Andrey Platonov

Yushka

Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on a large Moscow road; he worked as an assistant to the chief blacksmith, because he could not see well with his eyes and had little strength in his hands. He carried water, sand and coal to the forge, fanned the forge with fur, held the hot iron on the anvil with tongs while the chief blacksmith forged it, brought the horse into the machine to forge it, and did any other work that needed to be done. His name was Efim, but all the people called him Yushka. He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face, instead of a mustache and beard, sparse gray hairs grew separately; His eyes were white, like a blind man’s, and there was always moisture in them, like never-cooling tears.

Yushka lived in the apartment of the owner of the forge, in the kitchen. In the morning he went to the forge, and in the evening he went back to spend the night. The owner fed him for his work with bread, cabbage soup and porridge, and Yushka had his own tea, sugar and clothes; he must buy them for his salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. But Yushka didn’t drink tea or buy sugar, he drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years without changing: in the summer he wore trousers and a blouse, black and sooty from work, burned through by sparks, so that in several places his white body was visible, and he was barefoot; in winter, he put on a sheepskin coat over his blouse, which he inherited from his deceased father, and his feet were shod in felt boots, which he hemmed in the fall, and wore the same pair every winter all his life.

When Yushka walked down the street to the forge early in the morning, the old men and women got up and said that Yushka had already gone to work, it was time to get up, and they woke up the young people. And in the evening, when Yushka went to spend the night, people said that it was time to have dinner and go to bed - and Yushka had already gone to bed.

And small children and even those who became teenagers, seeing old Yushka walking quietly, stopped playing in the street, ran after Yushka and shouted:

There comes Yushka! There's Yushka!

The children picked up dry branches, pebbles, and rubbish from the ground in handfuls and threw them at Yushka.

Yushka! - the children shouted. - Are you really Yushka?

The old man did not answer the children and was not offended by them; he walked as quietly as before, and did not cover his face, which was hit by pebbles and earthen debris.

The children were surprised at Yushka that he was alive, and he himself was not angry with them. And they called out to the old man again:

Yushka, are you true or not?

Then the children again threw objects from the ground at him, ran up to him, touched him and pushed him, not understanding why he did not chase them, as all big people do. The children did not know another person like him, and they thought - is Yushka really alive? Having touched Yushka with their hands or hit him, they saw that he was hard and alive.

Then the children again pushed Yushka and threw clods of earth at him - he’d better be angry, since he really lives in the world. But Yushka walked and was silent. Then the children themselves began to get angry with Yushka. They were bored and it was not good to play if Yushka was always silent, did not scare them and did not chase them. And they pushed the old man even harder and shouted around him so that he would respond to them with evil and cheer them up. Then they would run away from him and, in fear, in joy, would again tease him from afar and call him to them, then running away to hide in the darkness of the evening, in the canopy of houses, in the thickets of gardens and vegetable gardens. But Yushka did not touch them and did not answer them.

When the children stopped Yushka altogether or hurt him too much, he told them:

What are you doing, my dears, what are you doing, dear ones!.. You must love me!.. Why do you all need me?.. Wait, don’t touch me, you hit me with dirt in my eyes, I can’t see.

The children did not hear or understand him. They still pushed Yushka and laughed at him. They were happy that they could do whatever they wanted with him, but he didn’t do anything to them.

Yushka was also happy. He knew why the children laughed at him and tormented him. He believed that children loved him, that they needed him, only they did not know how to love a person and did not know what to do for love, and therefore they tormented him.

At home, fathers and mothers reproached their children when they did not study well or did not obey their parents: “You will be just like Yushka!” You will grow up and walk barefoot in the summer, and in thin felt boots in the winter, and everything will torment you, and you will drink tea with You won’t drink sugar, just water!”

Elderly adults, meeting Yushka on the street, also sometimes offended him. Adults had angry grief or resentment, or they were drunk, then their hearts were filled with fierce rage. Seeing Yushka going to the forge or to the yard for the night, an adult said to him:

Why are you walking around here so blessed and unlikeable? What do you think is so special?

Yushka stopped, listened and was silent in response.

You don't have any words, you're such an animal! You live simply and honestly, as I live, and don’t think anything secretly! Tell me, will you live the way you should? You will not? Aha!.. Well okay!

And after a conversation during which Yushka was silent, the adult became convinced that Yushka was to blame for everything, and immediately beat him. Because of Yushka’s meekness, the adult became embittered and beat him more than he wanted at first, and in this evil he forgot his grief for a while.

Yushka then lay in the dust on the road for a long time. When he woke up, he got up on his own, and sometimes the daughter of the owner of the forge came for him, she picked him up and took him away with her.

It would be better if you died, Yushka,” said the owner’s daughter. - Why do you live?

Yushka looked at her in surprise. He did not understand why he should die when he was born to live.

“It was my father and mother who gave birth to me, it was their will,” Yushka answered, “I can’t die, and I’m helping your father in the forge.”

If only someone else could take your place, what a helper!

People love me, Dasha!

Dasha laughed.

Now you have blood on your cheek, and last week your ear was torn, and you say - the people love you!..

“He loves me without a clue,” says Yushka. - People's hearts can be blind.

Their hearts are blind, but their eyes are sighted! - Dasha said. - Go quickly, or something! They love according to the heart, but they strike according to their calculations.

According to calculations, they are angry with me, it’s true,” Yushka agreed. “They don’t tell me to walk on the street and they mutilate my body.”

Eh, you, Yushka, Yushka! - Dasha sighed. - But you, my father said, are not old yet!

How old I am!.. I have suffered from breast problems since childhood, it was because of my illness that I made a mistake in appearance and became old...

Due to this illness, Yushka left his owner for a month every summer. He went on foot to a remote remote village, where he must have had relatives. Nobody knew who they were to him.

Even Yushka himself forgot, and one summer he said that his widowed sister lived in the village, and the next that his niece was there. Sometimes he said that he was going to the village, and other times that he was going to Moscow itself. And people thought that Yushka’s beloved daughter lived in a distant village, as kind and unnecessary to people as her father.

In June or August, Yushka put a knapsack with bread on his shoulders and left our city. On the way, he breathed the fragrance of grasses and forests, looked at the white clouds born in the sky, floating and dying in the bright airy warmth, listened to the voice of the rivers muttering on the stone rifts, and Yushka’s sore chest rested, he no longer felt his illness - consumption. Having gone far away, where it was completely deserted, Yushka no longer hid his love for living beings. He bent down to the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to breathe on them so that they would not be spoiled by his breath, he stroked the bark of the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles from the path that had fallen dead, and peered into their faces for a long time, feeling orphaned. But living birds sang in the sky, dragonflies, beetles and hard-working grasshoppers made cheerful sounds in the grass, and therefore Yushka’s soul was light, the sweet air of flowers smelling of moisture and sunlight entered his chest.

On the way, Yushka rested. He sat in the shade of a road tree and dozed in peace and warmth. Having rested and caught his breath in the field, he did not remember the illness and walked on cheerfully, like a healthy person. Yushka was forty years old, but illness had been tormenting him for a long time and had aged him before his time, so that he seemed decrepit.

And so every year Yushka left through fields, forests and rivers to a distant village or to Moscow, where someone was waiting for him or no one was waiting - no one in the city knew about this.

A month later, Yushka usually returned back to the city and again worked from morning until evening in the forge. He again began to live as before, and again children and adults, residents of the street, made fun of Yushka, reproached him for his unrequited stupidity and tormented him.

Yushka lived peacefully until the summer of next year, and in the middle of the summer he put his knapsack on his shoulders, put the money he had earned and saved in a year in a separate bag, a hundred rubles in total, hung that bag in his bosom on his chest and went to who knows where and who knows who.

But year after year, Yushka grew weaker and weaker, so the time of his life passed and passed, and chest illness tormented his body and exhausted him. One summer, when the time was approaching for Yushka to go to his distant village, he did not go anywhere. He wandered, as usual, in the evening, already dark, from the forge to the owner for the night. A cheerful passerby who knew Yushka laughed at him:

Why are you trampling our land, God’s scarecrow! If only I died, maybe it would be more fun without you, otherwise I’m afraid of getting bored...

And here Yushka became angry in response - probably for the first time in his life.

Why am I bothering you? Why am I bothering you!.. I was ordered to live by my parents, I was born according to the law, the whole world needs me, just like you, without me too, that means it’s impossible!..

The passer-by, without listening to Yushka, became angry with him:

What are you talking about? Why are you talking? How dare you equate me with yourself, you worthless fool!

“I don’t equal,” said Yushka, “but out of necessity we are all equal...

Don't tell me any wiser! - a passer-by shouted. - I’m wiser than you! Look, I'm talking, I'll teach you your wits!

Swinging his hand, the passer-by pushed Yushka in the chest with the force of anger, and he fell backward.

“Rest,” said the passerby and went home to drink tea.

After lying down, Yushka turned his face down and did not move or get up again.

Soon a man passed by, a carpenter from a furniture workshop. He called out to Yushka, then shifted him onto his back and saw Yushka’s white, open, motionless eyes in the darkness. His mouth was black; The carpenter wiped Yushka’s mouth with his palm and realized that it was caked blood. He also tested the place where Yushka’s head lay face down, and felt that the ground there was damp, it was filled with blood, gushing out of Yushka’s throat.

“He’s dead,” the carpenter sighed. - Goodbye, Yushka, and forgive us all. People rejected you, and who is your judge!..

The owner of the forge prepared Yushka for burial. The owner's daughter Dasha washed Yushka's body, and he was placed on the table in the blacksmith's house. All the people, old and young, all the people who knew Yushka and made fun of him and tormented him during his life, came to the body of the deceased to say goodbye to him.

Then Yushka was buried and forgotten. However, without Yushka, people’s lives became worse. Now all the anger and mockery remained among the people and wasted among them, because there was no Yushka, who unrequitedly endured all other people’s evil, bitterness, ridicule and ill will.

They remembered about Yushka again only in late autumn. One dark, bad day, a young girl came to the forge and asked the blacksmith owner: where could she find Efim Dmitrievich?

Which Efim Dmitrievich? - the blacksmith was surprised. “We’ve never had anything like this here.”

The girl, having listened, did not leave, however, and silently waited for something. The blacksmith looked at her: what kind of guest the bad weather brought him. The girl was frail in appearance and short in stature, but her soft, clear face was so gentle and meek, and her large gray eyes looked so sad, as if they were about to fill with tears, that the blacksmith’s heart warmed up, looking at the guest, and suddenly he realized :

Isn't he Yushka? That’s right - according to his passport he was written as Dmitrich...

Yushka,” the girl whispered. - This is true. He called himself Yushka.

The blacksmith was silent.

And who will you be to him? - A relative, or what?

I am nobody. I was an orphan, and Efim Dmitrievich placed me, little, with a family in Moscow, then sent me to a boarding school... Every year he came to visit me and brought money for the whole year so that I could live and study. Now I have grown up, I have already graduated from the university, and Efim Dmitrievich did not come to visit me this summer. Tell me where he is - he said that he worked for you for twenty-five years...

Half a century has passed, we have grown old together,” said the blacksmith.

He closed the forge and led his guest to the cemetery. There the girl fell to the ground, in which lay the dead Yushka, the man who had fed her since childhood, who had never eaten sugar, so that she would eat it.

She knew what Yushka was sick with, and now she herself has completed her studies as a doctor and came here to treat the one who loved her more than anything in the world and whom she herself loved with all the warmth and light of her heart...

A lot of time has passed since then. The girl doctor remained forever in our city. She began working in a hospital for consumptives, she went to houses where there were tuberculosis patients, and did not charge anyone for her work. Now she herself has also grown old, but still all day long she heals and comforts sick people, without tiring of quenching suffering and delaying death from the weakened. And everyone in the city knows her, calling her the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.

There lived in a village a very decrepit old man. He helped at the nearest blacksmith shop and was an auxiliary worker for the local blacksmith. He could see very poorly and had almost no strength. He brought some water from the well, sand as much as he could carry, coal, well, he kept the forge hot, he kept hot iron objects on the anvil and in every possible way helped to do a variety of work. His name was Efim, but the residents called him “Yushka”.

Yefim was short and thin, his hair was gray and his beard was sparse, and his eyes were already white, like a blind man’s. The old man lived with his master, went to work with him, and went home in the evening. For his work they fed him and gave him 7 rubles. 60kop. per month. He did not need luxury, since he wore clothes inherited from his father, and he did not want sweets.

The neighbors, looking at him, got up and went to work, and in the evening when Yushka came home from work, everyone began to get ready for bed. All the children and teenagers were surprised at Yushka’s calmness, because when he passed, they threw earth and stones at him, but he continued to go his way, not paying attention to anyone. As a result, the children began to get angry with the old man. They were bored that he did not show his dissatisfaction in any way. After all, if he had answered them even once, they would have fled in fear and, rejoicing, continued to tease him again. But he never took any action.

Yefim was glad that the children were torturing him, because he believed that if they cared about him, it meant they loved him, but they just didn’t know how to show their love yet. Parents threatened their children that if they did not study, they would become like Efim. Adult citizens also did not like him, and in every possible way looked for an excuse to beat him. And since Yushka was meek, the adults became embittered and beat him even harder. Usually, after such beatings, the old man lay alone on the ground for a long time until the blacksmith’s daughter came and took him away. She said that it would be better if he died, that he had no reason to live.

But Yushka did not dare to die, since his parents gave birth to him so that he could live, and there would be no one to help him in the forge. The old man left his owner in the summer for only one month, since he had problems with his chest since childhood. He always forgot where he was going: one summer he said that he was going to the village, another to Moscow. One year he said that he was going to his sister, another year to his niece.

And in between, people whispered that somewhere there lived his daughter, a recluse just like him. Somewhere in the middle of summer he left, and, enjoying the smells of herbs, looked at the floating clouds and forgot about consumption. When he went far from people, he began to show love for all living beings. The birds sang, the grasshoppers chirped, and Yushka felt very good and calm. Yushka was not old at all, he was only 40 years old. But the illness, which severely damaged his health, aged him ahead of time.

About a month later, Yushka came and continued to work, where he was again teased by children and beaten by adults. But every year he got worse. One day he met a neighbor who suggested he die faster. Yushka got angry and asked why he didn’t please everyone. But the neighbor got even angrier and pushed Yushka in the chest, causing him to fall to the ground.

A passerby saw Yushka and realized that he was bleeding. And I realized that Yushka had died. Efim was buried. And everyone was happy about this until they realized that Yushka had endured their anger, and now they had no one to take it out on. One fine day a girl approached the blacksmith’s house, the blacksmith asked who the girl was to him and she said that once upon a time he found her as an orphan and settled her into a family. He came every year and gave her money for her education and living. The owner closed the house and took her to the cemetery.

She cried very much at his grave, because she began to study to become a doctor only in order to cure him. The girl didn't leave. She began working as a doctor in the village and treated people for free. Everyone forgot that the girl was not Yushka’s own daughter. But they continued to remember Yushka and were proud that he was able to raise such a daughter.

“Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on the main Moscow road... as an assistant to the chief blacksmith...”

Blind and weak, he carried water, coal, inflated bellows - in a word, wherever he was sent.

His name was Efim, but people called him Yushka.

He lived in a blacksmith’s apartment and was fed bread, cabbage soup and porridge. They also paid him a salary so that he could buy himself sugar, tea and clothes. But Yushka drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years without changing, black and smoked from work. Barefoot in summer, wearing the same pair of felt boots in winter.

He went to work early - the old people used it to wake up the young, and returned late - Yushka was coming home from work, which meant it was time for everyone to sleep.

The children teased Yushka, threw sticks and clods of earth at him and were angry that he did not chase after them and did not scold them.

Strangely he answered them:

What are you doing, my dears, what are you doing, little ones!.. You must love me!.. Why do you all need me?.. Wait, don’t touch me, you hit me with dirt in my eyes, I can’t see.

Parents told naughty children: “When you grow up, you will be like Yushka.”

Adults also offended Yushka, and when they got drunk, they even beat him.

The blacksmith's daughter lifted him out of the way and said:

It would be better if you died, Yushka.

But Yushka did not want to die - since he was born to live. And he also believed that his people loved him, but they just loved him without a clue.

In July or August, Yushka put a knapsack with bread on his shoulders and left the city. He admired the sky, the grass, kissed the flowers and stroked the trees. In nature, his illness - consumption - receded.

“But year after year Yushka grew weaker and weaker, so the time of his life passed and passed and chest illness tormented his body and exhausted him. IN -one summer When the time was already approaching for Yushka to go to his distant village, he did not go anywhere. He wandered, as usual, in the evening, already dark, from the forge to the owner for the night. A cheerful passerby who knew Yushka laughed at him:

Why are you trampling our land, God’s scarecrow! If only you were dead, it would be more fun without you, otherwise I’m afraid of getting bored...

Why am I bothering you? Why am I bothering you!.. I was ordered to live by my parents, I was born by law, the whole world needs me too, just like you, without me too, that means it’s impossible!”

This passer-by became angry with Yushka and pushed him in the chest. He fell on the road and never got up again.

“He’s dead,” the carpenter sighed. - Goodbye, Yushka, and forgive us all. People rejected you, and who is your judge!..

All the people, old and young, came to the body of the deceased to say goodbye to him, all the people who knew Yushka, and made fun of him, and tormented him during his life.

Then Yushka was buried and forgotten. However, without Yushka, people’s lives became worse. Now all the anger and mockery remained among the people and wasted among them, because there was no Yushka, who unrequitedly endured all other people’s evil, bitterness, ridicule and ill will.”

And after some time, a young girl came to this area and said that Yushka (she called him Efim Dmitrievich) placed an orphan completely alien to him in a boarding school and once a year came to her in Moscow to visit her and brought money earned for the year.

At the cemetery, “the girl fell to the ground in which lay the dead Yushka, the man who had fed her since childhood, who had never eaten sugar, so that she would eat it.

She knew what Yushka was sick with, and now she herself has completed her studies as a doctor and came here to treat the one who loved her more than anything in the world and whom she herself loved with all the warmth and light of her heart...

A lot of time has passed since then. The girl doctor remained forever in our city. She began working in a hospital for consumptives, she went to houses where there were tuberculosis patients, and did not charge anyone for her work.

Now she herself has also grown old, but still all day long she heals and comforts sick people, without tiring of quenching suffering and delaying death from the weakened. And everyone in the city knows her, calling her the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.”

For a long time now, a short man, old in appearance, weak in eyes and weak in strength, had been working in the forge of one city. He was a blacksmith's assistant: he carried water, sand and coal to the forge, fanned the forge, and held the hot iron on the anvil with tongs. His name was Efim, but people called him Yushka.

The owner fed him for his work with bread, cabbage soup and porridge, and Yushka had his own tea, sugar and clothes; he must buy them for his salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. But Yushka didn’t drink tea or buy sugar. He drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years - only in winter he put on his dead father’s sheepskin coat over his blouse and put on felt boots. He went to work early in the morning and returned late in the evening.

People often offended the blind and defenseless Yushka. Children on the street threw branches and stones at him. Yushka did not answer them and walked on. The children were angry that the old man did not scare them and did not chase them, and they teased him even more. Only when Yushka was in real pain did he ask:

- What are you little ones!.. You must love me!.. Wait, don’t touch me...

Yushka believed that the children loved him and simply did not know what to do for love.

Andrey Platonov

Adults also often offended Yushka, especially drunk ones. Stopping him on the street, those who were drunk or wanted to take out their own grievances on someone else lost their temper at Yushka’s speechlessness and began to beat him. As a result of these beatings, he lay for a long time in the dust on the road, and the owner’s daughter later told Yushka that it would be better for him to die.

Yushka was actually not old: only 40 years old. But he was tormented by consumption from a young age. This illness aged him before his time, made him decrepit and weak.

Every summer, Yushka left his owner for a month. He said that he was going on foot to a distant village where he had relatives. But no one knew where this village was or what kind of relatives he had there. Leaving the city, Yushka walked among the forests and fields, admired the white clouds, listened to the voice of the rivers. His sore chest was resting. He bent down to the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to crush them, stroked the bark of the trees, picked up dead butterflies and beetles from the path, feeling sorry for them. Sometimes he sat down to rest in the shade of the branches.

Then Yushka returned to the city and went to the forge again. Children and adults continued to mock him and torment him, but he lived peacefully until the next summer, when he hung a bag with the little money he had saved on his chest and left again, no one knew where.

Over the years, Yushka became increasingly weaker. One summer he didn’t go anywhere. And then one angry passer-by hit him hard in the chest on the street. Yushka fell and did not get up. A carpenter passing by called him out and began to turn him over, but saw that Yushka’s eyes were motionless, and the entire ground around his head was covered with blood gushing out of his throat.

Yushka was buried and hardly remembered. And in late autumn, a young girl came to the city and asked the blacksmith owner: where could she find Efim Dmitrievich?

The owner had difficulty understanding what she was saying about Yushka. He asked who the girl was for him. She answered: no one. “I was an orphan, and Efim Dmitrievich placed me, little, with a family in Moscow, then sent me to a boarding school... Every year he came to visit me and brought money for the whole year so that I could live and study. Now I have grown up and already graduated from the university, but Efim Dmitrievich did not come to visit me this summer.”

The blacksmith took the guest to the cemetery. There the girl fell to the ground where Yushka lay dead, the man who had fed her since childhood, who had never eaten sugar, so that she would eat it.

The girl graduated from her studies to become a doctor. She stayed in the city forever and began working in a hospital for consumptives, went to houses where there were tuberculosis patients, and did not charge anyone. Everyone in the city later called her the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.