Anatoly Pristavkin the golden cloud spent the night read online. Anatoly Ignatievich Pristavkin spent the night with a golden cloud. The Science of Survival: The Realities of War Through the Eyes of Children

Anatoly Pristavkin.
The golden cloud spent the night

I dedicate this story to all her friends who took this as their personal
a homeless child of literature and did not allow its author to fall into despair.

This word arose on its own, just as the wind is born in a field. It arose
rustled and swept through the near and far corners of the orphanage: “Caucasus!
Caucasus!" What kind of Caucasus? Where did it come from? Really, no one could really
explain.
And what a strange fantasy in the dirty Moscow region to talk about
some Caucasus, about which only from school readings aloud (not textbooks)
was!) known to the orphanage shantrapa that he exists, or rather,
existed in some distant, incomprehensible time, when he fired at enemies
the black-bearded, eccentric highlander Hadji Murat, when the leader of the murids, the imam
Shamil defended himself in the besieged fortress, and Russian soldiers Zhilin and Kostylin
languished in a deep hole.
There was also Pechorin, one of the extra people, who also traveled around the Caucasus.
Yes, here are some more cigarettes! One of the Kuzmenyshes spotted them on the wounded man
a lieutenant colonel from a medical train stuck at the station in Tomilin.
Against the backdrop of broken snow-white mountains, he gallops and gallops in a black burka
rider on a wild horse. No, it doesn’t jump, it flies through the air. And underneath
in an uneven, angular font the name: "KAZBEK".
A mustachioed lieutenant colonel with a bandaged head, a handsome young man,
looked at the pretty nurse who had run out to look at the station, and
tapped his fingernail meaningfully on the cardboard cap of the cigarettes,
noticing that next to him, with his mouth open in amazement and holding his breath, he looked at
a precious box, a little tattered Kolka.
I was looking for a crust of bread from the wounded to pick up, and I saw: “KAZBEK”!
Well, what does the Caucasus have to do with it? Rumor about him?
Nothing to do with it at all.
And it is not clear how this pointed, sparkling brilliant
the icy edge of a word where it is impossible for it to be born: among orphanages
everyday life, cold, without firewood, always hungry. All the guys' busy lives
folded around frozen potatoes, potato peelings and, as a top
desires and dreams - a crust of bread to survive, to survive alone
just an extra military day.
The most cherished, and even impossible, dream of any of them was at least once
penetrate the holy of holies of the orphanage: the BREAD SLICER - that’s how we’ll highlight
in font, because it stood before the eyes of the children higher and more inaccessible than
some kind of KAZBEK!
And they were appointed there, just as God would appoint, say, to heaven! Most
the chosen ones, the luckiest, or you can define it this way: the happiest in
earth!
Kuzmenyshi was not among them.
And I had no idea that I would be able to enter. This was the lot of the scoundrels, those of
them, who, having escaped from the police, reigned during this period in the orphanage, and even in
to the entire village.
Penetrate the bread slicer, but not like those chosen ones - masters, but
with the mouse, for a second, for a moment, that’s what I dreamed about! With an eye to
in reality look at all the great wealth of the world, in the form of piled up on
table of clumsy loaves.
And - inhale, not with your chest, inhale with your stomach, intoxicating, intoxicating
bread smell...
That's all. All!
Not about any tiny little things that cannot help but remain after
the dumped buns, after their rough sides fragilely rubbed together, were not a dream.
Let them be gathered, let the chosen ones enjoy! It rightfully belongs to them!
But no matter how hard you rubbed against the iron-lined doors of the bread slicer, it couldn’t
replace the phantasmagoric picture that arose in the heads of the brothers
Kuzminykh, - the smell did not penetrate through the iron.
It was not at all possible for them to get through this door legally. This
was from the realm of abstract fantasy, but the brothers were realists. Although
the specific dream was not alien to them.
And this is what this dream brought Kolka and
Sashka: penetrate the bread slicer, the kingdom of bread, by any means... Any way.
In these especially dreary months, when you can get frozen potatoes
It’s impossible, let alone crumbs of bread, to walk past the house, past the iron doors
I had no strength. Walk around and know, almost imagine what it’s like there, beyond the gray
walls, behind a dirty, but also barred window, the chosen ones cast spells, with
knife and scales. And they chop, and cut, and crush the drooping damp bread,
pouring warm, salty crumbs into his mouth by the handful, saving the fatty bits
godfather.
Saliva boiled in my mouth. It hurt my stomach. My head was getting fuzzy. I wanted
howl, scream and beat, beat on that iron door so that they unlock it, open it,
so that they finally understand: we want it too! Let him then go to the punishment cell, where
whatever... They will punish, beat, kill... But let them show you first, at least from
doors, like him, bread, a pile, a mountain, Kazbek rises on the mangled
knives on the table... How it smells!
Then it will be possible to live again. Then there will be faith. Once a piece of bread
lies like a mountain, which means the world exists... And you can endure, and be silent, and live
further.
A small ration, even with an additive pinned to it with a sliver, will cause hunger
did not decrease. He was getting stronger.
One day a stupid teacher began to read aloud an excerpt from Tolstoy, and
there, the aging Kutuzov eats chicken during the war, eats it reluctantly, almost
not chewing a tough wing in disgust...
The guys thought this scene was very fantastic! They come up with
Same! The wing didn't work! Yes, they would immediately gnaw a bone from that
the little wings ran anywhere they wanted! After such a loud reading aloud
more stomachs turned, and they forever lost faith in writers; if they have
They don’t eat chicken, which means the writers themselves got greedy!
Since the main orphanage teacher Sych was driven away, many different
big and small thieves passed through Tomilino, through the orphanage, twisting away from
The dear police here have their half-raspberries for the winter.
One thing remained unchanged: the strong devoured everything, leaving the weak
crumbs, dreams of crumbs, taking small things into reliable networks of slavery.
For a crust they fell into slavery for a month or two.
The front crust, the one that is crispier, blacker, thicker, sweeter, cost
two months, on the loaf it would be the top, but we are talking about soldering,
a tiny piece that looks like a flat transparent leaf on the table; back
- paler, poorer, thinner - months of slavery.
And who didn’t remember that Vaska Smorchok, the same age as the Kuzmenyshes, is also
eleven, before the arrival of a relative-soldier somehow behind the back crust
served for six months. He gave away everything edible, and ate buds from trees,
so as not to bend completely.
Kuzmenysh were also sold in difficult times. But they always sold
together.
If, of course, we put two Kuzmenysh into one person, then it would not
there would be people equal in age in the entire Tomilinsky orphanage, and, perhaps,
by strength.
But the Kuzmenyshi already knew their advantage.
It is easier to drag with four hands than with two; run away faster on four feet. A
four eyes can see much more sharply when it is necessary to grasp where something is bad
lies!
While two eyes are busy, the other two watch over both. Yes they have time
also make sure that they don’t snatch anything from yourself, clothes, the mattress from underneath,
when you sleep, you see your pictures from the life of a bread slicer! They said: what,
they say, the bread slicer opened up if you were pulled!
And there are countless combinations of any of the two Kuzmenysh! Gotcha, let's say
some of them are at the market, dragged to jail. One of the brothers whines, screams,
pity hits, and the other distracts. Look, while they turned to the second one,
the first one is a sniff, and it’s gone. And the second one follows! Both brothers are like nimble vines,
slippery, once you miss it, you can’t pick it up again.
Eyes will see, hands will grab, legs will carry away...
But somewhere, in some pot, all this must be cooked in advance...
Without a reliable plan: how, where and what to steal, it’s difficult to survive!
The two heads of Kuzmenysh were cooked differently.
Sashka, as a world-contemplative, calm, quiet person, extracted from himself
ideas. How, in what way they arose in him, he himself did not know.
Kolka, resourceful, tenacious, practical, with lightning speed
I figured out how to bring these ideas to life. To extract, that is, income. And what
even more precisely: take food.
If Sashka, for example, had spoken while scratching the top of his blond head, and not
Should they fly, say, to the Moon, there is a lot of oilcake there? Kolka would not say right away:
"No". He would first think about this business with the Moon, what kind of airship to get there on
fly, and then I would ask; "Why? You can steal it closer..." But,
it used to be that Sashka would look dreamily at Kolka, and he, like a radio, would catch him in
broadcast Sashkin's thought. And then he wonders how to implement it.
Sashka has a golden head, not a head, but the Palace of Soviets! Have the brothers seen this?
on the picture. All sorts of American skyscrapers a hundred floors below are at hand
creep. We are the very first, the highest!
And the Kuzmenyshis are the first in something else. They were the first to understand how to survive the winter
forty-four and will not die.
When they made a revolution in St. Petersburg, I suppose, except for mail and telegraph, yes
station, and they didn’t forget to grab the bread slicer!
The brothers walked past the bread slicer, not for the first time, by the way. But it hurts too much
It was unbearable that day! Although such walks added their torment.
"Oh, how you want to eat... You can even gnaw on the door! Even the frozen ground underneath
“Eat on the doorstep!” - this was said out loud. Sashka said it, and suddenly it dawned on him.
Why eat it if... If it... Yes, yes! That's it! If you need to dig it!
Dig! Well, of course, dig!
He didn’t say anything, he just looked at Kolka. And he instantly accepted
signal, and turning his head, he assessed everything and scrolled through the options. But again
He didn’t say anything out loud, only his eyes flashed predatorily.
Whoever has experienced it will believe: there is nothing more inventive and focused in the world
person, the hungry a person, the more so if he is an orphanage who grew up
brain war on where and what to get.
Without saying a word (there are crooks all around, they’ll hear, they’ll smash it, and they’ll go crazy)
then any, Sashka’s most brilliant idea), the brothers went straight to
to the nearest shed, about a hundred meters away from the orphanage, and from the bread slicer
twenty meters. The shed was located right behind the bread slicer.
In the barn, the brothers looked around. At the same time we looked at the farthest
the corner where, behind a worthless iron crowbar, behind a broken brick, there was a stash
Vaska Morel. Back in the day, when firewood was stored, no one knew, only
The Kuzmenysh knew: a soldier, Uncle Andrei, was hiding here, who had a weapon
pulled off.
Sashka asked in a whisper; - Isn’t it far?
- Where is closer? - Kolka asked in turn.
Both understood that there was nowhere closer. Breaking a lock is much easier. Less
labor, less time needed. There were crumbs of strength left. But it was already, they tried
to knock down the lock from the bread slicer, not only Kuzmenysh came to such a bright
the answer is in your head! And the management hung a barn lock on the doors! Half a pound
weight!
You can only tear it off with a grenade. Hang in front of the tank - not a single one
an enemy shell will not penetrate that tank.
After that unfortunate incident, the window was barred and so fat
the rod was welded so that it could not be taken with a chisel or a crowbar - with an autogenous one if
only!
And Kolka thought about the autogen, he noticed carbide in one place.
But you can’t drag it down, you can’t light it up, there are a lot of eyes around.
Only there are no strangers' eyes underground! Another option is to refuse altogether.
from the bread slicer - the Kuzmenyshes were not happy with it.
Neither a store, nor a market, and especially private houses were now suitable for
extraction of edibles. Although such options were floating around in a swarm in Sashka’s head. Trouble
that Kolka did not see ways of their real implementation.
There's a watchman at the store all night, an evil old man. Doesn't drink, doesn't sleep, he
a day is enough. Not a watchman - a dog in the manger.
The houses around, too many to count, are full of refugees. Just eat
vice versa. They themselves look to see where they can snatch something.
The Kuzmenyshs had a house in mind, so when Sych was there, the elders
cleaned.
True, they stole God knows what: rags and a sewing machine. Its long afterwards
twisted the shantrap one by one here, in the barn, until the handle flew off and
everything else did not fall apart.
We're not talking about the machine. About the bread slicer. Where there are no scales, no weights, but only bread - he
one forced the brothers to work furiously with both heads.
And it came out: “Nowadays, all roads lead to a bread slicer.”
Strong, not a bread slicer. It is well known that there are no such fortresses, then
There are bread slicers that a hungry orphanage couldn’t take.
In the dead of winter, when all the punks, desperate to pick up at the station
or at least something edible at the market, cold around the stoves, rubbing against them
ass, back, back of the head, absorbing fractions of degrees and seemingly warming up -
the lime was wiped down to the brick, - the Kuzmenyshis began to implement their
an incredible plan, and in this improbability lay the key to success.
From the distant stash in the barn they began stripping work, as determined
an experienced builder, using a crooked crowbar and plywood.
Grasping the crowbar (here they are - four hands!), they lifted it and lowered it
with a dull sound onto the frozen ground. The first centimeters were the hardest.
The earth was humming.
On the plywood they carried it to the opposite corner of the barn until there
a whole hill was formed.
The whole day, so stormy that the snow drifted obliquely, blinding the eyes,
Kuzmenyshi dragged the land further into the forest. They put it in their pockets, in their bosoms, not
carry it in your hands. Until we figured it out: use a canvas bag from school.
Now we took turns going to school and taking turns digging: one day I dug
Kolka and one day - Sashka.
The one whose turn came to study spent two lessons on his own.

Anatoly Ignatievich Pristavkin

The golden cloud spent the night

I dedicate this story to all her friends who accepted this homeless child of literature as their own and did not allow its author to fall into despair

It appeared, rustled, and swept through the near and far corners of the orphanage: “Caucasus! Caucasus!" What is the Caucasus? Where did he come from? Really, no one could really explain it.

And what a strange fantasy in the dirty Moscow region to talk about some kind of Caucasus, about which only from reading aloud at school (there were no textbooks!) The orphanage shantrap knew that it exists, or rather, existed in some distant, incomprehensible time, when the black-bearded, eccentric highlander Hadji Murat fired at the enemies, when the leader of the Murids, Imam Shamil, defended himself in a besieged fortress, and the Russian soldiers Zhilin and Kostylin languished in a deep hole.

There was also Pechorin, one of the extra people, who also traveled around the Caucasus.

Yes, here are some more cigarettes! One of the Kuzmenyshes spotted them on a wounded lieutenant colonel from an ambulance train stuck at the station in Tomilin.

Against the backdrop of broken snow-white mountains, a rider in a black cloak gallops and gallops on a wild horse. No, it doesn’t jump, it flies through the air. And under it, in an uneven, angular font, the name: “KAZBEK”.

A mustachioed lieutenant colonel with a bandaged head, a handsome young man, glanced at the pretty nurse who had jumped out to look at the station, and tapped his fingernail meaningfully on the cardboard lid of the cigarettes, not noticing that nearby, with his mouth open in amazement and holding his breath, the little ragged little Kolka was looking at the precious box.

I was looking for a crust of bread left over from the wounded to pick up, and I saw: “KAZBEK”!

Well, what does the Caucasus have to do with it? Rumor about him?

Nothing to do with it at all.

And it is not clear how this pointed word, sparkling with a shiny icy edge, was born where it was impossible for it to be born: among the everyday life of an orphanage, cold, without firewood, always hungry. The whole tense life of the boys revolved around frozen potatoes, potato peelings and, as the height of desire and dream, a crust of bread in order to survive, to survive just one extra day of war.

The most cherished, and even impossible, dream of any of them was to at least once penetrate into the holy of holies of the orphanage: into the BREAD SLICER - so we’ll highlight it in font, because it stood before the eyes of the children higher and more inaccessible than some KAZBEK!

And they were appointed there, just as the Lord God would appoint, say, to heaven! The most chosen, the luckiest, or you can define it this way: the happiest on earth!

Kuzmenyshi was not among them.

And I had no idea that I would be able to enter. This was the lot of thieves, those of them who, having escaped from the police, reigned during this period in the orphanage, and even in the entire village.

To penetrate the bread slicer, but not like those chosen ones - the owners, but with a mouse, for a second, for an instant - that’s what I dreamed about! With an eye to look in reality at all the great wealth of the world in the form of clumsy loaves piled on the table.

And - inhale, not with your chest, with your stomach, inhale the intoxicating, intoxicating smell of bread...

That's all. All!

I didn’t dream about any tiny little things that could not help but remain after the dumplings, after the rough sides of the loaves fragilely rubbed together, were left behind. Let them be gathered, let the chosen ones enjoy! It rightfully belongs to them!

But no matter how you rubbed against the iron-lined doors of the bread slicer, it could not replace the phantasmagoric picture that arose in the heads of the Kuzmin brothers - the smell did not penetrate through the iron.

It was not at all possible for them to get through this door legally. It was from the realm of abstract fiction, but the brothers were realists. Although the specific dream was not alien to them.

And this is what this dream brought Kolka and Sashka to in the winter of forty-four: to penetrate the bread slicer, into the kingdom of bread by any means... Any way.

In these especially dreary months, when it was impossible to get frozen potatoes, let alone crumbs of bread, there was no strength to walk past the house, past the iron doors. To walk and know, almost to imagine, how there, behind the gray walls, behind the dirty, but also barred window, the chosen ones, with a knife and scales, cast their spells. And they shred, and cut, and knead the droopy damp bread, pouring warm, salty crumbs into the mouth by the handful, and saving the fatty fragments for the tiller.

Saliva boiled in my mouth. It hurt my stomach. My head was getting fuzzy. I wanted to howl, scream and beat, beat on that iron door so that they would unlock it, open it, so that they would finally understand: we want it too! Let them go to a punishment cell later, anywhere... They will punish, beat, kill... But first let them show, even from the door, how he is, bread, in a pile, a mountain, Kazbek towering on a table mangled with knives... How he smells!

Then it will be possible to live again. Then there will be faith. Since there is a mountain of bread, it means the world exists... And you can endure, and be silent, and live on.

A small ration, even with an additive pinned to it with a sliver, did not reduce hunger. He was getting stronger.

The guys thought this scene was very fantastic! They come up with it too! The wing didn't work! Yes, they would immediately run anywhere by the bone gnawed from that wing! After such a loud reading aloud, their stomachs turned even more, and they forever lost faith in the writers: if they don’t eat their chicken, it means the writers themselves are greedy!

Since they drove away the main orphanage boy Sych, many different big and small thieves have passed through Tomilino, through the orphanage, twisting their half-raspberries here for the winter far from their native police.

One thing remained unchanged: the strong devoured everything, leaving crumbs for the weak, dreams of crumbs, taking small things into reliable networks of slavery.

For a crust they fell into slavery for a month or two.

The front crust, the one that is crispier, blacker, thicker, sweeter, cost two months, on a loaf it would be the top one, but we are talking about soldering, a tiny piece that looks flat as a transparent leaf on the table; the back one is paler, poorer, thinner - months of slavery.

And who didn’t remember that Vaska Smorchok, the same age as the Kuzmenyshes, also about eleven years old, before the arrival of a relative-soldier, he once served for the back crust for six months. He gave away everything he could eat, and ate buds from trees so as not to die completely.

Kuzmenysh were also sold in difficult times. But they were always sold together.

If, of course, two Kuzmenysh were combined into one person, then in the entire Tomilinsky orphanage there would be no equal in age, and, perhaps, in strength.

But the Kuzmenyshis already knew their advantage.

It is easier to drag with four hands than with two; run away faster on four feet. And four eyes see much more sharply when you need to grab where something bad is lying!

While two eyes are busy, the other two watch over both. Yes, they still have time to make sure that they don’t snatch anything from themselves, clothes, the mattress from underneath when you sleep and see your pictures from the life of a bread slicer! They said: why did you open the bread slicer if they pulled it from you?

And there are countless combinations of any of the two Kuzmenysh! If, say, one of them is caught in the market, they drag him to jail. One of the brothers whines, screams, beats for pity, and the other distracts. You look, while they turned to the second one, the first one sniffed, and he was gone. And the second one follows! Both brothers are like vines, nimble, slippery, once you let them go, you can’t pick them up again.

Eyes will see, hands will grab, legs will carry away...

But somewhere, in some pot, all this must be cooked in advance... It’s difficult to survive without a reliable plan: how, where and what to steal!

The two heads of Kuzmenysh were cooked differently.

Sashka, as a world-contemplative, calm, quiet person, extracted ideas from himself. How, in what way they arose in him, he himself did not know.

Kolka, resourceful, tenacious, practical, figured out with lightning speed how to bring these ideas to life. To extract, that is, income. And what’s even more precise: take some food.

But it happened that Sashka would look dreamily at Kolka, and he, like a radio, would pick up Sashka’s thought on the air. And then he wonders how to implement it.

Sashka has a golden head, not a head, but the Palace of Soviets! The brothers saw this in the picture. All sorts of American skyscrapers a hundred floors below are at hand. We are the very first, the highest!

And the Kuzmenyshis are the first in something else. They were the first to understand how to get through the winter of 1944 without dying.

When they made a revolution in St. Petersburg, I suppose - in addition to the post office and telegraph and the station - they didn’t forget to take the bread slicer by storm!

The brothers walked past the bread slicer, not for the first time by the way. But it was painfully unbearable that day! Although such walks added their torment.

“Oh, how I want to eat... You can even gnaw on the door! At least eat the frozen ground under the threshold!” – so it was said out loud. Sashka said, and suddenly it dawned on him. Why eat it if... If it... Yes, yes! That's it! If you need to dig it!

Dig! Well, of course, dig!

He didn’t say anything, he just looked at Kolka. And he instantly received the signal, and, turning his head, assessed everything, and scrolled through the options. But again, he didn’t say anything out loud, only his eyes flashed predatorily.

Anyone who has experienced it will believe: there is no more inventive and focused person in the world than a hungry person, especially if he is an orphanage who has grown his brains during the war on where and what to get.

Without saying a word (there will be crooked throats all around, and then any, even Sashka’s most brilliant idea, will be screwed), the brothers headed straight to the nearest shed, located about a hundred meters from the orphanage, and twenty meters from the bread slicer. The shed was located right behind the bread slicer.

In the barn, the brothers looked around. At the same time, they looked to the farthest corner, where, behind a worthless iron scrap, behind a broken brick, there was Vaska Smorochka’s stash. When firewood was stored here, no one knew, only the Kuzmenysh knew: a soldier, Uncle Andrei, was hiding here, from whom their weapons were stolen.

Sashka asked in a whisper:

- Isn’t it far?

- Where is closer? – Kolka asked in turn.

Both understood that there was nowhere closer.

Breaking a lock is much easier. Less labor, less time needed. There were crumbs of strength left. But there was already an attempt to knock the lock off the bread slicer, and not only the Kuzmenys came up with such a bright answer! And the management hung a barn lock on the doors! Weighing half a pound!

You can only tear it off with a grenade. Hang it in front of the tank - not a single enemy shell will penetrate that tank.

After that unfortunate incident, the window was barred, and such a thick rod was welded that it could not be taken with a chisel or a crowbar - unless with an autogenous one!

And Kolka thought about the autogen, he noticed carbide in one place. But you can’t drag it down, you can’t light it up, there are a lot of eyes around.

Only there are no strangers' eyes underground!

The other option - to completely abandon the bread slicer - did not suit the Kuzmyonyshes.

Neither the store, nor the market, and especially private houses were now suitable for obtaining food. Although such options were floating around in a swarm in Sashka’s head. The trouble is that Kolka did not see ways of their real implementation.

There's a watchman at the store all night, an evil old man. He doesn’t drink, doesn’t sleep, a day is enough for him. Not a watchman - a dog in the manger.

The houses around, too many to count, are full of refugees. But eating is just the opposite. They themselves look to see where they can snatch something.

The Kuzmenysh had a house in mind, so the elders cleaned it when Sych was there.

True, they stole God knows what: rags and a sewing machine. For a long time, the shantrap turned it one by one here, in the barn, until the handle flew off and everything else fell apart in pieces.

We're not talking about the machine. About the bread slicer. Where there were no scales, no weights, but only bread - he alone forced the brothers to work furiously in two heads.

And it came out: “Nowadays, all roads lead to a bread slicer.”

Strong, not a bread slicer. It is well known that there are no fortresses, that is, bread slicers, that a hungry orphanage cannot take.

In the dead of winter, when all the punks, desperate to find anything edible at the station or at the market, were freezing around the stoves, rubbing their butts, backs, and backs of their heads against them, absorbing fractions of degrees and seemingly warming up - the lime had been wiped down to the brick - The Kuzmenysh began to implement their incredible plan. This improbability was the key to success.

From a distant stash in the barn, they began stripping work, as an experienced builder would define it, using a crooked crowbar and plywood.

Grasping the crowbar (here they are - four hands!), they lifted it and lowered it with a dull sound onto the frozen ground. The first centimeters were the hardest. The earth was humming.

They carried it on the plywood to the opposite corner of the barn until a whole mound had formed there. The whole day, so stormy that the snow drifted obliquely, blinding their eyes, the Kuzmenyshi dragged the earth further into the forest. They put it in their pockets, in their bosoms, but they couldn’t carry it in their hands. Until we figured it out: adapt a canvas bag, a school bag.

Now we took turns going to school and taking turns digging: Kolka did the digging one day and Sashka did the digging one day.

The one whose turn it was to study, served two lessons for himself (Kuzmin? Which Kuzmin came? Nikolai? And where is the second one, where is Alexander?), and then pretended to be his brother. It turned out that both were at least half. Well, no one demanded a full visit from them! You want to live fat! The main thing is that they don’t leave anyone in the orphanage without lunch!

But if you have lunch or dinner there, they won’t let you eat it in turn; the jackals will immediately snatch it up and leave no trace. At this point they stopped digging and the two of them went to the canteen as if on an attack.

No one will ask, no one will be interested in whether Sashka is being naughty or Kolka. Here they are united: Kuzmenyshi. If suddenly there is one, then it seems like half. But they were rarely seen alone, and one might say that they were not seen at all!

They walk together, eat together, go to bed together.

And if they hit, they hit both of them, starting with the one who gets caught first at that awkward moment.

The excavation was in full swing when these strange rumors about the Caucasus began to spread.

For no reason, but persistently, in different ends of the bedroom, the same thing was repeated, either more quietly or more loudly. It’s as if they will remove the orphanage from their home in Tomilino and transfer it en masse, every single one, to the Caucasus.

The teachers will be sent away, and the foolish cook, and the mustachioed musician, and the disabled director... (“A mentally disabled person!” - it was pronounced quietly.)

They will take everyone, in a word.

They gossiped a lot, chewed them like last year's potato peels, but no one could imagine how it was possible to drive this entire wild horde into some mountains.

The Kuzmenysh listened to the chatter moderately, but believed even less. There was no time. Urgently, furiously, they dug their holes.

And what is there to talk about, and a fool understands: it is impossible to take a single orphanage child anywhere against his will! They won’t be taken to a cage like Pugacheva!

The hungry people will pour out in all directions at the very first stage, and catch them like water with a sieve!

And if, for example, it was possible to persuade one of them, then no Caucasus would suffer from such a meeting. They will strip you down to the skin, eat them to bits, and smash their Kazbeks into pieces... They will turn them into a desert! To the Sahara!

That's what the Kuzmenyshi thought and went to hammer.

One of them was picking at the earth with a piece of iron, now it was loose and falling off on its own, and the other was dragging the rock out in a rusty bucket. By spring, we came up against the brick foundation of the house where the bread slicer was located.

One day the Kuzmyonyshis were sitting at the far end of the excavation.

The dark red, anciently fired brick with a bluish tint crumbled with difficulty, each piece bleeding. Blisters swelled on my hands. And it turned out to be difficult to ram it from the side with a crowbar.

It was impossible to turn around in the excavation; earth was pouring out of the gate. A homemade smokehouse in an ink bottle, stolen from the office, ate out my eyes.

At first they had a real wax candle, also stolen. But the brothers themselves ate it. Somehow they couldn’t stand it, their guts were turning over from hunger. We looked at each other, at that candle, not enough, but at least something. They cut it in two and chewed it, leaving only one inedible string left.

Now a rag string was smoking: there was a recess made in the wall of the excavation - Sashka guessed - and from there there was a blue flicker, there was less light than soot.

Both Kuzmenysh sat slumped, sweaty, grimy, knees tucked under their chins.

Sashka suddenly asked:

- Well, what about the Caucasus? Are they chattering?

“They’re chattering,” answered Kolka.

- They'll drive, right? - Since Kolka did not answer, Sashka asked again: “Wouldn’t you like to?” Should I go?

- Where? - asked the brother.

- To the Caucasus!

- What is there?

– I don’t know... Interesting.

– I’m interested in where to go! - And Kolka angrily jabbed his fist at the brick. There, a meter or two meters from the fist, no further, was the treasured bread slicer.

On the table, striped with knives and smelling of a sour bread spirit, there are crackers: a lot of crackers of a grayish-golden color. One is more beautiful than the other. Breaking off the crust is happiness. Suck it, swallow it. And behind the crust there’s a whole carload of crumbs, pinch them and put them in your mouth.

Never in their lives have Kuzmenysh had to hold a whole loaf of bread in their hands! I didn't even have to touch it.

But they saw, from afar, of course, how in the bustle of the store they were rationing it using cards, how they were weighing it on scales.

A lean, ageless saleswoman grabbed colored cards: workers, employees, dependents, children, and, glancing briefly - she had such an experienced spirit level eye - at the attachment, at the stamp on the back where the store number was written, although she probably knew all the ones attached by name, with scissors she made “chick-chick”, two or three coupons per box. And in that drawer she has a thousand, a million of these coupons with numbers of 100, 200, 250 grams.

For each coupon, two or three - only a small part of a whole loaf, from which the saleswoman will economically cut off a small piece with a sharp knife. And it’s not good for her to stand next to the bread - she’s dried up, but she hasn’t gained weight!

But the entire loaf, untouched by the knife, no matter how hard the brothers looked at it, no one in their presence managed to take it away from the store.

Whole - such wealth that it’s scary to even think about it!

But what kind of paradise will open then if there are not one, and not two, and not three Bukhariks! A real paradise! True! Blessed! And we don’t need any Caucasus!

Moreover, this paradise is nearby; unclear voices can already be heard through the brickwork.

Although blind from soot, deaf from the earth, from sweat, from anguish, our brothers heard one thing in every sound: “Bread, bread...”

At such moments the brothers don’t dig, I’m sure they’re not fools. Heading past the iron doors to the barn, they will make an extra hinge to know that that pound lock is in place: you can see it a mile away!

Only then do they start to destroy this damn foundation.

They built them in ancient times, probably without even suspecting that someone would use strong words to defend them for their strength.

As soon as the Kuzmenysh get there, when the whole bread slicer opens up to their enchanted eyes in the dim evening light, consider that you are already in heaven.

Then... The brothers knew exactly what would happen then.

It was probably thought out in two heads, not in one.

Buharik - but only one - they will eat on the spot. So that your stomach doesn't turn out from such wealth. And they will take two more biscuits with them and hide them securely. This is what they can do. Just three boogers, that is. The rest, even if it itches, you can’t touch. Otherwise, the brutal boys will destroy the house.

And three biscuits is what, according to Kolka’s calculations, is stolen from them every day anyway.

The part for the fool of the cook: everyone knows that he is a fool and was in a madhouse. But he eats just like a normal person. Another part is stolen by bread cutters and those jackals who hang around the bread cutters. And the most important part is taken for the director, for his family and his dogs.

But near the director, not only dogs, not only cattle feed, there are also relatives and hangers-on there. And all of them are dragged from the orphanage, dragged, dragged... The orphanage residents themselves drag. But those who drag have their crumbs from dragging.

The Kuzmenys accurately calculated that the disappearance of three Bukhariks would not cause any noise in the orphanage. They will not offend themselves, they will deprive others. That's all.

Who needs the commissions from the rono (and feed them too! They have a big mouth!), so that they begin to find out why they are stealing, and why the orphanages are not getting enough of their allotted food, and why the director’s animals-dogs are as tall as calves.

But Sashka just sighed and looked in the direction where Kolka’s fist was pointing.

“Nope...” he said thoughtfully. – It’s still interesting. The mountains are interesting to see. They probably stick out higher than our house? A?

- So what? – Kolka asked again, he was very hungry. There's no time for mountains here, no matter what they are. It seemed to him that he could smell the smell of fresh bread through the earth.

Both were silent.

“Today we taught rhymes,” recalled Sashka, who had to sit through school for two. – Mikhail Lermontov, it’s called “The Cliff”.

Sashka did not remember everything by heart, even though the poems were short. Not like “The Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the young guardsman and the daring merchant Kalashnikov”... Phew! One name is half a kilometer long! Not to mention the poems themselves!

And from “The Cliff” Sashka remembered only two lines:

The golden cloud spent the night

On the chest of a giant rock...

– About the Caucasus, or what? – Kolka asked boredly.

It was summer. The grass in the yard was green. No one saw off the Kuzmenysh, except for the teacher Anna Mikhailovna, who probably wasn’t thinking about their departure either, looking somewhere over their heads with cold blue eyes.

Everything happened unexpectedly. It was planned to send two older, most thugs from the orphanage, but they immediately left, as they say, disappeared into space, and the Kuzmenyshi, on the contrary, said that they wanted to go to the Caucasus.

The documents were rewritten. No one asked why they suddenly decided to go, what kind of need was driving our brothers to a distant land. Only pupils from the younger group came to see them. They stood at the door and, pointing their finger at them, said: “These! - And after a pause: - To the Caucasus!

The reason for leaving was solid, thank God, no one guessed about it.

A week before all these events, the tunnel under the bread slicer suddenly collapsed. Failed in the most visible place. And with it, the Kuzmenysh’s hopes for another, better life collapsed.

We left in the evening, everything seemed to be fine, the wall had already been finished, all that was left was to open up the floor.

And in the morning they rushed out of the house: the director and the entire kitchen were assembled, staring - what a miracle, the earth had settled under the wall of the bread slicer!

And - you guessed it, my dear mother. But this is a tunnel!

Under their kitchen, under their bread slicer!

This was something they didn’t know in the orphanage yet.

They began to drag students to the director. While we looked at the older ones, we couldn’t even think about the younger ones.

Military sappers were called in for consultation. Is it possible, they asked, for children to dig this themselves?

They inspected the tunnel, walked from the barn to the bread slicer and climbed inside, where there was no collapse. Shaking off the yellow sand, they threw up their hands: “It is impossible, without equipment, without special training, it is in no way possible to dig such a metro. Here an experienced soldier can get a month’s work, if, say, with an entrenching tool and auxiliary means... And children... Yes, we would take such children into our employ if they really knew how to perform such miracles.”

– They are still my miracle workers! - said the director gloomily. – But I will find this magician-creator!

The brothers stood right there, among other pupils. Each of them knew what the other was thinking.

Both Kuzmenysh thought that if they started asking questions, the ends would inevitably lead to them. Weren't they the ones hanging around here all the time, weren't they the ones who were absent when others were hanging out in the bedroom by the stove?

There are a lot of eyes all around! One overlooked and the second, and the third saw.

And then, in the tunnel that evening they left their lamp and, most importantly, Sashka’s school bag, in which they carried the earth into the forest.

It's a dead bag, but if they find it, it will be ruined for the brothers! You still have to run away. Isn’t it better to set sail on our own, and calmly, to the unknown Caucasus? Moreover, two places have become available.

Of course, the Kuzmenysh did not know that somewhere in the regional organizations, in a bright moment, this idea arose about unloading the orphanages near Moscow, of which there were hundreds in the region by the spring of forty-four. This is not counting the homeless who lived wherever and however necessary.

And then, in one fell swoop, with the liberation of the prosperous lands of the Caucasus from the enemy, it was possible to solve all the issues: to drive away the extra mouths, to deal with crime, and to do a seemingly good deed for the children.

And for the Caucasus, of course.

That’s what they told the guys: if you want to get drunk, go ahead. Everything is there. And there is bread there. And potatoes. And even fruits, the existence of which our jackals do not even suspect.

Sashka then said to his brother: “I want fruits... These are the ones that this... who came talked about.”

To which Kolka replied that the fruit is a potato, he knows for sure. And the fruit is also the director. With his own ears, Kolka heard one of the sappers, as he was leaving, say quietly, pointing at the director: “He’s also a fruit... He’s saving himself from the war by looking after the kids!”

- Let's eat some potatoes! - said Sashka.

And Kolka immediately replied that when the jackals are brought to such a rich region, where everything is available, he will immediately become poor. I read in a book that locusts are much smaller than the size of an orphanage resident, and when they rush in a bunch, a bare space remains behind them. And her stomach is not like our brother’s, she probably won’t eat everything. Give her those same incomprehensible fruits. And we will eat the tops, leaves, and flowers...

But Kolka still agreed to go.

They waited two months before they sent it.

The golden cloud spent the night Anatoly Pristavkin

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Title: The golden cloud spent the night
Author: Anatoly Pristavkin
Year: 1987
Genre: Russian classics, Soviet literature, 20th century literature

About the book “The Golden Cloud Spent the Night” Anatoly Pristavkin

A stronger, heavier, more painful theme than orphans in war, perhaps, cannot be found. It is impossible to remain silent about this, and there is no strength to shout, especially if you are a participant in the events you are talking about. Honestly, I don’t envy Anatoly Pristavkin. “The Golden Cloud Spent the Night” is the apogee of what the author himself saw, experienced and suffered in childhood. This magnificent, but incredibly difficult work is included in. I recommend that you read “The Golden Cloud Spent the Night.”

You can download the book at the bottom of the page in epub, rtf, fb2, txt format.

The main characters of the book are the orphan brothers Kuzmina (in the orphanage they are called Kuzmenyshami). Actually, the story is told on their behalf. The world they live in is incredibly cruel. Children's thoughts also become corresponding: the brothers trust no one but each other; fight, cheat and steal. Dreaming of one day inhaling the smell of freshly baked bread...

Kolka and Sashka are constantly tormented by hunger, and all their thoughts are aimed only at getting food. For the sake of their goal, they do not disdain any methods. However, they do not disgust the reader; rather, on the contrary, they make them sympathize and understand. Are they guilty for being born at such a time? Are they guilty of being left without parents, in the cold and hunger of the post-war period? No. But there are still culprits.

And only adults can be blamed for all this. Having started the war, the higher-ups did not even think about taking care of millions of innocent lives. Well, those below them immediately began to steal from the completely poor, suffocating with their own greed. And only children, trying to survive, seem noble compared to all the others.

Children teach mercy and patience, love and respect for one's neighbor. Nationality is not important for them - a Chechen and a Russian can easily become best friends. However, the guys also let adults into their world - but only if they prove that they are worthy.

Anatoly Pristavkin himself visited the orphanage, on this train, and felt hunger, loneliness and the indescribable bitterness of loss. I am very, very sorry that he went through such an ordeal. But I can’t help but thank him for sharing his experience with the readers, if only so that we know about it...

What is it like to be hungry, to flee, to see the death of your only loved one?.. Lord, may we never know this. Anatoly Pristavkin’s book “The Golden Cloud Spent the Night” is simply a must-read for all people in the world! So that the events described in it will never happen again.

On our website about books you can download for free or read online the book “The Golden Cloud Spent the Night” by Anatoly Pristavkin in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and real pleasure from reading. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For beginning writers, there is a separate section with useful tips and tricks, interesting articles, thanks to which you yourself can try your hand at literary crafts.

Quotes from the book “The Golden Cloud Spent the Night” by Anatoly Pristavkin

“I think that all people are brothers,” Sashka will say, and they will sail far, far away, to where the mountains descend into the sea and people have never heard of a war, where brother kills brother.

There are no bad nations, only bad people.

For some reason, weapons are always beautiful. And even the more dangerous, the more beautiful it is usually.

We were afraid not because we could die. This is what happens to a terribly driven animal, which is overtaken by an unknown mechanical monster, without letting the light out of the corridor! We, like little animals, felt in our skin that we were driven into this night, into this corn, into these explosions and fires...

... and only the train knocked its wheels, confirming something: “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes...”

He would never reveal the secret of his stash to anyone. It's like giving yourself away. But Alkhuzur was now Sashka...

He couldn't stand this. He yelled, howled, screamed and, no longer remembering anything, as if he were the most hated enemy, he rushed at this crow...

Maybe from a terrible guess that no happiness awaits us in the new place... We just wanted to live...

Is it possible to extract from yourself, sitting in a comfortable Moscow apartment, that feeling of hopeless horror, which was the stronger the more of us there were! It seemed to multiply by the fear of each of us, we were together, but each of us had our own, personal fear! Taking by the throat!

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Anatoly Pristavkin

The golden cloud spent the night

I dedicate this story to all her friends who accepted this homeless child of literature as their own and did not allow its author to fall into despair.

This word arose on its own, just as the wind is born in a field. It appeared, rustled, and swept through the near and far corners of the orphanage: “Caucasus! Caucasus!" What is the Caucasus? Where did he come from? Really, no one could really explain it.

There was also Pechorin, one of the extra people, who also traveled around the Caucasus.

Yes, here are some more cigarettes! One of the Kuzmenyshes spotted them on a wounded lieutenant colonel from an ambulance train stuck at the station in Tomilin.

I was looking for a crust of bread from the wounded to pick up, and I saw: “KAZBEK”!

Well, what does the Caucasus have to do with it? Rumor about him?

Nothing to do with it at all.

And it is not clear how this pointed word, sparkling with a shiny icy edge, was born where it is impossible for it to be born: among the everyday life of an orphanage, cold, without firewood, always hungry. The whole tense life of the boys revolved around frozen potatoes, potato peelings and, as the height of desire and dream, a crust of bread in order to subsist, to survive just one extra day of war.

The most cherished, and even impossible, dream of any of them was to at least once penetrate into the holy of holies of the orphanage: into the BREAD SLICER - so we highlight it in font, because it stood before the eyes of the children higher and more inaccessible than some KAZBEK!

And they were appointed there, just as God would appoint, say, to heaven! The most chosen, the luckiest, or you can define it this way: the happiest on earth!

Kuzmenyshi was not among them.

To get into the bread slicer, but not like those chosen ones - the owners, but with a mouse, for a second, for an instant, that's what I dreamed about! With an eye, to look in reality at all the great wealth of the world, in the form of clumsy loaves piled up on the table.

And - inhale, not with your chest, with your stomach, inhale the intoxicating, intoxicating smell of bread...

That's all. All!

It was not at all possible for them to get through this door legally. It was from the realm of abstract fiction, but the brothers were realists. Although the specific dream was not alien to them.

And this is what this dream brought Kolka and Sashka to in the winter of forty-four: to penetrate the bread slicer, into the kingdom of bread by any means... Any way.

Then it will be possible to live again. Then there will be faith. Since there is a mountain of bread, it means the world exists... And you can endure, and be silent, and live on.

A small ration, even with an additive pinned to it with a sliver, did not reduce hunger. He was getting stronger.

The guys thought this scene was very fantastic! They come up with it too! The wing didn't work! Yes, they would immediately run anywhere by the bone gnawed from that wing! After such a loud reading aloud, their stomachs turned even more, and they forever lost faith in writers; If they don’t eat chicken, it means the writers themselves are greedy!

One thing remained unchanged: the strong devoured everything, leaving crumbs for the weak, dreams of crumbs, taking small things into reliable networks of slavery.

For a crust they fell into slavery for a month or two.

Kuzmenysh were also sold in difficult times. But they were always sold together.

If, of course, two Kuzmenysh were combined into one person, then in the entire Tomilinsky orphanage there would be no equal in age, and, perhaps, in strength.

But the Kuzmenyshi already knew their advantage.

It is easier to drag with four hands than with two; run away faster on four feet. And four eyes see much more sharply when you need to grab where something bad lies!

And there are countless combinations of any of the two Kuzmenysh! If, say, one of them is caught in the market, they drag him to jail. One of the brothers whines, screams, beats for pity, and the other distracts. You look, while they turned to the second one, the first one sniffed, and he was gone. And the second one follows! Both brothers are like nimble, slippery vines; once you let them go, you can’t pick them up again.

Eyes will see, hands will grab, legs will carry away...

But somewhere, in some pot, all this must be cooked in advance... It’s difficult to survive without a reliable plan: how, where and what to steal!

The two heads of Kuzmenysh were cooked differently.

Sashka, as a world-contemplative, calm, quiet person, extracted ideas from himself. How, in what way they arose in him, he himself did not know.

Kolka, resourceful, tenacious, practical, figured out with lightning speed how to bring these ideas to life. To extract, that is, income. And what’s even more precise: take some food.

If Sashka, for example, had said, scratching the top of his blond head, “shouldn’t they fly to, say, the Moon, there’s a lot of oilcake there,” Kolka would not have said right away: “No.” He would first think about this business with the Moon, what kind of airship to fly there on, and then he would ask: “Why? You can steal it closer…” But it happened that Sashka would look dreamily at Kolka, and he, like a radio, would pick up Sashka’s thought on the air. And then he wonders how to implement it.

And the Kuzmenyshis are the first in something else. They were the first to understand how to get through the winter of 1944 without dying.

Abstract: The book tells about the deeply tragic fate of two orphanage children evacuated to the Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War...

Anatoly Pristavkin

I dedicate this story to all her friends who accepted this homeless child of literature as their own and did not allow its author to fall into despair.

There was also Pechorin, one of the extra people, who also traveled around the Caucasus.

Yes, here are some more cigarettes! One of the Kuzmenyshes spotted them on a wounded lieutenant colonel from an ambulance train stuck at the station in Tomilin.

I was looking for a crust of bread from the wounded to pick up, and I saw: “KAZBEK”!

Well, what does the Caucasus have to do with it? Rumor about him?

Nothing to do with it at all.

And they were appointed there, just as God would appoint, say, to heaven! The most chosen, the luckiest, or you can define it this way: the happiest on earth!

Kuzmenyshi was not among them.

And - inhale, not with your chest, with your stomach, inhale the intoxicating, intoxicating smell of bread...

That's all. All!

It was not at all possible for them to get through this door legally.