Read French lessons in abbreviation. Analysis of the work "French Lessons" by Rasputin V.G. The main themes of the work

The boy went to fifth grade in 1948. It would be more correct to say, he went: they only had an elementary school in the village, so he was sent to study further in the regional center.

The famine had not yet subsided that year, and the mother had three of them.

It’s hard to say how the mother decided to let her son go to the area: they lived without a father, it was very bad, she apparently decided that it couldn’t get any worse - it couldn’t be worse. The boy studied well and enjoyed himself, wrote letters for the old women, and everyone considered him “brainy.” And the mother, in spite of all misfortunes, collected it.

The boy studied well in the regional center. In all subjects, except French, there were A's. He struggled with French because of his pronunciation. Lydia Mikhailovna, a French teacher, listening to him, winced helplessly and closed her eyes.

In the regional center, the boy lost a lot of weight due to homesickness and because he was constantly malnourished. In the fall, when grain was transported from their village, the mother sent food quite often. But she was missing.

The hunger in the city was not at all like the hunger in the countryside. There, especially in the fall, it was always possible to intercept, pick, or dig up something. Here were strangers, strangers' gardens, strangers' land.

One day in September, a friend of the boy asked him if he knew how to play “chika” and called him to see. The game took place on the outskirts of the city. The boy watched and understood what the essence of the game was. The main thing is that the game was for money, and he realized that this would be his salvation.

Of course, my mother had no money. But very rarely she sent 5 rubles in an envelope. It was assumed that the son should buy milk with them - for anemia. And so, when he had money again, he decided to try playing. At first the boy lost, but each time he felt that his hand was becoming more confident. And then the day came when he won his first ruble. He didn't need more - it was enough for a half-liter can of milk. Hunger was no longer so bad.

But the boy did not have enough cunning to hide his skill, and soon, when he was about to leave after winning another ruble, he was stopped and beaten.

The next day, he came to school with a broken face. Lidia Mikhailovna, who was their class teacher, asked what was the matter. And someone from the back desks, shouting, revealed his secret.

The boy was expecting punishment, but the teacher calmly took this news. She just started asking how much he wins and what he spends the money on.

“For milk,” he answered.

She sat in front of him, smart, young, beautiful, and looked at him carefully.

In front of her, crouched on the desk was a skinny boy with a broken face, unkempt, motherless and lonely.

Sighing, Lydia Mikhailovna turned the conversation to something else. She regretted that he only had an A in French, and offered to study with him additionally.

Thus began painful and awkward days for him. Every evening after class, Lidia Mikhailovna tried to sit him down for dinner, but the student stubbornly refused.

One day at school he was told that there was a package for him downstairs in the locker room. The boy was delighted: of course, someone brought it from his mother. Taking the plywood box and immediately opening it, he was surprised to find pasta and hematogen inside. And he understood everything! They never had such products in their village. It was the teacher who decided to feed him this way. Taking the parcel, the boy carried it and gave it to Lydia Mikhailovna.

The French lessons didn't stop there. Lidia Mikhailovna really took on the boy. And soon this gave results: it became much easier to pronounce phrases in French.

One day the teacher asked if he still played for money.

“No,” answered the boy. - It's winter now.

Lidia Mikhailovna began to remember her childhood and their games. It turns out they were also playing for money. Once Lidia Mikhailovna tried to remember this half-forgotten game, and soon, crawling on the floor and shouting at each other, they excitedly fought in the “wall”.

Now they studied little French, spending all their time playing. We won one by one, but the boy won more and more often.

I wish I knew how it would end.

Standing opposite each other, they argued about the score. They were shouting, interrupting each other, when a surprised, if not to say amazed, but firm, ringing voice reached them:

- Lidia Mikhailovna, what is happening here?

The school principal stood at the door.

Three days later Lydia Mikhailovna left. The day before, she met a boy after school.

“I’ll go to my place in Kuban,” she said, saying goodbye. - And you study calmly... It’s my fault here. Learn,” she patted me on the head and left.

And he never saw her again.

In the middle of winter, after the January holidays, a package arrived in the mail. There was pasta and three red apples.

The stories of V. G. Rasputin are distinguished by a surprisingly attentive and caring attitude towards man and his difficult fate. The author draws images ordinary people who live an ordinary life with its sorrows and joys. At the same time, he reveals to us the rich inner world of these people. Thus, in the story “French Lessons,” the author reveals to readers the life and spiritual world of a village teenager.

Story

French lessons

Anastasia Prokopyevna Kopylova

It’s strange: why do we, just like before our parents, always feel guilty before our teachers? And not for what happened at school - no, but for what happened to us after.

I went to fifth grade in '48. It would be more correct to say, I went: in our village there was only an elementary school, so in order to study further, I had to travel from home fifty kilometers to the regional center. A week earlier, my mother had gone there, agreed with her friend that I would live with her, and on the last day of August, Uncle Vanya, the driver of the only lorry and a half on the collective farm, unloaded me on Podkamennaya Street, where I was to live, and helped me bring a bundle with bed, patted him on the shoulder encouragingly goodbye and drove off. So, at the age of eleven, my independent life began.

The hunger had not yet gone away that year, and my mother had three of us, I was the eldest. In the spring, when it was especially difficult, I swallowed it myself and forced my sister to swallow the eyes of sprouted potatoes and grains of oats and rye in order to spread the plantings in my stomach - then I wouldn’t have to think about food all the time. All summer we diligently watered our seeds with clean Angarsk water, but for some reason we did not receive a harvest or it was so small that we did not feel it. However, I think that this idea is not completely useless and will come in handy for a person someday, but due to inexperience we did something wrong there.

It’s hard to say how my mother decided to let me go to the district (we called the district center a district). We lived without our father, we lived very poorly, and she apparently decided that it couldn’t get any worse - it couldn’t get any worse. I studied well, went to school with pleasure, and in the village I was recognized as a literate person: I wrote for old women and read letters, went through all the books that ended up in our unprepossessing library, and in the evenings I told all sorts of stories from them to the children, adding more of my own. But they especially believed in me when it came to bonds. During the war, people accumulated a lot of them, winning tables came often, and then the bonds were brought to me. It was believed that I had a lucky eye. Winnings did happen, most often small ones, but in those years the collective farmer was happy with any penny, and then completely unexpected luck fell from my hands. The joy from her involuntarily spread to me. I was singled out from the village kids, they even fed me; One day Uncle Ilya, a generally stingy, tight-fisted old man, having won four hundred rubles, rashly grabbed me a bucket of potatoes - in the spring it was considerable wealth.

And all because I understood the bond numbers, the mothers said:

Your guy is growing up smart. You… let’s teach him. The diploma will not be wasted.

And my mother, in spite of all the misfortunes, gathered me, although no one from our village in the area had studied before. I was the first. Yes, I didn’t really understand what was ahead of me, what trials awaited me, my dear, in a new place.

I studied well here too. What was left for me? - then I came here, I had no other business here, and I didn’t yet know how to take care of what was entrusted to me. I would hardly have dared to go to school if I had left at least one lesson unlearned, so in all subjects, except French, I kept straight A's.

I had trouble with French because of the pronunciation. I easily memorized words and phrases, translated quickly, coped well with the difficulties of spelling, but the pronunciation completely betrayed my Angarsk origin right down to the last generation, where no one had ever pronounced foreign words, if they even suspected their existence. I scrambled in French in the manner of our village tongue twisters, swallowing half of the sounds as unnecessary, and blurting out the other half in short barking bursts. Lydia Mikhailovna, a French teacher, listening to me, winced helplessly and closed her eyes. She had, of course, never heard anything like it. Over and over again she showed how to pronounce nasals and vowel combinations, asked me to repeat them - I was lost, my tongue became stiff in my mouth and did not move. It was all for nothing. But the worst thing began when I came home from school. There I was involuntarily distracted, I was forced to do something all the time, there the guys were bothering me, together with them, like it or not, I had to move, play, and work in class. But as soon as I was left alone, longing immediately fell upon me - longing for home, for the village. Never before had I been away from my family even for a day and, of course, I was not ready to live among strangers. I felt so bad, so bitter and disgusted! - worse than any disease. I wanted only one thing, dreamed of one thing - home and home. I lost a lot of weight; my mother, who arrived at the end of September, was afraid for me. I stood strong with her, didn’t complain or cry, but when she started to drive away, I couldn’t stand it and roared after the car. My mother waved her hand at me from the back so that I would back off and not disgrace myself and her, I didn’t understand anything. Then she made up her mind and stopped the car.

Get ready,” she demanded when I approached. That's enough, I've finished studying, let's go home.

I came to my senses and ran away.

But I lost weight not only because of homesickness. In addition, I was constantly undernourished. In the fall, while Uncle Vanya was transporting bread in his lorry to Zagotzerno, which was located not far from the regional center, they sent me food quite often, about once a week. But the trouble is that I missed her. There was nothing there except bread and potatoes, and occasionally the mother filled a jar with cottage cheese, which she took from someone for something: she didn’t keep a cow. It seems like they’ll bring a lot, if you grab it in two days, it’s empty. I very soon began to notice that a good half of my bread was disappearing somewhere in the most mysterious way. I checked and it’s true: it was not there. The same thing happened with potatoes. Who was dragging - Aunt Nadya, a loud, tired woman who was alone with three children, one of her older girls or the younger one, Fedka - I didn’t know, I was afraid to even think about it, let alone follow. It was only a shame that my mother, for my sake, tore the last thing away from hers, from her sister and brother, but it still went by. But I forced myself to come to terms with this too. It won't make things easier for the mother if she hears the truth.

The hunger here was not at all like the hunger in the village. There, and especially in the fall, it was possible to intercept something, pick it, dig it up, pick it up, fish walked in the Hangar, a bird flew in the forest. Here everything around me was empty: strangers, strangers’ gardens, strangers’ land. A small river of ten rows was filtered with nonsense. One Sunday I sat with a fishing rod all day and caught three small, about the size of a teaspoon, minnows - you won’t get any better from such fishing either. I didn’t go again - what a waste of time to translate! In the evenings, he hung around the teahouse, at the market, remembering what they were selling for, choking on his saliva and going back with nothing. There was a hot kettle on Aunt Nadya’s stove; After throwing some boiling water and warming his stomach, he went to bed. Back to school in the morning. So I held out until that happy hour when a semi-truck drove up to the gate and Uncle Vanya knocked on the door. Hungry and knowing that my grub wouldn’t last long anyway, no matter how much I saved it, I ate until I was full, until my stomach hurt, and then, after a day or two, I put my teeth back on the shelf.

One day, back in September, Fedka asked me:

Aren't you afraid to play chica?

Which chick? - I didn’t understand.

This is the game. For money. If we have money, let's go play.

And I don't have one. Let's go this way and at least have a look. You'll see how great it is.

Fedka took me beyond the vegetable gardens. We walked along the edge of an oblong ridge, completely overgrown with nettles, already black, tangled, with drooping poisonous clusters of seeds, jumped over the heaps, through an old landfill and in a low place, in a clean and flat small clearing, we saw the guys. We've arrived. The guys were wary. All of them were about the same age as me, except for one - a tall and strong guy, noticeable for his strength and power, a guy with long red bangs. I remembered: he went to seventh grade.

Why did you bring this? - he said displeasedly to Fedka.

“He’s one of us, Vadik, he’s one of us,” Fedka began to justify himself. - He lives with us.

Will you play? - Vadik asked me.

There is no money.

Be careful not to tell anyone that we are here.

Here's more! - I was offended.

No one paid any more attention to me; I stepped aside and began to observe. Not everyone played - sometimes six, sometimes seven, the rest just stared, rooting mainly for Vadik. He was the boss here, I realized that right away.

It didn't cost anything to figure out the game. Each person put ten kopecks on the line, a stack of coins, tails up, was lowered onto a platform limited by a thick line about two meters from the cash register, and on the other side, a round stone puck was thrown from a boulder that had grown into the ground and served as a support for the front leg. You had to throw it so that it would roll as close to the line as possible, but not go beyond it - then you got the right to be the first to break the cash register. They kept hitting with the same puck, trying to turn it over. coins on the eagle. Turned over - yours, hit further, no - give this right to the next one. But the most important thing was to cover the coins with the puck during the throw, and if at least one of them ended up on heads, the entire cash box went into your pocket without talking, and the game began again.

Vadik was cunning. He walked to the boulder after everyone else, when the full picture of the order was before his eyes and he saw where to throw in order to come out ahead. The money was received first; it rarely reached the last ones. Probably everyone understood that Vadik was being cunning, but no one dared to tell him about it. True, he played well. Approaching the stone, he squatted slightly, squinted, aimed the puck at the target and slowly, smoothly straightened up - the puck slipped out of his hand and flew to where he was aiming. With a quick movement of his head, he tossed his stray bangs up, casually spat to the side, indicating that the job was done, and with a lazy, deliberately slow step stepped towards the money. If they were in a heap, he hit them sharply, with a ringing sound, but he touched single coins with a puck carefully, with a knurl, so that the coin did not break or spin in the air, but, without rising high, just rolled over to the other side. Nobody else could do that. The guys struck at random and took out new coins, and those who had nothing to take out became spectators.

It seemed to me that if I had money, I could play. In the village we tinkered with the grandmothers, but even there we need an accurate eye. And I, in addition, loved to come up with games for accuracy: I’ll pick up a handful of stones, find a more difficult target and throw at it until I achieve the full result - ten out of ten. He threw both from above, from behind the shoulder, and from below, hanging the stone over the target. So I had some skill. There was no money.

The reason my mother sent me bread was because we didn’t have any money, otherwise I would have bought it here too. Where do they come from on the collective farm? Still, once or twice she put a fiver in my letter - for milk. With today's money it's fifty kopecks, you won't get any money, but it's still money; you could buy five half-liter jars of milk with it at the market, at a ruble per jar. I was told to drink milk because I was anemic; often, out of the blue, I would suddenly feel dizzy.

But, having received an A for the third time, I did not go for milk, but exchanged it for change and went to the landfill. The place here was chosen wisely, you can’t say anything: the clearing, closed by hills, was not visible from anywhere. In the village, in full view of adults, people were persecuted for playing such games, threatened by the director and the police. No one bothered us here. And it’s not far, you can reach it in ten minutes.

The first time I spent ninety kopecks, the second sixty. It was, of course, a pity for the money, but I felt that I was getting used to the game, my hand was gradually getting used to the puck, learning to release exactly as much force to throw as was required for the puck to go correctly, my eyes also learned to know in advance where it would fall and how much longer will roll across the ground. In the evenings, when everyone had left, I came back here again, took out the puck Vadik had hidden from under a stone, raked out my change from my pocket and threw it until it got dark. I achieved that out of ten throws, three or four were correct for the money.

And finally the day came when I won.

Autumn was warm and dry. Even in October it was so warm that you could walk around in a shirt, rain fell rarely and seemed random, inadvertently brought in from somewhere out of bad weather by a weak tailwind. The sky turned completely blue like summer, but it seemed to become narrower, and the sun set early. Over the hills in clear hours the air smoked, carrying the bitter, intoxicating smell of dry wormwood, distant voices sounded clearly, and flying birds screamed. The grass in our clearing, yellowed and withered, still remained alive and soft, the guys who were free from the game, or better yet, lost, were fiddling around on it.

Now every day after school I ran here. The guys changed, newcomers appeared, and only Vadik did not miss a single game. It never started without him. Following Vadik, like a shadow, was a big-headed, stocky guy with a buzz cut, nicknamed Ptah. I had never met Bird at school before, but looking ahead, I will say that in the third quarter he suddenly fell out of the blue into our class. It turns out that he stayed in the fifth year for the second year and, under some pretext, gave himself a vacation until January. Ptakh also usually won, although not as much as Vadik, less, but did not remain at a loss. Yes, probably because he didn’t stay because he was at one with Vadik and he slowly helped him.

From our class, Tishkin, a fussy little boy with blinking eyes, who loved to raise his hand during lessons, would sometimes run into the clearing. He knows, he doesn’t know, he still pulls. They call - he is silent.

Why did you raise your hand? - they ask Tishkin.

He spanked with his little eyes:

I remembered, but by the time I got up, I forgot.

I wasn't friends with him. Due to timidity, silence, excessive village isolation, and most importantly - from wild homesickness, which left no desires in me, I had not yet become friends with any of the guys. They were not attracted to me either, I remained alone, not understanding and not highlighting the loneliness of my bitter situation: alone - because here, and not at home, not in the village, I have many comrades there.

Tishkin did not seem to notice me in the clearing. Having quickly lost, he disappeared and did not appear again soon.

And I won. I started winning constantly, every day. I had my own calculation: there is no need to roll the puck around the court, seeking the right to the first shot; when there are a lot of players, it’s not easy: the closer you reach to the line, the greater the danger of going over it and being the last one. You have to cover the cash register when throwing. That's what I did. Of course, I took a risk, but given my skill it was a justified risk. I could lose three or four times in a row, but on the fifth, having taken the cash register, I would return my loss threefold. He lost again and returned again. I rarely had to hit coins with a puck, but even here I used my trick: if Vadik hit with a roll towards himself, I, on the contrary, hit away from myself - it was unusual, but in this way the puck held the coin, did not allow it to spin and, moving away, turned after her.

Now I have money. I didn’t allow myself to get too carried away with the game and hang around in the clearing until the evening, I only needed a ruble, a ruble every day. Having received it, I ran away, bought a jar of milk at the market (the aunts grumbled, looking at my bent, beaten, torn coins, but they poured milk), had lunch and sat down to study. I still didn’t eat enough, but the mere thought that I was drinking milk gave me strength and quelled my hunger. It began to seem to me that my head was now spinning much less.

At first, Vadik was calm about my winnings. He himself didn’t lose money, and it’s unlikely that anything came from his pockets. Sometimes he even praised me: here’s how to throw, learn, you bastards. However, soon Vadik noticed that I was leaving the game too quickly, and one day he stopped me:

What are you doing - grab the cash register and tear it up? Look how smart he is! Play.

“I need to do my homework, Vadik,” I began to make excuses.

Anyone who needs to do homework doesn't come here.

And Bird sang along:

Who told you that this is how they play for money? For this, you want to know, they beat you a little. Understood?

Vadik no longer gave me the puck before himself and only let me get to the stone last. He shot well, and often I would reach into my pocket for a new coin without touching the puck. But I shot better, and if I had the opportunity to shoot, the puck, as if magnetized, flew right into the money. I myself was surprised at my accuracy, I should have known to hold it back, play more inconspicuously, but I artlessly and mercilessly continued to bomb the box office. How was I to know that no one has ever been forgiven if he gets ahead in his business? Then do not expect mercy, do not seek intercession, for others he is an upstart, and the one who follows him hates him most of all. I had to learn this science that autumn on my own skin.

I had just fallen into the money again and was going to collect it when I noticed that Vadik had stepped on one of the coins scattered on the sides. All the rest were heads up. In such cases, when throwing, they usually shout “to the warehouse!” So ​​that - if there is no eagle - the money is collected in one pile for the strike, but, as always, I hoped for luck and did not shout.

Not to the warehouse! - Vadik announced.

I walked up to him and tried to move his foot off the coin, but he pushed me away, quickly grabbed it from the ground and showed me tails. I managed to notice that the coin was on the eagle, otherwise he would not have closed it.

“You turned it over,” I said. - She was on the eagle, I saw.

He stuck his fist under my nose.

Haven't you seen this? Smell what it smells like.

I had to come to terms with it. There was no point in insisting; if a fight starts, no one, not a single soul will stand up for me, not even Tishkin, who was hanging around right there.

Vadik’s angry, narrowed eyes looked at me point-blank. I bent down, quietly hit the nearest coin, turned it over and moved the second one. “The slur will lead to the truth,” I decided. “Anyway, I’ll take them all now.” I again pointed the puck for a shot, but didn’t have time to put it down: someone suddenly gave me a strong knee from behind, and I awkwardly, with my head bowed down, hit the ground. People around laughed.

Bird stood behind me, smiling expectantly. I was taken aback:

What are you doing?!

Who told you it was me? - he unlocked the door. - Did you dream it, or what?

Come here! - Vadik extended his hand for the puck, but I didn’t give it back. The resentment overwhelmed my fear; I was no longer afraid of anything in the world. For what? Why are they doing this to me? What did I do to them?

Come here! - Vadik demanded.

You flipped that coin! - I shouted to him. - I saw that I turned it over. Saw.

Well, repeat it,” he asked, advancing towards me.

“You turned it over,” I said more quietly, knowing well what would follow.

Bird hit me first, again from behind. I flew towards Vadik, he quickly and deftly, without trying to measure himself, put his head in my face, and I fell, blood sprayed from my nose. As soon as I jumped up, Bird pounced on me again. It was still possible to break free and run away, but for some reason I didn’t think about it. I hovered between Vadik and Ptah, almost without defending myself, clutching my nose with my palm, from which blood was gushing, and in despair, adding to their rage, stubbornly shouting the same thing:

Turned it over! Turned it over! Turned it over!

They beat me in turns, one and two, one and two. Someone third, small and angry, kicked my legs, then they were almost completely covered with bruises. I just tried not to fall, not to fall again, even in those moments it seemed to me a shame. But eventually they knocked me to the ground and stopped.

Get out of here while you're alive! - Vadik commanded. - Fast!

I got up and, sobbing, throwing my dead nose, trudged up the mountain.

Just say anything to anyone and we’ll kill you! - Vadik promised me after him.

I didn't answer. Everything in me somehow hardened and closed in resentment; I didn’t have the strength to get a word out of me. And as soon as I climbed the mountain, I could not resist and, as if I had gone crazy, I screamed at the top of my lungs - so that the whole village probably heard:

I'll turn it over!

Ptah rushed after me, but immediately returned - apparently Vadik decided that I had had enough and stopped him. For about five minutes I stood and, sobbing, looked at the clearing where the game had begun again, then I went down the other side of the hill to a hollow surrounded by black nettles, fell onto the hard dry grass and, unable to hold back any longer, began to cry bitterly and sobbing.

On that day there was not and could not be in the whole wide world a person more unhappy than me.

In the morning I looked at myself in the mirror with fear: my nose was swollen and swollen, there was a bruise under my left eye, and below it, on my cheek, a fat, bloody abrasion curved. I had no idea how to go to school like this, but I had to go somehow; I didn’t dare skip classes for any reason. Let’s say that people’s noses are naturally cleaner than mine, and if it weren’t for the usual place, you would never guess that it was a nose, but nothing can justify an abrasion and bruise: it’s immediately clear that they are showing off here not of my own free will.

Covering my eye with my hand, I ducked into the classroom, sat down at my desk and lowered my head. The first lesson, as luck would have it, was French. Lidia Mikhailovna, by right of the class teacher, was more interested in us than other teachers, and it was difficult to hide anything from her. She came in and said hello, but before seating the class, she had the habit of carefully examining almost each of us, making supposedly humorous, but obligatory remarks. And, of course, she saw the signs on my face right away, even though I hid them as best I could; I realized this because the guys started turning to look at me.

“Well,” said Lydia Mikhailovna, opening the magazine. There are wounded among us today.

The class laughed, and Lydia Mikhailovna looked up at me again. They looked askance at her and seemed to be passing her by, but by that time we had already learned to recognize where they were looking.

So what happened? - she asked.

“Fell,” I blurted out, for some reason not thinking in advance to come up with even the slightest decent explanation.

Oh, how unfortunate. Did it fall yesterday or today?

Today. No, last night when it was dark.

Hey, fell! - Tishkin shouted, choking with joy. - Vadik from the seventh grade brought this to him. They played for money, and he began to argue and made money, I saw it. And he says he fell.

I was dumbfounded by such betrayal. Does he not understand anything at all, or is he doing this on purpose? For playing for money, we could be kicked out of school in no time. I've finished the game. Everything in my head started to buzz with fear: it’s gone, now it’s gone. Well, Tishkin. That's Tishkin, that's Tishkin. Made me happy. Made it clear - there is nothing to say.

You, Tishkin, I wanted to ask something completely different,” Lydia Mikhailovna stopped him without being surprised and without changing her calm, slightly indifferent tone. - Go to the board, since you are already talking, and get ready to answer. She waited until Tishkin, who was confused and immediately became unhappy, came to the blackboard, and briefly told me: “You’ll stay after class.”

Most of all I was afraid that Lydia Mikhailovna would drag me to the director. This means that, in addition to today’s conversation, tomorrow they will take me out in front of the school line and force me to tell what prompted me to do this dirty business. The director, Vasily Andreevich, asked the offender, no matter what he did, broke a window, fought or smoked in the restroom: “What prompted you to do this dirty business?” He walked in front of the ruler, throwing his hands behind his back, moving his shoulders forward in time with his long steps, so that it seemed as if the tightly buttoned, protruding dark jacket was moving on its own slightly in front of the director, and urged: “Answer, answer. We are waiting. look, the whole school is waiting for you to tell us.” The student began to mutter something in his defense, but the director cut him off: “Answer my question, answer the question. How was the question asked? - “What prompted me?” - “That’s it: what prompted it? We are listening to you." The matter usually ended in tears, only after that the director calmed down, and we left for classes. It was more difficult with high school students who did not want to cry, but also could not answer Vasily Andreevich’s question.

One day, our first lesson started ten minutes late, and all this time the director interrogated one ninth-grader, but, having failed to get anything intelligible from him, he took him to his office.

What, I wonder, should I say? It would be better if they kicked him out immediately. I briefly touched this thought and thought that then I would be able to return home, and then, as if I had been burned, I got scared: no, with such a shame I can’t even go home. It would be a different matter if I dropped out of school myself... But even then you can say about me that I am an unreliable person, since I couldn’t stand what I wanted, and then everyone will completely shun me. No, not like that. I’d be patient here, I’d get used to it, but I can’t go home like that.

After classes, frozen with fear, I waited for Lydia Mikhailovna in the corridor. She came out of the teacher's room and, nodding, led me into the classroom. As always, she sat down at the table, I wanted to sit at the third desk, away from her, but Lydia Mikhailovna showed me to the first one, right in front of me.

Is it true that you are playing for money? - she began immediately. She asked too loudly, it seemed to me that at school this should only be discussed in a whisper, and I was even more scared. But there was no point in locking myself away; Tishkin managed to sell me whole. I mumbled:

So how do you win or lose? I hesitated, not knowing what was best.

Let's tell it like it is. You're probably losing?

You... I'm winning.

Okay, at least that's it. You win, that is. And what do you do with the money?

At first, at school, it took me a long time to get used to Lydia Mikhailovna’s voice; it confused me. In our village they spoke, tucking their voice deep into their guts, and therefore it sounded to their heart’s content, but with Lydia Mikhailovna it was somehow small and light, so you had to listen to it, and not out of impotence at all - she could sometimes say to her heart’s content , but as if from concealment and unnecessary savings. I was ready to blame everything on the French language: of course, while I was studying, while I was adapting to someone else’s speech, my voice sank without freedom, weakened, like a bird’s in a cage, now wait until it opens up and gets stronger again. And now Lidia Mikhailovna asked as if she was busy with something else, more important, but she still couldn’t escape her questions.

So what do you do with the money you win? Are you buying candy? Or books? Or are you saving up for something? After all, you probably have a lot of them now?

No, not much. I only win a ruble.

And you don't play anymore?

What about the ruble? Why ruble? What are you doing with it?

I buy milk.

She sat in front of me, neat, all smart and beautiful, beautiful in her clothes, and in her feminine youth, which I vaguely felt, the smell of perfume from her reached me, which I took for her very breath; Moreover, she was not a teacher of some kind of arithmetic, not of history, but of the mysterious French language, from which something special, fabulous, beyond the control of anyone, like me, for example, emanated. Not daring to raise my eyes to her, I did not dare to deceive her. And why, in the end, did I have to deceive?

She paused, examining me, and I felt on my skin how, at the glance of her squinting, attentive eyes, all my troubles and absurdities were literally swelling and filling with their evil power. Of course, there was something to look at: in front of her, crouching on the desk was a skinny, wild boy with a broken face, unkempt, without a mother and alone, in an old, washed-out jacket on his drooping shoulders, which fit well on his chest, but from which his arms protruded far; wearing stained light green trousers, altered from his father's breeches and tucked into teal, with traces of yesterday's fight. Even earlier I noticed with what curiosity Lidia Mikhailovna was looking at my shoes. Of the entire class, I was the only one wearing teal. Only the next fall, when I flatly refused to go to school in them, did my mother sell the sewing machine, our only asset, and buy me tarpaulin boots.

“Still, there’s no need to play for money,” Lidia Mikhailovna said thoughtfully. - You could manage somehow without this. Can we get by?

Not daring to believe in my salvation, I easily promised:

I spoke sincerely, but what can you do if our sincerity cannot be tied with ropes.

To be fair, I must say that in those days I had a very bad time. In the dry autumn, our collective farm paid off its grain supply early, and Uncle Vanya never came again. I knew that my mother couldn’t find a place for herself at home, worrying about me, but that didn’t make it any easier for me. The sack of potatoes brought by Uncle Vanya the last time evaporated so quickly that it was as if they were feeding livestock, at least. It’s good that, having come to my senses, I thought of hiding a little in an abandoned shed standing in the yard, and now I lived only in this hiding place. After school, sneaking like a thief, I would sneak into the shed, put a few potatoes in my pocket and run outside into the hills to make a fire somewhere in a convenient and hidden low spot. I was hungry all the time, even in my sleep I felt convulsive waves rolling through my stomach.

Hoping to stumble upon new company players, I began to slowly explore the neighboring streets, wandered through vacant lots, and watched the guys who were carried into the hills. It was all in vain, the season was over, the cold October winds blew. And only in our clearing the guys continued to gather. I circled nearby, saw the puck glinting in the sun, Vadik commanding, waving his arms, and familiar figures leaning over the cash register.

In the end I couldn’t stand it anymore and went down to them. I knew that I was going to be humiliated, but no less humiliating was to once and for all come to terms with the fact that I was beaten and kicked out. I was itching to see how Vadik and Ptah would react to my appearance and how I could behave. But what drove me most was hunger. I needed a ruble - not for milk, but for bread. I didn't know any other way to get it.

I walked up, and the game paused by itself, everyone was staring at me. The bird was wearing a hat with the ears turned up, sitting, like everyone else on him, carefree and boldly, in a checkered, untucked shirt with short sleeves; Vadik forsil in a beautiful thick jacket with a zipper. Nearby, piled in one heap, lay sweatshirts and coats; on them, huddled in the wind, sat a small boy, about five or six years old.

Bird met me first:

What did you come for? Have you been beaten for a long time?

“I came to play,” I answered as calmly as possible, looking at Vadik.

“Who told you what’s wrong with you,” Bird swore, “will they play here?”

What, Vadik, are we going to hit right away or wait a little?

Why are you pestering the man, Bird? - Vadik said, squinting at me. - I understand, the man came to play. Maybe he wants to win ten rubles from you and me?

You don’t have ten rubles, just so as not to seem like a coward, I said.

We have more than you dreamed of. Bet, don't talk until Bird gets angry. Otherwise he is a hot man.

Should I give it to him, Vadik?

No need, let him play. - Vadik winked at the guys. - He plays great, we are no match for him.

Now I was a scientist and understood what it was - Vadik’s kindness. He was apparently tired of the boring, uninteresting game, so in order to tickle his nerves and get a taste of the real game, he decided to let me into it. But as soon as I touch his pride, I will be in trouble again. He will find something to complain about, Bird is next to him.

I decided to play it safe and not get caught up in the cash. Like everyone else, in order not to stand out, I rolled the puck, afraid of accidentally hitting the money, then I quietly tapped the coins and looked around to see if Bird had come up behind me. In the first days I did not allow myself to dream about the ruble; Twenty or thirty kopecks for a piece of bread, that’s good, and give it here.

But what was supposed to happen sooner or later, of course, happened. On the fourth day, when, having won a ruble, I was about to leave, they beat me again. True, this time it was easier, but one mark remained: my lip was very swollen. At school I had to bite it all the time. But no matter how I hid it, no matter how I bit it, Lydia Mikhailovna saw it. She deliberately called me to the blackboard and made me read the French text. I couldn’t pronounce it correctly with ten healthy lips, and there’s nothing to say about one.

Enough, oh, enough! - Lidia Mikhailovna got scared and waved her hands at me as if I were some evil spirit. - What is this?! No, I'll have to work with you separately. There is no other way out.

Thus began painful and awkward days for me. From the very morning I waited with fear for the hour when I would have to be alone with Lydia Mikhailovna, and, breaking my tongue, repeat after her words that were inconvenient for pronunciation, invented only for punishment. Well, why else, if not for mockery, should three vowels be merged into one thick, viscous sound, the same “o”, for example, in the word “veaisoir” (a lot), which can be choked on? Why make sounds through the nose with some kind of groan, when from time immemorial it has served a person for a completely different need? For what? There must be limits to what is reasonable. I was covered in sweat, blushed and out of breath, and Lydia Mikhailovna, without respite and without pity, made me calluse my poor tongue. And why me alone? There were any number of kids at school who spoke French no better than me, but they walked freely, did what they wanted, and I, like a damn one, took the rap for everyone.

It turned out that this was not the worst thing. Lidia Mikhailovna suddenly decided that we had little time left at school before the second shift, and told me to come to her apartment in the evenings. She lived next to the school, in the teachers' houses. On the other, larger half of Lydia Mikhailovna’s house, the director himself lived. I went there as if it were torture. Already naturally timid and shy, lost at every trifle, in this clean, tidy apartment of the teacher, at first I literally turned to stone and was afraid to breathe. I had to be told to undress, go into the room, sit down - they had to move me around like a thing, and almost force words out of me. This did not contribute to my success in French. But, strangely, we studied less here than at school, where the second shift seemed to interfere with us. Moreover, Lidia Mikhailovna, while fussing around the apartment, asked me questions or told me about herself. I suspect that she deliberately made it up for me, as if she went to the French department only because at school this language was also not given to her and she decided to prove to herself that she could master it no worse than others.

Huddled in a corner, I listened, not expecting to be allowed to go home. There were many books in the room, on the bedside table by the window there was a large beautiful radio; with a player - a rare miracle at that time, and for me a completely unprecedented miracle. Lidia Mikhailovna played records, and the deft male voice taught again French. One way or another, there was no escape from him. Lidia Mikhailovna, in a simple house dress and soft felt shoes, walked around the room, making me shudder and freeze when she approached me. I couldn’t believe that I was sitting in her house, everything here was too unexpected and unusual for me, even the air, saturated with the light and unfamiliar smells of a life other than what I knew. I couldn’t help but feel as if I was spying on this life from the outside, and out of shame and embarrassment for myself, I snuggled even deeper into my short jacket.

Lydia Mikhailovna was then probably twenty-five years old or so; I remember well her regular and therefore not too lively face with eyes narrowed to hide the braid in them; a tight, rarely fully revealed smile and completely black, short-cropped hair. But with all this, one could not see the rigidity in her face, which, as I later noticed, over the years becomes almost a professional sign of teachers, even the kindest and gentlest by nature, but there was some kind of cautious, cunning, bewilderment regarding to herself and seemed to say: I wonder how I ended up here and what I’m doing here? Now I think that by that time she had managed to be married; in her voice, in her gait - soft, but confident, free, in her entire behavior one could feel courage and experience in her. And besides, I have always been of the opinion that girls who study French or Spanish, become women earlier than their peers who study, say, Russian or German.

It’s a shame to remember now how frightened and confused I was when Lidia Mikhailovna, having finished our lesson, called me to dinner. If I were hungry a thousand times, all appetite would immediately jump out of me like a bullet. Sit down at the same table with Lydia Mikhailovna! No no! I’d better learn all French by heart by tomorrow so I never come here again. A piece of bread would probably actually get stuck in my throat. It seems that before that I did not suspect that Lydia Mikhailovna, too, like the rest of us, eats the most ordinary food, and not some kind of manna from heaven, so she seemed to me an extraordinary person, unlike everyone else.

I jumped up and, muttering that I was full and that I didn’t want it, backed along the wall towards the exit. Lidia Mikhailovna looked at me with surprise and resentment, but it was impossible to stop me by any means. I was running away. This was repeated several times, then Lidia Mikhailovna, in despair, stopped inviting me to the table. I breathed more freely.

One day they told me that downstairs in the locker room there was a package for me that some guy had brought to school. Uncle Vanya, of course, is our driver - what a guy! Probably, our house was closed, and Uncle Vanya couldn’t wait for me from class, so he left me in the locker room.

I could hardly wait until the end of class and rushed downstairs. Aunt Vera, the school cleaner, showed me a white plywood box in the corner, the kind they use to store mail packages. I was surprised: why in the box? - Mother usually sent food in an ordinary bag. Maybe this is not for me at all? No, my class and my last name were written on the lid. Apparently, Uncle Vanya has already written here - so that they don’t get confused about who it’s for. What did this mother come up with to stuff groceries into a box?! Look how intelligent she has become!

I couldn’t carry the package home without finding out what was in it: I didn’t have the patience. It is clear that there are no potatoes there. The container for bread is also perhaps too small and inconvenient. Besides, they sent me bread recently; I still had it. Then what's there? Right there, at school, I climbed under the stairs, where I remembered the ax lay, and, having found it, tore off the lid. It was dark under the stairs, I crawled back out and, looking around furtively, put the box on the nearby windowsill.

Looking into the parcel, I was stunned: on top, neatly covered with a large white sheet of paper, lay pasta. Wow! Long yellow tubes, laid one next to the other in even rows, flashed in the light with such wealth, more expensive than which nothing existed for me. Now it’s clear why my mother packed the box: so that the pasta wouldn’t break or crumble, and would arrive to me safe and sound. I carefully took out one tube, looked at it, blew into it, and, unable to restrain myself any longer, began to snort greedily. Then, in the same way, I took on the second, then the third, thinking about where I could hide the drawer so that the pasta would not get to the overly voracious mice in my mistress’s pantry. That’s not why my mother bought them, she spent her last money. No, I won’t let go of pasta that easily. These are not just any potatoes.

And suddenly I choked. Pasta... Really, where did the mother get the pasta? We haven’t had them in our village for a long time; you can’t buy them there for any price. What happens then? Hastily, in despair and hope, I cleared away the pasta and found at the bottom of the box several large pieces of sugar and two slabs of hematogen. Hematogen confirmed: it was not the mother who sent the parcel. In this case, who is who? I looked at the lid again: my class, my last name - for me. Interesting, very interesting.

I pressed the nails of the lid into place and, leaving the box on the windowsill, went up to the second floor and knocked on the staff room. Lidia Mikhailovna has already left. It’s okay, we’ll find it, we know where he lives, we’ve been there. So, here’s how: if you don’t want to sit down at the table, get food delivered to your home. So, yes. It won't work. There is no one else. This is not the mother: she would not have forgotten to include a note, she would have told where such wealth came from, from what mines.

When I sidled through the door with the parcel, Lidia Mikhailovna pretended that she didn’t understand anything. She looked at the box that I placed on the floor in front of her and asked in surprise:

What is this? What did you bring? For what?

“You did it,” I said in a trembling, breaking voice.

What have I done? What are you talking about?

You sent this package to the school. I know you.

I noticed that Lydia Mikhailovna blushed and was embarrassed. This was obviously the only case when I was not afraid to look her straight in the eyes. I didn’t care if she was a teacher or my second cousin. Here I asked, not she, and asked not in French, but in Russian, without any articles. Let him answer.

Why did you decide it was me?

Because we don't have any pasta there. And there is no hematogen.

How! Doesn't happen at all?! - She was so sincerely amazed that she gave herself away completely.

Doesn't happen at all. I had to know.

Lidia Mikhailovna suddenly laughed and tried to hug me, but I pulled away. from her.

Really, you should have known. How can I do this?! - She thought for a minute. - But it was difficult to guess - honestly! I'm a city person. You say it doesn’t happen at all? What happens to you then?

Peas happen. Radish happens.

Peas... radishes... And we have apples in Kuban. Oh, how many apples there are now. Today I wanted to go to Kuban, but for some reason I came here. - Lydia Mikhailovna sighed and looked sideways at me. - Don't be angry. I wanted the best. Who knew you could get caught eating pasta? It's okay, now I'll be smarter. And take this pasta...

“I won’t take it,” I interrupted her.

Well, why are you doing this? I know you're starving. And I live alone, I have a lot of money. I can buy whatever I want, but I’m the only one... I eat little, I’m afraid of gaining weight.

I'm not hungry at all.

Please don't argue with me, I know. I spoke to your owner. What's wrong if you take this pasta now and cook yourself a nice lunch today? Why can't I help you for the only time in my life? I promise not to slip any more parcels. But please take this one. You must definitely eat your fill in order to study. There are so many well-fed loafers in our school who don’t understand anything and probably never will, but you’re a capable boy, you can’t leave school.

Her voice began to have a sleepy effect on me; I was afraid that she would persuade me, and, angry with myself for understanding that Lydia Mikhailovna was right, and for the fact that I was going to still not understand her, I, shaking my head and muttering something, ran out the door.

Our lessons did not stop there; I continued to go to Lydia Mikhailovna. But now she really took charge of me. She apparently decided: well, French is French. True, this did some good, gradually I began to pronounce French words quite tolerably, they no longer broke off at my feet like heavy cobblestones, but, ringing, tried to fly somewhere.

“Okay,” Lidia Mikhailovna encouraged me. - You won’t get an A in this quarter, but in the next quarter it’s a must.

We didn’t remember about the parcel, but I kept my guard up just in case. Who knows what else Lidia Mikhailovna will come up with? I knew from myself: when something doesn’t work out, you will do everything to make it work, you won’t give up so easily. It seemed to me that Lydia Mikhailovna was always looking at me expectantly, and as she looked closer, she laughed at my wildness - I was angry, but this anger, oddly enough, helped me to remain more confident. I was no longer that unrequited and helpless boy who was afraid to take a step here; little by little I got used to Lydia Mikhailovna and her apartment. I was still, of course, shy, huddled in a corner, hiding my teals under a chair, but the previous stiffness and depression receded, now I myself dared to ask Lydia Mikhailovna questions and even enter into arguments with her.

She made another attempt to seat me at the table - in vain. Here I was adamant, I had enough stubbornness for ten.

Probably, it was already possible to stop these classes at home, I learned the most important thing, my tongue softened and began to move, the rest would have been added over time school lessons. There are years and years ahead. What will I do next if I learn everything from beginning to end at once? But I did not dare to tell Lydia Mikhailovna about this, and she, apparently, did not at all consider our program completed, and I continued to pull my French strap. However, is it a strap? Somehow, involuntarily and imperceptibly, without expecting it myself, I felt a taste for language and in my free moments, without any prodding, I looked into the dictionary and looked into the texts further away in the textbook. Punishment turned into pleasure. I was also spurred on by my pride: if it didn’t work out, it would work out, and it would work out - no worse than the best. Am I cut from a different cloth, or what? If only I didn’t have to go to Lydia Mikhailovna... I would do it myself, myself...

One day, about two weeks after the parcel story, Lydia Mikhailovna, smiling, asked:

Well, don’t you play for money anymore? Or do you gather somewhere on the sidelines and play?

How to play now?! - I was surprised, pointing with my gaze outside the window where the snow lay.

What kind of game was this? What is it?

Why do you need it? - I became wary.

Interesting. When we were children, we also played once, so I want to know whether this is the right game or not. Tell me, tell me, don't be afraid.

I told, keeping silent, of course, about Vadik, about Ptah and about my little tricks that I used in the game.

No,” Lydia Mikhailovna shook her head. - We played "wall". Do you know what this is?

Look here. “She easily jumped out from behind the table where she was sitting, found coins in her purse and pushed the chair away from the wall. Come here, look. I hit a coin against the wall. - Lydia Mikhailovna struck lightly, and the coin, ringing, flew off in an arc to the floor. Now, - Lydia Mikhailovna put the second coin in my hand, you hit. But keep in mind: you need to hit so that your coin is as close to mine as possible. To measure them, reach them with the fingers of one hand. The game is called differently: measurements. If you get it, it means you win. Hit.

I hit - my coin hit the edge and rolled into the corner.

“Oh,” Lidia Mikhailovna waved her hand. - Far. Now you are starting. Keep in mind: if my coin touches yours, even just a little, with the edge, I win double. Understand?

What is unclear here?

Shall we play?

I couldn't believe my ears:

How will I play with you?

What is it?

You are a teacher!

So what? A teacher is a different person, or what? Sometimes you get tired of being just a teacher, teaching and teaching endlessly. Constantly checking yourself: this is impossible, this is impossible,” Lydia Mikhailovna narrowed her eyes more than usual and looked out the window thoughtfully, distantly. “Sometimes it’s good to forget that you’re a teacher, otherwise you’ll become so mean and boorish that living people will become bored with you.” For a teacher, perhaps the most important thing is not to take himself seriously, to understand that he can teach very little. - She shook herself and immediately became cheerful. “As a child, I was a desperate girl, my parents had a lot of trouble with me. Even now I still often want to jump, gallop, rush somewhere, do something not according to the program, not according to the schedule, but according to desire. Sometimes I jump and jump here. A person ages not when he reaches old age, but when he ceases to be a child. I would love to jump every day, but Vasily Andreevich lives behind the wall. He is a very serious person. Under no circumstances should he let him know that we are playing “measures.”

But we don’t play any “measuring games”. You just showed it to me.

We can play it as simply as they say, make-believe. But still, don’t hand me over to Vasily Andreevich.

Lord, what is going on in this world! How long have I been scared to death that Lidia Mikhailovna would drag me to the director for gambling for money, and now she asks me not to betray her. The end of the world is no different. I looked around, frightened by who knows what, and blinked my eyes in confusion.

Well, shall we try? If you don't like it, we'll quit.

Let’s do it,” I hesitantly agreed.

Get started.

We took up the coins. It was obvious that Lidia Mikhailovna had actually played once, and I was just getting used to the game; I had not yet figured out for myself how to hit a coin against a wall, whether edge-on or flat, at what height and with what force, when it was best to throw. My blows were blind; If they had kept score, I would have lost quite a lot in the first minutes, although there was nothing tricky in these “measurements.” Most of all, of course, what embarrassed and depressed me, what kept me from getting used to it was the fact that I was playing with Lidia Mikhailovna. Not a single dream could such a thing be dreamed of, not a single bad thought could be thought of. I didn’t come to my senses right away or easily, but when I came to my senses and began to take a closer look at the game, Lidia Mikhailovna stopped it.

No, that’s not interesting,” she said, straightening up and brushing the hair that had fallen over her eyes. - Playing is so real, and the fact is that you and I are like three-year-old kids.

But then it will be a game for money,” I timidly reminded.

Certainly. What are we holding in our hands? Playing for money cannot be replaced by anything else. This makes her good and bad at the same time. We can agree on a very small rate, but there will still be interest.

I was silent, not knowing what to do or what to do.

Are you really afraid? - Lydia Mikhailovna egged me on.

Here's more! I'm not afraid of anything.

I had some small items with me. I gave the coin to Lydia Mikhailovna and took mine out of my pocket. Well, let's play for real, Lidia Mikhailovna, if you want. Something for me - I wasn’t the first to start. At first, Vadik also paid zero attention to me, but then he came to his senses and started attacking with his fists. I learned there, I will learn here too. This is not French, but I’ll soon get to grips with French too.

I had to accept one condition: since Lydia Mikhailovna has a larger hand and longer fingers, she will measure with her thumb and middle finger, and I, as expected, with my thumb and little finger. It was fair and I agreed.

The game started again. We moved from the room to the hallway, where it was freer, and hit a smooth board fence. They beat, dropped to their knees, crawled on the floor, touching each other, stretched their fingers, measuring coins, then rose to their feet again, and Lydia Mikhailovna announced the score. She played noisily: she screamed, clapped her hands, teased me - in a word, she behaved like an ordinary girl, and not a teacher, I even wanted to shout at times. But nevertheless she won, and I lost. I didn’t have time to come to my senses when eighty kopecks ran up on me, with great difficulty I managed to knock this debt down to thirty, but Lydia Mikhailovna hit mine from afar with her coin, and the count immediately jumped to fifty. I started to worry. We agreed to pay at the end of the game, but if things continue like this, my money will very soon not be enough, I have a little more than a ruble. This means you can’t pass the ruble for a ruble - otherwise it’s a disgrace, disgrace and shame for the rest of your life.

And then I suddenly noticed that Lidia Mikhailovna was not trying to win against me at all. When taking measurements, her fingers hunched over, not extending to their full length - where she supposedly could not reach the coin, I reached without any effort. This offended me, and I stood up.

No,” I said, “that’s not how I play.” Why are you playing along with me? This is unfair.

But I really can’t get them,” she began to refuse. - My fingers are kind of wooden.

Okay, okay, I'll try.

I don’t know about mathematics, but in life the best proof is by contradiction. When the next day I saw that Lydia Mikhailovna, in order to touch the coin, was secretly pushing it towards her finger, I was stunned. Looking at me and for some reason not noticing that I see her perfectly clean water fraud, she continued to move the coin as if nothing had happened.

What are you doing? - I was indignant.

I? What am I doing?

Why did you move it?

No, she was lying here,” Lydia Mikhailovna opened the door in the most shameless manner, with some kind of joy, no worse than Vadik or Ptah.

Wow! It's called a teacher! With my own eyes, at a distance of twenty centimeters, I saw that she was touching the coin, but she assures me that she did not touch it, and even laughs at me. Is she taking me for a blind man? For the little one? She teaches French, it's called. I immediately completely forgot that just yesterday Lydia Mikhailovna tried to play along with me, and I only made sure that she did not deceive me. Well, well! Lidia Mikhailovna, it's called.

On this day we studied French for fifteen to twenty minutes, and then even less. We have a different interest. Lidia Mikhailovna made me read the passage, made comments, listened to the comments again, and we immediately moved on to the game. After two small losses, I began to win. I quickly got used to the “measurements”, understood all the secrets, knew how and where to hit, what to do as a point guard so as not to expose my coin to the measurement.

And again I had money. Again I ran to the market and bought milk - now in frozen mugs. I carefully cut the flow of cream from the mug, popped the crumbling ice slices into my mouth and, feeling their satisfying sweetness throughout my body, closed my eyes in pleasure. Then he turned the circle upside down and hammered out the sweetish milky sediment with a knife. He allowed the rest to melt and drank it, eating it with a piece of black bread.

It was okay, it was possible to live, and in the near future, once the wounds of the war were healed, a happy time was promised for everyone.

Of course, accepting money from Lidia Mikhailovna, I felt awkward, but every time I calmed down that it was an honest win. I never asked for a game; Lidia Mikhailovna offered it herself. I didn't dare refuse. It seemed to me that the game gave her pleasure, she was having fun, laughing, and bothering me.

If only we knew how it would all end...

...Kneeling opposite each other, we argued about the score. Before that, too, it seems they were arguing about something.

“Understand, you garden-variety fool,” Lidia Mikhailovna argued, crawling on me and waving her arms, “why should I deceive you?” I'm keeping score, not you, I know better. I lost three times in a row, and before that I was a chick.

- “Chika” is not readable.

Why doesn't it read?

We were shouting, interrupting each other, when a surprised, if not shocked, but firm, ringing voice reached us:

Lidia Mikhailovna!

We froze. Vasily Andreevich stood at the door.

Lidia Mikhailovna, what’s wrong with you? What's going on here?

Lydia Mikhailovna slowly, very slowly rose from her knees, flushed and disheveled, and, smoothing her hair, said:

I, Vasily Andreevich, hoped that you would knock before entering here.

I knocked. Nobody answered me. What's going on here? please explain. I have the right to know as a director.

“We’re playing wall games,” Lidia Mikhailovna answered calmly.

Are you playing for money with this?.. - Vasily Andreevich pointed his finger at me, and out of fear I crawled behind the partition to hide in the room. - Playing with a student?! Did I understand you correctly?

Right.

Well, you know... - The director was choking, he didn’t have enough air. - I’m at a loss to immediately name your action. This is a crime. Molestation. Seduction. And again, again... I’ve been working at school for twenty years, I’ve seen all sorts of things, but this...

And he raised his hands above his head.

Three days later Lydia Mikhailovna left. The day before, she met me after school and walked me home.

“I’ll go to my place in Kuban,” she said, saying goodbye. - And you study calmly, no one will touch you for this stupid incident. It's my fault. Learn,” she patted me on the head and left.

And I never saw her again.

In the middle of winter, after the January holidays, I received a package by mail at school. When I opened it, taking the ax out from under the stairs again, there were tubes of pasta lying in neat, dense rows. And below, in a thick cotton wrapper, I found three red apples.

Previously, I had only seen apples in pictures, but I guessed that this was them.

Notes

Kopylova A.P. - mother of playwright A. Vampilov (Editor's note).

Grigory Efimovich Rasputin

"French Lessons"

“It’s strange: why do we, just like before our parents, always feel guilty before our teachers? And not for what happened at school, no, but for what happened to us after.”

I went to fifth grade in 1948. In our village there was only a junior school, and in order to study further, I had to move to the regional center 50 kilometers from home. At that time we lived very hungry. Of three children in the family, I was the eldest. We grew up without a father. I studied well in elementary school. In the village I was considered literate, and everyone told my mother that I should study. Mom decided that it wouldn’t be worse and hungrier than at home anyway, and she placed me in the regional center with her friend.

I also studied well here. The exception was French. I easily remembered words and figures of speech, but I had trouble with pronunciation. “I sputtered in French in the manner of our village tongue twisters,” which made the young teacher wince.

I had the best time at school, among my peers, but at home I felt homesick for my native village. Besides, I was severely undernourished. From time to time, my mother sent me bread and potatoes, but these products very quickly disappeared somewhere. “Who was dragging - Aunt Nadya, a loud, worn-out woman who was alone with three children, one of her older girls or the youngest, Fedka - I didn’t know, I was afraid to even think about it, let alone follow.” Unlike the village, in the city it was impossible to catch fish or dig up edible roots in the meadow. Often for dinner I only got a mug of boiling water.

Fedka brought me to a company that played chica for money. The leader there was Vadik, a tall seventh grader. Of my classmates, only Tishkin, “a fussy little boy with blinking eyes,” appeared there. The game was simple. The coins were stacked heads up. You had to hit them with the cue ball so that the coins would turn over. Those that turned out to be heads up became a win.

Gradually I mastered all the techniques of the game and began to win. Occasionally my mother would send me 50 kopecks for milk, and I would play with them. I never won more than a ruble a day, but my life became much easier. However, the rest of the company did not like my moderation in the game at all. Vadik started cheating, and when I tried to catch him, I was severely beaten.

In the morning I had to go to school with a broken face. The first lesson was French, and the teacher Lidia Mikhailovna, who was our classmate, asked what happened to me. I tried to lie, but then Tishkin stuck his head out and gave me away. When Lydia Mikhailovna left me after class, I was very afraid that she would take me to the director. Our director Vasily Andreevich had the habit of “torturing” those who were guilty on the line in front of the whole school. In this case, I could be expelled and sent home.

However, Lidia Mikhailovna did not take me to the director. She began to ask why I needed money, and was very surprised when she found out that I bought milk with it. In the end, I promised her that I would do without gambling, and I lied. In those days I was especially hungry, I again came to Vadik’s company, and was soon beaten again. Seeing fresh bruises on my face, Lidia Mikhailovna announced that she would work with me individually, after school.

“Thus began painful and awkward days for me.” Soon Lidia Mikhailovna decided that “we have little time left at school until the second shift, and she told me to come to her apartment in the evenings.” For me it was real torture. Timid and shy, I was completely lost in the teacher’s clean apartment. “Lidiya Mikhailovna was probably twenty-five years old at that time.” She was beautiful, already married, a woman with regular features and slightly slanted eyes. Hiding this flaw, she constantly squinted. The teacher asked me a lot about my family and constantly invited me to dinner, but I could not bear this test and ran away.

One day they sent me a strange package. She came to the school address. The wooden box contained pasta, two large lumps of sugar and several hematogen bars. I immediately realized who sent me this parcel - the mother had nowhere to get pasta. I returned the box to Lydia Mikhailovna and flatly refused to take the food.

The French lessons didn't end there. One day Lydia Mikhailovna amazed me with a new invention: she wanted to play with me for money. Lidia Mikhailovna taught me the game of her childhood, “the wall.” You had to throw coins against the wall, and then try to reach with your fingers from your coin to someone else’s. If you get it, the winnings are yours. From then on, we played every evening, trying to argue in a whisper - the school director lived in the next apartment.

One day I noticed that Lydia Mikhailovna was trying to cheat, and not in her favor. In the heat of the argument, we did not notice how the director entered the apartment, having heard loud voices. Lidia Mikhailovna calmly admitted to him that she was playing for money with the student. A few days later she went to her place in Kuban. In winter, after the holidays, I received another package in which “in neat, dense rows<…>there were tubes of pasta,” and under them were three red apples. “Before, I only saw apples in pictures, but I guessed that this was them.”

The narration is in the first person. A village boy who has graduated from elementary school with excellent marks is sent by his mother to study further, to the regional center. She arranged for him to live with a friend - Aunt Nadya, who herself raised three children. There was no father in the boy’s family either, money was very bad, and the boy was malnourished every day. However, this did not prevent him from studying very well; the only subject that gave him difficulty was French. He remembered words and speech patterns perfectly, but there was a real problem with pronunciation. A young teacher, Lidia Mikhailovna, constantly corrected him, but no tangible achievements had yet occurred.

The constant need for money forced the boy to come to the backyard of the school, where older boys were playing the game "chika" for money. The boy very quickly mastered this simple game and began to win, spending all the money on food for himself. His moderation in the game and luck provoked a fight, the boy was severely beaten and the next morning he came to school with bright marks on his face. Lidia Mikhailovna found out everything and asked where he was spending his winnings. This is how she learned about the deplorable state of his family and decided to further hone his French pronunciation. One day he received a package containing pasta and sugar. The boy immediately guessed that his mother simply had nowhere to get such a luxury as pasta in the village. He took the parcel to Lydia Mikhailovna and strictly forbade doing anything similar in the future.

After this incident, the teacher decided that it was inconvenient for them to study at school; she began to learn French in her apartment. For the boy, even studying at school was torture, and even in the teacher’s clean apartment it turned into torture. Lydia Mikhailovna constantly invited him to dinner, but he was very shy and ran away. He tried to play for money, but was severely beaten a couple more times and stopped forever. One day Lydia Mikhailovna invited the boy to play with her for money. Only she knew how to play not “chika”, but “pristenok”. The boy agreed and he again had money to buy food for himself.

Playing again, he saw that the teacher was giving in to him. They began to argue loudly, and the school principal who lived next door came to their screams. Lidia Mikhailovna admitted that she played with the schoolboy for money. She was fired and went to her native village, Kuban. From there she sent the boy a parcel containing a lot of pasta and three huge red apples. Previously, the boy had only seen apples in pictures.

Essays

The wise Litrekon appreciates Soviet literature and even complains that little attention is paid to it at school. Therefore, he decided to tell his readers the book “French Lessons” in abbreviation in order to remind them of the main events from the work. The plot is really interesting and relevant during the times, because the school is still playing important role in the development of human personality.

Brief retelling (710 words): The story “French Lessons” is told in the first person. An 11-year-old boy graduated with honors primary school, but there was no secondary school in his village, and his mother agreed that he should live with her friend in the regional center and study there. “This is how my independent life began,” writes the narrator.

The hero had three children in his family, but there was no father. There was poverty everywhere in the villages, and they swallowed oat grains in order to somehow relieve hunger. But the narrator was talented and even earned handouts when he helped local residents with bonds (lottery tickets from the USSR) and letters. That's why he was sent to study.

In the regional center, he was very homesick and was desperately losing weight from malnutrition. But at the same time, he tried to study only with straight A's, because he realized that everyone in the village was counting on him (he was the first to go to study). Only he was not good with the French language - his poor pronunciation betrayed his Siberian origin. This greatly upset his teacher.

In the house of a friend’s mother, the hero’s food was stolen all the time, because life was poor there too. But he stood strong and tried not to cry or talk about bad things in front of his mother. One day Fedya, the son of his landlady, offered to play chika - a gambling game for money. The boy began to learn the game in secret and finally learned to win even from Vadik, the leader of all the players from the 7th grade. But the hero could not be called gambling: he earned only a ruble for half a liter of milk and ran away. He needed it, because he suffered from anemia, and without milk he was dizzy.

But the guys did not endure such luck for long. One day the hero was severely beaten, because he did not get along with anyone because of his village isolation, and no one stood up for him. On the contrary, everyone envied him and were happy to take revenge on the “upstart.”

In the morning at school, Lidia Mikhailovna, a French teacher and class teacher, noticed the student’s bruises, and Tishkin, one of the players, told her everything, for which he was immediately called to the board. For gambling he was threatened with expulsion from school, and our hero was very scared. “You can’t go home with such shame,” he thought. After class, he had a conversation with the teacher, but most of all he was afraid of the director.

In the conversation, Lidia Mikhailovna, speaking in a calm, even, but stern tone, found out that the student only plays for a ruble and then for the sake of the coveted milk. She took his word of honor that he would do without the game. But that autumn he did not even receive bread from his mother, and his potatoes were immediately stolen. Hunger again drove him to the guys playing chica. Vadik let him play, but only out of the excitement of playing with a competitive player. On the 4th day he was beaten again for winning. Noticing this, the teacher insisted on separate lessons in French, because with a swollen lip he could not read the text normally.

The teacher insisted on classes at her home and talked about her biography, in a word, tried to get closer to the shy boy. He was desperately timid, because her city life seemed alien to him, as did the clean apartment with the smell of perfume. She insisted on having dinner together, but he proudly refused. He also refused the parcel with pasta and hematogen, which she wanted to pass off as a gift to his mother. He gave her the food back, saying that this doesn’t happen in their village.

And yet, over time, the narrator began to speak French better, mastered this subject and got used to the teacher. Now he talked to her and even “entered into arguments.” One day she showed him her childhood game - wall. At the same time, he admitted that as a child, “her parents had a lot of trouble with her,” and to this day she would like to jump and have fun, but the director lives behind the wall, and she does not want to spoil her impression of herself. “Perhaps the most important thing for a teacher is not to take himself seriously, to understand that he can teach very little,” she noted carefully. After this conversation, they agreed on a secret and began to play together, and the narrator won money. At first he lost, but then he noticed that the teacher was deliberately giving in. Refusing to play, he nevertheless agreed again and saw Lydia Mikhailovna’s cheating. After that, he no longer suspected her of deception and played to his full potential. But during one heated argument, director Vasily Andreevich came to see them. He accused the teacher of “molestation” and fired her. She went to her place in Kuban.

In mid-January, the narrator received a parcel with pasta and apples.

“Before, I only saw apples in pictures, but I guessed that these were them” - this phrase ends the story.

One of the best works of V. Rasputin is the book “French Lessons”, summary which is proposed in the article. It is dedicated to A.P. Kopylova, the writer’s teacher, who for the first time made a teenager think about what kindness, humanity, and the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the well-being of another are.

Start of independent life

The narrative is told in the first person and represents the memories of an adult about the most significant days of his difficult childhood.

The action takes place in 1948 in a Siberian village. Main character- an eight-year-old boy, the eldest of three children in the family. The mother had to raise them alone, but, seeing her son’s excellent academic abilities, she decided to send him to the 5th grade at a district school. It was fifty kilometers from home, and therefore the boy, who had never been separated from his family before, felt very lonely there. He lived with a mother he knew, who was also raising children without a husband.

Studying was easy, the only problem was the French lesson. Rasputin (the summary conveys only the main points of the story) noted that his village accent was in every possible way opposed to foreign words. And every time the teacher, Lidia Mikhailovna, began to wince and close her eyes in despair.

Chica game

Another problem was constant hunger. The mother gave little food, and it ran out very quickly: either the hostess helped, or her children. Therefore, the hero began to eat all the food at once, and then for several days he “planted his teeth on the shelf.” A couple of times my mother handed over money: not much, but I bought a jar of milk for five days. I often went to bed after drinking boiling water.

The summary of the work “French Lessons” continues with the story of how the hero began to play for money. One day Fedka, the owner's son, took him outside the gardens. There the boys played chica. While the boy had no money, he carefully observed and delved into the rules. And when the village driver brought money from his mother, he decided to try his luck in the game instead of buying milk. At first he lost, and therefore in the evenings he ran to the clearing, took out the hidden puck and practiced. Finally, the hero won for the first time. Now he had money for milk every evening. I didn’t want much - I won a ruble and immediately ran away. This became the reason for the unpleasant story that soon happened in the clearing. Here is its summary.

“French Lessons” contains a story about boys gathering in their vegetable gardens. The main one was Vadik - the eldest. He directed the game and did not touch the boy for some time. But one day I stopped him when he was about to leave. Vadik, who stepped on the coin, stated that it did not turn over due to the impact, which means there was no winning. As a result, the hero tried to prove something, and he was beaten.

Difficult conversation

In the morning, Lidia Mikhailovna, who was also the class teacher, immediately noticed bruises on the boy’s face. After class, she left the student to talk. Here is a brief summary of it.

"French Lessons" emphasizes the contrast between the characters. Lydia Mikhailovna was neat, beautiful, and always had a pleasant smell of perfume, which made her seem unearthly to the boy. He walked around in altered father’s clothes, old teal jackets, which no one else had at school. And now he was answering her questions about where he was spending the money he won. The author emphasizes that the news about milk came as a complete surprise to the teacher.

This incident did not reach the director, which made the hero very happy.

Painful lessons with Lidia Mikhailovna

In the fall, things became very bad for the hero: the driver no longer came, and the bag of potatoes he had brought literally evaporated. The boy had to go outside the gardens again. However, on the fourth day they beat him again, and Lidia Mikhailovna, seeing the bruises on his face, resorted to a trick. She decided to give him an individual French lesson at her home.

Rasputin (the summary does not fully tell how hard these visits to the teacher were for the hero) notes that the boy was lost in fear and every time could not wait for the lesson to end. And Lydia Mikhailovna first tried to invite him to the table, and when she realized that it was useless, she sent a package. Having opened the box, the boy was delighted, but immediately realized: where did his mother get the pasta? They haven't been in the village for a long time. And also hematogen! He immediately understood everything and went with the parcel to the teacher. She was sincerely surprised that she could only eat potatoes, peas, radishes... This was the first attempt to help a capable but starving student. We have described its brief content. Lydia Mikhailovna's French lessons continued, but now these were real lessons.

Game of "measuring"

A couple of weeks after the parcel story, the teacher started talking about chick, as if to compare her with the “measurements.” In fact, this was the only way to help the boy. At first she simply told him about how she loved to play “wall” as a girl. Then she showed what the essence of the game was, and finally suggested that we try our hand at “make-believe.” And when the rules were mastered, she noted that it was simply not interesting to play: money adds excitement. So the summary of the story continues.

The French lesson now passed quickly, and then they began to play “the wall”, or “measures”. The main thing is that the boy could buy milk every day with “honestly earned money.”

But one day Lidia Mikhailovna began to “flip.” This happened after the hero realized that she was playing along with him. As a result, a verbal altercation arose, the consequences of which were tragic.

Conversation with the director: summary

“French Lessons” does not end very happily for the heroes. They were so carried away by the argument that they did not notice how the director entered the room - it was located at the school. Stunned by what he saw (the class teacher was playing with his student for money), he called what was happening a crime and did not even try to understand the situation. Lidia Mikhailovna said goodbye and left three days later. They never saw each other again.

In the middle of winter, a package addressed to the boy arrived at the school, containing pasta and three apples from Kuban.

This is the summary of the story, the French lesson in which became, perhaps, the main moral lesson in the hero’s life.