Chapter 26 26. Wanka

Vanka Zhukov, a nine-year-old boy, was sent as an apprentice in the shop of shoemaker Aryasin three months ago.On Christmas Eve, he didn't go to bed.He waited until the boss couple and the masters went out for morning prayer, took out a small bottle of ink and a fountain pen with a rusty nib from the boss's closet, laid a crumpled white paper in front of him, and started writing.Before writing the first word, he turned his head several times in trepidation to look at the door and the window, glanced sideways at the black icon and the shelves lined with shoe lasts, and sighed intermittently.The paper was spread out on a bench before which he knelt.

"Dear grandpa, Konstantin Makaritch!" he wrote. "I'm writing to you. I wish you a Merry Christmas, and may God bless you with all the best. I have no father or mother, and you are the only one left." Vanka raised his eyes to the black window, in which the shadow of his candle was reflected.He vividly remembered his grandfather, Konstantin Makaritch, the night watchman of Landlord Valev's house.He was a small, thin, but very vigorous and flexible little old man, about sixty-five years old, always smiling, with drunken eyes.During the day he would sleep in the servant's kitchen, or tease the cooks, and at night he would put on a fat sheepskin jacket, walk around the manor, and keep knocking on the clapper.Behind him followed two dogs with drooping heads, an old bitch Kashtanka and a loach, so called because of its black fur and long, slender body, like a weasel.This loach is very submissive and affectionate, whether it sees its own family or outsiders, it will look at it with affectionate eyes, but it is unreliable.Behind its obedience and gentleness, hides extremely cunning and sinister intentions.No dog is so good at seizing the opportunity to sneak up on a person and nibble on a calf, or sneak into a freezer, or steal a farmer's chicken.His hind legs had been broken more than once, and twice he had been hung up and beaten half to death every week, but he always healed and lived again.

His grandfather must be standing at the gate by now, squinting at the red windows of the country church, stamping his feet in his felt boots, and joking with the servants.His clapper hangs from his belt.He was so cold that he clapped his hands from time to time, shrunk his neck, pinched the maid now and the cook, and let out an old laugh. "Let's take a little snuff, shall we?" he said, sending his snuff-box to the women. The women sniffed snuff and sneezed.The grandfather let out a series of happy laughter as if he was overjoyed, and shouted: "Wipe it off quickly, or you will freeze your nose!"

He also gave dogs snuff.Kashitanka sneezed, wrinkled her nose, and stepped aside aggrieved.Shovel did not sneeze, out of deference, but wagged his tail.The weather is fantastic.The air was motionless, clear and fresh.It was dark at night, but the whole village and its white roofs, the wisps of smoke coming out of the chimneys, the trees that were covered with heavy frost and turned silvery white, and the snowdrifts could be clearly seen. Stars filled the entire sky, blinking happily.The Milky Way stood out so clearly, as if someone had scrubbed it with snow before the festival. ... Vanka sighed, dipped his pen in the ink, and continued writing: "Yesterday I was beaten. The boss pulled me by the hair, dragged me to the yard, and beat me hard with the thong that the master used for work. Blame me for shaking the little baby in their cradle, and accidentally fell asleep. Last week, the landlady asked me to clean up a herring. I cleaned it from the tail, and she picked up the herring and cut the head straight to my face. The masters always make fun of me, send me to the small tavern to fetch wine, and encourage me to steal the boss's cucumbers, and the boss beats me with whatever he finds. There is nothing for food. Bread in the morning, gruel for lunch, In the evening it was bread again. As for tea and cabbage soup, only the boss and the boss's wife drank it. They told me to sleep in the corridor. When their little baby cried, I couldn't sleep at all. I was shaking all the time. Cradle. Dear Grandpa, show God's mercy, take me out of here, go home, go back to the village, I can't take it any longer... I bow to you, and I will always be there for you You pray to God, take me out of here, or I'm going to die.  …”

The corners of Wanka's mouth curled down, he rubbed his eyes with his black fist, and wept bitterly. "I'll grate the tobacco for you," he went on, "and pray God for you, and if I do anything wrong, just smoke me like you smoked Siddor's goat. If you think I've got no work Come on, then I'll go and beg the steward to let me shine his boots for Christ's sake, or be a shepherd boy for Fidelka. My dear grandpa, I can't go on any longer, I'm literally dead. I thought I ran back to the village, but I didn’t have leather boots, and I was afraid of the cold. When I grow up, I will support you for this matter, and don’t allow others to bully you. When you die, I will pray and ask God to let your soul Rest in peace, just like praying for my mother Pelagaia.

"Moscow is a big city. The houses are all gentlemen's. There are plenty of horses, but no sheep, and dogs are not fierce. Children don't walk around here with stars, and the choir doesn't allow anyone to sing. There was one time." I saw some hooks for sale in a shop window, all lined up, good for all kinds of fish, and one hook would hold even a pood of big catfish. I I also saw a few shops selling guns of all kinds, similar to the master's guns, and I'm afraid each gun sold for a hundred rubles.... There were black-bone chickens, partridges, and rabbits in the butcher's shop, but where did they get them? Come, but the guy in the shop refused to say.

"Dear granddad, when the old man has a Christmas tree with presents hanging from it, pick me a walnut wrapped in gold paper and put it in that little green box. Ask Olga Igna Take it, Miss Teyevna, say it's for Vanka." Vanka sighed in a trembling voice, and looked intently at the window again.He recalled that his grandfather always went to the woods to cut a Christmas tree for the old man's house, and he took his grandson along with him.What a joy it was!Grandpa coughed, the trees crackled in the severe cold, and Vanka followed their example and also crackled.Often before cutting down the tree, my grandfather would smoke a bag of cigarettes, sniff the snuff for a long time, and laugh at the frozen Vanka. ...the little spruces for the Christmas tree stood there covered in hoarfrost, waiting to see which of them would die first.All of a sudden, a hare came from nowhere and flew across the snowdrift like an arrow.Grandpa couldn't help yelling, "Grab it, grab it, ... grab it! Hey, short-tailed ghost!"

Grandfather dragged the felled spruce back to the master's house, and everyone set about decorating it. . . . The busiest of all was Miss Olga Ignatyevna, Vanka's favorite.When Vanka's mother Pelageya was still alive and working as a maid in the master's house, Olga Ignatyevna would often give Vanka sweets and teach him to read and write when she had nothing to do. Count to a hundred and even teach him to dance the quadrille.But as soon as Pelageya died, the orphan Vanka was sent to live with his grandfather in the servant's kitchen, and from the kitchen to the shop of the Moscow bootmaker Aryakhin. ...

"Come, dear grandpa," Vanka continued, "for the sake of Christ and God, I beg you, take me out of here. Have pity on me, poor orphan, everyone beats me here, I Hungry to death, suffocated, crying all the time. A few days ago, my boss beat me with a shoe last and knocked me to the ground. I finally came back to life. My life is miserable, worse than a dog Why not. . . . Give my regards to Alyona, the one-eyed Yegorka, the coachman, and don't give away my accordion to anyone else. Son Ivan Zhukov on the grass. My dear grandfather, come here." Vanka folded the written paper in four and put it in the envelope he had bought the night before for a kopeck. ...He thought for a while, dipped the ink in the pen, and wrote the address:

Then he scratched his scalp, thought again, and added a few words: Satisfied that he had written his letter without being disturbed, he put on his hat, and ran out into the street in his shirt shirt, ignoring his fur coat. ... He had asked the butcher's clerk last night, and the clerk had told him that after the letters were thrown into the post-boxes, they were picked up by drunken coachmen in the post-boxes, and the bells were rung to send them all over the world.Vanka ran to the nearest mailbox and stuffed the precious letter into the mouth of the mailbox. ... He settled down with good hopes, and an hour later he was fast asleep. ... In the dream he saw a stove.Grandfather sat on the hearth, his bare feet drooping, reading letters to the cooks. ... The loach walks up and down by the stove, wagging its tail. ...

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