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Konstantin Paustovsky - Meshcherskaya side. To Paustovsky with every hour of the night. Konstantin Paustovsky - Meshcherskaya side - library "100 best books" A small digression from the topic

Tents of black willows hang overhead. Looking at them, you begin to understand the meaning of old words. Obviously, such tents in former times were called "canopy". Under the shade of willows...

And for some reason, on such nights, you call the constellation of Orion Stozhary, and the word "midnight", which in the city sounds, perhaps, like a literary concept, acquires a real meaning here. This darkness under the willows, and the brilliance of the September stars, and the bitterness of the air, and the distant fire in the meadows, where the boys guard the horses driven into the night - all this is midnight. Somewhere in the distance, a watchman strikes the clock on a rural belfry. He strikes for a long time, measured twelve strokes. Then another dark silence. Only occasionally on the Oka will a towing steamer scream in a sleepy voice.

The night drags on slowly; there seems to be no end to it. Sleep on autumn nights in a tent is strong, fresh, despite the fact that you wake up every two hours and go out to look at the sky - to find out if Sirius has risen, if you can see the dawn strip in the east.

The night is getting colder with each passing hour. By dawn, the air already burns the face with a slight frost, the panels of the tent, covered with a thick layer of crisp frost, sag a little, and the grass turns gray from the first matinee.

It's time to get up. In the east, dawn is already pouring with a quiet light, huge outlines of willows are already visible in the sky, the stars are already fading. I go down to the river, wash from the boat. The water is warm, it seems even slightly heated.

The sun is rising. Frost is melting. Coastal sands turn dark with dew.

I boil strong tea in a smoked tin teapot. Hard soot is similar to enamel. Willow leaves burnt in a fire float in a teapot.

I have been fishing all morning. I check from the boat the ropes that have been placed across the river since the evening. First there are empty hooks - ruffs have eaten all the bait on them. But then the cord pulls, cuts the water, and in the depths a living silver shine appears - this is a flat bream walking on a hook. Behind him is a fat and stubborn perch, then a little pike with yellow piercing eyes. The pulled fish seems to be ice cold.

Aksakov's words relate entirely to these days spent on the Prorva:

"On a green flowering shore, over the dark depths of a river or lake, in the shade of bushes, under the tent of a gigantic oskor or curly alder, quietly trembling with its leaves in a bright mirror of water, imaginary passions will subside, imaginary storms will subside, selfish dreams will crumble, unrealizable hopes will scatter. Nature will enter into her eternal rights.Together with fragrant, free, refreshing air, you will breathe into yourself serenity of thought, meekness of feeling, indulgence towards others and even to yourself.

SMALL DIRECTION FROM THE TOPIC

There are many fishing incidents associated with Prorva. I will tell about one of them.

The great tribe of fishermen who lived in the village of Solotche, near Prorva, was excited. A tall old man with long silver teeth came to Solotcha from Moscow. He also fished.

The old man was fishing for spinning: an English fishing rod with a spinner - an artificial nickel fish.

We despised spinning. We watched the old man with malice as he patiently wandered along the shores of the meadow lakes and, swinging his spinning rod like a whip, invariably dragged an empty lure out of the water.

And right next to him, Lenka, the son of a shoemaker, dragged fish not on an English fishing line worth a hundred rubles, but on an ordinary rope. The old man sighed and complained:

Cruel injustice of fate!

Even with the boys he spoke very politely, in "vy", and used old-fashioned, long-forgotten words in conversation. The old man was unlucky. We have known for a long time that all anglers are divided into deep losers and lucky ones. For the lucky ones, the fish bites even on a dead worm. In addition, there are fishermen who are envious and cunning. The tricksters think they can outsmart any fish, but never in my life have I seen such an angler outsmart even the grayest ruff, let alone a roach.

It’s better not to go fishing with an envious person - he still won’t peck. In the end, having lost weight with envy, he will begin to throw his fishing rod to yours, slap the sinker on the water and scare away all the fish.

So the old man was out of luck. In one day, he broke off at least ten expensive spinners on snags, walked all over in blood and blisters from mosquitoes, but did not give up.

Once we took him with us to Lake Segden.

All night the old man dozed by the fire standing like a horse: he was afraid to sit on the damp ground. At dawn, I fried eggs with lard. The sleepy old man wanted to step over the fire to get bread from the bag, stumbled and stepped on the fried eggs with a huge foot.

He pulled out his yolk-smeared leg, shook it in the air and hit the jug of milk. The jug cracked and crumbled into small pieces. And the beautiful baked milk with a slight rustle was sucked up before our eyes into the wet earth.

Guilty! - said the old man, apologizing to the jug.

Then he went to the lake, dipped his foot into the cold water and dangled it for a long time to wash the scrambled eggs off his boot. For two minutes we could not utter a word, and then we laughed in the bushes until noon.

Everyone knows that once a fisherman is unlucky, sooner or later such a good failure will happen to him that they will talk about it in the village for at least ten years. Finally such a failure happened.

We went with the old man to Prorva. The meadows have not yet been mowed. A camomile the size of a palm lashed her legs.

The old man walked and, stumbling over the grass, repeated:

What a flavor, folks! What a delightful scent!

There was a calm over the Abyss. Even the leaves of the willows did not move and did not show the silvery underside, as happens even in a light breeze. In heated herbs "zhundeli" bumblebees.

I sat on a wrecked raft, smoking and watching a feather float. I patiently waited for the float to shudder and go into the green river depth. The old man walked along the sandy shore with a spinning rod. I heard his sighs and exclamations from behind the bushes:

What a wonderful, charming morning!

Then I heard behind the bushes quacking, stomping, snuffling and sounds very similar to the lowing of a cow with a bandaged mouth. Something heavy flopped into the water, and the old man cried out in a thin voice:

My God, what a beauty!

I jumped off the raft, reached the shore in waist-deep water, and ran up to the old man. He stood behind the bushes near the water, and on the sand in front of him an old pike was breathing heavily. At first glance, it was no less than a pood.

But the old man hissed at me and, with trembling hands, took a pair of pince-nez out of his pocket. He put it on, bent over the pike and began to examine it with such delight, with which connoisseurs admire a rare painting in a museum.

The pike did not take his angry narrowed eyes from the old man.

Looks great like a crocodile! - said Lenka. The pike squinted at Lenka, and he jumped back. It seemed that the pike croaked: "Well, wait, you fool, I'll tear off your ears!"

Dove! - exclaimed the old man and bent even lower over the pike.

Then the failure happened, which is still talked about in the village.

The pike tried on, blinked an eye, and hit the old man on the cheek with all his might with his tail. Over the sleepy water there was a deafening crack of a slap in the face. The pince-nez flew into the river. The pike jumped up and flopped heavily into the water.

Alas! shouted the old man, but it was already too late.

Lenka danced to the side and shouted in an impudent voice:

Aha! Received! Don't catch, don't catch, don't catch when you don't know how!

On the same day, the old man wound up his spinning rods and left for Moscow. And no one else broke the silence of the canals and rivers, did not cut off the glittering cold river lilies and did not admire aloud what is best to admire without words.

MORE ABOUT MEADOWS

There are many lakes in the meadows. Their names are strange and varied: Quiet, Bull, Hotets, Ramoina, Kanava, Staritsa, Muzga, Bobrovka, Selyanskoye Lake and, finally, Langobardskoe.

At the bottom of Hotz lie black bog oaks. Silence is always calm. High banks close the lake from the winds. In Bobrovka, there were once beavers, and now they are chasing fry. The ravine is a deep lake with such capricious fish that only a person with very good nerves can catch them. Bull is a mysterious, distant lake, stretching for many kilometers. In it, shallows are replaced by whirlpools, but there is little shade on the banks, and therefore we avoid it. There are amazing golden lines in the Kanava: each such line pecks for half an hour. By autumn, the banks of the Kanava are covered with purple spots, but not from autumn foliage, but from an abundance of very large rose hips.

On Staritsa along the banks there are sand dunes overgrown with Chernobyl and succession. Grass grows on the dunes, it is called tenacious. These are dense gray-green balls, similar to a tightly closed rose. If you pull such a ball out of the sand and put it with its roots up, it slowly starts tossing and turning, like a beetle turned on its back, straightens the petals on one side, rests on them and turns over again with its roots to the ground.

In Muzga, the depth reaches twenty meters. Flocks of cranes rest on the banks of the Muzga during the autumn migration. The village lake is all overgrown with black mounds. Hundreds of ducks nest in it.

Black Lake is named after the color of the water. The water is black and clear.

In Meshchera, almost all lakes have water of different colors. Most lakes with black

water. In other lakes (for example, in Chernenkoe), the water resembles a brilliant

ink. It is difficult, without seeing, to imagine this rich, dense color. AND

at the same time, the water in this lake, as well as in Chernoye, is completely

transparent.

This color is especially good in autumn, when yellow and

red leaves of birches and aspens. They cover the water so thickly that the boat rustles.

through the foliage and leaves behind a shiny black road.

But this color is also good in summer, when white lilies lie on the water, as on

extraordinary glass. Black water has a great property

reflections: it is difficult to distinguish real shores from reflected ones, real

thickets - from their reflection in the water.

In Lake Urzhensky the water is purple, in Segden it is yellowish, in the Great Lake

Tin-colored, and in the lakes beyond the Proy - a little bluish. In meadow lakes

in summer the water is clear, and in autumn it acquires a greenish marine color and

even the smell of sea water.

But most of the lakes are still black. The old people say the blackness is caused

the fact that the bottom of the lakes is covered with a thick layer of fallen leaves. Brown leaves give

dark infusion. But this is not entirely true. The color is due to the peat bottom of the lakes.

The older the peat, the darker the water.

I mentioned the Meshchersky boats. They look like Polynesian pies. They are

hollowed out from a single piece of wood. Only at the bow and stern they are riveted

forged nails with large hats.

The boat is very narrow, light, agile, you can go through the smallest

ducts.

Between the forests and the Oka, water meadows stretch in a wide belt.

In the meadows, the old channel of the Oka stretches for many kilometers. His name is Provo.

It is a dead, deep and motionless river with steep banks. coast

thickets of tall, old, in three girths, sedges, centennial willows,

rose hips, umbrella herbs and blackberries.

sorrel and such gigantic puffball mushrooms as on this stretch.

dangerous and sharp snares.

osocore barely trembles, pink from the sunset, and in the whirlpools they beat loudly

prorvinsky pikes.

In the mornings, when you can't walk on the grass and ten steps so as not to get wet

to a thread of dew, the air on Prorva smells of bitter willow bark,

grassy freshness, sedge. It is thick, cool and healing.

Every autumn I spend on Prorva in a tent for many days. To obtain

a distant idea of what Prorva is should be described at least

one provincial day. I come to Prorva by boat. I have a tent with me

an ax, a lantern, a backpack with food, a sapper shovel, some dishes,

tobacco, matches and fishing accessories: fishing rods, donks, traps,

zherlitsy and, most importantly, a jar of leafworms. I collect them in

old garden under heaps of fallen leaves.

On Prorva, I already have my favorite places, always very remote places. One of

them is a sharp turn of the river, where it spills into a small lake with

very high banks overgrown with vines.

There I pitch a tent. But first of all, I carry hay. Yes, I confess I

hauling hay from the nearest haystack, but hauling it very deftly, so that even

The most experienced eye of the old collective farmer will not notice any flaw in the haystack.

I put hay under the canvas floor of the tent. Then when I leave, I

I take it back.

The tent must be pulled so that it buzzes like a drum. Then she needs

dig in so that when it rains, water flows into the ditches on the sides of the tent and does not

wet the floor.

The tent is set up. It's warm and dry. Lantern "bat" hanging on

hook. In the evening I light it and even read in the tent, but I usually read

not for long - there is too much interference on Prorva: then behind the neighboring bush it will start

screaming corncrake, then a pood fish will hit with a cannon rumble, then

deafeningly shoots a willow rod in a fire and scatters sparks, then over

a crimson glow will begin to flare up in thickets and a gloomy moon will rise over

expanses of the evening earth. And immediately subside corncrakes and stop

the bittern hums in the swamps - the moon rises in watchful silence. She

appears as the owner of these dark waters, century-old willows, mysterious

long nights.

Tents of black willows hang overhead. Looking at them, you begin to understand

meaning of old words. Obviously, such tents in former times were called

"canopy". Under the shade of willows...

and the sparkle of the September stars, and the bitterness of the air, and the distant fire in the meadows,

where the boys guard the horses driven into the night - all this is midnight. Somewhere

far away the watchman strikes the clock on the rural belfry. He beats for a long time, measuredly -

twelve strokes. Then another dark silence. Only occasionally on the Oka

But most of the lakes are still black. The old people say that the blackness is caused by the fact that the bottom of the lakes is covered with a thick layer of fallen leaves. Brown foliage gives a dark infusion. But this is not entirely true. The color is explained by the peaty bottom of the lakes - the older the peat, the darker the water.

I mentioned the Meshchora boats. They look like Polynesian pies. They are carved from a single piece of wood. Only at the bow and stern they are riveted with forged nails with large hats.

The prow is very narrow, light, agile, it is possible to pass through the smallest channels.

Between the forests and the Oka, water meadows stretch in a wide belt,

At dusk, the meadows look like the sea. As in the sea, the sun sets in the grass, and signal lights on the banks of the Oka burn like beacons. Just as in the sea, fresh winds blow over the meadows, and the high sky has turned over like a pale green bowl.

In the meadows, the old channel of the Oka stretches for many kilometers. His name is Provo.

It is a dead, deep and motionless river with steep banks. The shores were overgrown with tall, old, three-girth, blackberry, hundred-year-old willows, wild roses, umbrella grasses and blackberries.

We called one stretch on this river “Fantastic Abyss”, because nowhere and none of us have seen such huge, two human height, burdocks, blue thorns, such a tall lungwort and horse sorrel and such gigantic puffball mushrooms as on this reach.

The density of grasses in other places on the Prorva is such that it is impossible to land on the shore from a boat - the grasses stand as an impenetrable elastic wall. They repel a person. Herbs are intertwined with treacherous blackberry loops, hundreds of dangerous and sharp snares.

There is often a light haze over Prorva. Its color changes with the time of day. In the morning it is a blue fog, in the afternoon it is a whitish haze, and only at dusk the air over the Prorva becomes transparent, like spring water. The foliage of the black-spotted trees barely trembles, pink from the sunset, and Prorva pikes are loudly beating in the whirlpools.

In the mornings, when you can't walk ten steps across the grass without getting wet to the skin with dew, the air on Prorva smells of bitter willow bark, grassy freshness, and sedge. It is thick, cool and healing.

Every autumn I spend on Prorva in a tent for many days. To get a glimpse of what Prorva is, at least one Prorva day should be described. I come to Prorva by boat. I have a tent, an ax, a lantern, a backpack with groceries, a sapper shovel, some dishes, tobacco, matches and fishing accessories: fishing rods, donkeys, slings, vents and, most importantly, a jar of leafworms. I collect them in an old garden under heaps of dead leaves.

On Prorva, I already have my favorite places, always very remote places. One of them is a sharp turn of the river, where it overflows into a small lake with very high banks overgrown with vines.

There I pitch a tent. But first of all, I carry hay. Yes, I confess, I haul hay from the nearest haystack, but I haul it very deftly, so that even the most experienced eye of the old collective farmer will not notice any flaw in the haystack. I put hay under the canvas floor of the tent. Then when I leave, I take it back.

The tent must be pulled so that it buzzes like a drum. Then it must be dug in so that during rain the water flows into the ditches on the sides of the tent and does not wet the floor.

The tent is set up. It's warm and dry. Lantern "bat" hangs on a hook. In the evening I light it and even read in a tent, but I usually don’t read for long - there are too many interferences on Prorva: either a corncrake will start screaming behind a neighboring bush, then a pood fish will strike with a cannon rumble, then a willow rod will deafeningly shoot in a fire and scatter sparks, then over a crimson glow will begin to flare up in thickets and a gloomy moon will rise over the expanses of the evening earth. And immediately the corncrakes will subside and the bittern will stop buzzing in the swamps - the moon rises in watchful silence. She appears as the owner of these dark waters, hundred-year-old willows, mysterious long nights.

Tents of black willows hang overhead. Looking at them, you begin to understand the meaning of old words. Obviously, such tents in former times were called "canopy". Under the canopy of willows... And for some reason on such nights you call the constellation of Orion Stozhary, and the word "midnight", which in the city sounds, perhaps, like a literary concept, acquires a real meaning here. This darkness under the willows, and the brilliance of the September stars, and the bitterness of the air, and the distant fire in the meadows, where the boys guard the horses driven into the night - all this is midnight. Somewhere in the distance, a watchman strikes the clock on a rural belfry. He hits for a long time, measuredly - twelve strokes. Then another dark silence. Only occasionally on the Oka will a towing steamer scream in a sleepy voice.

The night drags on slowly; it seems it will never end. Sleep on autumn nights in a tent is strong, fresh, despite the fact that you wake up every two hours and go out to look at the sky - to find out if Sirius has risen, if you can see the strip of dawn in the east.

The sun is rising. Frost is melting. Coastal sands turn dark with dew.

I boil strong tea in a smoked tin teapot. Hard soot is similar to enamel. Willow leaves burnt in a fire float in a teapot.

I have been fishing all morning. I check from the boat the ropes that have been placed across the river since the evening. First there are empty hooks - ruffs have eaten all the bait on them. But then the cord stretches, cuts the water, and a living silver shine appears in the depths - this is a flat bream walking on a hook. Behind him is a fat and stubborn perch, then a little pike with yellow piercing eyes. The pulled fish seems to be ice cold.

Aksakov's words relate entirely to these days spent on the Prorva:

“On a green flowering shore, over the dark depths of a river or lake, in the shade of bushes, under the tent of a gigantic oskor or curly alder, quietly trembling with its leaves in a bright mirror of water, imaginary passions will subside, imaginary storms will subside, self-loving dreams will crumble, unrealizable hopes will scatter. Nature will enter into its eternal rights. Together with the fragrant, free, refreshing air, you will breathe into yourself serenity of thought, meekness of feeling, indulgence towards others and even towards yourself.

A small digression from the topic

There are many fishing incidents associated with Prorva. I will tell about one of them.

The great tribe of fishermen who lived in the village of Solotche, near Prorva, was excited. A tall old man with long silver teeth came to Solotcha from Moscow. He also fished.

The old man was fishing for spinning: an English fishing rod with a spinner - an artificial nickel fish.

And right next to him, Lenka, the son of a shoemaker, dragged fish not on an English fishing line worth a hundred rubles, but on an ordinary rope. The old man sighed and complained:

- A cruel injustice of fate!

Even with the boys he spoke very politely, in "vy", and used old-fashioned, long-forgotten words in conversation. The old man was unlucky. We have known for a long time that all anglers are divided into deep losers and lucky ones. For the lucky ones, the fish bites even on a dead worm. In addition, there are fishermen - envious and cunning. Tricksters think they can outsmart any fish, but never in my life have I seen such an angler outsmart even the grayest ruff, let alone Roach.