Petr Alekseevich Marakulin infected his colleagues with fun and carelessness. Himself - narrow-chested, with a string of mustache, already thirty years old, but felt almost twelve years old. Marakulin was famous for his handwriting, the reports deduced letter by letter: he scribbles evenly, as if he would lower it, and will rewrite it more than once, but after that - at least bring it to the exhibition. And Marakulin knew joy: he flees another time in the morning to serve, and suddenly he will overflow his chest and become unusually.
At once, everything has changed. He was waiting for Easter promotion and reward by Easter - but instead he was expelled from the service. For five years Pyotr Alekseevich was in charge of coupon books, and everything was in good order, and the directors started to check before the holiday - something does not fit. They said later - the cashier, a friend of Marakulin, “counted”. Pyotr Alekseevich tried to prove that there was some kind of mistake here — they did not listen. And then Marakulin understood: "Man to man is a log."
I walked around the summer idle, put things down, sold out, I helped myself. And I had to move out of the apartment. Pyotr Alekseevich settled in the Burkovo house, opposite the Obukhov hospital, where people in hospital gowns roam and a red cross of white sisters flickers. The rich live from the front end of the house: the landlord Burkov, the former governor, the sworn attorney, the doctor of medicine, and general Kholmogorova - "Louse," one percent to her is enough. From black - the apartments are small. There are shoemakers, tailors, a baker, bath attendants, hairdressers, and whom else. Here is the apartment of the mistress of Marakulin, Adonia Ivoylovna. She is a widow, rich, loves blessed and holy fools. In summer, she leaves for a pilgrimage, leaving an apartment on Akumovna, a cook. They love Akumovna around the courtyard: Akumovna was in the next world, she went through torment - divine! She is almost nowhere from home, and she wants everything in the air.
Marakulin’s neighbors are Damaskin’s brothers: Vasily Alexandrovich, a clown, and Sergei Alexandrovich, who is dancing in the theater, walking, does not touch the ground. And even closer - two Faiths. Vera Nikolaevna Klikacheva, from the Nadezhda courses, is pale, thin, earns a massage, she wants to prepare for a certificate of maturity to enter a medical school, and it is difficult to study to tears, and at night Vera howls, as if squeezed by a loop. Verochka, Vera Ivanovna Vekhoreva, is a student at the Theater School. Verochka liked Marakulin. She danced well, read with a voice. But her arrogance was amazing, she said that she was a great actress, shouting: "I will show who I am to the whole world." And Marakulin felt that she wanted to show the breeder Vakuev: she kept him for a year, but if she got tired, she sent him to Petersburg to study for thirty rubles a month. At night, Verochka beat her head against the wall. And Marakulin listened in a frenzy and cursed any “louse”.
In the summer, everyone parted, and in the fall, Verochka did not return. After they saw her on the boulevard, with different men. Anna Stepanovna, a teacher of the gymnasium, settled in her place - her husband was robbed, offended, abandoned. In the fall, everyone had to tight. The clown Vasily Alexandrovich fell from the trapeze, hurt his legs, Anna Stepanovna was being pulled back, Marakulin’s work was over. And suddenly - a call to him from Moscow, from Pavel Plotnikov. Marakulin of Moscow himself. I went - I remembered.
In those early years, Peter was busy with Pasha, and Plotnikov obeyed him as an elder. And later, when an adult Plotnikov drank and was ready to throw out anything, only Pyotr Alekseevich could calm a rampant friend. Marakulin also thought about his mother, Evgenia Alexandrovna: one must go to the grave. I remembered her in a coffin - he was then ten years old, her cross was visible on a wax forehead from under a white whisk.
Zhenya’s father served as a factory doctor from Plotnikov’s father, often took her with him.Zhenya had seen enough of factory life, the soul was ill. I decided to help the young technician Tsyganov, who arranged for factory readings, picked up books. Once, when she did everything, she hurried home. Yes, Tsyganov suddenly rushed at her and knocked him to the floor. She said nothing at home, horror and shame tormented. Blamed himself: Tsyganov “just went blind.” And every time I came to help him, that evening repeated. And begged him to spare, not to touch, but he did not want to hear. A year later, Tsyganov disappeared from the factory, Zhenya sighed, and then exactly the same thing happened the other time, only with her brother, the junker. And she begged, but he did not want to hear. And when a brother left Moscow a year later, a young doctor, his father’s assistant, replaced his brother. And for three years she was silent. And blamed myself. Father, looking at her, was worried: was she overworked? Persuaded to go to the village. And there at Great Lent on Holy Week on Tuesday she went into the woods and prayed for three days and three nights with all the searing of horror, shame and torment. And on Good Friday, she appeared in the church, completely nude, with a razor in her hand. And when they carried the shroud, she began to cut herself, putting crosses on her forehead, on her shoulders, on her arms, on her chest. And her blood poured on the shroud.
For a year she lay in the hospital, a barely noticeable scar remained on the forehead, and even then it is not visible under the hair. And when my father’s acquaintance, accountant Alexei Ivanovich Marakulin, explained to her - she decided, told everything without hiding. He listened meekly and cried, - loved her. And the son only remembered: the mother was strange.
Marakulin did not fall asleep all night, only once was forgotten for a minute, and he had a dream, as if Plotnikov was persuading: it is better to live without a head, and cut his neck with a razor. And he arrived - a fever near Plotnikov: “there is no head, a mouth on his back, and eyes on his shoulders. He is the hive. ” And not that - the king of the polar state, controls the entire globe, wants to - rotate left, wants - to the right, then stop, then let go. Suddenly - after a month of binge - Plotnikov Marakulin recognized: "Parsley, tail-scum ..." - and staggering to the sofa, fell asleep for two days. And his mother cries and thanks: “He healed, father!”
When Pavel woke up, dragged Marakulin to the tavern, he confessed at the table: "I, in Petrusha, as I believe in God, will not work out in business - I’ll call your name - you look, everything is old again." And he dragged along, then - to the station spent. Already in the car, Marakulin remembered: he did not have time to visit his mother’s grave. And some anguish surged over him ...
Cheerfully tenants greeted Easter. Vasily Alexandrovich discharged from the hospital, walked with difficulty, as if without heels. Vera Nikolaevna was not up to the certificate — the doctor advised him to go somewhere to Abastuman: it was not right with the lungs. Anna Stepanovna fell from her feet, waited for her dismissal, and all smiled with her sick, terrible smile. And when Sergey Alexandrovich made a condition with the theater on a trip abroad, he called other herds: “Russia is suffocating among all sorts of Burkovs. Everyone needs to go abroad, even for a week. ” “And what money will we go for?” - smiled Anna Stepanovna. “I will get the money,” said Marakulin, recalling Plotnikov, “I will get a thousand rubles!” And everyone believed. And their heads were spinning. There, in Paris, they will all find a place for themselves on earth, a job, a certificate of maturity, lost joy. “He would have to find the little one,” Marakulin suddenly grasped: she would become a great actress in Paris, and the world would come upon her.
In the evenings, Akumovna wondered, and a big change came out for everyone. “But should we take Akumovna too?” - Sergey Alexandrovich winked. “Well, I’ll go and get some air!”
And finally the answer came from Plotnikov: he transferred twenty-five rubles to Marakulina through the bank. And Sergey Alexandrovich went abroad with the theater, and he persuaded Vera Nikolaevna and Anna Stepanovna to settle with Vasily Alexandrovich in Finland, in Tur-Kilya — care is needed for him. From morning till night, Marakulin walked around Petersburg from end to end, like a mouse in a mousetrap.And at night he dreamed of a snub-nosed, toothed, naked: “On Saturday,” he bangs his teeth, laughs, “his mother will be in white!” In deadly longing, Maraculin awoke. It was Friday. And he froze all over with thought: his term was Saturday. And he did not want to believe a dream, and he believed, and, believing, he condemned himself to death. And Marakulin felt that he could not bear it, could not wait for Saturday, and in a deadly melancholy in the morning, wandering the streets, he only waited for the night: to see Verochka, tell her everything and say goodbye. His misfortune drove him, threw from street to street, confused, - this is fate, from which not to leave. And the night wound - tried to find Verochka. And Saturday came and was drawing to a close, the hour was drawing near. And Marakulin went to his house: maybe a dream means otherwise, why didn’t he ask Akumovna?
He called for a long time and entered from the back door. The door to the kitchen was unlocked. Akumovna sat in a white scarf. “Mother will be in white!” - remembered Marakulin and groaned.
Akumovna jumped up and told how she climbed into the attic in the morning, the linen was hanging there, and someone locked it. I climbed out onto the roof, almost slipped, trying to scream - there is no voice. She wanted to go down the gutter, but the janitor saw: “Do not climb, - screams, - otopr!”
Marakulin told his story. "What does this dream mean, Akumovna?" The old woman is silent. The clock in the kitchen rattled, twitched for twelve hours. “Akumovna? Asked Marakulin. “Sunday has arrived?” - "Sunday, sleep well." And, having waited until Akumovna calmed down, he took Marakulin a pillow and, as the summer residents of Burkovo do, laying it on the windowsill, he outweighed. And suddenly I saw green birches on the garbage and bricks along the stalls-stalls, felt how slowly his former lost joy was approaching, rolling. And, unable to resist, with a pillow flew down from the windowsill. “The times are ripe,” he heard from the bottom of the well, “the punishment is near.” Lie down, swamp head. ” Marakulin was lying in blood with a broken skull on the Bourke's yard.
