undergrowth, then across a broken bridge over an overgrown dragged up into the ship's woods.

He remembered this journey, and his heart was beating heavily. This place seemed to him the best expression of Russian nature.

He called out to the servant and hurried him to wash up as soon as possible, drink coffee and go to Rudoy Yar. He knew that today, having been there, he would return - and the favorite theme of the lyrical power of this forest side, which had been living somewhere inside for a long time, would overflow and rush in streams of sounds.

And so it happened. He stood for a long time on the edge of the Rudy Yar. Dew dripped from the thickets of linden and euonymus. There was so much damp shine around that he involuntarily squinted his eyes.

But most of all that day Tchaikovsky was struck by the light. He peered into it, saw more and more layers of light falling on the familiar forests. How ever had he not noticed it before?

From the sky, light poured in straight streams, and under this light, the tops of the forest, seen from above, from the cliff, seemed especially convex and curly.

Slanting rays fell on the edge, and the nearest pine trunks were of that soft golden hue, which is the case with a thin pine plank, illuminated from behind by a candle. And with extraordinary vigilance that morning, he noticed that the pine trunks also cast light on the undergrowth and on the grass - very faint, but the same golden, pinkish tone.

And finally, he saw today how the thickets of willows and alders above the lake were illuminated from below by the bluish reflection of the water.

The familiar land was all caressed by the light, shining through it to the last blade of grass. The variety and intensity of illumination caused Tchaikovsky to feel that something extraordinary, like a miracle, was about to happen. He had experienced this state before. He couldn't be lost. It was necessary to immediately return home, sit down at the piano and hastily write down what we had played on sheets of music paper.

Tchaikovsky walked quickly to the house. A tall, spreading pine tree stood in the clearing. He called her "beacon". She made a quiet noise, although there was no wind. He, without stopping, ran his hand over her heated bark.

At home, he ordered the servant not to let anyone in, went into the small hall, locked the rattling door and sat down at the piano.

He played. The introduction to the topic seemed vague and difficult. He sought clarity of the melody - such that it was understandable to both Fene, and even to old Vasily, a grumpy forester from a neighboring landlord's estate.

He played, not knowing that Fenya had brought him a wild strawberry, sits on the porch, tightly squeezes the ends of the white headscarf with his tanned fingers and, opening his mouth, listens. And then Vasily dragged along, sat down next to Fenya, refused the city cigarette offered by the servant, and rolled a cigarette from the samosad.

Is playing? - asked, raising his cigarette, Vasily. - Stop, you say, is it impossible?

No way! - answered the servant and grinned at the lack of education of the forester. - He composes music. This, Vasily Yefimitch, is a holy cause.

The matter, of course, is sacred, - agreed Vasily. - And you would have reported all the same.

And don't ask. One must have an understanding of things.

Well, don't we understand? - Vasily got angry. - You, brother, guard, but in moderation. My business, if you figure it out, is more important than this piano.

Ouch! - Fenya sighed and tightened the ends of the kerchief even tighter. - I would have heard all day!

Her eyes were gray, surprised, with brown sparkles.

Here, - said the servant reproachfully, - the girl is barefoot and she feels! And you are protesting! You can't get the meaning out of you. And it is not known what business you came for.

I didn’t come to the tavern, ”Vasily replied in a brusque manner. - In the tavern we will meet - we will bark, boil until the morning. I came to Pyotr Ilyich for advice.

He took off his hat, scratched at his gray hair, then pulled on his hat and said:

I suppose you heard? My landlord did not stretch, weakened. I sold the whole forest.

Yah!

So much for you! Well, well, hang your tongue on a pine tree!

What are you doing? - the servant was offended. - And then I can answer!

You wear a velvet vest, ”muttered Vasily,“ with pockets. And what to put in them is unknown. Lollipops for girls? Or shove a handkerchief and go to force under the windows? You go out prodigal son... That's who you are!

Fenya snorted. The servant was silent, but looked at Vasily contemptuously.

That's it! - said Vasily. - It is necessary to understand where the truth is, and where the lawlessness. The landowner has profiled the forest. What's the point? It will not be enough to pay off debts.

Who did you sell it to?

To the Kharkov merchant Troshchenko. Brought it here, thousands of miles away, not easy from Kharkov! .. Have you heard of this?

There are many merchants, ”the servant replied evasively. - If only he was from Moscow ... yes, the first guild ...

I have seen what kind of merchants in my time there are guilds. I've seen such swindlers that God save! And this one looks like a decent gentleman. In gold glasses, and a gray beard, combed with a comb. Clean beard. Retired staff captain. It doesn't look like it. Kind of like a church head. Walks in a combed jacket. And don't look into your eyes, brother - it's empty. As in the grave. The clerk came with him, all boasting: “My, he says, wolfhound has brought forests all over the Kharkov and Kursk provinces. They thought, of course, that the clerk was lying. They please with money people; to lie to them or to undress and undress a person is an empty matter. But it turned out that the clerk does not lie. Troshchenko bought a forest, he has not changed his shirt yet, but he has already driven lumberjacks and sawers. From tomorrow the forest will be cut down. They say he ordered everything under the ax, down to the last aspen. So that!

Serious man, - said the servant.

Ho-ozyain! - Vasily shouted angrily. - His neck is one of Moslaks, anathema!

What do you want? What's your trouble? Do what they tell you to do. Just keep up with throwing off your hat.

You serve a good master, ”Vasily said thoughtfully,“ but your soul is like a rotten nut. You click - and in it instead of the core white worm... If I were your master, I would definitely kick you out. Take it! As the language turns to ask such a question - what is it to me! Yes, I have been assigned to this forest since my twenties. I raised him, nursed him. Like a woman, she doesn't raise children.

Won! the servant replied mockingly.

- "Vaughn"! - Vasily mimicked him. - And now what? Robbery! Yes, I still have to mark the tree for death. No, brother, my conscience is not a paper one. You can't buy me. Now one way is to complain.

To whom? - asked the servant and blew tobacco smoke from his nostrils. - To the King of the Peas?

How to whom? To the Governor. Zemstvo. But it will not help - to the court! Reach the Senate.

The Senate will burn with such a deed!

But it will not be - until the king-emperor!

Well, how can the king not help?

Then become the whole world and stand. Wall. We will not admit, they say, robbery. Go where you came from.

Dreams! - the servant sighed and trampled on the cigarette. - With these words you better not approach Pyotr Ilyich.

We'll see that!

Well, sit, wait! - the servant got angry. - Just keep in mind that if he plays, it won't come out until nightfall.

I suppose it will come out! Don't scare me. I am not timid, brother.

The servant took a mahot with strawberries from Fenya and went into the house. Fenya sat for a long time, looking upset, looking in front of her with astonished eyes. Then she quietly got up and, looking around, walked away along the road. And Vasily fired cigarettes, scraped his chest, waited. The sun had already passed in the evening, long shadows began to flow from the pines, and the music did not subside.

“He’s conjuring!” Thought Vasily, raised his head, listened. In the evening, the flock? Or did the nightingales hit the surrounding bushes right away, as if they were in agreement? Eh, old age! And the soul, apparently, does not give up. The soul remembers youth.

As the crimson setting fire blazed through the windows, the music finally stopped. It was quiet for a few minutes. Then the door creaked. Tchaikovsky went out onto the porch and took out a cigarette from a leather cigarette case. He was pale, his hands were trembling.

Vasily got up, took a step towards Tchaikovsky, knelt down, pulled the burnt-out cap off his head, sobbed.

What are you? Tchaikovsky asked quickly and grabbed Vasily by the shoulder. - Get up! What's the matter with you, Vasily?

Save! - Vasily croaked and began to climb through force, leaning his hand on the step. - My urine is gone! I would shout with a cry, but no one would answer. Help, Pyotr Ilyich, don't let the butchery happen!

Vasily pressed the sleeve of his washed-out blue shirt to his eyes. For a long time he could not utter anything, blew his nose, and when he finally told everything as it was, he was even dumbfounded: he had never seen Pyotr Ilyich in such anger.

Tchaikovsky's whole face went red. Turning to the house, he shouted:

Horses!

A frightened servant rushed out onto the porch:

Your name was Pyotr Ilyich?

Horses! They ordered to lay.

Where should I go?

To the governor.

Tchaikovsky hardly remembered this late trip. The carriage was thrown over potholes and roots. The horses were snoring, frightened. Stars were falling from the sky. Cold hit me in the face from the swampy thickets.

From time to time the road broke through such a thick hazel-tree that it was necessary to sit bent over so that the branches would not whip up the face. Then the forest ended, the road went downhill, into spacious meadows. The coachman shouted, and the horses galloped off.

"Will I be in time?" Thought Tchaikovsky.

He met the governor once at a charity concert in the provincial town. I vaguely remembered an obese man in a tight frock coat, with swollen, sick eyelids. It was rumored that the governor was a liberal.

Here is the city. The wheels rattled across the bridge, counted all the logs, then rolled over the soft dust. Icon cases glittered in the windows of the church. Stone storage sheds stretched out. We drove past a dark watchtower, past a garden behind a high fence. The carriage stopped at a white house with peeling pillars.

Tchaikovsky rang the bell at the gate.

Voices, laughter, hammer blows came from the garden. They must have played croquet with lanterns. So there were young people in the house. This calmed Tchaikovsky. He believed that he would be able to convince the governor. No matter how dry and bureaucratic the governor may be, he will be ashamed in front of his youth to deny Tchaikovsky such a right thing.

A maid in a gingham dress, starched to a creak, led Tchaikovsky to the veranda, where the governor was drinking tea. He was a widower, and an old housekeeper with an offended face poured tea.

The governor got up heavily and took a step forward. He was wearing a white silk blouse with an open collar. He apologized, looking at Tchaikovsky with swollen eyes.

The clatter of croquet balls in the garden stopped. The youth must have recognized Tchaikovsky and stopped playing. And it was hard not to recognize him - graceful, graying, with gray, attentive eyes familiar from portraits. And when he, bowing slightly, accepted a glass of tea from the housekeeper, the young people saw his hand - the thin but strong hand of the musician. In portraits, he was often depicted leaning on this hand.

The existing legal provisions, - said the governor slowly, squeezing a slice of lemon in a glass of tea with a spoon, - unfortunately, do not give me the opportunity, Pyotr Ilyich, to undertake anything. Deforestation is permitted for Troshchanka on the basis of the existing instructions. Mr. Troshchenko is free to act to his advantage. There is nothing you can do about it!

The governor squeezed out a lemon and spooned it out of a glass with a spoon.

And what, in fact, do you find criminal in Troshchenko's actions? he asked politely.

Tchaikovsky was silent. What could he say to this man? That the destruction of the forests brings ruin to his country? The governor, perhaps, will understand, but, guided by the laws and explanations to them, he will immediately gently deflect this objection. What else can I say? About the desecrated beauty of the earth? About your murdered inspiration? About the mighty influence of forests on the human soul? What to say? "We are so remarkable that we have given drink and nurtured our national strength in harmony with this amazing nature"? Or simply admit that it is a pity to the pain of these forests, their freshness, noise, radiance of air in the glades?

Tchaikovsky was silent.

Of course, - said the governor and raised his eyebrows, as if pondering something, - forest predation is an ugly thing. But I am powerless to help you in this difficulty. I would be glad with my soul, but I can't, Pyotr Ilyich. I share your indignation. But the aspirations of the artistic nature do not always coincide with the commercial interest.

Tchaikovsky got up, took his leave and silently walked towards the exit. The governor hurriedly walked behind.

Lanterns hung from branches over the croquet area. The two girls and the cadet stood in the garden with croquet hammers in their hands and silently looked after Tchaikovsky.

We drove back slowly. From time to time the coachman fell asleep. His head shook like that of a drunken man until the wheelchair was shaken on a bump. Then the coachman woke up, shouted at the horses: "But, quitters!" - and fidgeted on the box. The horses quickened their pace for a minute, and then again they hardly trudged, snorted, and reached for the dark grass along the sides of the road.

Tchaikovsky smoked, leaning back in the leather seat, his coat collar turned up. What to do? One way out: to outbid the forest from Troshchenko at an exorbitant price. But where to get the money? Should I send a telegram to my publisher Jurgenson tomorrow? Let him get the money wherever he wants. Under the pledge of his writings ... This decision somewhat calmed Tchaikovsky.

Don't drive me, Ivan, for God's sake! he said, although the coachman never whipped up the horses.

Tchaikovsky wanted to go for a long time, all night, in a light, vague doze, to imagine himself traveling among this dark plain to his friends, where recognition and happiness await him ...

When Tchaikovsky woke up, the carriage was on the river bank. The thickets grew dark. The coachman dismounted from the box and, adjusting the harness on the horses with his whip, said:

Ferry on the other side. The carriers must be sleeping. Shout, or what? - He went to the water itself, hesitated, shouted softly: - Perevo-oz!

Nobody answered. The coachman waited, shouted again. On the other side a light was flickering. Someone was walking with a cigarette. The ferry creaked off.

When the ferry arrived, Tchaikovsky got out of the carriage. The coachman carefully led the horses onto the boardwalk. Then the rope rustled for a long time, the coachman quietly conversed with the carrier. Warmth came from the nearby forest.

What a relief! He will save this corner of the earth. He became attached to him with his soul. These forests were inseparable from his thoughts, from the music that was born in the recesses of his consciousness, from the best moments of his life. And there were not so many of them, these minutes.

If the composer were asked how he wrote his famous works, he could only answer one thing: "In all honesty, I don’t know." He sometimes deliberately referred to his music as a day job, but he knew that this was far from the case. And he spoke of her as something commonplace only because he himself could not understand how it happened.

Recently in St. Petersburg, an enthusiastic student asked him what was the secret of his musical genius. The student said so: "genius". Tchaikovsky flushed, blushed - he could not at all accept this lofty word in relation to himself - and sharply answered: "What is the secret? In work. And there is no secret at all. I sit down at the piano, like a shoemaker sits down to make boots."

The student left distressed. Then it seemed to Tchaikovsky in the heat that he was right. And now, in the face of this night, listening to the water gurgling on the logs of the ferry, he thought that creating is not so easy. It comes suddenly, as in forgotten verses: "One wave rise into another life, smell the wind from the flowering shores ..." Wind from the flowering shores! His heart sank. What surprises life conceals in itself! And how good it is that we do not know when she will open them - whether here, on the ferry, in the splendor of the theater hall, under a young pine tree, where a lily of the valley sways from the imperceptible wind, or in the glow of female eyes, affectionate and inquisitive.

How good it is to know that in collaboration with these forests, in complete serenity, he will finish the work he started yesterday and devote it to ... to whom? To that young, shy fellow, a former zemstvo doctor, whose stories he reads and rereads in the evenings: Anton Chekhov. Let the musicians be angry. He was tired of their arrogance, solidity and insincere praise.

After the crossing, getting into the carriage, Tchaikovsky said to the coachman:

To the Lipetsk estate. There this merchant stopped ... how was he ... Troshchenko?

It should be there. Yes, we'll arrive a little early, Pyotr Ilyich. He's just starting to see it.

Nothing. I need to intercept him early.

Troshchenko did not find Tchaikovsky at the estate.

It was already dawn. The entire estate was overgrown with thistles. Among the burdock, a hoarse dog ran along the rusty wire. His muzzle was buried, and the dog, slightly barking, began to rub his muzzle with his paw, tear off the thorns.

A bow-legged man in red curls came out onto the porch. From a distance the smell of onions smelled from him. The redhead looked indifferently at the carriage, at Tchaikovsky and said that Troshchenko had just left for the felling.

And what did you need it for? the redhead asked discontentedly. - I am their steward.

Tchaikovsky did not answer, he touched the coachman's back. The horses took off at a trot. The redhead looked after the carriage and spat long:

Nobles! They disdain to talk. We let a lot of these around the world, with an empty pocket!

On the way, they overtook the lumberjacks. They walked with axes, with bluish saws bent on their shoulders. The lumberjacks asked for a smoke and said that Troshchenko was not far away, on the fifth block.

About the fifth block, Tchaikovsky stopped the carriage, got out and headed in the direction where the voices were heard.

Troshchenko, in boots and a hat called "hello and goodbye" —a helmet made of loofah with two visors, front and back — walked through the woods and himself whipped pine trees with an ax.

Tchaikovsky came up and identified himself. Troshchenko asked:

How can I serve?

Tchaikovsky briefly outlined his proposal - to resell this entire forest to him on the vine.

Do you want to round off your holdings? Troshchenko asked affectionately. - There is no price for this forest. Do you hear? - Troshchenko hit a pine tree with the butt of an ax. - The wood sings! And we need to think about your words. A kind of surprise. The whole point, as you can imagine, is in the price. I can't give you back for my price. There is no sense. Plus the costs. Some lumberjacks are worth bringing and feeding! Well, the bosses are not cheap for us, timber merchants. Bosses are like a magnet - gold is very attractive.

Name your price. I'm not going to bargain. If the price is similar ...

Where do you bargain! You are a person of the lofty spheres of life. I'll tell you the right price ... - Troshchenko paused. - Ten thousand will probably be the very price.

How much did you buy this forest for?

This is the tenth case. My product is my price.

OK! - said Tchaikovsky and felt a chill in his heart, as if he had put his whole life at stake. - I agree.

Something painfully easy to agree, - said Troshchenko and handed Tchaikovsky a wooden cigarette case. - I beg!

Thanks. Just smoked.

Do you have any money? Troshchenko suddenly asked roughly.

There will be.

The kingdom of God will also be. When we die. I'm asking about cash.

I will give you a promissory note.

Under what? Under this mansion? Yes, she's two thousand - a red price!

This estate is not mine. I will issue the promissory note for my compositions.

So, sir! .. - stretched Troshchenko and lit a cigarette. - To the music! .. Of course, it's nice to listen to it. I listened and left, but there is no trace! - He stretched out his palm to Tchaikovsky and scratched it with gnarled fingers. - Airy thing. Today it may be in value, but tomorrow - smoke! Sorry, I don’t take the promissory notes. Cash only.

I have no cash right now.

No, and no trial! And again, we had a very exemplary conversation about the price.

That is, as? You set the price!

It still needs to be examined. Examine the forest. Really appreciate it. Yes, perhaps, this is not a serious matter. Who agrees so - on the go! .. No! he said sharply. - Useless conversation! If you had paid me fifteen thousand tomorrow, then I would have given up.

What are you, - said Tchaikovsky, and his face again turned red spots, - in your mind?

My mind is always with me. I do not live in the empyrean.

You are just a bastard!

Then there is no need for you to talk to the mackerel! - snapped Troshchenko. - We lived as shakers and we will die as shakers, but in honor and prosperity. Our fur coats are not lined with nobility. I have the honor to bow!

He lifted his hat and walked into the depths of the forest.

"I am always like this!" Thought Tchaikovsky.

He drove home, trying not to listen attentively to the sound of axes that echoed through the forest.

The horses carried the carriage into the clearing. Someone ahead screamed a warning. The coachman reined in the horses on the move.

Tchaikovsky got up and grabbed the coachman's shoulder. From the foot of the pine tree, bent over like thieves, lumberjacks scattered.

Suddenly, the entire pine tree, from roots to top, shuddered and groaned. Tchaikovsky clearly heard this groan. The top of the pine swayed, the tree began to slowly slope towards the road and suddenly collapsed, crushing neighboring pines, breaking birches. With a heavy rumble, the pine hit the ground, trembled with all its needles and froze. The horses backed away and snored.

It was a moment, only one terrible moment of death of a mighty tree that had lived here for two hundred years. Tchaikovsky gritted his teeth.

The top of the pine tree blocked the road. It was impossible to get through.

We'll have to toss and turn onto the highway, Pyotr Ilyich, ”said the coachman.

Go! I'll go on foot.

Eh, thugs! sighed the coachman, picking up the reins. “They don’t know how to hack even in a human way. What's the point - to cut down large trees first, and break small ones into chips? You first fell down small, then a large one will lie down in the open, will not give a loss ...

Tchaikovsky approached the top of a felled pine tree. She lay like a mountain of luscious and dark needles. The needles still retain the shine characteristic of those airy spaces where these needles just trembled in the breeze. The thick, broken branches, covered with a transparent yellowish film, were full of resin. Her scent made my throat tickle.

Branches of birches, broken off by a pine tree, lay there and then. Tchaikovsky recalled how the birches tried to hold the falling pine tree, to take it onto their flexible trunks in order to soften the fatal fall - the earth trembled far away from him.

He quickly went home. Now to the right, now to the left, then behind the rumble of falling trunks was heard. And still the earth hooted dully. Birds darted over the felling. Even the clouds seemed to have quickened their pace in the blue of heaven, indifferent to everything.

Tchaikovsky quickened his steps. He almost ran.

Meanness! he muttered. - Monstrous abomination! Who gave the right to a person to mutilate and disgrace the earth in order for some Troshchenko to slobber banknotes at night? There are things that cannot be valued either in rubles or in billions of rubles. Is it really so difficult for these wise statesmen to understand there, in St. Petersburg, that the country's power lies not in material wealth alone, but also in the soul of the people! The wider and freer this soul is, the greater greatness and strength the state achieves. And what brings up the breadth of the spirit, if not this amazing nature! It must be protected, as we protect the very life of a person. Descendants will never forgive us for the devastation of the earth, for desecration of what rightfully belongs not only to us, but also to them. Here they are, "squandered fathers"! ..

Tchaikovsky was gasping for breath. He could no longer walk fast. Fainting emptiness appeared in the chest. After her, the heart began to pound so hard that his blows were painfully echoed in the temples. He thought that both the death of the forest and the sleepless night - all this had aged him for several years at once.

This means that now he will never finish the work he started yesterday. We'll have to leave immediately so as not to see this barbarism.

There was a separation from favorite places. A familiar state! Why are favorite places, when you have to part with them, are especially good? Why do they shine with such parting beauty? And now everything was extraordinary. And the sky, and the air, and the grass wet with dew, and a lonely web in the blue.

Yesterday he could stop, calmly follow the flight of the web and wonder whether it would catch on to a birch branch or not. And today it is no longer possible. There is no rest, which means there is no joy. There is nothing.

At home, he ordered the servant to pack his bags.

The servant immediately came to life:

To Moscow, Pyotr Ilyich?

While in Moscow. And there it will be seen.

Glancing at the servant's face spreading with happiness, he frowned, went into the small hall, sat down at the piano. So, so! This means that a Kharkov merchant in squeaky boots, an impudent, unbelted maklak, fouls the land with impunity. And the symphony that was begun died before it could bloom. He chuckled. "It did not bloom and bloomed in the morning of cloudy days ..." And there, in the mind, where there were so many sounds yesterday, there was only emptiness. Some dealer kicked him out of these amazing places, raised his hand to his work. Ahead again wandering, loneliness. Again life is like a continuous hotel, where for everything - indifferent care, relative peace, the ability to create your own things - you have to pay on time and at expensive bills.

He threw back the lid of the piano, took a chord and winced: one key did not sound. Obviously, a string snapped at night.

He sharply - sharper than he should have - slammed the lid, got up and left.

And in the evening Vasily came again. The house was locked, empty. Vasily walked around, looked through the window into the small hall - no one! And the watchman must have been overjoyed that the master had gone away and went to the village to her son.

Ta-a-ak! - said Vasily, sat down on the steps of the porch, lit a cigarette.

The earth escaped and shook: Troshchenko felled the forest tirelessly, without time.

"Here the good gentleman wanted to achieve the truth, but the hand, it seems, is not strong," thought Vasily.

Vasily raised his head. Someone was walking towards the house along the road. It was already getting dark, and at first Vasily could not make out who was coming. And when he saw, he got up, pulled up his shirt and stepped towards Troshchenko.

Is the owner here?

What do you want? - Vasily asked dully. - What do you want? Do you want to buy up the rest of the forest? Root?

Call the owner. I have a conversation with him, not with you.

I am the owner of these places! I AM! Don't you understand, anathema? So I can explain it to you!

Are you crazy?

Get away from sin! - Vasily said quietly and swung at Troshchenko. - Found the manager! Wolf feed! Bloodsucker!

You're not that ... - muttered Troshchenko. - Not really ... Blockhead!

Troshchenko turned and hurried away. Vasily looked after him heavily, swore, spat.

Behind a fresh cut, behind a heap of pines, a dim late afternoon distance opened up. The crimson sun hung low above her.

Or maybe it was from the fact that he was standing in a clearing in a pine forest and from the pines that the whole summer was drawn by heat. Sometimes the wind blew, but it did not even penetrate the open mezzanine windows. He only rustled in the tops of the pines and carried over them lines of cumulus clouds.

If it was possible to pass in such a way that none of them creaked, Tchaikovsky sat down at the piano and grinned. The unpleasant is left behind, and now the amazing and cheerful will begin: the crumbling house will sing from the very first sounds of the piano. Dry rafters, doors and an old chandelier, who has lost half of its crystal-lei, similar to oak leaves, will respond to any key with the finest resonance.

The simplest musical theme was played by this house like a symphony.

* Wonderful orchestration! "Thought Tchaikovsky, admiring the melodiousness of the tree.

For some time now, Tchaikovsky began to think that the house was already waiting in the morning for the composer to sit down at the piano. The house was bored without sounds.

Sometimes, waking up at night, Tchaikovsky heard "how, crackling, one or the other floorboard would sing, as if remembering his daytime music and snatching a favorite note from it. It also reminded an orchestra before an overture, when orchestra members tune their instruments. - now in the attic, now in a small hall, now in the glassed-in hallway - someone was touching the string. Tchaikovsky caught the melody through his sleep, but when he woke up in the morning, he forgot it. lose!

Listening to the sounds of the night, he often thought that life was passing by, and everything that was written was just a poor tribute to his people, friends, beloved poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. But he has never yet managed to convey that slight delight that arises from the spectacle of the rainbow, from the haunches of peasant girls in the thicket, from the simplest phenomena of the surrounding life.

No, obviously, this is not given to him. He never expected inspiration. He worked, worked like a day laborer, like an ox, and inspiration came from work.

SQUIRTING FLOORS

The beauty of the midnight nature
Love of the eyes, my country!
Languages

The simplest musical theme was played by this house like a symphony.

"Wonderful orchestration!" thought Tchaikovsky, admiring the melodiousness of the tree.

For some time now, Tchaikovsky began to think that the house was already waiting in the morning for the composer, having drunk coffee, to sit at the piano. The house was bored without sounds.

The simpler what he saw, the more difficult it was to fit into the music. How to convey at least yesterday's case, when he took refuge from the pouring rain in the hut of the patrolman Tikhon!

Tchaikovsky admired the girl. But Fenya shook off the drops, everything was over, and he realized that no music could convey the charm of these fleeting drops.

And Fet sang in his poems: "Only you, poet, have a winged word sound enough on the fly and suddenly fixes the dark delirium of the soul and the vague smell of herbs ..."