Everyone around said that Seryoga Bezmenov had an evil wife. Evil, capricious and stupid. Everyone saw and understood this. Only Seryoga did not see or understand this. He was angry with everyone and secretly surprised: how they don’t see and understand how independent, well-read, she is... The devil knows, people: no matter how much they start scratching their tongues, you can’t stop them. They didn’t know how witty and mischievous she was. How she walks! This is a step, damn it, this is a movement forward, then every vein in it lives and plays when it walks. Seryoga especially loved his wife’s gait: he looked at it and his teeth went numb with love. At home, he looked all over her in amazement, played with his nodules and sweated with excitement.

- What? – Clara asked. - Mm?.. - And, playing, she stuck out her tongue to Seryoga. And she went to the upper room, as if on purpose, to show him once again how she walked. Seryoga rushed after her.

...And they also blathered about the fact that she... Oh village! Seryoga prayed to God that he would somehow not drop this precious gift of fate from his hands. At times he was even afraid: had such happiness rightfully fallen on his head, was he worthy of it, and was there some kind of misunderstanding here - what if something like this would come to light, and they would say to him: “Uh, dear friend, what are you doing? ! Look, I grabbed it!”

Seryoga saw Clara for the first time in the hospital (she had just arrived to work as a nurse), saw him and immediately became worried. At first he saw only glasses and a little nose. And I immediately became worried. It was then that he would have the joy of discovering more and more new charms in her. At first, only the glasses sparkled and his nose stuck out, everything else was a red hairstyle. The white robe she was wearing was flying to the sides; She quickly walked along the corridor, saying as she walked to the dejected queue: “Whoever needs a dressing, come in.” And disappeared into the office. Seryoga became so worried that his heart ached. Then she touched him with tender warm fingers and asked: “Does it hurt?” Seryoga felt dizzy from her perfume, he only shook his head when asked - that it didn’t hurt. And fear gripped him so much that he was afraid to move.

- What do you? – Clara asked.

Seryoga shook his head again in confusion - that it didn’t hurt. Klara laughed right in his ear... Serega, somewhere inside, above his navel, had a burning sensation... He wrinkled his face and... began to cry. Naturally I cried! He could not understand himself and could not do anything with himself. He winced, bowed his head and ground his teeth. And tears dripped onto his sore hand and onto her white fingers. Clara was scared: “Does it hurt?!”

“Go away!” Seryoga said with difficulty. - Do your job. “He would press his wet face to these cute fingers, and no one would be able to pull him away from them.” But fear, fear paralyzed him, and now there was also shame - that he cried.

- Does it hurt you, or what? – Clara asked again.

“Just... this... there’s no need to pretend that we’re all here working from a lantern,” Seryoga said angrily. – We all, after all, live in one state.

Eighteen days later they got married.

Clara began to call him Gray. Affectionately. She, it turns out, was already married, but her husband got caught “some kind of boiled”, they soon separated. Seryoga, just because her first husband was “boiled”, walked with his chest stuck out, felt extraordinary strength in himself. Clara praised him.

And at this time, when he did not know what to do with happiness, they said that his wife was capricious and angry. Seryoga despised them all. They didn’t know how she was... Oh people! Everyone was jealous, the devils. What is it that people cannot calmly endure when someone gets lucky.

“You take an example from the animal world,” Seryoga advised one such smart guy. “They are calm when, for example, some dog is taken to the circus to perform. They're not angry. Why are you freaking out?

- Yes, I feel sorry for you...

- It's a pity at the bee... do you know where? Like this.

Seryoga was angry, he understood that this was pointless, stupid, and he became even more angry.

“Don’t pay attention to the empty nesters,” said wife Clara. - We feel good, that’s all. I can't see them all at close range.

Seryoga had a fight with his relatives because they were not delighted with Clara, with his friends... He stopped drinking completely, bought washing machine and on Saturdays he would twist his underwear in the dressing room so that none of the scoffers would see. Seryoga’s mother could not understand whether this was good or bad. On the one hand, it seems somehow unbecoming of a man to do a woman’s work, on the other hand... The jester knows her!

- But he doesn’t drink! - Clara said to her mother-in-law. -What else do you want? He's busy.

- Well, take pity on him: take him and wash him yourself, he’s been in trouble for a week, he needs to rest.

- Am I not working?

- Yes, your work... your work can be compared with your husband’s, mother! Give him a spin every day (Seryoga worked as a tractor driver) - what hands you need! It's not two-core.

“I myself know how to live with my husband,” Clara said to this. – Do you need him to drink?

- Why?

- Well, that's all. You do good to them, and they are still unhappy.

- But I feel sorry for him, he’s my son...

– Don’t you feel sorry when they lie drunk under fences? It's a pity? That's it. And there is no need to talk more about this topic. Clear?

“Lord, father!..” the mother was taken aback. - Don’t say a word. You muzzled a guy, but don’t say a word to her.

“Okay, I’ll tell him to go to the teahouse and get drunk with his friends.” It suits you?

- Why did you get involved with drinking! - the mother got angry. - He didn’t drink much before you, what’s wrong with your drinking? She started saying: “booze, booze.”

“Okay, I’ll tell him that you don’t order the laundry,” Clara announced. And she even got up and put the medical book aside.

Mother was scared.

- OK! “I’ll tell you right away.” Just to run around and complain.

- Okay, what do you suggest? – Clara looked directly at her mother-in-law through her strong glasses. - Specifically.

- Nothing. I just see, my dear, that you haven’t decided to live with your husband forever, that’s what. If you thought about living, you would take care of him. And you, like... I don’t know, like some kind of plunderer: you hit a guy. Is it really hard for you to even get some water? He twists his arms there all day long, and when he comes home, harness himself again. But when can he rest, poor thing?

– I repeat: I think about him. And when I should feel sorry for him, I myself know. It’s you here... who dismissed the men, then you don’t know what to do with them.

“Lord, Lord,” was all the mother said. - That's what wives are like these days! Ay-ay!

If Seryoga knew about these conversations! Clara was smart enough not to pass them on to her husband.

And it’s a pleasure for Seryoga to fetch water, wash his underwear... He’ll run into the house, kiss his wife’s nose, and marvel at the powerful and smooth curve of her hips. Otherwise he will ask her to put on a white robe.

- Well, why eat? – Clara was cutely capricious. - What kind of strange things are they?

“I’m asking,” Seryoga insisted. “I saw you in a robe then, for the first time.” Put it on, I’ll see: it’ll flutter here again. – He pointed under the heart. - I ask, Clarinet. - He called her Clarinetik. Or – Clarinet, when you need to call loudly.

Clara put on a robe and they played around.

- Where does it hurt? – Clara asked.

“Right here,” Seryoga pointed to his heart.

- Already... seventy-five days.

- Allow me. – Clara pressed her ear to Seryoga’s chest. Seryoga inhaled the smell of her dyed hair... And again and again he felt a little dizzy with excitement and joy. He squeezed the “doctor” in his arms, searched for her cute nose with his lips - for some reason he loved to kiss her nose.

“Well,” Clara resisted, “the doctor!” She was probably already a little tired of her husband’s identical caresses.

“Lord, why am I so happy! – Seryoga thought, going out again into the yard to the washing machine. - I can’t stand it like that. I'll get going, what's good? Or I’ll weaken completely.”

He didn't move. Something else happened, something unexpected.

Seryogin’s cousin, Slavka, came for the holidays. Slavka studied at a technical university in a big city, his relatives boasted about him, and when he came for the holidays, Uncle Nikolai, Slavkin’s father, would gather for the evening. This has happened twice already, and now Slava has entered his third year. Well, we gathered again. They called Seryoga and Klara.

Everything went well at first. Clara was in lilac dress with puffy sleeves, a medallion on her chest - a watch on a gold chain, her hair shimmering with expensive copper, her glasses shining... How Seryoga loved her for these glasses! He looks around the people, looks at his wife, and again his heart trembles with joy: out of everyone, she stood out at the table, she sat proud, smart, well-mannered - very, very not simple. Seryoga liked that Slavka also singled her out from everyone else and talked to her across the table. At first they talked about just about anything, but then suddenly they started talking so interestingly that everyone at the table fell silent and listened to them.

“Okay, okay,” Slavka said, catching with his ear that everyone was listening to him, “we are a technocracy, a people... dry, as they say and write about us... I would just clarify here: concrete, not dry, because it’s always at the forefront for us - Mr. Fact.

“Yes, but behind the fact there are sometimes no less specific living people,” Clara objected to this, also perceiving with her ear that everyone was listening to them.

- Who can argue? – technocrat Slava shot out restrainedly, through a smile. “But if you always think that behind the fact there are living people, and make endless footnotes to this, then science and technology will mark time. We won't move from a dead point!

Clara, sparkling with glass, copper and gold, said this:

– So, medicine should mainly pick up corpses for you? – She put it strongly; the table became completely quiet.

Slavka was confused for a moment, but pulled himself together and blurted out:

- If you want - yes! - he said. – Only at such a price will humanity take possession of all the riches of nature.

“But this is quackery,” Clara said quietly, with some special significance, amid the general silence.

Slava started to laugh, but it came out false, he felt it himself. He got nervous.

– Why charlatanism? As far as I understand, quackery is inherent in medicine. And only medicine.

– Do you mean unauthorized abortions?

- Not only…

- Witchcraft? So, remember once and for all,” Klara spoke assertively, angrily, and edifyingly, “that anyone who undertakes to treat even a person’s runny nose, but does not have the appropriate right to do so, is a potential criminal. “She said this “criminal” especially clearly and terribly. And this - in front of the grandmothers, who were in full swing in the village with all sorts of herbs, infusions, decoctions, it was in front of them that she was like that... Everyone looked at Clara. And then Seryoga realized that from now on his wife would be respected and feared. He was jubilant. He prayed to his bespectacled goddess, he wanted to shout to everyone: “What, did you eat?!” And they blathered!..” But Seryoga did not scream, but began to cry again. God knows what kind of nerves he has! I cried every now and then. He quietly wiped away his tears and lit a cigarette.

Performance based on the story “Fingerless” by Vasily Shukshin. Small stage SPbGATI, June 2012

Slavka was still saying something like that, but they were already talking at the table too: Slavka lost. They reached out to Clara - some with a glass, some with a question... One very tall relative of Seryogin, Uncle Yegor, leaned towards Seryoga, to his ear, and asked:

- How should we call her?

- Nikanorovna. Klavdia Nikanorovna.

- Claudia Nikanorovna! - Uncle Yegor boomed, pushing away other voices with his voice. - Ah, Klavdia Nikanorovna!..

Clara turned to this hill behind the table.

– Yes, I’m listening to you. - Clearly, precisely, well-mannered.

- But you are married to our... well, relative, and we never celebrated the wedding. Why at all? Not according to custom...

Clara didn't think about the answers. In general, it seemed that this was her element - when she is the center of attention and gives out words and smiles right and left... When everyone is surprised at her, admires her, some are secretly jealous, and she sends and sends and rolls waves from herself spirits, charm and culture. To this Uncle Yegor’s question, Klara slightly bent her crimson lips in a smile... She glanced at the technocrat Slavka and said, without even allowing Uncle Yegor to finish:

– A wedding is not a sign of quality. This,” Clara raised her hand above the table and showed everyone the gold ring on her finger, “is just a symbol, but not a guarantee. Strength family life is not calculated by the number of bottles consumed.

Well, it unfolded today! Even Seryoga has never seen his wife like this before. No, she was clearly on a roll. Uncle Yegor, as if he were a disgraced, tactless man, was bombarded with:

- Received? Like this.

- What, Yegorsha: shed the wool? Hhh!..

- I went with the custom! Here, without custom, they will shave it off so that... Here, you better have a bite.

Seryoga, in unbridled joy and pride for his wife, probably drank too much. His shoulders grew so that he could touch the opposite walls of the house with them; His joy was great, he wanted to hug and kiss everyone. He cried, wanted to sing, laughed... Then he went out into the street, put his head under the washstand, doused himself and went around the corner, under the canopy, to smoke and dry off. It was already getting dark and the breeze was blowing. Seryoga soon walked away into the air and sat and thought. I didn’t think, but somehow I rested all over – body and soul. A rare, wonderful peace fell over him: he seemed to be floating somewhere, obeying the calm, powerful current of time. And I thought simply and clearly: “Here, I live well.”

Suddenly he heard two hurried voices on the porch of the house; His heart skipped a beat: he recognized his wife’s voice. He froze. Yes, it was Clara's voice. And the second is Slavkin. There was a plank partition over the canopy. Slavka and Klara approached it and stood there. It turned out like this: Seryoga was sitting on one side of the partition, with his back to it, and they stood on the other side... That is, it was so close that you could hear the beating of someone else’s heart, not just voices, or whispers, or some kind of fuss. It was this closeness - as if he were lying under the bed - that at first stunned and deafened him so much that Seryoga could not move his arm or leg.

“My little little one,” tenderly, quietly, so familiar! - said Clara, - why are you in a hurry? Let me... - Smack-smack. So familiar! So the same! So close... - My dear one. My wonderful... - Smack-smack. - Honey…

They fiddled around a little and pushed Seryoga. Slavka hurriedly muttered something, asked something - Seryoga missed his words - Klara laughed quietly and said:

- My sweetie... Where, where? Oh, you little naughty girl! Kiss my nose.

“So this is how it happens,” Seryoga realized with horror, disgust, and pain. - That's how it is! And everything alive, meaningful, with a name - everything fell into the abyss, and it became one black pit. And there is no name, no meaning - just a black hole. “Well, now it doesn’t matter,” Seryoga thought. And he stepped into this hole.

“Clarineti-ik, it’s me, Gray,” Seryoga suddenly sang, as if he was telling a fairy tale and came to the moment when the little fox-sister approached the cockerel’s house and sang like that. - Aww! – Seryoga sang again. - And I’ll kill you in a minute.

Then everything began to flash, as in a dream: now Seryoga saw this, then this... Now he was running somewhere, then people were screaming. Seryoga did not remember either his heaviness or his flesh. And I also didn’t remember how the ax ended up in his hand. But this is what he remembered well: how Clara jumped over the spinning wheel. Clara’s hairstyle was out of order, her hair was disheveled; when she waved through the spinner, her red mane reared up above her head... A kind of fire rushed out. And this flying moment was firmly captured by memory. And when Seryoga later remembered his ex-wife, every time this picture appeared in his eyes - flying, and it was funny and painful.

That evening, everything suddenly became noisy, faded away... Everyone disappeared somewhere. Seryoga was left alone with the ax... He began to realize everything, it became unbearably painful. It was so painful, even breathing was difficult from the pain. “What is this? What is being done? – Seryoga thought... He put it on a pole left hand and hit his fingers with an ax. Two fingers - index and middle - fell off. Seryoga threw the ax and went to the hospital. Now at least we have to go somewhere. He wrapped his hand in his shirt and hem.

Since then, he was nicknamed in the village - Fingerless.

Clara left that same night; then they sent her documents somewhere: a work book, a passport... Slavka also left and never came back for the holidays. Seryoga still works on the tractor, wielding his stump no worse than before. He never talks about Clara to anyone. I only had a fight with the men once.

- We told you, Serga: she’s evil...

- How evil is she?! – Seryoga suddenly boiled. - What does evil have to do with it?

-What is she like? Kind, or what?

- What does it have to do with good and evil? Is it a matter of anger?

- What is it?

- Not with anything! I don’t know what it’s about... But it’s not about anger. There are some other words... No, they said one thing: evil, evil. Maybe, on the contrary, she was kind: she wanted to help her brother.

“Earring,” they asked, “but you... loved her... And if she had come right away, would you have forgiven her?”

Seryoga remained silent to this. Didn't say anything.

Then the men began to reason for themselves.

“Is she a fool or something? She’ll come.”

- And what? He thinks he loved...

- Well, I loved, I loved. He loved, but she did not love. She is already a spoiled person - she still won’t stop at one thing. If a person has deteriorated from a young age, this is already a lost cause. It doesn’t matter whether you take a man or a woman. Sometimes she doesn’t want to, but does it.

- Yes, it’s only going to rot in the middle, and then any breeze will shake it.

– They were given a lot of freedom! - Kostya Bibikov, a nondescript little man, but very bold in his words, said with his heart. “Grandfather Ivan says: now life is good for the woman and the cow, but it’s bad for the horse and the man.” And rightly so. There is a lot of will, and they blossomed. Ignakha Zhuravlev did the same: the fool got drunk, disgraced a man - he led her through the whole village. And then to his own: “Why did you allow me to drink a lot!” That's how it is!..

- And the young ones!.. Take these skirts - you’ll see what’s going on... Ugh!

Seryoga sat on the sidelines and no longer took part in the conversation. He bit a blade of grass and looked somewhere into the distance. He thought: well, apparently, this had to be experienced in life. But if such a storm came again, he would again spread his arms out to meet it halfway. Still, no matter how painful it was, it was a holiday. Of course, where there’s a holiday, there’s a hangover, that’s true... But was there a holiday? Was. That's it.

Fingerless
Vasily Shukshin

Shukshin Vasily

Fingerless

Vasily Shukshin

FINGERLESS

Everyone around said that Seryoga Bezmenov had an evil wife. Evil, capricious and stupid. Everyone saw and understood this. Only Seryoga did not see or understand this. He was angry with everyone and secretly surprised: how they don’t see and understand how independent, well-read, she is... The devil knows, people: no matter how much they start scratching their tongues, you can’t stop them. They didn’t know how witty and mischievous she was. How she walks! This is a step, damn it, this is a movement forward, then every vein in it lives and plays when it walks. Seryoga especially loved his wife’s gait: he looked at it and his teeth went numb with love. At home, he looked all over her in amazement, played with his nodules and sweated with excitement.

What - asked Clara. - Mm?.. - And, playing, she stuck out her tongue to Seryoga. And she went to the upper room, as if on purpose, to show him once again how she walked. Seryoga rushed after her.

And they also blathered about the fact that she... Oh village! Seryoga prayed to God that he would somehow not drop this precious gift of fate from his hands. At times he was even afraid: had such happiness rightfully fallen on his head, was he worthy of it, and was there some kind of misunderstanding? Suddenly something like this would come to light, and they would say to him: “Uh, dear friend, what are you doing?!” Look, I grabbed it!"

Seryoga saw Clara for the first time in the hospital (she had just arrived to work as a nurse), saw him and immediately became worried. At first he saw only glasses and a little nose. And I immediately became worried. It was then that he would have the joy of discovering more and more new charms in her. At first, only the glasses sparkled and his nose stuck out, everything else was a red hairstyle. The white robe she was wearing was flying to the sides; She quickly walked along the corridor, saying as she walked to the dejected queue: “Whoever needs a dressing, come in.” And disappeared into the office. Seryoga became so worried that his heart ached. Then she touched him with tender warm fingers and asked: “Does it hurt?” Seryoga felt dizzy from her perfume, he only shook his head in response to questions - that it didn’t hurt. And fear gripped him so much that he was afraid to move.

What do you? - asked Clara.

Seryoga shook his head again in confusion - that it didn’t hurt. Clara laughed right in his ear... Somewhere inside Seryoga, above his navel, there was a burning sensation... He wrinkled his face and... began to cry. Naturally I cried! He could not understand himself and could not do anything with himself. He winced, bowed his head and ground his teeth. And tears dripped onto his sore hand and onto her white fingers. Clara was scared: “Does it hurt?!”

Fuck you!.. - Seryoga said with difficulty. - Do your job. He would press his wet face to these cute fingers, and no one would be able to pull him away from them. But fear, fear paralyzed him, and now there was also shame that he cried.

Does it hurt you, or what? - Clara asked again.

Just... this... there’s no need to pretend that we’re all working here from a lantern,” Seryoga said angrily. - We all, after all, live in the same state.

Eighteen days later they got married.

Clara began calling him Gray. Affectionately. She, it turns out, was already married, but her husband got caught “some kind of boiled”, they soon separated. Seryoga, just because his first husband was “boiled”, walked with his chest stuck out, felt extraordinary strength in himself. Clara praised him.

And at this time, when he did not know what to do with happiness, they said that his wife was capricious and angry. Seryoga despised them all. They didn’t know how she was... Oh people! Everyone was jealous, the devils. What is it that people cannot calmly endure when someone gets lucky.

“You take an example from the animal world,” Seryoga advised one such smart guy. - They are calm when, for example, some dog is taken to the circus to perform. They're not angry. Why are you freaking out?

I feel sorry for you...

It's a pity at the bee... do you know where? Like this. Seryoga was angry, he understood that this was useless, stupid, and he became even more angry.

“Don’t pay attention to the empty nesters,” said his wife Clara. - We feel good, that’s all. I can't see them all at close range.

Seryoga had a fight with his relatives because they were not delighted with Clara, with his friends... He quit drinking completely, bought a washing machine and on Saturdays he twisted his underwear in the dressing room so that none of the scoffers would see. Seryoga’s mother could not understand whether this was good or bad. On the one hand, it seems somehow unbecoming of a man to do a woman’s work, on the other hand... The jester knows her!

But he doesn't drink! - Clara said to her mother-in-law. - What else do you want? He's busy.

Well, take pity on him: take him and wash him yourself, he’s been in trouble for a week, he needs to rest.

Am I not working?

Yes, your work... your work can be compared with your husband’s, mother! Give him a spin every day (Seryoga worked as a tractor driver) - what hands you need! It's not two-core.

“I myself know how to live with my husband,” Clara said to this. Do you need him to drink?

Why?

That's it. You do good to them, and they are still unhappy.

But I feel sorry for him, he’s my son...

Don't you feel sorry when they lie drunk under fences? It's a pity? That's it. And there is no need to talk more about this topic. Clear?

Lord, father!.. - the mother was taken aback. Don't say a word. You muzzled a guy, but don’t say a word to her.

Okay, I'll tell him to go to the teahouse and get drunk with his friends. It suits you?

Why did you get involved with drinking? - the mother got angry. - He didn’t drink much before you, what are you doing with drinking? She started saying: "drunken, drunken."

“Okay, I’ll tell him that you don’t order the laundry,” Clara announced. And she even got up and put the medical book aside.

Mother was scared.

OK! I'll say it right away. Just to run around and complain.

Okay, what do you suggest? - Clara looked directly at her mother-in-law through her strong glasses. - Specifically.

Nothing. I just see, my dear, that you haven’t decided to live with your husband forever, that’s what. If you thought about living, you would take care of him. And you, like... I don’t know, like some kind of plunderer: you hit on a guy. Is it really hard for you to even get some water? He twists his arms there all day long, and when he comes home, harness himself again. But when can he rest, poor thing?

I repeat: I think about him. And when I should feel sorry for him, I myself know. It’s you here... who dismissed the men, then you don’t know what to do with them.

Lord, Lord, that’s all the mother said. - That's what wives are like these days! Ay-ay!

If Seryoga knew about these conversations! Clara was smart enough not to pass them on to her husband.

And it’s a pleasure for Seryoga to fetch water, wash his underwear... He’ll run into the house, kiss his wife’s nose, and marvel at the powerful and smooth curve of her hips. Otherwise he will ask her to put on a white robe.

Well, why eat! - Clara was cutely capricious. - What kind of strange things are they?

“I’m asking,” Seryoga insisted. - I saw you in a robe then, for the first time. Put it on, I’ll see: it’ll flutter here again. - He pointed under the heart. - I ask, Clarinet. - He called her Clarinetik. Or Clarinet when you need to call loudly.

Clara put on a robe and they played around.

Where does it hurt? - Clara asked.

“Right here,” Seryoga pointed to his heart.

Already... seventy-five days.

Allow me. - Clara pressed her ear to Seryoga’s chest. Seryoga inhaled the smell of her dyed hair... And again and again he felt a little dizzy with excitement and joy. He squeezed the “doctor” in his arms, searched for her cute nose with his lips - for some reason he loved to kiss her nose.

Well, - Clara resisted, - a doctor!.. - She was probably already a little tired of her husband’s identical caresses.

“Lord, why am I so happy!” thought Seryoga, going out again into the yard to the washing machine. “I can’t stand it like this. I’ll get under way, what the hell. Or I’ll weaken completely.”

He didn't move. Something else happened, something unexpected.

Seryogin’s cousin, Slavka, came for the holidays. Slavka studied at a technical university in a big city, his relatives boasted about him, and when he came for the holidays, Uncle Nikolai, Slavkin’s father, would gather for the evening. This has happened twice already, and now Slava has entered his third year. Well, we gathered again. They called Seryoga and Klara.

Everything went well at first. Clara was in a lilac dress with puffed sleeves, on her chest there was a medallion - a watch on a gold chain, her hair shimmered with expensive copper, her glasses sparkled... How Seryoga loved her for these glasses! He looks around the people, looks at his wife, and again his heart trembles with joy: out of everyone, she stood out at the table, she sat proud, smart, well-mannered - very, very not simple. Seryoga liked that Slavka also singled her out from everyone else and talked to her across the table. At first they talked about just about anything, and then suddenly they started talking so interestingly that everyone at the table fell silent and listened to them.

“Okay, okay,” Slavka said, catching with his ear that everyone was listening to him, “we are a technocracy, a people... dry, as they say and write about us... I would just clarify here: concrete, not dry, because in The cornerstone for us is Mr. Fact.

Yes, but behind the fact there are sometimes no less specific living people, Clara objected to this, also catching with her ear that everyone was listening to them.

Who can argue? - technocrat Slava shot out restrainedly, through a smile. - But if you always think that behind the fact there are living people, and make endless footnotes to this, then science and technology will mark time. We won't move from a dead point!

Clara, sparkling with glass, copper and gold, said this:

So, medicine should mainly pick up corpses for you? She put it strongly; the table became completely quiet.

Slavka was confused for a moment, but pulled himself together and blurted out:

If you want - yes! - he said. - Only at this price will humanity take possession of all the riches of nature.

But this is charlatanism,” Clara said quietly, with some special significance, in the general silence.

Slava started to laugh, but it came out false, he felt it himself. He got nervous.

Why quackery? As far as I understand, quackery is inherent in medicine. And only medicine.

Do you mean unauthorized abortions?

Not only...

Quackery? So, remember once and for all,” Klara spoke assertively, angrily, and edifyingly, “that anyone who undertakes to treat even a person’s runny nose, but does not have the appropriate right to do so, is a potential criminal.” and k. - She said this “criminal” especially clearly and terribly. And this was in front of the grandmothers, who were using all sorts of herbs, infusions, decoctions in the village, it was in front of them that she was like that... She kept looking at Clara. And then Seryoga realized that from now on his wife would be respected and feared. He was jubilant. He prayed to his bespectacled goddess, he wanted to shout to everyone: “What, did you eat?! And they blathered!..” But Seryoga did not scream, but began to cry again. God knows what kind of nerves he has! I cried every now and then. He quietly wiped away his tears and lit a cigarette.

Slavka was still saying something like that, but they were already talking at the table too: Slavka lost. Some people reached out to Clara with a glass, some with a question... One very tall relative of Seryogin, Uncle Yegor, leaned towards Seryoga, to his ear, and asked:

How should we call her?

Nikanorovna. Klavdia Nikanorovna.

Claudia Nikanorovna! - Uncle Yegor boomed, pushing away other voices with his voice. - Ah, Klavdia Nikanorovna!..

Clara turned to this hill behind the table.

Yes, I'm listening. - Clearly, precisely, well-mannered.

But you are married to our... well, relative, and we never celebrated the wedding. Why at all? Not according to custom...

Clara didn't think about the answers. In general, it seemed that this was her element - when she is the center of attention and distributes words and smiles left and right...

When everyone is surprised at her, admires her, some envy her on the sly, but she keeps sending and sending and rolling away waves of spirits, charm and culture. To the questions of this Uncle Yegor, Klara slightly bent her crimson lips into a smile... She glanced at the technocrat Slavka and said, without even allowing Uncle Yegor to finish.

A wedding is not a sign of quality. This,” Clara raised her hand above the table and showed everyone the gold ring on her finger, “is just a symbol, but not a guarantee. The strength of family life is not measured by the number of bottles drunk.

Well, it unfolded today! Even Seryoga has never seen his wife like this before. No, she was clearly on a roll. Uncle Yegor, as if he were a disgraced, tactless man, was bombarded with:

Received? Like this.

What, Yegorsha: shed the wool? Hhh!..

I got used to the custom! Here, without custom, they will shave so that... Here, you better have a bite.

Seryoga, in unbridled joy and pride for his wife, probably drank too much. His shoulders grew so that he could touch the opposite walls of the house with them; His joy was great, he wanted to hug and kiss everyone. He cried, wanted to sing, laughed... Then he went out into the street, put his head under the washstand, doused himself and went around the corner, under the canopy, to smoke and dry off. It was already getting dark and the breeze was blowing. Seryoga soon walked away into the air and sat thinking. I didn’t think, but somehow I rested completely - soul and body. A rare, wonderful peace fell over him: he seemed to be floating somewhere, obeying the calm, powerful current of time. And I thought simply and clearly: “Here I live. Good.”

Suddenly he heard two hurried voices on the porch of the house; His heart skipped a beat: he recognized his wife’s voice. He froze. Yes, it was Clara's voice. And the second is Slavkin. There was a plank partition over the canopy. Slavka and Klara approached it and stood there. It turned out like this: Seryoga was sitting on one side of the partition, with his back to it, and they stood on the other side... That is, it was so close that you could hear the beating of someone else’s heart, not like voices or whispers, or some kind of fuss. It was this closeness - as if he were lying under the bed - that at first stunned and deafened him so much that Seryoga could not move his arm or leg.

My little little one, - affectionately, quietly - so familiar! - said Clara, - why are you in such a hurry? Let me... - Smack-smack. So familiar! So the same! So close... - My dear one. My wonderful... - Smack-smack. - Honey...

They fiddled around a little and pushed Seryoga. Slavka hurriedly muttered something, asked something - Seryoga missed his words - Klara laughed quietly and said:

My sweetie... Where, where? Oh, you naughty girl! Kiss my nose.

“So this is how it happens,” Seryoga realized with horror, disgust, and pain. “That’s how it is!” And everything alive, meaningful, with a name - everything fell into the abyss, and it became one black pit. And there is no name, no meaning - just a black hole. “Well, now it doesn’t matter,” Seryoga thought. And he stepped into this hole.

Clarinet-ik, it’s me, Gray,” Seryoga suddenly sang, as if he was telling a fairy tale and came to the moment when the little fox-sister approached the cockerel’s house, and so she sang: “Aw-oh!” - Seryoga sang again. - And I’ll kill you in a minute.

Then everything began to flash, as in a dream: now Seryoga saw this, then this... Now he was running somewhere, then people were screaming. Seryoga did not remember either his heaviness or his flesh. And I also didn’t remember how the ax ended up in his hand. But this is what he remembered well: how Clara jumped over the spinning wheel. Clara’s hairstyle was out of order, her hair was disheveled; when she waved through the spinner, her red mane reared up above her head... A kind of fire rushed out. And this flying moment was firmly captured by memory. And when Seryoga later remembered his ex-wife, every time this picture appeared in his eyes - flying, and it was funny and painful.

That evening everything suddenly became noisy, faded away... Everyone disappeared somewhere. Seryoga was left alone with the ax... He began to realize everything, it became unbearably painful. It was so painful, even breathing was difficult from the pain. “What is this? What’s going on?” - Seryoga thought... He put his left hand on the pole and hit his fingers with an ax. Two fingers - index and middle - fell off. Seryoga threw the ax and went to the hospital. Now at least where
/>End of introductory fragment
Full version can be downloaded from

Shukshin Vasily

Fingerless

Vasily Shukshin

FINGERLESS

Everyone around said that Seryoga Bezmenov had an evil wife. Evil, capricious and stupid. Everyone saw and understood this. Only Seryoga did not see or understand this. He was angry with everyone and secretly surprised: how they don’t see and understand how independent, well-read, she is... The devil knows, people: no matter how much they start scratching their tongues, you can’t stop them. They didn’t know how witty and mischievous she was. How she walks! This is a step, damn it, this is a movement forward, then every vein in it lives and plays when it walks. Seryoga especially loved his wife’s gait: he looked at it and his teeth went numb with love. At home, he looked all over her in amazement, played with his nodules and sweated with excitement.

What - asked Clara. - Mm?.. - And, playing, she stuck out her tongue to Seryoga. And she went to the upper room, as if on purpose, to show him once again how she walked. Seryoga rushed after her.

And they also blathered about the fact that she... Oh village! Seryoga prayed to God that he would somehow not drop this precious gift of fate from his hands. At times he was even afraid: had such happiness rightfully fallen on his head, was he worthy of it, and was there some kind of misunderstanding? Suddenly something like this would come to light, and they would say to him: “Uh, dear friend, what are you doing?!” Look, I grabbed it!"

Seryoga saw Clara for the first time in the hospital (she had just arrived to work as a nurse), saw him and immediately became worried. At first he saw only glasses and a little nose. And I immediately became worried. It was then that he would have the joy of discovering more and more new charms in her. At first, only the glasses sparkled and his nose stuck out, everything else was a red hairstyle. The white robe she was wearing was flying to the sides; She quickly walked along the corridor, saying as she walked to the dejected queue: “Whoever needs a dressing, come in.” And disappeared into the office. Seryoga became so worried that his heart ached. Then she touched him with tender warm fingers and asked: “Does it hurt?” Seryoga felt dizzy from her perfume, he only shook his head in response to questions - that it didn’t hurt. And fear gripped him so much that he was afraid to move.

What do you? - asked Clara.

Seryoga shook his head again in confusion - that it didn’t hurt. Clara laughed right in his ear... Somewhere inside Seryoga, above his navel, there was a burning sensation... He wrinkled his face and... began to cry. Naturally I cried! He could not understand himself and could not do anything with himself. He winced, bowed his head and ground his teeth. And tears dripped onto his sore hand and onto her white fingers. Clara was scared: “Does it hurt?!”

Fuck you!.. - Seryoga said with difficulty. - Do your job. He would press his wet face to these cute fingers, and no one would be able to pull him away from them. But fear, fear paralyzed him, and now there was also shame that he cried.

Does it hurt you, or what? - Clara asked again.

Just... this... there’s no need to pretend that we’re all working here from a lantern,” Seryoga said angrily. - We all, after all, live in the same state.

Eighteen days later they got married.

Clara began calling him Gray. Affectionately. She, it turns out, was already married, but her husband got caught “some kind of boiled”, they soon separated. Seryoga, just because his first husband was “boiled”, walked with his chest stuck out, felt extraordinary strength in himself. Clara praised him.

And at this time, when he did not know what to do with happiness, they said that his wife was capricious and angry. Seryoga despised them all. They didn’t know how she was... Oh people! Everyone was jealous, the devils. What is it that people cannot calmly endure when someone gets lucky.

“You take an example from the animal world,” Seryoga advised one such smart guy. - They are calm when, for example, some dog is taken to the circus to perform. They're not angry. Why are you freaking out?

I feel sorry for you...

It's a pity at the bee... do you know where? Like this. Seryoga was angry, he understood that this was useless, stupid, and he became even more angry.

“Don’t pay attention to the empty nesters,” said his wife Clara. - We feel good, that’s all. I can't see them all at close range.

Seryoga had a fight with his relatives because they were not delighted with Clara, with his friends... He quit drinking completely, bought a washing machine and on Saturdays he twisted his underwear in the dressing room so that none of the scoffers would see. Seryoga’s mother could not understand whether this was good or bad. On the one hand, it seems somehow unbecoming of a man to do a woman’s work, on the other hand... The jester knows her!

But he doesn't drink! - Clara said to her mother-in-law. - What else do you want? He's busy.

Well, take pity on him: take him and wash him yourself, he’s been in trouble for a week, he needs to rest.

Am I not working?

Yes, your work... your work can be compared with your husband’s, mother! Give him a spin every day (Seryoga worked as a tractor driver) - what hands you need! It's not two-core.

“I myself know how to live with my husband,” Clara said to this. Do you need him to drink?

Why?

That's it. You do good to them, and they are still unhappy.

But I feel sorry for him, he’s my son...

Don't you feel sorry when they lie drunk under fences? It's a pity? That's it. And there is no need to talk more about this topic. Clear?

Lord, father!.. - the mother was taken aback. Don't say a word. You muzzled a guy, but don’t say a word to her.

Okay, I'll tell him to go to the teahouse and get drunk with his friends. It suits you?

Why did you get involved with drinking? - the mother got angry. - He didn’t drink much before you, what are you doing with drinking? She started saying: "drunken, drunken."

“Okay, I’ll tell him that you don’t order the laundry,” Clara announced. And she even got up and put the medical book aside.

Mother was scared.

OK! I'll say it right away. Just to run around and complain.

Okay, what do you suggest? - Clara looked directly at her mother-in-law through her strong glasses. - Specifically.

Nothing. I just see, my dear, that you haven’t decided to live with your husband forever, that’s what. If you thought about living, you would take care of him. And you, like... I don’t know, like some kind of plunderer: you hit on a guy. Is it really hard for you to even get some water? He twists his arms there all day long, and when he comes home, harness himself again. But when can he rest, poor thing?

I repeat: I think about him. And when I should feel sorry for him, I myself know. It’s you here... who dismissed the men, then you don’t know what to do with them.

Lord, Lord, that’s all the mother said. - That's what wives are like these days! Ay-ay!

If Seryoga knew about these conversations! Clara was smart enough not to pass them on to her husband.

And it’s a pleasure for Seryoga to fetch water, wash his underwear... He’ll run into the house, kiss his wife’s nose, and marvel at the powerful and smooth curve of her hips. Otherwise he will ask her to put on a white robe.

Well, why eat! - Clara was cutely capricious. - What kind of strange things are they?

“I’m asking,” Seryoga insisted. - I saw you in a robe then, for the first time. Put it on, I’ll see: it’ll flutter here again. - He pointed under the heart. - I ask, Clarinet. - He called her Clarinetik. Or Clarinet when you need to call loudly.

Clara put on a robe and they played around.

Where does it hurt? - Clara asked.

“Right here,” Seryoga pointed to his heart.

Already... seventy-five days.

Allow me. - Clara pressed her ear to Seryoga’s chest. Seryoga inhaled the smell of her dyed hair... And again and again he felt a little dizzy with excitement and joy. He squeezed the “doctor” in his arms, searched for her cute nose with his lips - for some reason he loved to kiss her nose.

Well, - Clara resisted, - a doctor!.. - She was probably already a little tired of her husband’s identical caresses.

“Lord, why am I so happy!” thought Seryoga, going out again into the yard to the washing machine. “I can’t stand it like this. I’ll get under way, what the hell. Or I’ll weaken completely.”

He didn't move. Something else happened, something unexpected.

Seryogin’s cousin, Slavka, came for the holidays. Slavka studied at a technical university in a big city, his relatives boasted about him, and when he came for the holidays, Uncle Nikolai, Slavkin’s father, would gather for the evening. This has happened twice already, and now Slava has entered his third year. Well, we gathered again. They called Seryoga and Klara.

Everything went well at first. Clara was in a lilac dress with puffed sleeves, on her chest there was a medallion - a watch on a gold chain, her hair shimmered with expensive copper, her glasses sparkled... How Seryoga loved her for these glasses! He looks around the people, looks at his wife, and again his heart trembles with joy: out of everyone, she stood out at the table, she sat proud, smart, well-mannered - very, very not simple. Seryoga liked that Slavka also singled her out from everyone else and talked to her across the table. At first they talked about just about anything, and then suddenly they started talking so interestingly that everyone at the table fell silent and listened to them.

“Okay, okay,” Slavka said, catching with his ear that everyone was listening to him, “we are a technocracy, a people... dry, as they say and write about us... I would just clarify here: concrete, not dry, because in The cornerstone for us is Mr. Fact.

Yes, but behind the fact there are sometimes no less specific living people, Clara objected to this, also catching with her ear that everyone was listening to them.

Everyone around said that Seryoga Bezmenov had an evil wife. Evil, capricious and stupid. Everyone saw and understood this. Only Seryoga did not see or understand this. He was angry with everyone and secretly surprised: how they don’t see and understand how independent, well-read, she is... The devil knows, people: no matter how much they start scratching their tongues, you can’t stop them. They didn’t know how witty and mischievous she was. How she walks! This is a step, damn it, this is a movement forward, then every vein in it lives and plays when it walks. Seryoga especially loved his wife’s gait: he looked at it and his teeth went numb with love. At home, he looked all over her in amazement, played with his nodules and sweated with excitement.

- What? – Clara asked. - Mm?.. - And, playing, she stuck out her tongue to Seryoga. And she went to the upper room, as if on purpose, to show him once again how she walked. Seryoga rushed after her.

...And they also blathered about the fact that she... Oh village! Seryoga prayed to God that he would somehow not drop this precious gift of fate from his hands. At times he was even afraid: had such happiness rightfully fallen on his head, was he worthy of it, and was there some kind of misunderstanding here - what if something like this would come to light, and they would say to him: “Uh, dear friend, what are you doing? ! Look, I grabbed it!”

Seryoga saw Clara for the first time in the hospital (she had just arrived to work as a nurse), saw him and immediately became worried. At first he saw only glasses and a little nose. And I immediately became worried. It was then that he would have the joy of discovering more and more new charms in her. At first, only the glasses sparkled and his nose stuck out, everything else was a red hairstyle. The white robe she was wearing was flying to the sides; She quickly walked along the corridor, saying as she walked to the dejected queue: “Whoever needs a dressing, come in.” And disappeared into the office. Seryoga became so worried that his heart ached. Then she touched him with tender warm fingers and asked: “Does it hurt?” Seryoga felt dizzy from her perfume, he only shook his head when asked - that it didn’t hurt. And fear gripped him so much that he was afraid to move.

- What do you? – Clara asked.

Seryoga shook his head again in confusion - that it didn’t hurt. Klara laughed right in his ear... Serega, somewhere inside, above his navel, had a burning sensation... He wrinkled his face and... began to cry. Naturally I cried! He could not understand himself and could not do anything with himself. He winced, bowed his head and ground his teeth. And tears dripped onto his sore hand and onto her white fingers. Clara was scared: “Does it hurt?!”

“Go away!” Seryoga said with difficulty. - Do your job. “He would press his wet face to these cute fingers, and no one would be able to pull him away from them.” But fear, fear paralyzed him, and now there was also shame - that he cried.

- Does it hurt you, or what? – Clara asked again.

“Just... this... there’s no need to pretend that we’re all here working from a lantern,” Seryoga said angrily. – We all, after all, live in one state.

Eighteen days later they got married.

Clara began to call him Gray. Affectionately. She, it turns out, was already married, but her husband got caught “some kind of boiled”, they soon separated. Seryoga, just because her first husband was “boiled”, walked with his chest stuck out, felt extraordinary strength in himself. Clara praised him.

Everyone around said that Seryoga Bezmenov’s wife was an evil, capricious fool. But Seryoga believed that his fellow villagers were simply jealous of him. He loved his Clara to the point of oblivion. He was sweating with excitement, watching her flirtatiously walk around the room.

Clara worked as a nurse in a hospital. There Seryoga met her, who came for a dressing. Clara's face was adorned with glasses, a booty nose and a fluffy red hairstyle. When she started bandaging Seryoga, he became dizzy. He just shook his head to her questions. Then, from an excess of feelings, he even cried, and Clara laughed.

Eighteen days later they got married.

Clara called him “Grey”, and he called her “Clarinetik”. Klara felt her neighbors’ hostility towards herself, but said that “she doesn’t see these empty-headed girls at point-blank range.” Because of his wife, Seryoga quarreled with his family and friends. After working a hard day as a tractor driver, Seryoga came home and washed his clothes. His mother was initially indignant that Clara was “plotting” her husband and forcing him to do womanly work. But her daughter-in-law told her: Seryoga is busy with business and doesn’t drink. “You need him to go to the teahouse and get drunk with his friends. It suits you? What exactly do you offer? It’s you here... who dismissed the men, then you don’t know what to do with them.”

For Seryoga and Clara, any work was not a shame or a burden. He will wash his underwear, kiss his wife on the nose, marvel at the powerful curve of her hips - and become overwhelmed with love.

But one day the unexpected happened.

Seryogin’s cousin, Slavka, a third-year student at a technical university, came to the village for the holidays. Relatives gathered at the table for a meeting. Clara stood out among everyone present: she sat proud, smart, beautiful dress with a medallion, his glasses and thick red hair. The educated Slavka immediately singled her out, and Seryoga was very flattered by this.

“For us, technocrats, Mr. Fact is always at the forefront,” said Slavka, noticing with pleasure that all the villagers were listening to him. “But sometimes there are specific living people behind the fact,” Clara objected with a smile. “If you make endless footnotes on this, humanity will never master all the riches of nature,” Slavka said casually. “Medicine is also not characterized by quackery. For anyone who undertakes to treat even a person’s runny nose, but does not have the appropriate right to do so, is a potential criminal,” Clara immediately retorted. When asked by one relative why she and Seryoga did not get married, Klara replied: “The strength of family life is not calculated by the number of bottles drunk at the feast.” The villagers fell silent from such clever phrases, their ears hanging open.

Performance based on the story “Fingerless” by Vasily Shukshin. Small stage SPbGATI, June 2012

Seryoga was so proud of his wife that out of excitement he even went outside and sat down to smoke. However, several minutes passed, and next to him on the porch, behind the partition, he heard two cautious, hurried voices: Klarin and Slavkin.

“My little little one,” Klara said affectionately to Slava, “why are you in a hurry? Where where? Oh, you naughty girl! The “Technocrat” muttered something unintelligible.

Seryoga’s eyes darkened. “Clarinety-ik, ouch!” – he roared, emerging from the darkness. “And I’ll kill you in a minute.”

Seryoga did not remember what happened next. He later could not explain where the ax came from in his hand. All that remains in my memory is the moment when Clara leapt over the fence - and her red hair flew up like a horse’s mane... Seryoga thought his heart would break. To recover, even through severe physical pain, he put his hand on a pole, hit his fingers with an ax - and chopped off his index and middle fingers. Since then, Seryoga has been called “Fingerless.”

Clara left that same night and never returned. Fingerless Seryoga then turned the tractor wheel no worse than before. Friends and neighbors reproached him: why didn’t he immediately notice his crappy character? ex-wife? But the fingerless Seryoga bit a blade of grass, looked into the distance and thought: it was a holiday, after all? Was. And where there is a holiday, there is a hangover.