The great writer Ivan Alekseevich Bunin wrote his work “Antonov Apples” quickly, in just a few months. But he did not complete the work on the story, because he turned to his story again and again, changing the text. Each edition of this story had already changed and edited text. And this could easily be explained by the fact that the writer’s impressions were so vivid and deep that he wanted to show all this to his reader.
But a story like “Antonov Apples,” where there is no plot development, and the basis of the content is Bunin’s impressions and memories, is difficult to analyze. It is difficult to capture the emotions of a person who lives in the past. But Ivan Alekseevich manages to accurately convey sounds and colors, showing his unusual literary skill. Reading the story “Antonov Apples” you can understand what feelings and emotions the writer experienced. This is both pain and sadness that all this is left behind, as well as joy and tenderness for the ways of deep antiquity.
Bunin uses bright colors to describe colors, for example, black-lilac, gray-iron. Bunin’s descriptions are so deep that he even notices how the shadow of many objects falls. For example, from the flames in the garden in the evening he sees black silhouettes, which he compares with giants. By the way, metaphors in the text great amount. It is worth paying attention to the sundresses that girls wear at fairs: “sundresses that smell like paint.” Even the smell of Bunin's paint does not cause irritation, and this is another memory. And what words does he choose when he conveys his feelings from water! The writer’s character is not simply cold or transparent, but Ivan Alekseevich uses the following description of it: icy, heavy.
What is happening in the narrator’s soul, how strong and deep his experiences are, can be understood if we analyze those details in the work “Antonov Apples”, where he gives a detailed description of them. There is also in the story main character- barchuk, but his story is never revealed to the reader.
At the very beginning of his work, the writer uses one of the means artistic expression speech. The gradation lies in the fact that the author very often repeats the word “remember,” which allows you to create a feeling of how carefully the writer treats his memories and is afraid of forgetting something.
The second chapter contains not only a description of a wonderful autumn, which is usually mysterious and even fabulous in villages. But the work tells about old women who were living out their lives and preparing to accept death. To do this, they put on a shroud, which was wonderfully painted and starched so that it stood like a stone on the body of the old women. The writer also recalled that, having prepared for death, such old women dragged gravestones into the yard, which now stood awaiting the death of their mistress.
The writer’s memories take the reader in the second part to another estate, which belonged to Ivan Alekseevich’s cousin. Anna Gerasimovna lived on her own, so she was always happy to visit her old estate. The road to this estate still appears before the narrator’s eyes: a lush and spacious sky blue color, the well-trodden and well-trodden road seems to the writer the most dear and so dear. Bunin’s description of both the road and the estate itself evokes a great feeling of regret that all this is a thing of the distant past.
The description of the telegraph poles that the narrator encountered on the way to his aunt is sad and sad to read. They were like silver strings, and the birds sitting on them seemed to the writer like musical notes. But even here, on the aunt’s estate, the narrator again remembers the smell of Antonov apples.
The third part takes the reader into deep autumn, when after cold and prolonged rains, the sun finally begins to appear. And again the estate of another landowner - Arseny Semenovich, who was a great lover of hunting. And again one can see the author’s sadness and regret that the spirit of the landowner, who honored both his roots and the entire Russian culture, has now faded away. But now that former way of life has been lost, and it is now impossible to return the former noble way of life in Rus'.
In the fourth chapter of the story “Antonov Apples,” Bunin sums it up by saying that the smell of Antonov apples has disappeared no more than the smell of childhood, which was associated with the life and everyday life of the local nobility. And it is impossible to see either those old people, or the glorious landowners, or those glorious times. And the last lines of the story “I covered the road with white snow” lead the reader to the fact that it is no longer impossible to return the old Russia, its former life.
The story “Antonov Apples” is a kind of ode, enthusiastic, but sad and sad, imbued with love, which is dedicated to Russian nature, life in the villages and the patriarchal way of life that existed in Rus'. The story is small in volume, but quite a lot is conveyed in it. Bunin has pleasant memories of that time; they are filled with spirituality and poetry.
“Antonov Apples” is Bunin’s hymn to his homeland, which, although it remained in the past, far from him, still remained forever in the memory of Ivan Alekseevich, and was for him like the best and purest time, the time of his spiritual development.
Bunin Ivan Alekseevich
Antonov apples
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Antonov apples
I remember an early fine autumn. August was full of warm rains, as if falling on purpose for sowing, with rains right at the right time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And “autumn and winter live well if the water is calm and there is rain on Laurentia.” Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled in the fields. This is also a good sign: “There is a lot of shade in the Indian summer - vigorous autumn”... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and - - the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so clean, it’s as if there is no air at all; voices and the creaking of carts can be heard throughout the garden. These Tarkhans, bourgeois gardeners, hired men and poured apples in order to send them to the city at night - certainly on the night when it is so nice to lie on a cart, look at the starry sky, smell the tar in fresh air and listen to how the long convoy carefully creaks in the dark high road. The man pouring the apples eats them with a juicy crackle one after another, but such is the establishment - the tradesman will never cut it off, but will also say:
Come on, eat your fill - there’s nothing to do! When pouring, everyone drinks honey.
And the cool silence of the morning is disturbed only by the well-fed cackling of blackbirds on the coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming sound of apples being poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden one can see far away the road to the large hut, strewn with straw, and the hut itself, near which the townspeople acquired an entire household over the summer. Everywhere there is a strong smell of apples, especially here. There are beds in the hut, there is a single-barreled gun, a green samovar, and dishes in the corner. Near the hut there are mats, boxes, all sorts of tattered belongings, and an earthen stove has been dug. At noon, a magnificent kulesh with lard is cooked on it, in the evening the samovar is heated, and a long strip of bluish smoke spreads across the garden, between the trees. On holidays, there is a whole fair around the hut, and red headdresses are constantly flashing behind the trees. There is a crowd of lively single-yard girls in sundresses that smell strongly of paint, the “lords” come in their beautiful and rough, savage costumes, a young elder woman, pregnant, with a wide, sleepy face and as important as a Kholmogory cow. She has “horns” on her head - braids are placed on the sides of the crown and covered with several scarves, so that the head seems huge; the legs, in ankle boots with horseshoes, stand stupidly and firmly; the sleeveless vest is velvet, the curtain is long, and the poneva is black and purple with brick-colored stripes and lined at the hem with a wide gold “prose”...
Economic butterfly! - the tradesman says about her, shaking his head. - These are also being translated now...
And the boys in fancy white shirts and short porticoes, with white open heads, all come up. They walk in twos and threes, shuffling their bare feet, and glance sideways at the shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. Of course, only one buys, because the purchases are only for a penny or an egg, but there are many buyers, trade is brisk, and the consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful. Together with his brother, a burry, nimble half-idiot who lives with him “out of mercy,” he trades in jokes, jokes and even sometimes “touches” the Tula harmonica. And until the evening there is a crowd of people in the garden, you can hear laughter and talking around the hut, and sometimes the clatter of dancing...
By nightfall the weather becomes very cold and dewy. Having inhaled the rye aroma of new straw and chaff on the threshing floor, you cheerfully walk home for dinner past the garden rampart. Voices in the village or the creaking of gates can be heard unusually clearly in the chilly dawn. It's getting dark. And here’s another smell: there’s a fire in the garden, and there’s a strong wafting of fragrant smoke from cherry branches. In the darkness, in the depths of the garden, there is a fabulous picture: as if in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, are moving around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk across the apple trees . Either a black hand several arshins in size will fall across the entire tree, then two legs will clearly appear - two black pillars. And suddenly all this will slide from the apple tree - and the shadow will fall along the entire alley, from the hut to the gate itself...
Late at night, when the lights in the village go out, when the diamond constellation Stozhar is already shining high in the sky, you will run into the garden again.
Rustle through the dry leaves, like a blind man, you will reach the hut. There in the clearing it is a little lighter, and the Milky Way is white above your head.
Is that you, barchuk? - someone quietly calls out from the darkness.
Me: Are you still awake, Nikolai?
We can't sleep. And it must be too late? Look, there seems to be a passenger train coming...
We listen for a long time and discern trembling in the ground, the trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if already just outside the garden, the noisy beat of the wheels is rapidly beating out: rumbling and knocking, the train rushes by... closer, closer, louder and angrier... And suddenly it begins to subside, die out, as if going into the ground...
Where is your gun, Nikolai?
But next to the box, sir.
You throw up a single-barreled shotgun, heavy as a crowbar, and shoot straight away. The crimson flame will flash towards the sky with a deafening crack, blind for a moment and extinguish the stars, and a cheerful echo will ring out like a ring and roll across the horizon, fading far, far away in the clean and sensitive air.
Wow, great! - the tradesman will say. - Spend it, spend it, little gentleman, otherwise it’s just a disaster! Again they shook off all the gunk on the shaft...
And the black sky is lined with fiery stripes of falling stars. You look for a long time into its dark blue depths, overflowing with constellations, until the earth begins to float under your feet. Then you will wake up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, quickly run along the alley to the house... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!
"Vigorous Antonovka - for a fun year." Village affairs are good if the Antonovka crop is cropped: that means the grain is cropped... I remember a fruitful year.
I
...I remember an early fine autumn. August was full of warm rains, as if falling on purpose for sowing - with rains at the very time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And “autumn and winter live well if the water is calm and there is rain on Laurentia.” Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled in the fields. This is also a good sign: “There is a lot of shade in the Indian summer - autumn is vigorous”... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and - the smell of Antonov apples, the smell honey and autumn freshness. The air is so clean, it’s as if there is no air at all; voices and the creaking of carts can be heard throughout the garden. These Tarkhans, bourgeois gardeners, hired men and poured apples in order to send them to the city at night - certainly on a night when it is so nice to lie on a cart, look into the starry sky, smell tar in the fresh air and listen to how carefully it creaks in the dark a long convoy along the high road. The man pouring out the apples eats them with a juicy crackle one after another, but that’s the way the establishment is - the tradesman will never cut it off, but will also say:
- Get out, eat your fill - there’s nothing to do! When pouring, everyone drinks honey.
And the cool silence of the morning is disturbed only by the well-fed cackling of blackbirds on the coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming sound of apples being poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden one can see far away the road to the large hut, strewn with straw, and the hut itself, near which the townspeople acquired an entire household over the summer. Everywhere there is a strong smell of apples, especially here. There are beds in the hut, there is a single-barreled gun, a green samovar, and dishes in the corner. Near the hut there are mats, boxes, all sorts of tattered belongings, and an earthen stove has been dug. At noon, a magnificent kulesh with lard is cooked on it, in the evening the samovar is heated, and a long strip of bluish smoke spreads across the garden, between the trees. On holidays, there is a whole fair near the hut, and red headdresses constantly flash behind the trees. There is a crowd of lively single-yard girls in sundresses that smell strongly of paint, the “lords” come in their beautiful and rough, savage costumes, a young elder woman, pregnant, with a wide, sleepy face and as important as a Kholmogory cow. She has “horns” on her head - the braids are placed on the sides of the crown and covered with several scarves, so that the head seems huge; the legs, in ankle boots with horseshoes, stand stupidly and firmly; the sleeveless vest is corduroy, the curtain is long, and the paneva is black and purple with brick-colored stripes and lined at the hem with a wide gold “prose”...
- Economic butterfly! - the tradesman says about her, shaking his head. – These are now being translated...
And the boys in fancy white shirts and short porticoes, with white open heads, all come up. They walk in twos and threes, shuffling their bare feet, and glance sideways at the shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. Of course, only one buys, because the purchases are only for a penny or an egg, but there are many buyers, trade is brisk, and the consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful. Together with his brother, a burry, nimble half-idiot who lives with him “out of mercy,” he trades in jokes, jokes and even sometimes “touches” the Tula harmonica. And until the evening there is a crowd of people in the garden, you can hear laughter and talking around the hut, and sometimes the clatter of dancing...
By nightfall the weather becomes very cold and dewy. Having inhaled the rye aroma of new straw and chaff on the threshing floor, you cheerfully walk home for dinner past the garden rampart. Voices in the village or the creaking of gates can be heard unusually clearly in the chilly dawn. It's getting dark. And here’s another smell: there’s a fire in the garden, and there’s a strong wafting of fragrant smoke from cherry branches. In the darkness, in the depths of the garden, there is a fabulous picture: as if in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near a hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, are moving around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk across apple trees Either a black hand several arshins in size will fall across the entire tree, then two legs will clearly appear - two black pillars. And suddenly all this will slide from the apple tree - and the shadow will fall along the entire alley, from the hut to the gate itself...
Late at night, when the lights in the village go out, when the diamond seven-star Stozhar is already shining high in the sky, you will run into the garden again. Rustle through the dry leaves, like a blind man, you will reach the hut. There in the clearing it is a little lighter, and the Milky Way is white above your head.
- Is it you, barchuk? – someone quietly calls out from the darkness.
- I am. Are you still awake, Nikolai?
- We can’t sleep. And it must be too late? Look, there seems to be a passenger train coming...
We listen for a long time and notice trembling in the ground. The trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if just outside the garden, the noisy beat of the wheels is rapidly beating out: thundering and knocking, the train rushes... closer, closer, louder and angrier... And suddenly it begins to subside, stall, as if going into the ground ...
– Where is your gun, Nikolai?
- But next to the box, sir.
You throw up a single-barreled shotgun, heavy as a crowbar, and shoot straight away. The crimson flame will flash towards the sky with a deafening crack, blind for a moment and extinguish the stars, and a cheerful echo will ring out like a ring and roll across the horizon, fading far, far away in the clean and sensitive air.
- Wow, great! - the tradesman will say. - Spend it, spend it, little gentleman, otherwise it’s just a disaster! Again they shook off all the gunk on the shaft...
And the black sky is lined with fiery stripes of falling stars. You look for a long time into its dark blue depths, overflowing with constellations, until the earth begins to float under your feet. Then you will wake up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, quickly run along the alley to the house... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!
II
“Vigorous Antonovka - for a fun year.” Village affairs are good if the Antonovka crop is bad: that means the grain is bad too... I remember a fruitful year.
At early dawn, when the roosters were still crowing and the huts were smoking black, you would open the window into a cool garden filled with a lilac fog, through which the morning sun shines brightly here and there, and you couldn’t resist - you ordered to saddle up the horse as quickly as possible, and you yourself ran wash at the pond. Almost all of the small foliage has flown off the coastal vines, and the branches are visible in the turquoise sky. The water under the vines became clear, icy, and seemingly heavy. It instantly drives away the laziness of the night, and, having washed and had breakfast in the common room with the workers, hot potatoes and black bread with coarse raw salt, you enjoy feeling the slippery leather of the saddle under you as you ride through Vyselki to hunt. Autumn is the time for patronal feasts, and at this time the people are tidy and happy, the appearance of the village is not at all the same as at other times. If the year is fruitful and a whole golden city rises on the threshing floors, and geese cackle loudly and sharply on the river in the morning, then it’s not bad at all in the village. In addition, our Vyselki have been famous for their “wealth” since time immemorial, since the time of our grandfather. The old men and women lived in Vyselki for a very long time - the first sign of a rich village - and they were all tall, big and white, like a harrier. All you ever heard was: “Yes,” Agafya waved off her eighty-three year old!” - or conversations like this:
- And when will you die, Pankrat? I suppose you will be a hundred years old?
- How would you like to speak, father?
- How old are you, I ask!
- I don’t know, sir, father.
- Do you remember Platon Apollonich?
“Why, sir, father,” I clearly remember.
- You see now. That means you are no less than a hundred.
The old man, who stands stretched out in front of the master, smiles meekly and guiltily. Well, they say, what to do - it’s my fault, it’s healed. And he probably would have prospered even more if he had not eaten too much onions in Petrovka.
I remember his old woman too. Everyone used to sit on a bench, on the porch, bent over, shaking his head, gasping for breath and holding onto the bench with his hands, all thinking about something. “About her goods,” the women said, because, indeed, she had a lot of “goods” in her chests. But she doesn’t seem to hear; he looks half-blindly into the distance from under sadly raised eyebrows, shakes his head and seems to be trying to remember something. She was a big old woman, kind of dark all over. Paneva is almost from the last century, the chestnuts are like those of a deceased person, the neck is yellow and withered, the shirt with rosin joints is always white-white, “you could even put it in a coffin.” And near the porch lay a large stone: I bought it for my grave, as well as a shroud, an excellent shroud, with angels, with crosses and with a prayer printed on the edges.
The courtyards in Vyselki also matched the old people: brick, built by their grandfathers. And the rich men - Savely, Ignat, Dron - had huts in two or three connections, because sharing in Vyselki was not yet fashionable. In such families they kept bees, were proud of their gray-iron-colored bull stallion, and kept their estates in order. On the threshing floors there were dark and thick hemp trees, there were barns and barns covered with hair; in the bunks and barns there were iron doors, behind which canvases, spinning wheels, new sheepskin coats, type-setting harnesses, and measures bound with copper hoops were stored. Crosses were burned on the gates and on the sleds. And I remember that sometimes it seemed extremely tempting to me to be a man. When you used to drive through the village on a sunny morning, you kept thinking about how good it would be to mow, thresh, sleep on the threshing floor in brooms, and on a holiday to rise with the sun, under the thick and musical blast from the village, wash yourself near the barrel and put on a clean pair of clothes. a shirt, the same trousers and indestructible boots with horseshoes. If, I thought, we add to this a healthy and beautiful wife in festive attire and a trip to mass, and then dinner with a bearded father-in-law, a dinner with hot lamb on wooden plates and with rushes, with honeycomb honey and mash - it’s impossible to wish for more. !
Even in my memory, very recently, the lifestyle of the average nobleman had much in common with the lifestyle of a wealthy peasant in its homeliness and rural, old-world prosperity. Such, for example, was the estate of Aunt Anna Gerasimovna, who lived about twelve versts from Vyselki. By the time you get to this estate, you are already completely dry. With dogs and packs you have to walk at a pace, and you don’t want to rush - it’s so fun in an open field on a sunny and cool day! The terrain is flat, you can see far away. The sky is light and so spacious and deep. The sun sparkles from the side, and the road, rolled by carts after the rains, is oily and shines like rails. Fresh, lush green winter crops are scattered around in wide schools. A hawk will fly up from somewhere in the transparent air and freeze in one place, fluttering its sharp wings. And clearly visible ones run away into the clear distance telegraph poles, and their wires, like silver strings, slide along the slope of the clear sky. Falcons sit on them - completely black icons on music paper.
I didn’t know or see serfdom, but I remember feeling it at my aunt Anna Gerasimovna’s. You drive into the yard and immediately feel that it is still quite alive here. The estate is small, but all old, solid, surrounded by hundred-year-old birch and willow trees. There are a lot of outbuildings - low, but homely - and all of them seem to be made of dark, oak logs under thatched roofs. The only thing that stands out in size, or better yet, in length, is the blackened human one, from which the last Mohicans of the courtyard class peep out - some decrepit old men and women, a decrepit retired cook, looking like Don Quixote. When you drive into the yard, they all pull themselves up and bow low and low. A gray-haired coachman, heading from the carriage barn to pick up a horse, takes off his hat while still at the barn and walks around the yard with his head bare. He worked as a postilion for his aunt, and now he takes her to mass - in the winter in a cart, and in the summer in a strong, iron-bound cart, like those that priests ride on. My aunt’s garden was famous for its neglect, nightingales, turtle doves and apples, and the house for its roof. He stood at the head of the courtyard, right next to the garden - the branches of the linden trees hugged him - he was small and squat, but it seemed that he would not last a century - so thoroughly did he look from under his unusually high and thick thatched roof, blackened and hardened by time. Its front facade always seemed to me to be alive: as if an old face was looking out from under a huge hat with sockets of eyes - windows with mother-of-pearl glass from the rain and sun. And on the sides of these eyes there were porches - two old large porches with columns. Well-fed pigeons always sat on their pediment, while thousands of sparrows rained from roof to roof... And the guest felt comfortable in this nest under the turquoise autumn sky!
You will enter the house and first of all you will hear the smell of apples, and then others: old mahogany furniture, dried linden color, which has been lying on the windows since June... In all the rooms - in the servant's room, in the hall, in the living room - it is cool and gloomy: this is because the house is surrounded by a garden, and the upper glass of the windows is colored: blue and purple. Everywhere there is silence and cleanliness, although it seems that the chairs, tables with inlays and mirrors in narrow and twisted gold frames have never been moved. And then a cough is heard: the aunt comes out. It is small, but, like everything around, it is durable. She has a large Persian shawl draped over her shoulders. She will come out importantly, but affably, and now, amid endless conversations about antiquity, about inheritances, treats begin to appear: first, “duli”, apples, Antonovsky, “Bel-Barynya”, borovinka, “plodovitka” - and then an amazing lunch : all through and through pink boiled ham with peas, stuffed chicken, turkey, marinades and red kvass - strong and sweet-sweet... The windows to the garden are raised, and the cheerful autumn coolness blows from there...
III
Behind last years one thing supported the fading spirit of the landowners - hunting.
Previously, such estates as the estate of Anna Gerasimovna were not uncommon. There were also decaying, but still living in grand style, estates with a huge estate, with a garden of twenty dessiatines. True, some of these estates have survived to this day, but there is no longer life in them... There are no troikas, no riding “Kirghiz”, no hounds and greyhounds, no servants and no owner of all this - a landowner-hunter like mine late brother-in-law Arseny Semenych.
Since the end of September, our gardens and threshing floors have been empty, and the weather, as usual, has changed dramatically. The wind tore and tore the trees for days on end, and the rains watered them from morning to night. Sometimes in the evening, between the gloomy low clouds, the flickering golden light of the low sun made its way in the west; the air became clean and clear, and sunlight sparkled dazzlingly between the foliage, between the branches that moved like a living net and were agitated by the wind. The liquid blue sky shone coldly and brightly in the north above the heavy lead clouds, and from behind these clouds ridges of snowy mountain-clouds slowly floated out. You stand at the window and think: “Maybe, God willing, the weather will clear up.” But the wind did not subside. It disturbed the garden, tore up the continuously flowing stream of human smoke from the chimney, and again drove up the ominous strands of ash clouds. They ran low and fast - and soon, like smoke, they clouded the sun. Its shine faded, the window into the blue sky closed, and the garden became deserted and boring, and the rain began to fall again... at first quietly, carefully, then more and more thickly and, finally, it turned into a downpour with storm and darkness. A long, anxious night was coming...
After such a scolding, the garden emerged almost completely naked, covered with wet leaves and somehow quiet and resigned. But how beautiful it was when clear weather came again, clear and cold days of early October, the farewell holiday of autumn! The preserved foliage will now hang on the trees until the first winter. The black garden will shine through the cold turquoise sky and dutifully wait for winter, warming itself in the sunshine. And the fields are already turning sharply black with arable land and brightly green with overgrown winter crops... It's time to hunt!
And now I see myself in the estate of Arseny Semenych, in the big house, in the hall, full of sun and smoke from pipes and cigarettes. There are a lot of people - all the people are tanned, with weathered faces, wearing shorts and long boots. They have just had a very hearty lunch, are flushed and excited by noisy conversations about the upcoming hunt, but do not forget to finish the vodka after dinner. And in the yard a horn blows and dogs howl in different voices. The black greyhound, Arseny Semenych's favorite, climbs onto the table and begins to devour the remains of the hare with sauce from the dish. But suddenly he lets out a terrible squeal and, knocking over plates and glasses, rushes off the table: Arseny Semenych, who came out of the office with an arapnik and a revolver, suddenly deafens the room with a shot. The hall fills with smoke even more, and Arseny Semenych stands and laughs.
- It's a pity that I missed! - he says, playing with his eyes.
He is tall, thin, but broad-shouldered and slender, and has a handsome gypsy face. His eyes sparkle wildly, he is very dexterous, wearing a crimson silk shirt, velvet trousers and long boots. Having frightened both the dog and the guests with a shot, he jokingly and importantly recites in a baritone voice:
It's time, it's time to saddle the agile bottom
And throw the ringing horn over your shoulders! -
and says loudly:
- Well, however, there is no point in wasting golden time!
I can still feel how greedily and capaciously my young breast breathed in the cold of a clear and damp day in the evening, when you used to ride with Arseny Semenych’s noisy gang, excited by the musical din of dogs abandoned in the black forest, to some Krasny Bugor or Gremyachiy Island, Its name alone excites the hunter. You ride on an angry, strong and squat “Kyrgyz”, holding it tightly with the reins, and you feel almost fused with it. He snorts, asks to trot, rustles noisily with his hooves on the deep and light carpets of black crumbling leaves, and every sound resounds echoingly in the empty, damp and fresh forest. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, another, and a third answered it passionately and pitifully - and suddenly the whole forest thundered, as if it were all made of glass, from violent barking and screaming. A shot rang out loudly among this din - and everything “cooked up” and rolled off into the distance.
“Oh, take care!” – an intoxicating thought flashes through my head. You whoop at your horse and, like someone who has broken free from a chain, you rush through the forest, not understanding anything along the way. Only the trees flash before my eyes and the mud from under the horse’s hooves hits my face. You will jump out of the forest, you will see a motley pack of dogs on the greens, stretched out on the ground, and you will push the “Kirghiz” even more against the beast - through the greens, shoots and stubbles, until, finally, you roll over to another island and the pack disappears from sight along with its frantic barking and moaning. Then, all wet and trembling from exertion, you rein in the foaming, wheezing horse and greedily swallow the icy dampness of the forest valley. The cries of hunters and the barking of dogs fade away in the distance, and there is dead silence around you. The half-opened timber stands motionless, and it seems that you have found yourself in some kind of protected palace. The ravines smell strongly of mushroom dampness, rotten leaves and wet tree bark. And the dampness from the ravines is becoming more and more noticeable, the forest is getting colder and darker... It's time to spend the night. But collecting dogs after a hunt is difficult. For a long time and hopelessly sadly the horns ring in the forest, for a long time you can hear the screaming, swearing and squealing of dogs... Finally, already completely in the dark, a band of hunters bursts into the estate of some almost unknown bachelor landowner and fills the entire yard of the estate, which is illuminated by lanterns, with noise, candles and lamps brought out from the house to greet guests...
It happened that with such a hospitable neighbor the hunt lasted for several days. At early morning dawn, in the icy wind and the first wet winter, they went into the forests and fields, and by dusk they returned again, all covered in dirt, with flushed faces, smelling of horse sweat, the hair of a hunted animal - and the drinking began. The bright and crowded house is very warm after a whole day in the cold in the field. Everyone walks from room to room in unbuttoned undershirts, drink and eat randomly, noisily conveying to each other their impressions of the killed seasoned wolf, which, baring its teeth, rolling its eyes, lies with its fluffy tail thrown to the side in the middle of the hall and paints its pale and already cold blood on the floor After vodka and food you feel such sweet fatigue, such bliss young sleep It’s like you can hear people talking through water. Your weathered face is burning, and if you close your eyes, the whole earth will float under your feet. And when you lie down in bed, in a soft feather bed, somewhere in a corner old room with an icon and a lamp, ghosts of fiery-colored dogs flash before your eyes, a feeling of galloping ache in your whole body, and you won’t notice how you’ll drown along with all these images and sensations in a sweet and healthy sleep, even forgetting that this room was once the prayer room of an old man, whose name is surrounded by gloomy serf legends, and that he died in this prayer room, probably on the same bed.
When I happened to oversleep the hunt, the rest was especially pleasant. You wake up and lie in bed for a long time. There is silence throughout the whole house. You can hear the gardener carefully walking through the rooms, lighting the stoves, and the firewood crackling and shooting. Ahead lies a whole day of peace in the already silent winter estate. Slowly get dressed, wander around the garden, find a cold and wet apple accidentally forgotten in the wet leaves, and for some reason it will seem unusually tasty, not at all like the others. Then you’ll get down to reading books—grandfather’s books in thick leather bindings, with gold stars on morocco spines. These books, similar to church breviaries, smell wonderful with their yellowed, thick, rough paper! Some pleasant sour mold, old perfume... The notes in the margins, large and with round soft strokes made with a quill pen, are also good. You unfold the book and read: “A thought worthy of ancient and modern philosophers, the color of reason and feelings of the heart”... And you will involuntarily become carried away by the book itself. This is “The Noble Philosopher,” an allegory published a hundred years ago by the dependent of some “chevalier of many orders” and printed in the printing house of the order of public charity, a story about how “a noble philosopher, having time and the ability to reason, to to which the human mind can rise, I once received the desire to compose a plan of light in a spacious place of my village”... Then you come across “the satirical and philosophical works of Mr. Voltaire” and for a long time you revel in the sweet and mannered syllable of the translation: “My sirs! Erasmus composed in the sixteenth century a praise of tomfoolery (mannerly pause - semicolon); you order me to extol reason before you...” Then from Catherine’s antiquity you will move on to romantic times, to almanacs, to sentimentally pompous and long novels... The cuckoo jumps out of the clock and crows mockingly and sadly at you in an empty house. And little by little a sweet and strange melancholy begins to creep into my heart...
Here is “The Secrets of Alexis”, here is “Victor, or the Child in the Forest”: “Midnight strikes! Sacred silence takes the place of daytime noise and cheerful songs of the villagers. Sleep spreads its dark wings over the surface of our hemisphere; he shakes off the poppy and dreams from them... Dreams... How often do they continue only the suffering of the ill-fated! “the pranks and frolics of young naughty people”, the lily hand, Lyudmila and Alina... And here are the magazines with the names of Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, lyceum student Pushkin. And with sadness you will remember your grandmother, her polonaises on the clavichord, her languid reading of poems from Eugene Onegin. And the old dreamy life will appear before you... Good girls and women once lived in noble estates! Their portraits look at me from the wall, aristocratically beautiful heads in ancient hairstyles meekly and femininely lower their long eyelashes onto sad and tender eyes...
IV
The smell of Antonov apples disappears from the landowners' estates. These days were so recent, and yet it seems to me that almost a whole century has passed since then. The old people in Vyselki died, Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseniy Semenych shot himself... The kingdom of the small estates, impoverished to the point of beggary, is coming. But this miserable small-scale life is also good!
So I see myself again in the village, in late autumn. The days are bluish and cloudy. In the morning I get into the saddle and with one dog, a gun and a horn, I go into the field. The wind rings and hums in the barrel of a gun, the wind blows strongly towards, sometimes with dry snow. All day long I wander through the empty plains... Hungry and frozen, I return to the estate at dusk, and my soul becomes so warm and joyful when the lights of Vyselok flash and the smell of smoke and housing draws me out of the estate. I remember that in our house they liked to “go twilight” at this time, not light a fire and conduct conversations in the semi-darkness. Entering the house, I find the winter frames already installed, and this puts me even more in the mood for a peaceful winter mood. In the servant's room, a worker lights the stove, and, as in childhood, I squat down next to a heap of straw, already smelling sharply of winter freshness, and look first into the blazing stove, then at the windows, behind which the dusk, turning blue, sadly dies. Then I go to the people's room. It’s bright and crowded there: the girls are chopping cabbage, the chops are flashing by, I listen to their rhythmic, friendly knocking and friendly, sad and cheerful village songs... Sometimes some small-scale neighbor will come and take me away for a long time... Small-scale life is good too!
The small-timer gets up early. Stretching tightly, he gets out of bed and rolls a thick cigarette made of cheap, black tobacco or simply shag. The pale light of an early November morning illuminates a simple, bare-walled office, yellow and crusty fox skins above the bed and a stocky figure in trousers and a belted blouse, and the mirror reflects the sleepy face of a Tatar warehouse. There is dead silence in the dim, warm house. Behind the door in the corridor, the old cook, who lived in the manor house when she was a girl, is snoring. This, however, does not stop the master from hoarsely shouting to the whole house:
- Lukerya! Samovar!
Then, putting on his boots, throwing his jacket over his shoulders and not buttoning the collar of his shirt, he goes out onto the porch. The locked hallway smells like a dog; Lazy stretching, yawning and smiling, the hounds surround him.
- Burp! - he says slowly, in a condescending bass voice, and walks through the garden to the threshing floor. His chest breathes widely with the sharp air of dawn and the smell of a naked garden, chilled during the night. Leaves curled up and blackened by frost rustle under boots in a birch alley that has already been half-cut down. Silhouetted against the low gloomy sky, tufted jackdaws sleep on the crest of the barn... It will be a glorious day for hunting! And, stopping in the middle of the alley, the master looks for a long time into the autumn field, at the deserted green winter fields through which the calves wander. Two hound bitches squeal at his feet, and Zalivay is already behind the garden: jumping over the prickly stubble, he seems to be calling and asking to go to the field. But what will you do now with the hounds? The animal is now in the field, on the rise, on the black trail, and in the forest he is afraid, because in the forest the wind rustles the leaves... Oh, if only there were greyhounds!
Threshing begins in Riga. The drum of the thresher hums slowly, dispersing. Lazily pulling on the lines, resting their feet on the dung circle and swaying, the horses walk in the drive. In the middle of the drive, spinning on a bench, the driver sits and shouts monotonously at them, always whipping only one brown gelding, who is the laziest of all and completely sleeps while walking, fortunately his eyes are blindfolded.
- Well, well, girls, girls! - the sedate waiter shouts sternly, donning a wide canvas shirt.
The girls hastily sweep away the current, running around with stretchers and brooms.
- With God blessing! - says the server, and the first bunch of starnovka, launched for testing, flies into the drum with a buzzing and squealing and rises up from under it like a disheveled fan. And the drum hums more and more insistently, the work begins to boil, and soon all the sounds merge into the general pleasant noise of threshing. The master stands at the gate of the barn and watches how red and yellow scarves, hands, rakes, straw flash in its darkness, and all this moves and fusses rhythmically to the roar of the drum and the monotonous cry and whistle of the driver. Proboscis flies towards the gate in clouds. The master stands, all gray from him. He often glances at the field... Soon, soon the fields will turn white, winter will soon cover them...
Winter, first snow! There are no greyhounds, there is nothing to hunt in November; but winter comes, “work” with the hounds begins. And here again, as in the old days, small-scale families gather together, drink with their last money, and disappear for whole days in the snowy fields. And in the evening, on some remote farm, the outbuilding windows glow far away in the darkness of the winter night. There, in this small outbuilding, clouds of smoke float, tallow candles burn dimly, a guitar is being tuned...
At dusk the wind began to blow wildly,
He opened my wide gates, -
someone starts with a chest tenor. And others clumsily, pretending that they are joking, pick up with sad, hopeless daring:
My gates opened wide,
The path was covered with white snow...
Bunin Ivan Alekseevich
Antonov apples
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin
Antonov apples
I remember an early fine autumn. August was full of warm rains, as if falling on purpose for sowing, with rains right at the right time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And “autumn and winter live well if the water is calm and there is rain on Laurentia.” Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled in the fields. This is also a good sign: “There is a lot of shade in the Indian summer - vigorous autumn”... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and - - the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so clean, it’s as if there is no air at all; voices and the creaking of carts can be heard throughout the garden. These Tarkhans, bourgeois gardeners, hired men and poured apples in order to send them to the city at night - certainly on a night when it is so nice to lie on a cart, look into the starry sky, smell tar in the fresh air and listen to how carefully a long convoy creaks in the dark along the high road. The man pouring the apples eats them with a juicy crackle one after another, but such is the establishment - the tradesman will never cut it off, but will also say:
Come on, eat your fill - there’s nothing to do! When pouring, everyone drinks honey.
And the cool silence of the morning is disturbed only by the well-fed cackling of blackbirds on the coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming sound of apples being poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden one can see far away the road to the large hut, strewn with straw, and the hut itself, near which the townspeople acquired an entire household over the summer. Everywhere there is a strong smell of apples, especially here. There are beds in the hut, there is a single-barreled gun, a green samovar, and dishes in the corner. Near the hut there are mats, boxes, all sorts of tattered belongings, and an earthen stove has been dug. At noon, a magnificent kulesh with lard is cooked on it, in the evening the samovar is heated, and a long strip of bluish smoke spreads across the garden, between the trees. On holidays, there is a whole fair around the hut, and red headdresses are constantly flashing behind the trees. There is a crowd of lively single-yard girls in sundresses that smell strongly of paint, the “lords” come in their beautiful and rough, savage costumes, a young elder woman, pregnant, with a wide, sleepy face and as important as a Kholmogory cow. She has “horns” on her head - braids are placed on the sides of the crown and covered with several scarves, so that the head seems huge; the legs, in ankle boots with horseshoes, stand stupidly and firmly; the sleeveless vest is velvet, the curtain is long, and the poneva is black and purple with brick-colored stripes and lined at the hem with a wide gold “prose”...
Economic butterfly! - the tradesman says about her, shaking his head. - These are also being translated now...
And the boys in fancy white shirts and short porticoes, with white open heads, all come up. They walk in twos and threes, shuffling their bare feet, and glance sideways at the shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. Of course, only one buys, because the purchases are only for a penny or an egg, but there are many buyers, trade is brisk, and the consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful. Together with his brother, a burry, nimble half-idiot who lives with him “out of mercy,” he trades in jokes, jokes and even sometimes “touches” the Tula harmonica. And until the evening there is a crowd of people in the garden, you can hear laughter and talking around the hut, and sometimes the clatter of dancing...
By nightfall the weather becomes very cold and dewy. Having inhaled the rye aroma of new straw and chaff on the threshing floor, you cheerfully walk home for dinner past the garden rampart. Voices in the village or the creaking of gates can be heard unusually clearly in the chilly dawn. It's getting dark. And here’s another smell: there’s a fire in the garden, and there’s a strong wafting of fragrant smoke from cherry branches. In the darkness, in the depths of the garden, there is a fabulous picture: as if in a corner of hell, a crimson flame is burning near the hut, surrounded by darkness, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, are moving around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk across the apple trees . Either a black hand several arshins in size will fall across the entire tree, then two legs will clearly appear - two black pillars. And suddenly all this will slide from the apple tree - and the shadow will fall along the entire alley, from the hut to the gate itself...
Late at night, when the lights in the village go out, when the diamond constellation Stozhar is already shining high in the sky, you will run into the garden again.
Rustle through the dry leaves, like a blind man, you will reach the hut. There in the clearing it is a little lighter, and the Milky Way is white above your head.
Is that you, barchuk? - someone quietly calls out from the darkness.
Me: Are you still awake, Nikolai?
We can't sleep. And it must be too late? Look, there seems to be a passenger train coming...
We listen for a long time and discern trembling in the ground, the trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if already just outside the garden, the noisy beat of the wheels is rapidly beating out: rumbling and knocking, the train rushes by... closer, closer, louder and angrier... And suddenly it begins to subside, die out, as if going into the ground...
Where is your gun, Nikolai?
But next to the box, sir.
You throw up a single-barreled shotgun, heavy as a crowbar, and shoot straight away. The crimson flame will flash towards the sky with a deafening crack, blind for a moment and extinguish the stars, and a cheerful echo will ring out like a ring and roll across the horizon, fading far, far away in the clean and sensitive air.
Wow, great! - the tradesman will say. - Spend it, spend it, little gentleman, otherwise it’s just a disaster! Again they shook off all the gunk on the shaft...
And the black sky is lined with fiery stripes of falling stars. You look for a long time into its dark blue depths, overflowing with constellations, until the earth begins to float under your feet. Then you will wake up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, quickly run along the alley to the house... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!
"Vigorous Antonovka - for a fun year." Village affairs are good if the Antonovka crop is cropped: that means the grain is cropped... I remember a fruitful year.
At early dawn, when the roosters were still crowing and the huts were smoking black, you would open the window into a cool garden filled with a lilac fog, through which the morning sun shines brightly here and there, and you couldn’t resist - you ordered to quickly saddle the horse, and you you will run to wash your face at the pond. Almost all of the small foliage has flown off the coastal vines, and the branches are visible in the turquoise sky. The water under the vines became clear, icy, and seemingly heavy. It instantly drives away the laziness of the night, and, having washed and had breakfast in the common room with the workers, hot potatoes and black bread with coarse raw salt, you enjoy feeling the slippery leather of the saddle under you as you ride through Vyselki to hunt. Autumn is the time for patronal feasts, and at this time the people are tidy and happy, the appearance of the village is not at all the same as at other times. If the year is fruitful and a whole golden city rises on the threshing floors, and geese cackle loudly and sharply on the river in the morning, then it’s not bad at all in the village. In addition, our Vyselki have been famous for their “wealth” since time immemorial, since the time of our grandfather. The old men and women lived in Vyselki for a very long time - the first sign of a rich village - and they were all tall, big and white, like a harrier. All you heard was: “Yes,” Agafya waved off her eighty-three years old!” -- or conversations like this:
And when will you die, Pankrat? I suppose you will be a hundred years old?
How would you like to speak, father?
How old are you, I ask!
I don’t know, sir, father.
Do you remember Platon Apollonich?
Well, sir, father, I clearly remember.
You see now. That means you are no less than a hundred.
The old man, who stands stretched out in front of the master, smiles meekly and guiltily. Well, they say, what to do - it’s my fault, it’s healed. And he probably would have prospered even more if he had not eaten too much onions in Petrovka.
I remember his old woman too. Everyone used to sit on a bench, on the porch, bent over, shaking his head, gasping for breath and holding onto the bench with his hands, all thinking about something. “About her good,” the women said, because, indeed, she had a lot of “good” in her chests. But she doesn’t seem to hear; he looks half-blindly into the distance from under sadly raised eyebrows, shakes his head and seems to be trying to remember something. She was a big old woman, kind of dark all over. Paneva is almost from the last century, the chestnuts are dead, the neck is yellow and withered, the shirt with rosin joints is always white-white, “you could even put it in a coffin.” And near the porch lay a large stone: I bought it for my grave, as well as a shroud, an excellent shroud, with angels, with crosses and with a prayer printed on the edges.
The courtyards in Vyselki also matched the old people: brick, built by their grandfathers. And the rich men - Savely, Ignat, Dron - had huts in two or three connections, because it was not yet fashionable to share in Vyselki. In such families they kept bees, were proud of their gray-iron-colored bull stallion, and kept their estates in order. On the threshing floors there were dark and thick hemp trees, there were barns and barns covered with hair; in the bunks and barns there were iron doors, behind which canvases, spinning wheels, new sheepskin coats, type-setting harnesses, and measures bound with copper hoops were stored. Crosses were burned on the gates and on the sleds. And I remember that sometimes it seemed extremely tempting to me to be a man. When you used to drive through the village on a sunny morning, you kept thinking about how good it would be to mow, thresh, sleep on the threshing floor in brooms, and on a holiday to rise with the sun, under the thick and musical blast from the village, wash yourself near the barrel and put on a clean pair of clothes. a shirt, the same trousers and indestructible boots with horseshoes. If, I thought, we add to this a healthy and beautiful wife in festive attire, and a trip to mass, and then dinner with his bearded father-in-law, a dinner with hot lamb on wooden plates and with rushes, with honeycomb honey and mash - so much more impossible to wish!
I. A. Bunin, “Antonov apples” ( summary follows) is a picture-memory in which juicy autumn apples become the main thing actor, because without their suffocating aroma the author himself would not exist. Why? Sounds, smells, random pictures, vivid images... It would seem that thousands, millions of them flash through your entire life. Something is stored in memory for a long time and is gradually forgotten. Something passes without a trace, is erased as if it never happened. But something remains with us forever. It inexplicably seeps through the thickness of our consciousness, penetrates deep and becomes an integral part of us.
Summary of “Antonov Apples”, Bunin I. A.
Early fine autumn. It seemed like just yesterday it was August with its frequent warm rains. The peasants rejoiced because when it drizzles on Laurentia, autumn and winter will be good. But time is running, and now a lot of cobwebs appeared in the fields. The golden gardens have thinned out and dried up. The air is clean, transparent, as if it were not there at all, and at the same time filled “to the brim” with the smells of fallen leaves, honey and Antonov apples... This is how Ivan Bunin begins his story.
“Antonov apples”: the first memory.
The village of Vyselki, the estate of the author’s aunt, where he loved to visit and spent his best years. The hubbub and creaking of carts in the garden: the harvest of autumn apples is underway. Bourgeois gardeners recruited men to fill the apples and send them to the city. Work is in full swing, even though it’s night outside. The cautious creaking of a long convoy can be heard, in the darkness here and there a juicy crackling sound is heard - this is a man eating apples one after another. And no one stops him; on the contrary, the owners encourage this insatiable appetite: “Go ahead, eat your fill - there’s nothing to do!” The thinned garden opens the way to a large hut - a real house with its own household. Everywhere there is an incredible smell of apples, but especially in this place. During the day, people gather near the hut and there is brisk trade. Who is there: single-yard girls in sundresses smelling of paint, and “lords” in beautiful and rough suits, and a young pregnant elder, boys in white shirts... By evening, the bustle and noise subsides. It's cold and dewy. Crimson flames in the garden, fragrant smoke, cherry branches crackling... “How good it is to live in the world!”
I. A. Bunin, “Antonov Apples” (read the summary below): second memory.
That year was a fruitful year in the village of Vyselki. As they said, if Antonovka is ugly, it means there will be a lot of bread and village affairs will be good. This is how they lived, from harvest to harvest, although it cannot be said that the peasants were poor; on the contrary, Vyselki was considered a rich region. Old men and women lived a long time, which was the first sign of prosperity: Pankrat would already be a hundred years old, and Agafya was eighty-three years old. There were also houses in the village to match the old people: large, brick, two or three under one roof, because it was not customary to live separately. They kept bees, were proud of the stallions, new sheepskin coats, canvases, spinning wheels, and harnesses were kept behind iron doors. I also remember the estate of Anna Gerasimovna’s aunt, which stood about twelve miles from Vyselki. In the middle of the yard was her house, surrounded by a linden tree, and then the famous apple orchard with nightingales and turtle doves. It happened that you crossed the threshold, and before other smells you could smell the aroma of Antonov apples. Everywhere is clean and tidy. A minute, then another, a cough can be heard: Anna Gerasimovna comes out, and now, amid endless trials and gossip about antiquity and inheritance, treats appear. First, Antonov apples. And then a delicious lunch: boiled ham, pink with peas, pickles, turkey, stuffed chicken and strong sweet kvass.
I. A. Bunin, “Antonov Apples” (summary): third memory.
End of September. The weather is getting worse. It rains more and more often. You stand like this by the window. The street is deserted and boring. The wind doesn't stop. The rain begins to fall. At first it is quiet, then stronger, stronger and turns into a thick downpour with leaden darkness and storm. An alarming night is coming. The morning after such a battle, the apple orchard is almost completely naked. There are wet leaves all around. The remaining foliage, already quiet and resigned, will continue to dangle on the trees until the first frost. Well, it's time to hunt! Usually by this time everyone gathered at Arseny Semenych’s estate: hearty dinners, vodka, flushed, weathered faces, animated conversations about the upcoming hunt. We went out into the yard, and there the horn was already blowing, and a noisy gang of dogs howled in different voices. It happened that you overslept and missed the hunt, but the rest was no less pleasant. You lie in bed for a long time. There is silence all around, broken only by the crackling of wood in the stove. You slowly get dressed and go out into the wet garden, where you are sure to find a cold, wet Antonov apple that was accidentally dropped. Strange, but it seems unusually sweet and tasty, completely different from others. Later you start reading books.
Memory four.
The settlements are empty. Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseny Semenych shot himself, and those village old people are no longer there. The aroma of Antonov apples is gradually disappearing from the once prosperous landowners' estates. But this poor small-scale life is also good. In deep autumn, people in the house liked to leave the fire off at dusk and have quiet, intimate conversations in the semi-darkness. On the street, frost-blackened leaves rustle under boots. Winter is coming, and that means, as in the old days, the small estates will gather together, drink with their last money and spend whole days hunting in the snow-covered fields, and in the evening they will sing with a guitar.
Antonov apples are the first link in an endless chain of memories. Behind it, other pictures invariably emerge, which, in turn, bring to the surface long-forgotten feelings and emotions, happy, tender, sometimes sad, and sometimes painful. The juicy aroma of Antonov apples literally permeates everything around. But this is at the beginning of autumn, during the period of dawn and prosperity in the village. Then their smell gradually disappears, deep autumn sets in, and the village becomes poorer. But life goes on, and perhaps this smell will soon be felt again before others. Who knows?
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