Chapter 2 "New Villa" 1

new villa one A bridge is being built three versts from the village of Obrutsanovo.The village was built high on the steep river bank, and from here the palisade skeleton of the bridge could be seen.Whether it is foggy weather or in a quiet winter day, the thin iron beams of the bridge and the surrounding scaffolding are always covered with heavy frost, forming a beautiful and even magical picture.Engineer Kucherov, the builder of the bridge, occasionally drove through the village in a buggy or buggy.It was a plump, broad-shouldered, bearded man with a crumpled soft cap on his head.Sometimes, during holidays, homeless people who work on the bridge come to the village.They begged for alms, made fun of village women, and occasionally stole something.However, this situation is rare.Usually, the days are always quiet and stable, as if there is no such construction project at all. Only in the evening when piles of bonfires are lit next to the bridge, the wind can faintly hear the singing of tramps.Sometimes during the day there was also the mournful sound of metal: boom... boom... boom... One day the engineer Kucherov's wife came to him.She liked the banks of the river, the beauty of the green basin with its villages, churches, and herds, and she asked her husband to buy a small piece of land and build a villa there.Her husband obeyed her.They bought twenty dessiatins of land and built a beautiful two-story house on the steep bank where the Obruchanovo villagers used to graze cattle. The flagpole is erected, and every Sunday, a flag is flying on the flagpole.The house took about three months to build, and then they planted big trees all winter, and when spring came, the surroundings were green, and there was a tree-lined road on the new manor, a gardener and two workers wearing white aprons Digging the ground near the main house, a small fountain was spraying water, and a mirrored ball shone brightly, hurting the eyes when looking at it.The estate has already given its name, called "New Villa".

One fine, warm morning at the end of May, two horses were brought into the village of Obrutsanovo to change their shoes at the house of the local blacksmith, Rodion Petrov. They are from the new villa.The two horses were snow-white in color, well-proportioned, fat-headed, and very similar in appearance. "What a pair of swans!" said Rodion, looking at the two horses with admiration. His wife, Stepanida, his children, and his grandchildren all came out to watch the horses.Gradually a group of people gathered around.The Rychkovs and their sons approached, beardless, with puffy faces, and hatless.Kozoff also came up, a tall, thin old man with a narrow beard and a crutch in his hand; smiling, as if he knew something secret.

"They're just white, so what's the big deal?" he said. "Feed some oats to my horses, and their coats will be so smooth. These two horses should be harnessed to the plow and whipped..." The coachman just looked at him contemptuously, without saying a word .Later, when a fire was being lit in the blacksmith's shop, the coachman began to talk while smoking.From him the peasants learned many details: his master was rich, and his wife, Yelena Ivanovna, who had lived in Moscow before her marriage, was a poor governess;He said that they would not plow or sow seeds on this new estate, they just lived here to relax and breathe fresh air.After finishing his work, he led the horse and walked back, followed by a group of children and dogs barking.Kozoff looked at his back and blinked mockingly.

"What a landlord!" he said. "I'm building a house, I'm raising horses, but I don't even have food to eat. What kind of landlord!" For some reason Kozoff hated that New Grange, and hated the white horses, and hated the handsome, plump coachman.He is single and his wife is dead.He lived a dull life (a disease prevented him from working, he said now that it was a colic, now that he had roundworms), and his living expenses were sent by his son who worked in a confectionery shop in Kharkov.He loafed all day long on the river bank or in the village, and if, for example, he saw a peasant carrying wood or fishing, he would say: "This is wood from a dead tree, rotten," or: "In the In this weather, fish will not take the bait."When there was a drought, he said that it would not rain until it was severely cold, and when it rained, he said that now the crops would rot in the field and be wiped out.While he was talking, he kept blinding his eyes, as if he knew something secret.

Every evening fireworks and firecrackers were set off in the manor, and a small boat with a small red lantern and a cloth sail sailed past the village of Obruchanovo.One morning the engineer's wife, Yelena Ivanovna, came to the village with her little daughter in a yellow-wheeled carriage drawn by a pair of dark chestnut-colored pony horses, both wearing broad brims. A straw hat with the brim pressed over the ears. It happened to be the season for sending manure.Rodion the blacksmith, a tall, thin old man with no hat, bare feet, and a big fork on his shoulder, was standing beside his dirty and ugly cart, looking at the ponies, looking at them from him. It was evident from his face that he had never seen such a small horse before.

"Kuccheriha is here!" whispered voices from all around. "Look, here comes Kucheriha!" Yelena Ivanovna looked at the small wooden houses, as if wishing to choose one, and stopped the carriage at the door of a poor wooden house, in which several children's heads protruded from the windows, Some of their hair is light yellow, some black, some fiery red.Rodion's wife, Stepanida, was a stout old woman who ran out of the cabin, her kerchief slipping from her gray hair, and looked at the carriage in the sun with a smile and wrinkles on her face, as if she were a Like a blind man.

"It's for your child," said Elena Ivanovna, giving her three rubles. Suddenly Stepanida burst into tears, and knelt down and kowtowed; Rodion threw himself on the ground, showing his large brown bald head, and nearly stuck his fork in his wife's rib.Embarrassed, Yelena Ivanovna drove home.