The main characters of the poem are a house by the road. The poem “House by the Road” is based on the sad fate of Andrei and Anna Sivtsov and their children

Lyric-epic story about people's fate in the poem

A.T. Tvardovsky "House by the Road"

In the poem “Vasily Terkin” A Tvardovsky showed the heroic side of the Great Patriotic War. But there was another side to this war, which, according to Kondratovich, “Terkin did not embrace and could not embrace; for all its figurative richness, it was a front-line poem...” [Kondratovich, p.154].

But a soldier in the war also lived a different life, in his heart he always kept the memory of what was most dear to him - his home and family. And this could not help but be reflected in his work by A. Tvardovsky, who responded so sensitively to everything that his people lived with and that worried them. The poem “House by the Road” became such a work, revealing the poet’s remarkable talent from a new side. The poem “House by the Road” is a lyrical chronicle story, which, according to Tvardovsky himself, reflects “the theme not only of the war itself, but of the “house” abandoned by the owner, who went to the front, surviving the war that came to him; “home”, in its human composition abandoned from their native places to distant Germany, to the shores of someone else’s home, “home”, which in our victory found liberation from captivity and rebirth to life [Bessonova, p.98].

The poem “House by the Road” became a unique phenomenon, even somewhat unexpected, striking in its harsh truth. The first and obvious thing about it is the simple memory of war, “cruel memory.” On August 12, 1942, Tvardovsky writes in workbook about his intention to implement “a purely lyrical, narrowly poetic solution to the problem”, “to tell powerfully and bitterly about the torments of a simple Russian family, about people who long and patiently wanted happiness, whose lot fell to so many wars, coups, trials...”. And such a work, which embodied the goals outlined by the poet, was the poem “House by the Road”, a mournful story about the devastated “house”, the wife and children of the soldier Andrei Sivtsov, who experienced torture in a Nazi concentration camp and endured it with honor. The poem was written in three stages - the first sketches were made by Tvardovsky in 1942, then work was continued in 1943, then 1945 and at the beginning of 1946. And the entire poem was published in the magazine “Znamya” in 1946.

The author’s focus is no longer on the army, but on the civilian population and mainly on the home, Mother and wife, who are sources of goodness and happiness, symbols of the best for the Russian people and constituting the foundations of human existence. These images-symbols are traditional for Russian folklore. Thus, the source material for Tvardovsky’s poem was folk poetic consciousness, comprehension of the spirit of the people and their world of contemplation.

Tvardovsky uses in the poem “House by the Road” popular principles building an image, revealing the character traits of the characters in the poem. Andrei and Anna Sivtsov experienced a lot of suffering and hardship, while demonstrating moral strength and resilience - the best national traits. The beauty of them folk character reflected in grief. Tvardovsky, revealing their characters, strives to emphasize the common nature of their qualities, thanks to which they achieve a truthful display of the typical aspects of people's life, conveying the national uniqueness of life and morals, as well as the peculiarities of the mental make-up of the Russian person. This demonstrated the poet’s blood connection with his people, as well as boundless devotion to him.

Thus, Andrei and Anna are images that reveal typical features Russian national character. It is no coincidence that almost until the middle of the poem the characters are not even named. Thus, depicting the picture of the last peaceful day of the peasant Andrei Sivtsov, the poet uses the pronoun “You”, thereby emphasizing that there is no specific hero here yet - this is the peaceful life of every peasant family, “a small, modest, inconspicuous part of the people”:

At that very hour on a Sunday afternoon,

On a festive occasion,

In the garden you mowed under the window

Grass with white dew.

And you mowed her down, sniffling,

Groaning, sighing sweetly.

And I overheard myself

When the shovel rang.

Labor evokes joyful feelings in the hero and the author, like every peasant who loves his land. The poem “House by the Road” is held together by one end-to-end poetically– an image of an early working day, expressed by a refrain running through the entire poem:

Mow, scythe,

While there is dew,

Down with the dew -

And we're home.

A.V. Makedonov believes that this refrain can be called the main leitmotif of the poem, which “first appears as a detail of a direct, concrete image of the peaceful work and life of the owner of the house and road. And then it appears as a memory, a reminder, a repeated metonymy and metaphor - the memory of this work, of this peaceful life and as a detail - a signal that resurrects a new affirmation of the power of human constancy, the irresistible beginning of a peaceful life" [Makedonov, p. 238].

It is the scythe that is used in the poem as a tool of labor, and not an agricultural machine, for which the poet was reproached by critics, complaining that he was thereby moving away from the truth of his depiction of Soviet reality. But Tvardovsky, as a truly folk poet and master of words, does this consciously and, in our opinion, completely justified. He thereby strives to preserve and continue folk traditions, display the features of the life of your people, their spirit. He did not break or bend either Andrei Sivtsov or his wife Anna, who experienced a lot of suffering during these terrible years of war. And this can be said about the whole people. Therefore, the main characters of the poem “Road House” are depicted to a greater extent not as individual characters, but as images of a broad generalization. So, we learn relatively little about the personal life of Andrei Sivtsov. In the story about him, Kulinich believes, “the poet focuses on the most important thing that characterizes his fate as the fate of the people: A hard worker and a family man, he was cut off brutal war from home and family, became a warrior to defend the right to peace and work, to protect his wife and children. The soldier suffered grief on the roads of war, escaped from encirclement, looked death in the eyes, and when he returned home, he found neither home, nor wife, nor children...”

What helped such people to survive when, it seemed, there was no more strength. In all trials they were supported by selfless love for the Motherland and for their people. When Andrei Sivtsov, exhausted and tired, lagging behind the war, comes home, a moral choice- go to the front or stay at home and live “in the village on the sly,” “hiding from prying eyes.” The hero of Tvardovsky's poem "House by the Road" exhibits true feeling patriotism and thereby shows the greatness of the Russian character:

So I have to get there.

Get there. Even though I'm a private

There is no way I can leave behind.

Thus, the specific image of the soldier Andrei Sivtsov grows into an image of a broad generalization, which embodies best quality Russian people, enriched with new historical era, the main thing of which is devotion to one’s homeland.

The appearance of the main character Anna Sivtsova in the poem reflects, first of all, what makes her a generalized image of “a woman-mother, with whose cares the house was kept and who suffered the difficult trials of the hard times of war.”

In the poem "House by the Road" the image of Anna Sivtsova reflected best features Russian woman, depicted back in classical literature: beauty, spiritual purity, unbending strength, endurance, devotion and fidelity to your husband, love for children. Many of these traits of Anna are similar female images Nekrasov's poems“Frost is a red nose”, “Who lives well in Rus'”. Tvardovsky portrays his heroine as follows:

Let it not be girl time

But love is amazing -

Sharp in speech,

IN business is fast,

It kept walking like a snake.

Tvardovsky’s poem, with great force of artistic truth, reflected the features of the tragic worldview of the people, revealed in the image of the main character of the poem. After her husband left for war, Anna constantly thinks about him with anxiety and often mentally turns to her lover:

My distant one

My dear,

Alive or dead - where are you?

The constant epithets “distant”, “darling”, used in folk songs, become key in this passage of Tvardovsky’s poem to convey the feelings of the heroine, whose heart is filled with longing for her beloved. For Anna, separation from her husband is a real tragedy, and what previously brought her joy and pleasure (joint work in mowing) now causes mental pain:

When I mowed that meadow,

The scythe itself is unbeaten.

Tears blinded her eyes,

Pity burned my soul.

Not that braid

Not the same dew

Wrong grass, it seemed...

Anna Sivtsova embodies the traits Soviet woman: connection of one’s destiny with the nation’s, a sense of collectivism, civic duty. According to Vykhodtsev, the poet, “depicting Soviet people, at the same time knows how to emphasize their original, traditional features. More often it happens that these qualities are captured by the people themselves in oral poetic works. Tvardovsky very rarely refers directly to a “folklore model”, but always creates an image, a situation that is very close to widely existing. Thus, he captures the fundamental features of the people.”

One of them is compassion for one's neighbor. It was this feeling that the poet told the reader in the fifth chapter of the poem, which talks about tragic pictures– the entry of the enemy into our land and the meeting of Russian women with our captured soldiers:

Sons of the native land,

Their shameful prefabricated formation

They led along that land

To the west under escort.

They walk along it

In shameful prefabricated companies,

Others without belts,

Others without caps.

Among these women is Anna Sivtsova, she also, looking with bitterness at the faces of the captured soldiers, fearfully tries to find her husband among them. She is afraid of even the thought that her Andrei might be here. Tvardovsky describes these experiences of the heroine in the form of an internal monologue of a female soldier addressed to her husband. This emotional speech, filled with such lyricism, conveys not only the feelings of Anna Sivtsova, but also the feelings of all abandoned wives for their husbands, the people's grief about what was destroyed by the war female happiness. It reflects the truly Russian character of a woman:

Don't be ashamed of me.

That the windings slid down,

What, maybe without a belt

And maybe without a cap.

And I won't reproach

You, who are under escort

You're going. And for the war

Alive, did not become a hero.

Call me and I’ll answer.

I'm here, your Anyuta.

I'll break through to you

At least I’ll say goodbye forever

With you. My minute! .

Andrei Sivtsov leaves his home for the war, carrying in his heart a piece of this shrine, which will warm him in the cold trenches and give him strength to fight the enemy. Home is hope, a dream that every soldier in war strives for in his thoughts. And Anna Sivtsova has to leave her house where they passed best years life, there was happiness and joy. In the touching scene of farewell to him, the concrete image of the house becomes a symbol of the land - the Motherland, which the peasant Anna Sivtsova is leaving. The poet puts Anna's feelings into the form of a sincere folk song- crying, conveying all the pain and melancholy of the heroine, which is also a feature of folk lyrics:

Sorry - goodbye, dear home,

And the yard, and the woodcutter,

And everything that is memorable around

With care, design, labor, -

The whole life of a person.

In places this lyrical song - a cry - is replaced by a battle call, turning into a spell and a song of anger and revenge, giving this scene a journalistic quality, which is the pinnacle of emotionality in the poem:

For everything from the one who is to blame,

According to all articles of the charter,

Chastise with the severity of soldiers,

Yours, master, is right.

The poem “House by the Road” is not only a story about the suffering that befell a Russian woman during these difficult years of war. This is a hymn to the Mother woman and her boundless love to the children. Anna Sivtsova, finding herself in Germany, thanks to her mother's love and female endurance was able not only to save her children in this hell, but also to accomplish another real maternal feat. On the straw, behind barbed wire, she gave birth to a son, Andrei. The trials that this courageous woman endures acquire in the poem a symbol of the people's suffering, the suffering of defenseless mothers, wives and children who found themselves in German captivity during the war.

In the poem we hear Anna's song over her son, pouring out her grief, in which we can observe the poet's use of artistic means, characteristic of folk poetry: postpositive use of epithets, use of words with diminutive suffixes, figurative appeals:

Why are you so sad,

My tear, little dewdrop,

He was born at a desperate hour,

My beauty, my little blood?

You were born alive,

And there is insatiable evil in the world.

The living are in trouble, but the dead are not,

Death is protected.

Folklore poetics penetrates into the structure of the plot, which helps to reveal to the author inner world heroines - in in this case her fear of the unknown future fate of the child. In our opinion, this form of folk poetics can be correlated with the lullaby of a mother who mentally recreates, despite sometimes difficult living conditions, a happy future destiny for her child.

Anna Sivtsova believes in her son’s happiness, comparing him to “ green twig", this color epithet is associated with youth and new life, That is characteristic feature color symbolism folk poetics.

Final chapter completes the entire movement of the poem “with a return from war to peace, from the roads of war and someone else’s house to the original home and road...” [Makedonov, p.239]. Here the motif of the road is also not separated from the house, but is manifested in all its significance: both as the road of war, and as the road to one’s home, and as the road of human life and the fate of the people. Life won, the house won, although it was destroyed:

And where they sank in fire

Crowns, pillars, rafters, -

Dark, oily on virgin soil,

Like hemp, nettle.

Dull, joyless peace

Meets the owner.

Cripples are apple trees with melancholy

The branches are being shaken.

This is how soldier Andrei Sivtsov, who returned from the war, sees his home. This fate is not only for the Sivtsov family. This is the fate of the people. And, despite all the tragedy of these exciting scenes, they still carry a humanistic and life-affirming orientation, no matter how paradoxical it may sound - no matter how difficult the trials befall our people - they are invincible, they will survive, they will endure. It is not for nothing that nettles make their way through the “crowns”, “pillars” and “rafters”, and the “crippled apple trees” still shake their bare branches, returning to the returning owner hope for lost family happiness and peaceful life. The author here uses the technique of poetic parallelism, which, as one of artistic features folk poetics, is based on a comparison of the human and natural worlds. Therefore, the end of the lyrical narrative about the war in the poem is associated with pictures of peasant labor. Andrei Sivtsov, as at the beginning of the poem, is busy with his favorite pastime - mowing, which brings him back to life, despite the sadness and pain living in his soul after so much suffering:

And the hours passed in good order,

And my chest breathed greedily

The floral scent of dew,

Living dew from under the scythe -

Bitter and cool.

Thus, the poem "Road House" occupies great place in the work of Tvardovsky, being the first major epic work of the poet with a predominance of the lyrical principle. With its combination of lyrical and epic principles, motifs of peace and war, with all its extreme simplicity, the poem is an innovative work.

The current significance of the poem “House by the Road” is that in it the poet was able to express on behalf of the people the power of protest against wars and those who start them. The historical and literary significance of Tvardovsky’s poem lies in the fact that it is one of the first works in our literature in which Patriotic War and peaceful post-war construction are shown as a single humanistic struggle of our people for the peace and happiness of people.

Literature

List of sources

    1. Tvardovsky, A.T. Collected works: in 6 volumes / A.T. Tvardovsky. – M.: Fiction, 1978.

T.1: Poems (1926-1940). Ant Country. Poem. Translations.

T. 2: Poems (1940-1945). Poems. Vasily Terkin. House by the road.

T. 3: Poems (1946-1970). Poems. Beyond the distance is the distance. Terkin in the next world.

T. 4: Stories and essays (1932-1959).

T. 5: Articles and notes on literature. Speeches and performances (1933-1970)

    Tvardovsky, A.T. Selected works: in 3 volumes / comp. M. Tvardovsky. - M.: Fiction, 1990.

T. 2: Poems.

List of scientific, critical, memoir literature and dictionaries

    Akatkin, V.M. Home and world: Artistic quest A. Tvardovsky in early work and “The Country of Ant” // Russian literature. – 1983. - No. 1. – pp. 82-85.

    Akatkin, V.M. Early Tvardovsky / V.M. Akatkin / ed. A.M. Abramova. – Voronezh, 1986

    Berdyaeva, O.S. Lyrics by Alexander Tvardovsky: tutorial to a special course. – Vologda, 1989.

    Bessonova, L.P. Folklore traditions in the poems of A. Tvardovsky: a textbook for gum students. faculties / L.P. Bessonova, T.M. Stepanova. – Maykop, 2008.

    Vykhodtsev, P.S. Alexander Tvardovsky / P.S. Vykhodtsev. – M., 1958.

    Grishunin, A.L. Creativity of Tvardovsky / A.L. Grishunin, S.I. Kormilov, I.Yu. Iskrzhitskaya. – M.: MSU, 1998.

    Dal, V.I. Dictionary living Great Russian language: in four volumes. – T. 3. - M.: RIPOL CLASSIC, 2002.

    Dementyev, V.V. Alexander Tvardovsky / V.V. Dementyev. – M.: Soviet Russia, 1976.

    Zalygin, S.I. About Tvardovsky // New world. – 1990. - No. 6. – pp. 188-193.

    Kondratovich, A.I. Alexander Tvardovsky: Poetry and personality / A.I. Kondratovich. – M.: Fiction, 1978.

    Kochetkov, V.I. People and destinies / V.I. Kochetkov. – M.: Sovremennik, 1977.

    Kulinich, A.V. A. Tvardovsky: Essay on life and creativity / A.V. Kulinich. – Kyiv, 1988.

    Leiderman, N.L. Creative drama of the Soviet classic: A. Tvardovsky in the 50-60s / N.L. Leiderman. – Ekaterinburg, 2001.

    Lyubareva, S.P. Epic by A. Tvardovsky / S.P. Lyubareva. – M.: graduate School, 1982.

    Makedonov, A.V. Creative path A.T. Tvardovsky: Houses and roads / A.V. Makedonov. - M.: Fiction, 1981.

    Muravyov, A.N. Creativity of A.T. Tvardovsky / A.N. Muravyov. – M.: Education, 1981.

    Ozhegov, S.I. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language / S.I. Ozhegov; edited by prof. L.I. Skvortsova. – M.: OOO Publishing House Onyx, 2011.

    Dictionary literary terms/ ed. L.I. Timofeeva, S.V. Turaeva. - M.: Education, 1974.

    Tvardovsky, I.T. Homeland and foreign lands: the book of life / I.T. Tvardovsky. – Smolensk: Rusich, 1996.

    Turkov, A.M. Alexander Tvardovsky / A.M. Turkov. – M.: Fiction, 1970.

Poetry of the post-war and war periods sounds completely different from peacetime works. Her voice is piercing, it penetrates into the very heart. This is how Tvardovsky wrote “House by the Road”. A summary of this work is presented below. The poet created his poem not only to express the pain of the destinies of his contemporaries destroyed by the war, but also to warn his successors against a terrible tragedy - war.

About the poet

Vasily Trifonovich Tvardovsky was born in 1910 in the Russian Empire. His parents were educated people, father with early childhood I read classics of Russian and world literature to children.

When Vasily was twenty years old, the period of repression was in full swing. His father and mother fell into the millstones of the revolution and were exiled to the north of the country. These events did not break the poet, but they put him at a crossroads and made him think about whether the raging revolution was really necessary and just. Sixteen years later, his peculiar utopia was published, after which the poet’s works began to be published. Alexander Trifonovich survived the war, his “Vasily Terkin” is about this. About the war and "Road House" summary Tvardovsky loved to retell even before the poem was published.

The history of the poem

The idea and main strokes of the poem were born in 1942. It is not known exactly why Tvardovsky did not finish his “Road House” right away. The story of the creation of the poem is most likely similar to the stories of other post-war and war works. There is no time for poetry on the battlefield, but if its idea and creator survive, then the lines carried through a hail of bullets and explosions will certainly be born in days of peace. The poet will return to the work four years later and complete it in 1946. Later, in his conversations with his wife, he would often remember how he thought about a dilapidated house by the road that he saw one day; how he imagined who lived in it, and where the war had scattered its owners. These thoughts seemed to take shape themselves into the lines of a poem, but there was not only no time to write it, but there was nothing on which to write it. I had to keep in my thoughts, as in a draft, the most successful quatrains of the future poem, and cross out the not entirely successful words. This is how Tvardovsky created his “House by the Road”. See the analysis of the poem below. But it should be said right away that it does not leave anyone indifferent.

"House by the Road": summary. Tvardovsky about the war. The first and third chapters of the poem

The poem begins with the poet addressing the soldier. It was about him, about a simple soldier, that Alexander Tvardovsky wrote “House by the Road.” He compares the warrior’s protracted return to his wife with his completion of the poem that was waiting for him “in that notebook.” The poet talks about seeing an empty, dilapidated soldier’s house. His wife and children were forced to leave, and after the end of the fighting she returned home with the children. The author calls their poor procession “the soldier’s house.”

The next chapter tells about the last peaceful day of the soldier, when he mowed the grass in the garden, enjoying the warmth and summer, anticipating Tasty dinner in a close circle at the family table, and so with a scythe they found him reporting about the war. The words “the owner did not mow the meadow” sound like a bitter reproach to the war that cut short the owner’s affairs. The wife mowed the orphaned meadow, secretly crying for her beloved husband.

The third chapter of the poem “House by the Road” is ambiguous; Tvardovsky himself had difficulty conveying a summary. She describes the hardships of war - soldiers in battle and women in unfeminine labor, hungry children and abandoned hearths. The long paths that a soldier mother with three children is forced to travel. He describes his wife’s loyalty and love, which in peacetime was manifested by cleanliness and order in the house, and in wartime by faith and hope that the beloved will return.

The fourth chapter begins with a story about how four soldiers came to a house near the road and said that they would put a cannon in the garden. But the woman and the children need to leave here, because staying is reckless and dangerous. Before leaving, the soldier asks the guys if they have heard about Andrei Sivtsov, her husband, and feeds them a hearty hot lunch.

Chapter Five describes creepy picture marching captured soldiers. Women look into their faces, afraid to see their relatives.

Chapters six to nine of the poem

At the end of the war, Roadhouse was published. Tvardovsky retold the summary more than once to his loved ones, describing his experiences during the war.

Chapter six shows Anyuta and Andrey. The roads of war brought him home, just for one night. His wife sends him on his way again, and leaves him with the children native home and walks through the dust of the roads to protect the kids.

Chapter seven talks about the birth fourth child- a son, whom his mother names Andrei in honor of his father. Mother and children are in captivity, on a farm besieged by the Germans.

A soldier returns from the war and sees only the ruins of his home near the road. Having grieved, he does not give up, but begins to build new house and wait for my wife. When the work is finished, grief overcomes him. And he goes to mow the grass, the one he never had time to mow before he left.

Analysis of the work

Tvardovsky’s poem “House by the Road” talks about broken families scattered across the earth. The pain of war sounds in every line. Wives without husbands, children without fathers, yards and houses without an owner - these images run like a red thread through the lines of the poem. After all, in the very heat of the war, Tvardovsky created his “House by the Road”. Many critics have analyzed the work, but they are all sure that the work is about the destinies of people tragically broken by the war.

But not only the theme of separation in its not entirely familiar recreation (it is not the wife at home waiting for the soldier, but he, grieving and rebuilding the house, as if restoring his former, peaceful life) is heard in the poem. A serious role is played by the mother’s appeal to her newborn child, her son Andrei. The mother, in tears, asks why he was born in such a turbulent, difficult time, and how he will survive in the cold and hunger. And she herself, looking at the baby’s carefree sleep, gives the answer: the child was born to live, he does not know that his destroyed home is far from here. This is the optimism of the poem, a bright look into the future. Children must be born, burned houses must be restored, broken families must be reunited.

Everyone must return to their house by the road - this is what Tvardovsky wrote. Analysis and a summary of the poem will not convey its fullness and feelings. To understand the work, you must read it yourself. The feelings after this will be remembered for a long time and will make us appreciate peacetime and loved ones nearby.

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Alexander Tvardovsky

HOUSE BY THE ROAD

Lyrical chronicle



I started the song in a difficult year,
When it's cold in winter
The war was at the gates
Capitals under siege.

But I was with you, soldier,
Always with you -
Before and since that winter in a row
In one wartime period.

I only lived by your fate
And he sang it to this day,
And I put this song aside
Interrupting halfway through.

And how could you not return?
From the war to his soldier wife,
So I couldn't
All this time
Return to that notebook.

But as you remembered during the war
About what is dear to the heart,
So the song, starting in me,
She lived, seethed, ached.

And I kept it inside me,
I read about the future
And the pain and joy of these lines
Hiding others between the lines.

I carried her and took her with me
From the walls of my native capital -
Following you
Following you -
All the way abroad.

From border to border -
At every new place
The soul waited with hope
Some kind of meeting, conduct...

And wherever you go
What kind of houses have thresholds,
I never forgot
About a house by the road,

About the house of sorrows, by you
Once abandoned.
And now on the way, in a foreign country
I came across a soldier's house.

That house without a roof, without a corner,
Warm in a residential way,
Your mistress took care
Thousands of miles from home.

She pulled somehow
Along the highway track -
With the smaller one, asleep in my arms,
And the whole family crowd.

The rivers boiled under the ice,
The streams churned up foam,
It was spring and your house was walking
Home from captivity.

He walked back to the Smolensk region,
Why was it so far away...
And every soldier's look
I felt warm at this meeting.

And how could you not wave
Hand: “Be alive!”
Don't turn around, don't breathe
About many things, service friend.

At least about the fact that not everything
Of those who lost their home,
On your frontline highway
They met him.

You yourself, walking in that country
With hope and anxiety,
I didn’t meet him in the war, -
He walked the other way.

But your house is assembled, it is obvious.
Build walls against it
Add a canopy and porch -
And it will be an excellent house.

I'm willing to put my hands to it -
And the garden, as before, at home
Looks through the windows.
Live and live
Ah, to live and live for the living!

And I would sing about that life,
About how it smells again
At a construction site with gold shavings,
Live pine resin.

How, after announcing the end of the war
And longevity to the world,
A starling refugee has arrived
To a new apartment.

How greedily the grass grows
Thick on the graves.
The grass is right
And life is alive
But I want to talk about this first,
What I can’t forget about.

So the memory of grief is great,
Dull memory of pain.
It won't stop until
He won’t speak out to his heart’s content.

And at the very noon of the celebration,
For the holiday of rebirth
She comes like a widow
A soldier who fell in battle.

Like a mother, like a son, day after day
I waited in vain since the war,
And forget about him again,
And don't mourn all the time
Not domineering.

May they forgive me
That again I'm before the deadline
I'll be back, comrades, back,
To that cruel memory.

And everything that is expressed here
Let it penetrate into the soul again,
Like a cry for the homeland, like a song
Her fate is harsh.


At that very hour on a Sunday afternoon,
On a festive occasion,
In the garden you mowed under the window
Grass with white dew.

The grass was kinder than the grass -
Peas, wild clover,
Dense panicle of wheatgrass
And strawberry leaves.

And you mowed her down, sniffling,
Groaning, sighing sweetly.
And I overheard myself
When the shovel rang:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.

This is the covenant and this is the sound,
And along the braid along the sting,
Washing away the little petals,
The dew ran like a stream.

The mowing is high, like a bed,
Lay down, fluffed up,
And a wet, sleepy bumblebee
While mowing he sang barely audibly.

And with a soft swing it’s hard
The scythe creaked in his hands.
And the sun burned
And things went on
And everything seemed to sing:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.

And the front garden under the window,
And the garden, and the onions on the ridges -
All this together was a home,
Housing, comfort, order.

Not the order and comfort
That, without trusting anyone,
They serve water to drink,
Holding onto the door latch.

And that order and comfort,
What to everyone with love
It's like they're serving a glass
To good health.

The washed floor shines in the house
Such neatness
What a joy for him
Step barefoot.

And it’s good to sit down at your table
In a close and dear circle,
And, while resting, eat your bread,
And it’s a wonderful day to praise.

That truly is the day of the best days,
When suddenly for some reason we -
The food tastes better
My wife is nicer
And the work is more fun.

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.


Your wife was waiting for you home,
When with merciless force
War in an ancient voice
There was a howl all over the country.

And, leaning on the scythe,
Barefoot, bare-haired,
You stood there and understood everything,
And I didn’t get to the swath.

The owner of the meadow does not bother,
I belted myself on a hike,
And in that garden there is still the same sound
It was as if it was being heard:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.

And you were, maybe already
Forgotten by the war itself,
And on an unknown frontier
Buried by another earth.

Without stopping, the same sound
The pinching sound of a shoulder blade,
In work, in sleep, my hearing was disturbed
To your soldier wife.

He burned her heart out
An unquenchable longing,
When I mowed that meadow
The scythe itself is unbeaten.

Tears blinded her eyes,
Pity burned my soul.
Not that braid
Not the same dew
Wrong grass, it seemed...

Let women's grief pass,
Your wife will forget you
And maybe she’ll get married
And he will live like people.

But about you and about myself,
About a long-ago day of separation
She is in any destiny
Sighs at this sound:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.


Not here yet, still far away
From these fields and streets
The unfed herds walked
And the refugees kept coming.

But she walked, sounded like an alarm bell,
Trouble all over the area.
Shovels took hold of the cuttings,
Women's hands for the cars.

We were ready day and night
Dig with feminine tenacity,
To help the troops with something
At the Smolensk border.

So that at least in my native land,
At your doorstep
At least for a short period of war
Dig up the road.

And you can’t count how many hands! -
Along that long ditch
Rye was rolled alive
Raw heavy clay.

Live bread, live grass
They pulled up themselves.

A He bombs on Moscow
Carried over their heads.

They dug a ditch, laid down a shaft,
They were in a hurry, as if they were on time.

A He I've already walked on the ground,
It thundered nearby.

Broken and confused front and rear
From sea to sea,
It shone with a bloody glow,
Closing dawns in the night.

And the terrible power of the storm,
During the honeymoon period,
In the smoke, in the dust in front of you
He drove the wheels from the front.

And so much suddenly fell out
Lots, carts, three-tons,
Horses, carts, children, old women,
Knots, rags, knapsack...

My great country
At that bloody date
How were you still poor?
And how rich she is already!

The green street of the village,
Where the dust lay in powder,
A huge region was driven by war
With a hastily taken burden.

Confusion, hubbub, heavy groan
Human suffering is hot.
And a child's cry, and a gramophone,
Singing, as if in a dacha, -
Everything is mixed up, one misfortune -
The sign of war was...

Already before noon water
There weren't enough wells.

And the buckets dully scraped the soil,
Rattling against the walls of the log house,
Half empty they went up,
And to the drop that jumped in the dust,
The lips stretched out greedily.

And how many were there alone -
From the heat it’s completely nighting -
Curly, cropped, linen,
Dark-haired, fair-haired and others
Baby heads.

No, don't come out to watch
Guys at a watering hole.
Hurry up and hug yours to your chest,
While they are with you.

While with you
Dear family,
Even if they are not in the hall,
In any need
In your nest -
Another enviable share.

And be led down the bitter path
Change your yard -
Dress the children yourself, put them on shoes -
Believe me, it’s still half a pain.

And, having gotten used to it, after all
Wander through the road crowd
With the smaller one, asleep in my arms,
With two with a skirt - you can!

Walk, wander,
Sit down on the way
Small family vacation.
Yes who now
Happier than you!

Look, there probably is.

Where the light shines at least at the edge of the day,
Where it's completely covered in clouds.
And happiness is no match for happiness,
And grief - grief is the difference.

The wagon-house crawls and creaks,
And the heads of the children
Cunningly covered with a flap
Iron red roof.

And serves as a track roof
To a family persecuted by war,
That roof that's above your head
I was in my native land.

In another land
Kibitka-house,
Her comfort is gypsy
Not somehow
Set on the road, -
A peasant man's hand.

Overnight on the way, the guys are sleeping,
Buried deep in the wagon.
And they look into the starry sky
Shafts like anti-aircraft guns.

The owner does not sleep by the fire.
In this difficult world
He is for children and for horses,
And I am responsible for my wife.

And to her, be it summer or winter,
Still, there is no easier way.
And you decide everything yourself,
With your mind and strength.

In the midday heat
And in the rain at night
Cover the kids on the road.
My distant one,
My dear,
Alive or dead - where are you?..

No, not a wife, not even a mother,
What did you think about your son?
We couldn't guess
Everything that will happen now.

Where was it in the old days -
Everything is different now:
The owner went to war,
The war is coming home.

And, sensing death, this house
And the garden is alarmingly silent.
And the front - here it is - is behind the hill
Sighs hopelessly.

And the dusty troops retreat, rollback
Not the same as in the beginning.
And where the columns are somehow,
Where the crowds marched.

All to the east, back, back,
The guns are getting closer and closer.
And the women howl and hang
On the fence with your chest.

The last hour has come,
And there is no longer a reprieve.
- Who are you looking at, only us?
Are you throwing it away, sons?..

And that, perhaps, is not a reproach,
And there is pain and pity for them.
And there's a pressing lump in my throat
For everything that has happened to life.

And a woman's heart is doubly so
Melancholy, anxiety gnaws,
What is yours only there, in the fire,
My wife can imagine.

In fire, in battle, in smoke
Bloody hand-to-hand combat.
And how it must be for him there,
Living, death is scary.

Wouldn't that misfortune have told me
That she howled like a woman,
I wouldn't know, maybe never
That I loved you to death.

I loved you - don’t drop your gaze
No one, only one loved.
I loved you so much that from my relatives,
I got it from my mother.

Let it not be girl time,
But love is amazing -
Sharp in speech,
Quick in business
She walked like a snake.

In the house - no matter how you live -
Kids, stove, trough -
He hasn't seen her yet
Uncombed, unwashed.

And she kept the whole house
In anxious tidiness,
Considering, perhaps, that on that
Love is forever more reliable.

And that love was strong
With such a powerful force,
What one war can tear apart
She could.
And separated.


If only you would languish the fighter,
War, sadly familiar,
Yes, I wouldn’t gather dust on the porch
His home.

I would crush it with a heavy wheel
Those that are on your list
I wouldn’t ruin a child’s sleep
Artillery fire.

Rattling, I'd be mad drunk
At its limit, -
And then it would be you, war,
Still a sacred thing.

But you kicked the guys out
To the cellars, to the cellars,
You are from heaven to earth at random
You're throwing away your pigs.

And people of the bitter side
They huddled close together at the front,
Fearing both death and guilt
Some unknown.

And you are getting closer to the yard,
And children, sensing grief.
A timid whisper of a game
They lead you in the corner without arguing...

On that first day of bitter days,
How did you get ready for the journey?
The father ordered to take care of the children,
Watch the house strictly.

He told me to take care of the children and the house, -
The wife is responsible for everything.
But he didn’t say whether to light the stove
Today at dawn.

But he didn’t say whether to sit here,
Should I run somewhere into the light?
Give up everything suddenly.
Where are they waiting for us?
Where do they ask?
The world is not a home.

There's a ceiling above your head,
Here is a house, in a barn there is a cow...
But the German, maybe he’s different
And not so harsh, -
It will pass, blowjob.

What if not?
He is not famous for that kind of glory.
Well, then you're in the village council
Are you going to look for council?

What kind of judgment will you threaten him with?
As he stands on the threshold,
How will he enter the house?
No, if only the house
Away from the road...

...The last four soldiers
The gate to the garden was opened,
Iron forged shovels
They grunted tiredly and out of tune.
We sat down and lit a cigarette.

And smiled, turn
To the hostess, the eldest is like:
- We want you to have a cannon here
Place it in the garden.

Said as if a man
Traveler, stranger,
I asked for an overnight stay with my horse,
With a cart near the house.

He receives both affection and greetings.
- Just don’t leave,
Don't leave us...
- Not really, -
They looked at each other bitterly.

- No, from this hemp
We won't leave, mom.
Then, so that everyone can leave, -
This is our service.

The earth around is on a wave,
And the day was deafened by thunder.
- This is life: a master in war,
And you, it turns out, are at home.

And she’s ready about everyone
One sad question:
– Sivtsov is a surname. Sivtsov.
Have you heard by chance?

- Sivtsov? Wait, let me think.
Well, yes, I heard Sivtsov.
Sivtsov - well, Nikolai,
So he is alive and healthy.
Not yours? Yeah, what about your Andrey?
Andrey, please tell me...

But somehow dear to her
And that namesake.

- Well, friends, stop smoking.
Marked the plan with a shovel
And he began to diligently dig the ground
A soldier in a soldier's garden.

Not to grow up there
Any thing
And not on purpose, not out of malice,
And as science says.
He dug a trench, shaped so that
And the depth and the parapet...

Oh, how much digging there is in that one
Submissive to the cause of sadness.

He did the work - he dug the earth,
But maybe I thought briefly
And maybe he even said
Sighed:
- Earth, land...

They are already chest-deep in the ground,
The soldier is calling to the table,
As if to help in the family,
Lunch and rest are sweet.

- You're tired, eat.
- Well,
Hot for now...

– I also admit, the soil is good,
And then it happens - a stone...

And the eldest carried the spoon first,
And after him the soldiers.
- Was the collective farm rich?
- No, not to say rich,
Not like that, but still. Of bread
Stronger for Ugra...
- Look, the shooting has stopped.
- Three kids?
- Three...

And a common sigh:
- Children are a problem. -
And the conversation is hesitant.
The food is fatty at the wrong time,
Sad as at a wake.

- Thank you for lunch,
Hostess, thank you.
As for... well, no,
Don't wait, run somehow.

“Wait,” said another soldier,
Looking out the window with alarm: -
Look, people are just back
Drip.
- For what?

The dusty road is full,
They walk and wander dejectedly.
From east to west war
She turned the shafts.

“It turns out he’s already ahead.”
- So what now, where to go?
- Shut up, mistress, and sit down.
What's next - the day will tell.
And we should guard your garden,
Mistress, things are bad,
It turns out it's our turn now
Look for moves from here.

And out of dire need
Now they are soldiers
It seemed that women were weaker
And not guilty before her,
But still they are guilty.

- Goodbye, mistress, wait, we'll come,
Our time will come.
And we will find yours noticeable home
By the highway.
We’ll come, we’ll find it, maybe not;
War, you can’t guarantee.
Thanks again for lunch.

- And thank you, brothers.
Farewell.-
She brought people out.
And with a hopeless request:
“Sivtsov,” she reminded, “Andrey,”
You might hear...

She followed, holding the door,
In tears, and my heart sank,
As if with my husband only now
Goodbye forever.
It's like it got out of hand
And disappeared without looking back...

And suddenly that sound came to life in my ears,
The pinching sound of a shoulder blade:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home...



When to your home
He came in, rattling his gun,
Soldier of another land?

Didn’t beat, didn’t torture and didn’t burn, -
Far from trouble.
He just entered the threshold
And asked for water.

And, leaning over the ladle,
From the road all covered in dust,
He drank, dried himself and left
Soldier of a foreign land.

Didn’t beat, didn’t torture and didn’t burn, -
Everything has its time and order.
But he entered, he could already
Enter, alien soldier.

A foreign soldier has entered your house,
Where one could not enter.
Didn't you happen to be there?
And God forbid!

You didn't happen to be there
When, drunk, bad,
Amusing yourself at your table
Soldier of another land?

Sits, occupying that edge of the bench,
That corner is dear
Where is the husband, father, head of the family?
It was no one else who sat.

May you not suffer an evil fate
Don't be old though
And not hunchbacked, not crooked
Behind grief and shame.

And to the well through the village,
Where is there a foreign soldier,
Like crushed glass,
Walk back and forth.

But if it was destined
All this, everything counts,
If you don't get at least one thing,
What else is there to do?

You won't have to suffer for the war,
Wife, sister or mother,
Their
Alive
Soldier in captivity
See it with your own eyes.

...Sons of the native land,
Their shameful, prefabricated formation
They led along that land
To the west under escort.

They walk along it
In shameful prefabricated companies,
Others without belts,
Others are without caps.

Others with bitter, angry
And hopeless agony
They carry it in front of them
Arm in a sling...

At least he can walk healthy,
So the task is to step -
Losing blood in the dust,
Drag while you walk.

He, the warrior, was taken by force
And he’s angry that he’s still alive.
He is alive and happy,
That he suddenly fought back.

He's worth nothing
Doesn't know the world yet.
And everyone goes, equal
There are four in a column.

Boot for war
Some were not worn out,
And here they are in captivity,
And this captivity is in Russia.

Drooping from the heat,
They move their legs.
Familiar yards
On the sides of the road.

Well, house and garden
And there are signs all around.
A day or a year ago
Did you walk along this road?

A year or just an hour
Passed without delay?..

“Who are you looking at us for?”
Throw it away, sons!..”

Now say it back
And meet your eyes with your eyes,
Like, we don’t throw, no,
Look, here we are.

Make mothers happy
And the wives in their women's sorrow.
Don't rush quickly
Pass the. Don't bend, don't stoop...

Rows of soldiers wander
A gloomy line.
And women to everyone
They look into faces.

Not a husband, not a son, not a brother
They pass in front of them
But only your soldier -
And there are no relatives.

And how many of those rows
You silently walked
And shorn heads,
Drooping sadly.

And suddenly - neither reality nor dream -
It sounded as if -
Between many voices
One:
- Goodbye, Anyuta...

Darted to that end
Crowded in a hot crowd.
No, that's true. Fighter
Someone at random

He called it in the crowd. Joker.
No one cares about jokes here.

But if you're between them,
Call me Anyuta.

Don't be ashamed of me
That the windings slid down,
What, maybe without a belt
And maybe without a cap.

And I won't reproach
You, who are under escort
You're going. And for the war
Alive, did not become a hero.

Call me and I’ll answer.
I am pos, your Anyuta.
I'll break through to you
At least I’ll say goodbye forever
With you. My minute!

But how to ask now,
Say a word:
Don't you have it here?
In captivity, him, Sivtsov
Andrey?

The shame is bitter.
Ask him, maybe he
And the dead will not forgive,
That I was looking for him here.

But if he is here, suddenly
Walks in a sultry column,
Closing my eyes...
- Tsuryuk!
Tsuryuk! - the guard shouts.

He doesn't care about anything
And there’s no business, really,
And his voice
Like a crow, burr:

- Tsuryuk! -
He's not young
Tired, damn hot
Pissed off as hell
I don’t even feel sorry for myself...

Rows of soldiers wander
A gloomy line.
And women to everyone
They look into faces.

Eyes across
And along the column they catch.
And with something a knot,
Whatever the piece is
Many are ready.

Not a husband, not a son, not a brother,
Take what you have, soldier,
Nod, say something
Like, that gift is holy
And dear, they say. Thank you.

Gave from good hands,
For everything that suddenly happened,
I didn’t ask the soldier.
Thank you, bitter friend,
Thank you, Mother Russia.

And go ahead, soldier.
And don’t complain about misfortune;
She has an end somewhere,
It can't be that there isn't.

Let the dust smell like ash,
Fields - burnt bread
And over my native land
An alien sky hangs.

And the pitiful crying of the boys,
It continues unabated,
And women to everyone
Looking into faces...

No, mother, sister, wife
And everyone who has experienced pain,
That pain is not avenged
And she didn’t come out victorious.

For this day alone
In a village in Smolensk -
Berlin did not repay
With your universal shame.

The memory is petrified
Strong by itself.

Let the stone be a stone,
May pain be pain.


It was not the right time yet
Which goes straight into winter.
Still from potato skins
Cleaned off on the basket.

But it was getting cold
Summer heating earth.
And at night a wet shock
She let me in unfriendly.

And by the fire there was a dream - not a dream.
Under the timid crack of dead wood
Autumn squeezed out of the forests
Those bitter days of the night shelter.

Manila with the memory of housing,
Warmth, food and more.
Who's son-in-law?
Who to marry? -
I thought where I would have to go.

...In cold Pune, against the wall,
Stealthily from prying eyes,
Sat behind the war
A soldier with his soldier wife.

In cold pune, not in the house,
A soldier to match a stranger,
He drank what she brought him
My wife sneaks out of the house.

I drank with grief-stricken zeal,
Taking the pot into his lap.
His wife sat in front of him
On that cold hay,
That in the ancient hour on a Sunday afternoon,
On holiday business
In the garden he mowed under the window,
When the war came.

The hostess looks: he is not him
For a guest in this pune.
No wonder, apparently, a bad dream
She dreamed about it the day before.

Thin, overgrown, as if all
Sprinkled with ash.
He ate so that maybe he could get something to eat
Your shame and evil grief.

- Put together a pair of underwear
Yes, fresh foot wraps,
May I be fine until dawn
Remove from the parking lot.

– I’ve already collected everything, my friend.
Everything is. And you're on the road
At least take care of your health,
And first of all, the legs.

- And what else? You are wonderful
With such care, women.
Let's start with the head, -
At least save it.

And on the soldier's face there is a shadow
Smiles of a stranger.
- Oh, as soon as I remember: only a day
You're the one at home.

- At home!
I would also be glad to stay for a day, -
He sighed. - Take the dishes.
Thank you. Give me something to drink now.
When I return from the war, I will stay.

And he drinks sweetly, dear, big,
Shoulders resting against the wall,
His beard is alien
Drops roll into the hay.

- Yes, at home, they say the truth,
That the water is raw
Much tastier, said the soldier,
Wiping away in thought
Mustache fringed sleeves,
And he was silent for a minute. -
And the rumor is that Moscow
It's like...

His wife moved towards him
With sympathetic anxiety.
Like, not everything is worth believing,
There's a lot of chatter these days.
And the German, maybe he is now
It will settle down by winter...

And he again:
- Well, well, believe me
Whatever suits us.
One good captain
He wandered with me at first.
Another enemy is on your heels
He was following us. Didn't sleep
We didn't eat on the way then.
Well, death. So he used to
He kept repeating: go, crawl, crawl -
At least to the Urals.
So the man was angry in spirit
And I remembered that idea.

- And what?
- I walked and didn’t get there.
- Left behind?
- He died from his wound.
We walked through the swamp. And the rain, and the night,
And the cold is also bitter.
“And they couldn’t help you with anything?”
- And they couldn’t, Anyuta...

Leaning face to his shoulder,
To the hand - a small girl,
She grabbed my sleeve
And she kept holding him,
It was as if she was thinking
Save it at least by force,
From whom one war can separate
She could, and she did.

And took it from each other
On a Sunday in June.
And again briefly brought together
Under the roof of this puni.

And here he is sitting next to her
Before another separation.
Isn't he angry with her?
For this shame and torment?

Isn't he waiting for her to
His wife told him:
- Go crazy - go. Winter.
How far is it to the Urals?

And I would repeat:
- Understand,
Who can blame the soldier?
Why is his wife and children here?
What is here is my home.
Look, your neighbor has come home
And it doesn’t come off the stove...

And then he would say:
- No,
Wife, bad speeches...

Perhaps it’s a bitter lot,
Like bread with a pinch of salt,
He wanted to spice it up, brighten it up
Such heroism, or what?

Or maybe he's just tired
Yes, so that through force
I also came to my relatives' place,
And then it wasn’t enough.

And only my conscience is out of tune
With bait - this thought:
I'm home. I won't go any further
Search the world for war.

And it is not known what is truer,
And to grief - there is turmoil in the heart.
- Say something, Andrey.
- What can I say, Anyuta?
After all, say don’t say,
Wouldn't it be easier?
Filming until dawn tomorrow
And make our way to Vyazma?
An unwritten route
Recognize the stars.
Getting to the front is hard work,
You get there, and there is no rest.
One day there is as hard as a year,
What a day, sometimes a minute...
And he walked and didn’t get there,
But everything goes as if.
Weak and wounded, he walks
What is placed in a coffin is more beautiful.
It's coming.
“Comrades, go ahead.
We'll get there. Ours will come!
We'll get there, it won't happen otherwise,
We will reach our lines.
And fighting is inevitable.
What about rest?
In Berlin!"
At every falling step
And rising again
It's coming. How can I
Left behind, alive, healthy?
He and I walked through dozens of villages,
Where, how, where by death.
And once he walked, but didn’t get there,
So I have to get there.
Get there. Even though I'm a private
There is no way I can leave behind.
If only he were alive,
Otherwise he is a fallen warrior.
It is forbidden! Such are the things... -
And he stroked her hand.

And she realized long ago
That the pain was not pain yet,
Separation is not separation.

It doesn't matter - even if you lie down on the ground,
Even if you suddenly lose your breath...
I said goodbye before, but not like that
But when is farewell!

I quietly took my hand away
And husband's knees
With a humble cry she hugged
On that sunken hay...

And the night passed with them.
And suddenly
Through the edge of sleep at dawn,
Sound through the smell of hay into the soul
An old, bitter man came in to her:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home...

"House by the Road" analysis of the work - theme, idea, genre, plot, composition, characters, issues and other issues are discussed in this article.

Tvardovsky’s deep democracy, so clearly manifested in “Vasily Terkin”, also distinguishes the concept of his poem “House by the Road” (1942-1946). It is dedicated to the fate of a simple peasant family that experienced all the hardships of the war. The subtitle of the poem - “lyrical chronicle” - exactly corresponds to its content and character. The chronicle genre in its traditional sense is a presentation historical events in their time sequence. For the poet, the fate of the Sivtsov family, with its tragedy and typicality for those years, not only meets these genre requirements, but also evokes complicity, deep empathy, reaching enormous emotional intensity and prompting the author to constantly intervene in the narrative.

A fate similar to that of Andrei Sivtsov was already outlined in “Vasily Terkin”, in the chapters “Before the Battle” and “About the Orphan Soldier”. Now it is depicted in more detail and even more dramatized.

The picture of the last peaceful Sunday that opens the poem is filled with that “traditional beauty” of rural labor (mowing “for a festive task”), which Tvardovsky poetized since the time of “The Country of Ant”. This dear and bitter memory of the familiar and beloved peasant life, of “housing, comfort, order,” interrupted (and for many, cut off forever) by the war, will subsequently constantly be resurrected in the poem along with the age-old saying:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.

During the difficult time of retreat, Sivtsov secretly goes home for a short time - “thin, overgrown, as if covered all over with ash” (the “fringe of the sleeve” of a frayed overcoat is briefly mentioned), but stubbornly plotting a “route not written by anyone” in pursuit of the front.

His wife's story is even more dramatic. Having always admired the image of a woman-mother, capturing it in many poems over the years (“Song”, “Mothers”, “Mother and Son”, etc.), this time Tvardovsky created a particularly multifaceted character. Anna Sivtsova is not just charming (“She’s sharp in speech, quick in deeds, she walked like a snake”), but she’s full of the greatest dedication, mental strength, allowing her to endure the most terrible trials, for example, being sent to a foreign land, to Germany:

And even barefoot in the snow,
Have time to dress three.

With a trembling hand, catch
Hooks, ties, mother.

Strive for a simple lie
Allay childish fear.

And put all yours on the road,
Grab it like out of fire.

Anna's maternal tragedy and at the same time heroism reach their peak when her son is born in a convict barracks, seemingly doomed to death. Remarkably using the poetics of folk lamentations and cries (“Why did the twig turn green at such an unkind time? Why did you happen, son, my dear child?”), Tvardovsky conveys an imaginary, fantastic conversation between a mother and her child, the transition from despair to hope:

I am small, I am weak, I am the freshness of the day

I can smell it on your skin.
Let the wind blow on me -
And I will untie my hands,

But you won't let him blow,
You won't let me, my dear,
While your chest sighs,
While she's still alive.

The heroes of “Road House” also find themselves face to face with death, hopelessness, and despair, as was the case with Terkin in the chapter “Death and the Warrior,” and they also emerge victorious from this confrontation. In the essay “In Native Places,” talking about his fellow villager, who, like Andrei Sivtsov, was building a house on the ashes, Tvardovsky expressed his attitude to this with journalistic directness: “It seemed more and more natural to me to define the construction of this simple log cabin as some kind of feat . The feat of a simple worker, grain grower and family man who shed blood in the war for native land and now on it, ruined and despondent over the years of his absence, beginning to start life all over again...” In the poem, the author provided the opportunity for the readers themselves to draw a similar conclusion, limiting themselves to the most laconic description of this quiet feat of Andrei Sivtsov:

...pulled with a sore leg
To the old village.

I took a smoke break, took off my overcoat,
Marked the plan with a shovel.

If I wait for my wife and children to go home,
This is how you need to build a house.

She pulled somehow
Along the highway track -
With the smaller one, asleep in my arms,
And the whole family crowd.

The reader wants to see Anna in her, but the artist’s tact warned Tvardovsky against a happy ending. In one of the articles, the poet noted that many best works Russian prose, “having arisen from living life... in their endings they strive, as it were, to close with the same reality from which they came, and to dissolve in it, leaving the reader wide scope for the mental continuation of them, for further thinking, “further exploration” of the human beings touched upon in them destinies, ideas and questions." And in his own poem, Tvardovsky allowed readers to vividly imagine and tragic end who had similar stories in the lives of many people.


CHAPTER 1


I started the song in a difficult year,
When it's cold in winter
The war was at the gates
Capitals under siege.

But I was with you, soldier,
Always with you -
Before and since that winter in a row
In one wartime period.

I only lived by your fate
And he sang it to this day,
And I put this song aside
Interrupting halfway through.

And how could you not return?
From the war to his soldier wife,
So I couldn't
All this time
Return to that notebook.

But as you remembered during the war
About what is dear to the heart,
So the song, starting in me,
She lived, seethed, ached.

And I kept it inside me,
I read about the future
And the pain and joy of these lines
Hiding others between the lines.

I carried her and took her with me
From the walls of my native capital -
Following you
Following you -
All the way abroad.

From border to border -
At every new place
The soul waited with hope
Some kind of meeting, conduct...

And wherever you go
What kind of houses have thresholds,
I never forgot
About a house by the road,

About the house of sorrows, by you
Once abandoned.
And now on the way, in a foreign country
I came across a soldier's house.

That house without a roof, without a corner,
Warm in a residential way,
Your mistress took care
Thousands of miles from home.

She pulled somehow
Along the highway track -
With the smaller one, asleep in my arms,
And the whole family crowd.

The rivers boiled under the ice,
The streams churned up foam,
It was spring and your house was walking
Home from captivity.

He walked back to the Smolensk region,
Why was it so far away...
And every soldier's look
I felt warm at this meeting.

And how could you not wave
Hand: “Be alive!”
Don't turn around, don't breathe
About many things, service friend.

At least about the fact that not everything
Of those who lost their home,
On your frontline highway
They met him.

You yourself, walking in that country
With hope and anxiety,
I didn’t meet him in the war, -
He walked the other way.

But your house is assembled, it is obvious.
Build walls against it
Add a canopy and porch -
And it will be an excellent house.

I'm willing to put my hands to it -
And the garden, as before, at home
Looks through the windows.
Live and live
Ah, to live and live for the living!

And I would sing about that life,
About how it smells again
At a construction site with gold shavings,
Live pine resin.

How, after announcing the end of the war
And longevity to the world,
A starling refugee has arrived
To a new apartment.

How greedily the grass grows
Thick on the graves.
The grass is right
And life is alive
But I want to talk about this first,
What I can’t forget about.

So the memory of grief is great,
Dull memory of pain.
It won't stop until
He won’t speak out to his heart’s content.

And at the very noon of the celebration,
For the holiday of rebirth
She comes like a widow
A soldier who fell in battle.

Like a mother, like a son, day after day
I waited in vain since the war,
And forget about him again,
And don't mourn all the time
Not domineering.

May they forgive me
That again I'm before the deadline
I'll be back, comrades, back,
To that cruel memory.

And everything that is expressed here
Let it penetrate into the soul again,
Like a cry for the homeland, like a song
Her fate is harsh.

CHAPTER 2


At that very hour on a Sunday afternoon,
On a festive occasion,
In the garden you mowed under the window
Grass with white dew.

The grass was kinder than the grass -
Peas, wild clover,
Dense panicle of wheatgrass
And strawberry leaves.

And you mowed her down, sniffling,
Groaning, sighing sweetly.
And I overheard myself
When the shovel rang:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.

This is the covenant and this is the sound,
And along the braid along the sting,
Washing away the little petals,
The dew ran like a stream.

The mowing is high, like a bed,
Lay down, fluffed up,
And a wet, sleepy bumblebee
While mowing he sang barely audibly.

And with a soft swing it’s hard
The scythe creaked in his hands.
And the sun burned
And things went on
And everything seemed to sing:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.

And the front garden under the window,
And the garden, and the onions on the ridges -
All this together was a home,
Housing, comfort, order.

Not the order and comfort
That, without trusting anyone,
They serve water to drink,
Holding onto the door latch.

And that order and comfort,
What to everyone with love
It's like they're serving a glass
To good health.

The washed floor shines in the house
Such neatness
What a joy for him
Step barefoot.

And it’s good to sit down at your table
In a close and dear circle,
And, while resting, eat your bread,
And it’s a wonderful day to praise.

That truly is the day of the best days,
When suddenly for some reason we -
The food tastes better
My wife is nicer
And the work is more fun.

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.


Your wife was waiting for you home,
When with merciless force
War in an ancient voice
There was a howl all over the country.

And, leaning on the scythe,
Barefoot, bare-haired,
You stood there and understood everything,
And I didn’t get to the swath.

The owner of the meadow does not bother,
I belted myself on a hike,
And in that garden there is still the same sound
It was as if it was being heard:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.

And you were, maybe already
Forgotten by the war itself,
And on an unknown frontier
Buried by another earth.

Without stopping, the same sound
The pinching sound of a shoulder blade,
In work, in sleep, my hearing was disturbed
To your soldier wife.

He burned her heart out
An unquenchable longing,
When I mowed that meadow
The scythe itself is unbeaten.

Tears blinded her eyes,
Pity burned my soul.
Not that braid
Not the same dew
Wrong grass, it seemed...

Let women's grief pass,
Your wife will forget you
And maybe she’ll get married
And he will live like people.

But about you and about myself,
About a long-ago day of separation
She is in any destiny
Sighs at this sound:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home.

CHAPTER 3


Not here yet, still far away
From these fields and streets
The unfed herds walked
And the refugees kept coming.

But she walked, sounded like an alarm bell,
Trouble all over the area.
Shovels took hold of the cuttings,
Women's hands for the cars.

We were ready day and night
Dig with feminine tenacity,
To help the troops with something
At the Smolensk border.

So that at least in my native land,
At your doorstep
At least for a short period of war
Dig up the road.

And you can’t count how many hands! -
Along that long ditch
Rye was rolled alive
Raw heavy clay.

Live bread, live grass
They pulled up themselves.

A He bombs on Moscow
Carried over their heads.

They dug a ditch, laid down a shaft,
They were in a hurry, as if they were on time.

A He I've already walked on the ground,
It thundered nearby.

Broken and confused front and rear
From sea to sea,
It shone with a bloody glow,
Closing dawns in the night.

And the terrible power of the storm,
During the honeymoon period,
In the smoke, in the dust in front of you
He drove the wheels from the front.

And so much suddenly fell out
Lots, carts, three-tons,
Horses, carts, children, old women,
Knots, rags, knapsack...

My great country
At that bloody date
How were you still poor?
And how rich she is already!

The green street of the village,
Where the dust lay in powder,
A huge region was driven by war
With a hastily taken burden.

Confusion, hubbub, heavy groan
Human suffering is hot.
And a child's cry, and a gramophone,
Singing, as if in a dacha, -
Everything is mixed up, one misfortune -
The sign of war was...

Already before noon water
There weren't enough wells.

And the buckets dully scraped the soil,
Rattling against the walls of the log house,
Half empty they went up,
And to the drop that jumped in the dust,
The lips stretched out greedily.

And how many were there alone -
From the heat it’s completely nighting -
Curly, cropped, linen,
Dark-haired, fair-haired and others
Baby heads.

No, don't come out to watch
Guys at a watering hole.
Hurry up and hug yours to your chest,
While they are with you.

While with you
Dear family,
Even if they are not in the hall,
In any need
In your nest -
Another enviable share.

And be led down the bitter path
Change your yard -
Dress the children yourself, put them on shoes -
Believe me, it’s still half a pain.

And, having gotten used to it, after all
Wander through the road crowd
With the smaller one, asleep in my arms,
With two with a skirt - you can!

Walk, wander,
Sit down on the way
Small family vacation.
Yes who now
Happier than you!

Look, there probably is.

Where the light shines at least at the edge of the day,
Where it's completely covered in clouds.
And happiness is no match for happiness,
And grief - grief is the difference.

The wagon-house crawls and creaks,
And the heads of the children
Cunningly covered with a flap
Iron red roof.

And serves as a track roof
To a family persecuted by war,
That roof that's above your head
I was in my native land.

In another land
Kibitka-house,
Her comfort is gypsy
Not somehow
Set on the road, -
A peasant man's hand.

Overnight on the way, the guys are sleeping,
Buried deep in the wagon.
And they look into the starry sky
Shafts like anti-aircraft guns.

The owner does not sleep by the fire.
In this difficult world
He is for children and for horses,
And I am responsible for my wife.

And to her, be it summer or winter,
Still, there is no easier way.
And you decide everything yourself,
With your mind and strength.

In the midday heat
And in the rain at night
Cover the kids on the road.
My distant one,
My dear,
Alive or dead - where are you?..

No, not a wife, not even a mother,
What did you think about your son?
We couldn't guess
Everything that will happen now.

Where was it in the old days -
Everything is different now:
The owner went to war,
The war is coming home.

And, sensing death, this house
And the garden is alarmingly silent.
And the front - here it is - is behind the hill
Sighs hopelessly.

And the dusty troops retreat, rollback
Not the same as in the beginning.
And where the columns are somehow,
Where the crowds marched.

All to the east, back, back,
The guns are getting closer and closer.
And the women howl and hang
On the fence with your chest.

The last hour has come,
And there is no longer a reprieve.
- Who are you looking at, only us?
Are you throwing it away, sons?..

And that, perhaps, is not a reproach,
And there is pain and pity for them.
And there's a pressing lump in my throat
For everything that has happened to life.

And a woman's heart is doubly so
Melancholy, anxiety gnaws,
What is yours only there, in the fire,
My wife can imagine.

In fire, in battle, in smoke
Bloody hand-to-hand combat.
And how it must be for him there,
Living, death is scary.

Wouldn't that misfortune have told me
That she howled like a woman,
I wouldn't know, maybe never
That I loved you to death.

I loved you - don’t drop your gaze
No one, only one loved.
I loved you so much that from my relatives,
I got it from my mother.

Let it not be girl time,
But love is amazing -
Sharp in speech,
Quick in business
She walked like a snake.

In the house - no matter how you live -
Kids, stove, trough -
He hasn't seen her yet
Uncombed, unwashed.

And she kept the whole house
In anxious tidiness,
Considering, perhaps, that on that
Love is forever more reliable.

And that love was strong
With such a powerful force,
What one war can tear apart
She could.
And separated.

CHAPTER 4


If only you would languish the fighter,
War, sadly familiar,
Yes, I wouldn’t gather dust on the porch
His home.

I would crush it with a heavy wheel
Those that are on your list
I wouldn’t ruin a child’s sleep
Artillery fire.

Rattling, I'd be mad drunk
At its limit, -
And then it would be you, war,
Still a sacred thing.

But you kicked the guys out
To the cellars, to the cellars,
You are from heaven to earth at random
You're throwing away your pigs.

And people of the bitter side
They huddled close together at the front,
Fearing both death and guilt
Some unknown.

And you are getting closer to the yard,
And children, sensing grief.
A timid whisper of a game
They lead you in the corner without arguing...

On that first day of bitter days,
How did you get ready for the journey?
The father ordered to take care of the children,
Watch the house strictly.

He told me to take care of the children and the house, -
The wife is responsible for everything.
But he didn’t say whether to light the stove
Today at dawn.

But he didn’t say whether to sit here,
Should I run somewhere into the light?
Give up everything suddenly.
Where are they waiting for us?
Where do they ask?
The world is not a home.

There's a ceiling above your head,
Here is a house, in a barn there is a cow...
But the German, maybe he’s different
And not so harsh, -
It will pass, blowjob.

What if not?
He is not famous for that kind of glory.
Well, then you're in the village council
Are you going to look for council?

What kind of judgment will you threaten him with?
As he stands on the threshold,
How will he enter the house?
No, if only the house
Away from the road...

...The last four soldiers
The gate to the garden was opened,
Iron forged shovels
They grunted tiredly and out of tune.
We sat down and lit a cigarette.

And smiled, turn
To the hostess, the eldest is like:
- We want you to have a cannon here
Place it in the garden.

Said as if a man
Traveler, stranger,
I asked for an overnight stay with my horse,
With a cart near the house.

He receives both affection and greetings.
- Just don’t leave,
Don't leave us...
- Not really, -
They looked at each other bitterly.

- No, from this hemp
We won't leave, mom.
Then, so that everyone can leave, -
This is our service.

The earth around is on a wave,
And the day was deafened by thunder.
- This is life: a master in war,
And you, it turns out, are at home.

And she’s ready about everyone
One sad question:
– Sivtsov is a surname. Sivtsov.
Have you heard by chance?

- Sivtsov? Wait, let me think.
Well, yes, I heard Sivtsov.
Sivtsov - well, Nikolai,
So he is alive and healthy.
Not yours? Yeah, what about your Andrey?
Andrey, please tell me...

But somehow dear to her
And that namesake.

- Well, friends, stop smoking.
Marked the plan with a shovel
And he began to diligently dig the ground
A soldier in a soldier's garden.

Not to grow up there
Any thing
And not on purpose, not out of malice,
And as science says.
He dug a trench, shaped so that
And the depth and the parapet...

Oh, how much digging there is in that one
Submissive to the cause of sadness.

He did the work - he dug the earth,
But maybe I thought briefly
And maybe he even said
Sighed:
- Earth, land...

They are already chest-deep in the ground,
The soldier is calling to the table,
As if to help in the family,
Lunch and rest are sweet.

- You're tired, eat.
- Well,
Hot for now...

– I also admit, the soil is good,
And then it happens - a stone...

And the eldest carried the spoon first,
And after him the soldiers.
- Was the collective farm rich?
- No, not to say rich,
Not like that, but still. Of bread
Stronger for Ugra...
- Look, the shooting has stopped.
- Three kids?
- Three...

And a common sigh:
- Children are a problem. -
And the conversation is hesitant.
The food is fatty at the wrong time,
Sad as at a wake.

- Thank you for lunch,
Hostess, thank you.
As for... well, no,
Don't wait, run somehow.

“Wait,” said another soldier,
Looking out the window with alarm: -
Look, people are just back
Drip.
- For what?

The dusty road is full,
They walk and wander dejectedly.
From east to west war
She turned the shafts.

“It turns out he’s already ahead.”
- So what now, where to go?
- Shut up, mistress, and sit down.
What's next - the day will tell.
And we should guard your garden,
Mistress, things are bad,
It turns out it's our turn now
Look for moves from here.

And out of dire need
Now they are soldiers
It seemed that women were weaker
And not guilty before her,
But still they are guilty.

- Goodbye, mistress, wait, we'll come,
Our time will come.
And we will find yours noticeable home
By the highway.
We’ll come, we’ll find it, maybe not;
War, you can’t guarantee.
Thanks again for lunch.

- And thank you, brothers.
Farewell.-
She brought people out.
And with a hopeless request:
“Sivtsov,” she reminded, “Andrey,”
You might hear...

She followed, holding the door,
In tears, and my heart sank,
As if with my husband only now
Goodbye forever.
It's like it got out of hand
And disappeared without looking back...

And suddenly that sound came to life in my ears,
The pinching sound of a shoulder blade:

Mow, scythe,
While there is dew,
Down with the dew -
And we're home...

CHAPTER 5



When to your home
He came in, rattling his gun,
Soldier of another land?

Didn’t beat, didn’t torture and didn’t burn, -
Far from trouble.
He just entered the threshold
And asked for water.

And, leaning over the ladle,
From the road all covered in dust,
He drank, dried himself and left
Soldier of a foreign land.

Didn’t beat, didn’t torture and didn’t burn, -
Everything has its time and order.
But he entered, he could already
Enter, alien soldier.

A foreign soldier has entered your house,
Where one could not enter.
Didn't you happen to be there?
And God forbid!

You didn't happen to be there
When, drunk, bad,
Amusing yourself at your table
Soldier of another land?

Sits, occupying that edge of the bench,
That corner is dear
Where is the husband, father, head of the family?
It was no one else who sat.

May you not suffer an evil fate
Don't be old though
And not hunchbacked, not crooked
Behind grief and shame.

And to the well through the village,
Where is there a foreign soldier,
Like crushed glass,
Walk back and forth.

But if it was destined
All this, everything counts,
If you don't get at least one thing,
What else is there to do?

You won't have to suffer for the war,
Wife, sister or mother,
Their
Alive
Soldier in captivity
See it with your own eyes.

...Sons of the native land,
Their shameful, prefabricated formation
They led along that land
To the west under escort.

They walk along it
In shameful prefabricated companies,
Others without belts,
Others are without caps.

Others with bitter, angry
And hopeless agony
They carry it in front of them
Arm in a sling...

At least he can walk healthy,
So the task is to step -
Losing blood in the dust,
Drag while you walk.

He, the warrior, was taken by force
And he’s angry that he’s still alive.
He is alive and happy,
That he suddenly fought back.

He's worth nothing
Doesn't know the world yet.
And everyone goes, equal
There are four in a column.

Boot for war
Some were not worn out,
And here they are in captivity,
And this captivity is in Russia.

Drooping from the heat,
They move their legs.
Familiar yards
On the sides of the road.

Well, house and garden
And there are signs all around.
A day or a year ago
Did you walk along this road?

A year or just an hour
Passed without delay?..

“Who are you looking at us for?”
Throw it away, sons!..”

Now say it back
And meet your eyes with your eyes,
Like, we don’t throw, no,
Look, here we are.

Make mothers happy
And the wives in their women's sorrow.
Don't rush quickly
Pass the. Don't bend, don't stoop...

Rows of soldiers wander
A gloomy line.
And women to everyone
They look into faces.

Not a husband, not a son, not a brother
They pass in front of them
But only your soldier -
And there are no relatives.

And how many of those rows
You silently walked
And shorn heads,
Drooping sadly.

And suddenly - neither reality nor dream -
It sounded as if -
Between many voices
One:
- Goodbye, Anyuta...

Darted to that end
Crowded in a hot crowd.
No, that's true. Fighter
Someone at random

He called it in the crowd. Joker.
No one cares about jokes here.

But if you're between them,
Call me Anyuta.

Don't be ashamed of me
That the windings slid down,
What, maybe without a belt
And maybe without a cap.

And I won't reproach
You, who are under escort
You're going. And for the war
Alive, did not become a hero.

Call me and I’ll answer.
I am pos, your Anyuta.
I'll break through to you
At least I’ll say goodbye forever
With you. My minute!

But how to ask now,
Say a word:
Don't you have it here?
In captivity, him, Sivtsov
Andrey?

The shame is bitter.
Ask him, maybe he
And the dead will not forgive,
That I was looking for him here.

But if he is here, suddenly
Walks in a sultry column,
Closing my eyes...
- Tsuryuk!
Tsuryuk! - the guard shouts.

He doesn't care about anything
And there’s no business, really,
And his voice
Like a crow, burr:

- Tsuryuk! -
He's not young
Tired, damn hot
Pissed off as hell
I don’t even feel sorry for myself...

Rows of soldiers wander
A gloomy line.
And women to everyone
They look into faces.

Eyes across
And along the column they catch.
And with something a knot,
Whatever the piece is
Many are ready.

Not a husband, not a son, not a brother,
Take what you have, soldier,
Nod, say something
Like, that gift is holy
And dear, they say. Thank you.

Gave from good hands,
For everything that suddenly happened,
I didn’t ask the soldier.
Thank you, bitter friend,
Thank you, Mother Russia.

And go ahead, soldier.
And don’t complain about misfortune;
She has an end somewhere,
It can't be that there isn't.

Let the dust smell like ash,
Fields - burnt bread
And over my native land
An alien sky hangs.

And the pitiful crying of the boys,
It continues unabated,
And women to everyone
Looking into faces...

No, mother, sister, wife
And everyone who has experienced pain,
That pain is not avenged
And she didn’t come out victorious.

For this day alone
In a village in Smolensk -
Berlin did not repay
With your universal shame.

The memory is petrified
Strong by itself.

Let the stone be a stone,
May pain be pain.

CHAPTER 6


It was not the right time yet
Which goes straight into winter.
Still from potato skins
Cleaned off on the basket.

But it was getting cold
Summer heating earth.
And at night a wet shock
She let me in unfriendly.

And by the fire there was a dream - not a dream.
Under the timid crack of dead wood
Autumn squeezed out of the forests
Those bitter days of the night shelter.

Manila with the memory of housing,
Warmth, food and more.
Who's son-in-law?
Who to marry? -
I thought where I would have to go.

...In cold Pune, against the wall,
Stealthily from prying eyes,
Sat behind the war
A soldier with his soldier wife.

In cold pune, not in the house,
A soldier to match a stranger,
He drank what she brought him
My wife sneaks out of the house.

I drank with grief-stricken zeal,
Taking the pot into his lap.
His wife sat in front of him
On that cold hay,
That in the ancient hour on a Sunday afternoon,
On holiday business
In the garden he mowed under the window,
When the war came.

The hostess looks: he is not him
For a guest in this pune.
No wonder, apparently, a bad dream
She dreamed about it the day before.

Thin, overgrown, as if all
Sprinkled with ash.
He ate so that maybe he could get something to eat
Your shame and evil grief.

- Put together a pair of underwear
Yes, fresh foot wraps,
May I be fine until dawn
Remove from the parking lot.

– I’ve already collected everything, my friend.
Everything is. And you're on the road
At least take care of your health,
And first of all, the legs.

- And what else? You are wonderful
With such care, women.
Let's start with the head, -
At least save it.

And on the soldier's face there is a shadow
Smiles of a stranger.
- Oh, as soon as I remember: only a day
You're the one at home.

- At home!
I would also be glad to stay for a day, -
He sighed. - Take the dishes.
Thank you. Give me something to drink now.
When I return from the war, I will stay.

And he drinks sweetly, dear, big,
Shoulders resting against the wall,
His beard is alien
Drops roll into the hay.

- Yes, at home, they say the truth,
That the water is raw
Much tastier, said the soldier,
Wiping away in thought
Mustache fringed sleeves,
And he was silent for a minute. -
And the rumor is that Moscow
It's like...

His wife moved towards him
With sympathetic anxiety.
Like, not everything is worth believing,
There's a lot of chatter these days.
And the German, maybe he is now
It will settle down by winter...

And he again:
- Well, well, believe me
Whatever suits us.
One good captain
He wandered with me at first.
Another enemy is on your heels
He was following us. Didn't sleep
We didn't eat on the way then.
Well, death. So he used to
He kept repeating: go, crawl, crawl -
At least to the Urals.
So the man was angry in spirit
And I remembered that idea.

- And what?
- I walked and didn’t get there.
- Left behind?
- He died from his wound.
We walked through the swamp. And the rain, and the night,
And the cold is also bitter.
“And they couldn’t help you with anything?”
- And they couldn’t, Anyuta...

Leaning face to his shoulder,
To the hand - a small girl,
She grabbed my sleeve
And she kept holding him,
It was as if she was thinking
Save it at least by force,
From whom one war can separate
She could, and she did.

And took it from each other
On a Sunday in June.
And again briefly brought together
Under the roof of this puni.

And here he is sitting next to her
Before another separation.
Isn't he angry with her?
For this shame and torment?

Isn't he waiting for her to
His wife told him:
- Go crazy - go. Winter.
How far is it to the Urals?

And I would repeat:
- Understand,
Who can blame the soldier?
Why is his wife and children here?
What is here is my home.
Look, your neighbor has come home
And it doesn’t come off the stove...

And then he would say:
- No,
Wife, bad speeches...

Perhaps it’s a bitter lot,
Like bread with a pinch of salt,
He wanted to spice it up, brighten it up
Such heroism, or what?

Or maybe he's just tired
Yes, so that through force
I also came to my relatives' place,
And then it wasn’t enough.

And only my conscience is out of tune
With bait - this thought:
I'm home. I won't go any further
Search the world for war.

And it is not known what is truer,
And to grief - there is turmoil in the heart.
- Say something, Andrey.
- What can I say, Anyuta?
After all, say don’t say,
Wouldn't it be easier?
Filming until dawn tomorrow