Bunin aglaya. Download audiobook Ivan Bunin

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In the world, in that forest village where Aglaya was born and grew up, her name was Anna.

She lost her father and mother early. Once in the winter, smallpox went into the village, and then many of the dead were taken to the graveyard in the village beyond Svyat-Ozero. There were two coffins at once in the Skuratovs' hut. The girl did not experience either fear or pity, she only remembered forever that one, unlike anything, alien to the living and heavy spirit that emanated from them, and that winter freshness, the cold of the Lenten thaw, that the peasants let into the hut, carrying the coffins to the logs under the windows.

On that side of the forest, villages are rare and small, their rough log yards stand in disarray: like loamy mounds, even closer to rivers and lakes. The people there are not too poor and observe their prosperity, their old way of life, even though they have been going to work for centuries, leaving women to plow unborn land, where it is free from forests, to mow grass in the forest, and in winter to thunder with a loom. Anna's heart lay in that life in her childhood: both the black hut and the burning torch in the light were dear to her.

Katerina, her sister, had been married for a long time. She ruled the house, first together with her husband, who was taken into the yard, and then, as he began to leave almost for all year round, one. Under her supervision, the girl grew evenly and quickly, never fell ill, did not complain about anything, she only thought about everything. If Katerina called out to her, asked what was the matter with her, she answered simply, saying that her neck was creaking and that she was listening to it. "Here! - she said, turning her head, her little white face, - do you hear? - "What are you thinking about?" "So. I don't know". She didn’t hang out with her peers in her childhood, and she didn’t go anywhere - she only went wounds with her sister and that old village behind Svyat-Ozero, where on the churchyard, under the pines, pine crosses stick out and there is a log church covered with blackened wooden scales.

For the first time, they dressed her up in bast shoes and a motley sundress, bought a necklace and a yellow scarf.

Katerina grieved for her husband, wept; she wept over her childlessness. And, crying out tears, she made a vow to herself not to know her husband. When her husband came, she greeted him joyfully, talked well with him about household chores, carefully examined his shirts, mended what was necessary, bustled around the stove and was pleased when he liked something; but they slept separately, like strangers. And he left, - again she became boring and quiet. More and more often she left home, stayed in a nearby women's monastery, visited the elder Rodion, who was fleeing behind that monastery in a forest hut. She persistently learned to read, brought from the monastery holy books and read them aloud, in an unusual voice, lowering her eyes, holding a book in both hands. And the girl stood near, listened, looking around the hut, which was always tidied up. Reveling in the sound of her voice, Katerina read about the saints, about the martyrs, who despised our dark, earthly things for the sake of the heavenly, who wanted to crucify their flesh with passions and lusts. Anna listened to the reading, like a song in a foreign language, with attention. But Katerina closed the book - and she never asked to read more: she was always incomprehensible.

By the age of thirteen, she had become remarkably thin, tall and strong. She was gentle, white, blue-eyed, and she loved simple, rough work. When summer came and Katerina's husband came, when the village went to mow, Anna went with hers and worked like an adult. Yes, summer work in that direction is scarce. And again the sisters were left alone, again returning to their even life, and again, having cleaned up with cattle, with a stove, Anna sat at sewing, at the camp, and Katerina read - about the seas, about deserts, about the city of Rome, about Byzantium, about the miracles and exploits of the early Christians. In the black forest hut, the words that enchanted the ear sounded then: “In the country of Cappadocia, during the reign of the pious Byzantine emperor Leo the Great ... In the days of the patriarchate of the Monk Joachim of Alexandria, in Ethiopia far from us ...” And so Anna learned about the virgins and youths torn to pieces by wild animals on the lists, about the heavenly beauty of Barbara, decapitated by her fierce a parent, about the relics kept by angels on Mount Sinai, about the warrior Eustathius, addressed to the true God by the call of the Crucified Himself, who shone with the sun among the antlers of a deer, by him, Eustathius, persecuted by an animal catch, about the labors of Savva the consecrated, who lived in the Valley of Fire, and about many, many, bitter days and nights spent by desert streams, in crypts and mountain kennels ... In adolescence, she saw herself in a dream in a long linen shirt and an iron crown on her head. And Katerina said to her: "This is for you, sister, for an early death."

And in the fifteenth year she became quite like a girl, and the people marveled at her good looks: the golden-white color of her oblong face slightly played with a smoky blush; her eyebrows were thick, light blond, her eyes were blue; light, fine, - perhaps not too high, thin and long-armed - she quietly and well lifted her long eyelashes. The winter that year was especially severe. Forests and lakes were covered with snow, ice-holes were thickly covered with ice, it burned with a frosty wind and played in the morning dawns with two mirrored, in iridescent rings, suns. Before Christmas time, Katerina ate tyurya, oatmeal, while Anna ate only bread. "Another prophetic dream I want to post to myself,” she said to her sister. And under New Year she dreamed again: she saw an early frosty morning, a blinding icy sun had just rolled out from behind the snows, a sharp wind took her breath away; and to the wind, to the sun, to white field, she flew on skis, chased some marvelous ermine, but suddenly fell off somewhere into an abyss - and went blind, suffocated in a cloud of snow dust that rose from under her skis on a fall ... It was impossible to understand anything in this dream, but Anna for the whole day of the New Year never once looked into her sister's eyes; the priests drove around the village, they also went to the Skuratovs - she hid behind a curtain under the curtains. That winter, not yet firmly established in her thoughts, she was often bored, and Katerina said to her: “I have been calling to Father Rodion for a long time, he would have taken everything from you!”

She read to her that winter about Alexei the God-man and John Kuschnik, who died in poverty at the gates of their noble parents, she read about Simeon the Stylite, who rotted alive while standing in a stone pillar. Anna asked her: “But why isn’t Father Rodion standing?” And she answered her that the exploits of holy people are different, that our passion-bearers mostly escaped through Kyiv caves, and then through dense forests or reached the kingdom of heaven in the form of naked, indecent fools. That winter, Anna also learned about the Russian saints - about her spiritual ancestors: about Matthew the Perspicacious, who was granted to see only one dark and low in the world, to penetrate into the innermost filth of human hearts, to see the faces of underground devils and hear their unholy advice, about Mark the Gravedigger, who devoted himself to burying the dead and found himself in constant proximity with Death. we have such power over her that she trembled at his voice, about Isaac the Recluse, who dressed his body in the raw skin of a goat, forever attached to it, and indulged in crazy dances with demons, at night dragging him into galloping and wobbling to the loud of his cries, pipes, timbrels and harp ... “From him, Isaac, the holy fools went, - Ka told her Terina, - and how many of them there were later, that cannot be counted! Father Rodion so bayed: they were not in any country, only the Lord visited us with them because of our great sins and by His great mercy. And she added that she heard in the monastery - a sad story about how Russia left Kiev for impenetrable forests and swamps, for her bast towns, under the cruel power of the Moscow princes, how she suffered from unrest, civil strife, from ferocious Tatar hordes and from other Lord's punishments - from pestilence and famine, from conflagrations and heavenly signs. It was then, she said, so many multitudes God's people, Christ for the sake of those suffering and foolish, that in the churches from the squeak and cry of them it was not possible to hear divine singing. And a considerable number of them, she said, were counted among the face of Heaven: there is Simon, from the Volga forests, who wandered and hid the human eye through the wild tracts in one tattered shirt, after that, living in the city, he was daily beaten by citizens for his indecency and died from wounds caused by beatings; there is Procopius, who took incessant torment in the city of Vyatka, at night he ran up to the bell towers and beat the bells often and with alarm, as if during a fiery ignition; there is Procopius, born in the Zyryansk region, among savage hunters, who walked all his life with three pokers in his hands and adored empty places, sad forest shores above Sukhona, where, sitting on a pebble, he prayed with tears for those sailing along it; there is Jacob the Blessed, who sailed in a grave bast log along the river Mete to the dark inhabitants of that poor area; there is John Vlasaty, from under Rostov the Great, whose hair was so luxuriant that all who saw him fell into fear; there is John of Vologda, called the Big Cap, small in stature, with a wrinkled face, all hung with crosses, until his death he did not take off his cap, like cast iron; there is Vasily Nagokhodets, who instead of clothes wore both in the winter cold and in the summer var only iron chains and a handkerchief in his hand ... “Now, sister,” said Katerina, “they all stand before the Lord, rejoice in the host of His saints, their relics rest incorruptible in cypress and silver shrines, in holy cathedrals, next to kings and saints!” - “But why didn’t Father Rodion play the fool?” Anna asked again. And Katerina answered that he followed in the footsteps of those who imitated not Isaac, but Sergius of Radonezh, in the footsteps of the forest monasteries. Father Rodion, she said, first saved himself in one ancient and glorious desert, based on those very places where, among dense forest, in the hollow of a three-century-old oak, once lived a great saint; there he carried strict obedience and took monastic vows, for his repentant tears and heartlessness to the flesh of the contemplation of the Queen of Heaven herself, withstood the vow of seven years of seclusion and seven years of silence, but he was not satisfied with this either, left the monastery and came - many, many years ago - to our forests, put on bast bast shoes, a white robe made of sackcloth, a black epitrachelion with an eight-pointed cross on it, with the image of the skull and bones of Adam, eats only water and unboiled succulent, blocked the window of his hut with an icon, sleeps in a coffin, under an inextinguishable lamp, and at midnight hours the howling beasts, crowds of furious dead and devils are constantly besieging him ...

Fifteen years old, at the very time when a girl should become a bride, Anna left the world.

Spring that year came early and hot. The berries ripened in the forests innumerable, the grasses were waist-deep, and from the beginning of Petrovka they already went to mow them. Anna worked with pleasure, sunbathed in the sun, among herbs and flowers; a darker blush flared on her face, a handkerchief shifted over her forehead hid the warm look of her eyes. But then one day, on the mowing, a large shiny snake with an emerald head wrapped itself around the circle of her bare feet. Seizing the snake with her long and narrow hand, tearing off its icy and slippery tourniquet, Anna threw it far away and did not even raise her face, but was very frightened, she became whiter than the canvas. And Catherine said to her; “This is for you, sister, the third instruction; be afraid of the Serpent of the Tempter, a dangerous time is coming to you! And whether from fright, or from these words, only a week after that did not leave the color of death from Anna's face. And on Peter's day, unexpectedly, unexpectedly, she asked to go to the monastery to the vigil - and she went and spent the night there, and in the morning she was honored to stand in the crowd at the threshold of the hermit. And he showed her great mercy: he looked out of the whole crowd and beckoned her to him. And she left him, bowing her head low, covering half her face with a handkerchief, shifting it to the fire of her hot cheeks and in confusion of feelings not seeing the ground under her: he called her a chosen vessel, a sacrifice to the Lord, he lit two wax candles and took one for himself, the other he gave her and stood for a long time, praying in front of the image, and then ordered her to venerate that image - and blessed her to be in the monastery in obedience in a short time. “My happiness, unwise sacrifice! he told her. - Be not an earthly bride, but a heavenly one! I know, I know, your sister prepared you. I, a sinner, will also sweat about that.

In the monastery, in monasticism, renounced from the world and from her will for the sake of her spiritual successor, Anna, named Aglaya during her tonsure, stayed for thirty-three months. At the end of the thirty-third, she passed away.

How she lived there, how she was saved, no one knows in full about that, due to the prescription of time. But still something remained in the people's memory. One day, praying women went from different and distant lands to that forest region where Anna was born. They met at the river through which they had to cross, a habitual wanderer in holy places, in appearance unprepossessing, disheveled, even, just to say, wonderful, his eyes were blindfolded under the old master's bowler hat. They began to ask him about the ways, about the roads to the monastery, about Rodion himself and about Anna. In response, he first spoke to them about himself: I, they say, are sisters, and I myself know not God knows what, but I can partly talk with you, for I am returning precisely from those localities; you, he said, I suppose it’s terrifying with me - and I’m not surprised at this, many are not honey with me: whether on foot, whether on horseback, he sees - a wanderer is walking through the forest, hobbles alone with a white handkerchief over his eyes, and even sings psalms - it’s understandable, he takes it dumbfounded; because of my sins, my eyes are greedy and quick, my eyesight is so rare and piercing that even at night I see like a cat, being generally unreasonably sighted, due to the fact that I do not go with people, but on the sidelines; Well, so I decided to shorten my bodily vision a little ... Then he began to tell how much, according to his calculation, the pilgrims still had to go, what areas they had to follow the path to, where to have overnight stays and rest, and what kind of monastery it was.

First, - he said, - the village on Svyat-Ozero will come, then the same village where Anna was born, and there you will see another lake, monastic, although shallow, but decent, and we will have to sail on this lake in a boat. And as soon as you land, the very monastery is at hand. It is clear that on the other side of the forest there is no end, and through the forest, as usual, the walls of the monastery, the domes of the church, the cells, the hospices look...

Then he spoke for a long time about the life of Rodion, about Anna's childhood and adolescence, at the end he spoke about her stay in the monastery:

Her stay was, oh, short! - he said, - It's a pity, you say, such beauty and youth? We, the stupid ones, understandably, it's a pity. Yes, apparently, Father Rodion knew well what he was doing. After all, he was like that with everyone - and affectionate, and meek, and joyful, and persistent to the point of mercilessness, especially with Aglaya. I, butterflies, was at the place of her rest ... A long grave, beautiful, all overgrown with grass, green ... And I won’t hide it, I won’t hide it: it was there, on the grave, I thought of blindfolding myself, it was Aglaya’s example that advised me: after all, you need to know, during her entire stay in the monastery she didn’t raise her eyes for a single hour - as she moved the veil over them, she remained, and she was so stingy with speech, so evasive that even Father Rodion himself marveled at her. But, I suppose, it was not easy for her to lift such a feat - to part with the earth, with a human face forever! And she carried the hardest work in the monastery, and stood idle at night in prayer, But then, they say, her father Rodion loved her! Of all distinguished, every day allowed into his hut, had long conversations with her about future glory monastery, he even revealed his visions to her - of course, with a strict commandment of silence. Well, here it burned down, like a candle, in the shortest possible time ... Are you sighing again, sorry? I agree: sad! But I’ll tell you much more: for her great humility, for her neglect of the earthly world, for her silence and overwhelming labor, he did something unheard of: at the end of the third year of her feat, he deceived her, and then, through prayer and holy reflection, called her to him in a single terrible hour- and ordered to accept the death. Yes, so directly and said to her: “My happiness, your time has come! Remain in my memory as beautiful as you are standing in front of me at this hour: depart to the Lord!” And what do you think? A day later, she passed away. Fell down, blazed with fire - and ended. True, he consoled her - he told her before his death that, since only a little of his secret conversations she could not hide in the first days of obedience, only her mouth would decay. He granted silver for her funeral, copper for distribution at her burial, a hammer of candles for a magpie on her, a yellow ruble candle for her coffin, and the coffin itself - round, oak, hollowed out. And with his blessing, they put her, thin and with a sprout of excellently long, in that coffin with her hair loose, in two shroud shirts, in a white cassock, girded with black hem, and over it - in a black mantle with white crosses; they put a green velvet cap embroidered with gold on the head, a kamilavka on the cap, after that they tied it with a blue shawl with tassels, and put leather beads in the handles ... They removed it, in a word, where it’s good! And yet, butterflies, there is a tricky, demonic rumor that she didn’t want to die, oh, how she still didn’t want to! Departing in such youth and in such beauty, they say, she said goodbye to everyone in tears, she said loudly to everyone: “Forgive me!” In the end, she closed her eyes and said separately: “And you, mother earth, have sinned seven in soul and body - will you forgive me?” And those terrible words: bowing down to the ground, they were read in repentant prayer for ancient Rus' for the evening under the Trinity, under the pagan mermaid day.

1916

Notes

Coarse linen or cotton fabric made of multi-colored threads, usually homespun.

Kinovia is a monastery with a communal charter, one of two (along with hermitage) forms of organization of monasticism at the initial historical stage.

Simeon the Stylite (about 390 - September 2, 459) - saint, Syrian founder new form austerities - pillars. He spent 37 years on the pillar in fasting and prayer; according to his life, he received from God the gift to heal mental and bodily illnesses, to foresee the future.

Books enlighten the soul, uplift and strengthen a person, awaken in him best aspirations sharpen his mind and soften his heart.

William Thackeray, English satirist

The book is a great power.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Soviet revolutionary

Without books, we now can neither live, nor fight, nor suffer, nor rejoice and win, nor confidently move towards that reasonable and wonderful future in which we unshakably believe.

Many thousands of years ago, a book in the hands the best representatives humanity has become one of the main weapons of their struggle for truth and justice, and it is this weapon that gave these people a terrible strength.

Nikolai Rubakin, Russian bibliologist, bibliographer.

The book is a tool. But not only. It introduces people to the life and struggle of other people, makes it possible to understand their experiences, their thoughts, their aspirations; it makes it possible to compare, understand the environment and transform it.

Stanislav Strumilin, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences

No the best remedy to refresh the mind, like reading the ancient classics; as soon as you take one of them in your hands, even if for half an hour, you immediately feel refreshed, lightened and cleansed, uplifted and strengthened, as if refreshed by bathing in a pure spring.

Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher

Those who were not familiar with the creations of the ancients lived without knowing beauty.

Georg Hegel, German philosopher

No failures of history and deaf spaces of time are able to destroy human thought, fixed in hundreds, thousands and millions of manuscripts and books.

Konstantin Paustovsky, Russian Soviet writer

The book is magic. The book changed the world. It has a memory human race She is the mouthpiece of human thought. A world without a book is a world of savages.

Nikolai Morozov, creator of modern scientific chronology

Books are the spiritual testament of one generation to another, the advice of a dying old man to a young man who begins to live, an order transmitted by sentries going on vacation to sentries who take his place.

Empty without books human life. The book is not only our friend, but also our constant, eternal companion.

Demyan Bedny, Russian Soviet writer, poet, publicist

The book is a powerful tool of communication, labor, struggle. It equips man with the experience of the life and struggle of mankind, expands his horizon, gives him knowledge with which he can make the forces of nature serve him.

Nadezhda Krupskaya, Russian revolutionary, Soviet party, public and cultural figure.

Reading good books is a conversation with the most the best people past times, and, moreover, such a conversation when they tell us only their best thoughts.

Rene Descartes, French philosopher, mathematician, physicist and physiologist

Reading is one of the sources of thinking and mental development.

Vasily Sukhomlinsky, an outstanding Soviet teacher and innovator.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Joseph Addison, English poet and satirist

Good book- just a conversation with smart person. The reader receives from her knowledge and generalization of reality, the ability to understand life.

Alexei Tolstoy, Russian Soviet writer and public figure

Don't forget that the most colossal tool of all-round education is reading.

Alexander Herzen, Russian publicist, writer, philosopher

Without reading there is no real education, there is not and cannot be any taste, or a word, or a multilateral breadth of understanding; Goethe and Shakespeare are equal to the whole university. Reading man survives centuries.

Alexander Herzen, Russian publicist, writer, philosopher

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Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870-1953)

“Graceful man, thin, thin, gentleman central Russia” (B. Zaitsev), “... one of the last rays of some wonderful Russian day” (G.Adamovich). This is how contemporaries imagined and evaluated Ivan Bunin.

I.A.Bunin came to Sergiev Posad twice. The first time was in 1915. In the days of the First World War, anticipating, like all thinking people, the beginning of the coming upheavals, Bunin could not find a place for himself. A stormy creative upsurge was replaced by depression, a state of hopelessness fettered his will and mind. Wanting to find some kind of foothold, he decided to visit the monasteries and churches that once gave him peace of mind and moral purification. January 1, 1915

Bunin and his nephew Kolya were in the Martha and Mary Convent, the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, Zachatievsky and Novodevichy monasteries Moscow. On January 3 (according to the old style - comp.) they arrived at the Trinity - Sergius Lavra, on January 4 they visited the Chernigov Skete.

In Bunin's diary we read: “At two o'clock we went with Kolya to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Were in the Trinity Cathedral at the Vespers...». Bunin's hopes for peace of mind did not come true. “Everything comes to mind monasteries - a complex and unpleasant, painful feeling,” he wrote with disappointment in his diary on January 7th. On the same day, Bunin created two poems "The Ring" and "The Word". So this pilgrimage was not in vain for him.
“In the first (compilation poem), the “complex”, in other words, contradictory, ambivalent impression of the churches was rethought into a contrasting comparison of a precious ring, ..., and a vulgar bazaar crowd, ..., the eternal tragic incompatibility of a “divine gift” with a contemptible way of life. And the famous Bunin's "Word"! ... Bunin had to go around "in the days of malice and suffering" the shrines especially revered by the people in order to finally make sure that "everything is perishable on earth and the remains are mute", that "from the ancient darkness, ..., only Letters sound". (Palagin Yu.N. - comp.).
Impressed by visiting the holy places, the story "Aglaya" was also written. Started back in 1914, it was completed two years later. The story arose from observations of past years and, probably, not without the influence of the days spent by the writer in the Lavra and the Chernigov Skete. Bunin showed how degenerated into outright hypocrisy the once blameless, holy service of Christian precepts. “Only the image of St. Sergius of Radonezh remained crystal clear in Bunin’s memory.” (Palagin Yu.N. - comp.).
The writer visited the Trinity-Sergius Monastery again in April 1919, after the relics of Sergius of Radonezh were opened and put on public display.

ring

Gloomy rubies bloomed, blackened in it,
Inside purple-blooded,
Diamonds flashed pink fire
Crushing like icy tears.
My cherished ring played priceless,
But hidden rays:
So shines and burns hidden by semi-darkness
Ancient image in the royal temple.
And for a long time I looked at this gift of God
With longing, vague and anxious,
And lowered his eyes, crossing the market,
In the crowd noisy and insignificant.

7.I.15
Moscow

Word

The tombs, mummies and bones are silent, -
Only the word is given life:
From the ancient darkness, on the world churchyard,

Only letters are heard.
And we have no other property!
Know how to save
Though to the best of my ability, in the days of anger and suffering,
Our immortal gift is speech.

7.I.15
Moscow

1. Bunin, I.A. Aglaya [story] / I.A.Bunin // Collection. cit.: in 6 volumes / editorial board: Yu. Bondarev, O. Mikhailov, V. Rynkevich; prepared text, articles-after. and comment. A.A. Saakyants. – M.: Khudozh.lit., 1988. - T. 4. - S. 99-106.
The story is one of the author's favorites. In this work, the writer used the skaz style of narration in the spirit of ancient Russian hagiographic literature.
The heroine of the work is a simple village girl who was raised by her older sister. Aglaya, Anna in the world, was brought up on the lives of the holy righteous. It was her from the crowd of pilgrims that Father Rodion “looked and beckoned to him” and said: “My happiness, the sacrifice is not wise! Be not an earthly, but a heavenly bride! Detached from the world and from her will, she unquestioningly obeyed the elder, so much so that, at his command, she died at the appointed time.

2. Bunin, I.A. Diaries. / I. A. Bunin // Collection. cit.: in 6 volumes / editorial board: Yu. Bondarev, O. Mikhailov, V. Rynkevich; prepared text, articles-after. and comment. O. Mikhailova. – M.: Khudozh.lit., 1988. - T. 6. - S. 354-355.

3. Bunin, I.A. Ring [poem] / A.I. Bunin // Collected. cit.: in 6 volumes / editorial board: Yu. Bondarev, O. Mikhailov, V. Rynkevich; intro. article by A. Tvardovsky; comp., prepar. text and comments. A.Baboreko; article "Poetry of Bunin" by O. Mikhailov. – M.: Khudozh.lit., 1987. - T. 1. - S. 287.

4. Bunin, I.A. Word [poem] / A.I. Bunin // Collected. cit.: in 6 volumes / editorial board: Yu. Bondarev, O. Mikhailov, V. Rynkevich; intro. article by A. Tvardovsky; comp., prepar. text and comments. A.Baboreko; article "Poetry of Bunin" by O. Mikhailov. – M.: Khudozh.lit., 1987. - T. 1. - S. 287.

5. Baboreko, A. I. A. Bunin: materials for a biography / A. Baboreko. - M .: Khudozh. lit., 1967. - P.203.

6. Baboreko, A. Bunin: Biography / A. Baboreko. – M.: Young guard, 2004. - P. 211: ill. - (Life wonderful people: ZHZL: ser.biogr.: osn. in 1890 by F. Pavlenkov and continued. in 1933 M. Gorky; issue 1106 (906).
The book contains excerpts from Bunin's diary about a trip to the Lavra and the Chernigov Skete.

7. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin // Russian writers in Moscow: collection / comp. L.P. Bykovtsev. - 3rd ed., add. and reworked. – M.: Mosk. worker, 1987. - S. 696-706.

8. Palagin, Yu.N. In search of support / Yu.N. Palagin // Forward. - 1999. - December 25 (No. 145). - p. 5.

9. Palagin, Yu.N. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin / Yu.N. Palagin // Russian writers and poets of the twentieth century in Sergiev Posad. Part IV: from the book "Russian and foreign writers of the XIV-XX centuries about Sergiev Posad". - Sergiev Posad: LLC "All for You-Podmoskovye", 2009. - P.166-188.

10. Palagin, Yu.N. Last days in Russia / Yu.N. Palagin // Sergievskiye Vedomosti. - 2008. - November 7 (No. 44). – P. 15.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin AGLAYA The original is here: Digital library Yabluchansky.<...>In the world, in that forest the village where she was born and raised Aglaya her name was Anna.<...>Immediately two coffins stood in hut Skuratov.<...>The girl did not experience either fear or pity, she only forever remembered that one, unlike anything, for the living. stranger and heavy spirit that came from them, and that winter freshness, cold of the Lenten thaw that was let in hut men who carried the coffins to the firewood under the windows.<...>In that forest on the side of the village are rare and small, their rough log yards stand in disarray: like loamy mounds they allow closer to rivers and lakes.<...>The people there are not too poor and look after their wealth, their old way of life, for nothing that has been going to work for a century, leaving women to plow the unborn land, where it is free from forests, mow in forest herbs, and in winter to rattle the loom.<...>Anna's heart lay in childhood to that life: she was sweet and black hut, and a combustible torch in the light.<...>If Katerina she called out to her, asked what was the matter with her, she answered simply, saying that her neck was creaking and that she was listening to it.<...>As a child, she did not associate with her peers, and she did not go anywhere, - she only went wounds with her sister, and then old a village behind Svyat-Ozero, where on the graveyard, under the pines, stick out pine crosses and there is a log church, covered with blackened wooden scales.<...> Katerina O husband grieved, wept; she wept over her childlessness.<...>When her husband came, she greeted him joyfully, talked well with him about household chores, carefully examined his shirts, mended what was necessary, bustled around the stove and was pleased when he liked something; but they slept differently strangers. <...>More and more often she went away from home, stayed in a nearby women's monastery, visited Elder Rodion, who was fleeing behind that monastery in forest hut. <...>Reveling in the sound of her voice, she read Katerina about saints, about martyrs, our dark, earthly despising for the sake of the heavenly<...>

Aglaya.pdf

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin AGLAYA Original here: Electronic Library of Yabluchansky. In the world, in that forest village where Aglaya was born and grew up, her name was Anna. She lost her father and mother early. Once in the winter, smallpox went into the village, and then many of the dead were taken to the graveyard in the village beyond Svyat-Ozero. There were two coffins at once in the Skuratovs' hut. The girl did not experience either fear or pity, she only remembered forever that unique, alien and heavy spirit that emanated from them, and that winter freshness, the cold of the Lenten thaw, that the peasants let into the hut, carrying the coffins to the logs under the windows. On that side of the forest, villages are rare and small, their rough log yards stand in disarray: like loamy mounds, even closer to rivers and lakes. The people there are not too poor and observe their prosperity, their old way of life, even though they have been going to work for centuries, leaving women to plow unborn land, where it is free from forests, to mow grass in the forest, and in winter to thunder with a loom. Anna's heart lay in that life in her childhood: both the black hut and the burning torch in the light were dear to her. Katerina, her sister, had been married for a long time. She ruled the house, first together with her husband, taken into the yard, and then, as he began to leave almost all year round, alone. Under her supervision, the girl grew evenly and quickly, never fell ill, did not complain about anything, she only thought about everything. If Katerina called out to her, asked what was the matter with her, she answered simply, saying that her neck was creaking and that she was listening to it. "Here!" she said, turning her head, her little white face, "do you hear?" - "What are you thinking about?" "So. I don't know." As a child, she didn’t hang out with her peers, and she didn’t go anywhere - she only went wounds with her sister and that old village behind Svyat-Ozero, where on the churchyard, under the pines, pine crosses stick out and there is a log church covered with blackened wooden scales. For the first time, they dressed her up in bast shoes and a motley sundress, bought a necklace and a yellow scarf. Katerina grieved for her husband, wept; she wept over her childlessness. And, crying out tears, she made a vow to herself not to know her husband. When her husband came, she greeted him joyfully, talked well with him about household chores, carefully examined his shirts, mended what was necessary, bustled around the stove and was pleased when he liked something; but they slept separately, like strangers. And he left, - again she became boring and quiet. More and more often she left home, stayed in a nearby women's monastery, visited the elder Rodion, who was fleeing behind that monastery in a forest hut. She persistently learned to read, brought sacred books from the monastery and read them aloud, in an unusual voice, lowering her eyes, holding the book in both hands. And the girl stood near, listened, looking around the hut, which was always tidied up. Reveling in the sound of her voice, Katerina read about the saints, about the martyrs, who despised our dark, earthly things for the sake of the heavenly, who wanted to crucify their flesh with passions and lusts. Anna listened to the reading, like a song in a foreign language, with attention. But Katerina closed the book - and she never asked to read more: she was always incomprehensible. By the age of thirteen, she had become remarkably thin, tall and strong. She was gentle, white, blue-eyed, and she loved simple, rough work. When summer came and Katerina's husband came, when the village went to mow, Anna went with hers and worked like an adult. Yes, summer work in that direction is scarce. And again the sisters were left alone, again returning to their even life, and again, having cleaned up with cattle, with a stove, Anna sat at sewing, at the camp, and Katerina read - about the seas, about deserts, about the city of Rome, about Byzantium, about the miracles and exploits of the early Christians. In the black forest hut, then, the words enchanting sounded: “In the country of Cappadocia, during the reign of the pious Byzantine emperor Leo the Great ... In the days of the patriarchate of St. about the relics guarded by angels on Mount Sinai, about the warrior Eustathius, addressed to the true God by the call of the crucified himself, shining like the sun among the horns of a deer, by him, Eustathius, persecuted by an animal catch, about the labors of Savva the consecrated, who lived in the Valley of Fire, and about many, many, bitter days and nights spent by desert streams, in crypts and mountain kennels ... In adolescence, she saw herself in a dream in a long linen shirt and an iron crown on her head. And Katerina said to her: "This is for you to die, sister, to an early death." And in the fifteenth year she became quite like a girl, and the people marveled at her good looks: the golden-white color of her oblong face slightly played with a smoky blush; her eyebrows were thick, light blond, her eyes were blue; light, fine, - except that it is too high, thin and long-armed - quiet and

In the world, in that forest village where Aglaya was born and grew up, her name was Anna.

She lost her father and mother early. Once, in the winter, smallpox entered the village, and then many of the dead were taken to the graveyard in the village beyond Svyat-Ozero. There were two coffins at once in the Skuratovs' hut. The girl did not experience either fear or pity, she only remembered forever that unique, alien and heavy spirit that emanated from them, and that winter freshness, the cold of the Lenten thaw, that the peasants let into the hut, carrying the coffins to the logs under the windows.

Katerina, her sister, had been married for a long time. She ruled the house, first together with her husband, taken into the yard, and then, as he began to leave almost all year round, alone. Under her supervision, the girl grew evenly and quickly, never fell ill, did not complain about anything, she just thought about everything. If Katerina called out to her, asked what was the matter with her, she answered simply, saying that her neck was creaking and that she was listening to it. "Here! - she said, turning her head, her little white face, - do you hear? “What are you thinking about?” - "So. I don't know". As a child, she did not hang out with her peers, and she had never been anywhere - only once she went with her sister to that old village behind Svyato-Ozero, where on the churchyard, under the pines, pine crosses stick out and there is a log church covered with blackened wooden scales. For the first time, they dressed her up in bast shoes and a motley sundress, bought a necklace and a yellow scarf.

Katerina grieved for her husband, wept; she wept over her childlessness. And crying out tears, she vowed not to know her husband. When her husband came, she greeted him joyfully, talked well with him about household chores, carefully examined his shirts, mended what was necessary, bustled around the stove and was pleased when he liked something; but they slept separately, like strangers. And he left, - again she became boring and quiet. More and more often she left home, stayed in a nearby women's monastery, visited the elder Rodion, who was fleeing behind that monastery in a forest hut. She persistently learned to read, brought sacred books from the monastery and read them aloud, in an unusual voice, lowering her eyes, holding the book in both hands. And the girl stood near, listened, looking around the hut, which was always tidied up. Reveling in the sound of her voice, Katerina read about the saints, about the martyrs, who despised our dark, earthly things for the sake of the heavenly, who wanted to crucify their flesh with passions and lusts. Anna listened to the reading, like a song in a foreign language, with attention. But Katerina closed the book - and she never asked to read more: she was always incomprehensible.

By the age of thirteen, she became remarkably thin, tall and strong. She was gentle, white, blue-eyed, and she loved simple, rough work. When summer came and Katerina's husband came, when the whole village went to the mowing, Anna went with hers and worked like an adult. Yes, summer work in that direction is scarce. And again the sisters were left alone, again returning to their even life, and again, having cleaned up with the cattle, with the stove, Anna sat at the sewing, at the camp, and Katerina read - about the seas, about the deserts, about the city of Rome, about Byzantium, about the miracles and exploits of the early Christians. In the black forest hut, the words that enchanted the ear sounded then: “In the country of Cappadocia, during the reign of the pious Byzantine emperor Leo the Great ... In the days of the patriarchate of the Monk Joachim of Alexandria, in Ethiopia far from us ...” And so Anna learned about the virgins and young men torn to pieces by wild animals on the lists, about the heavenly beauty of Barbara, decapitated by her fierce a parent, about the relics kept by angels on Mount Sinai, about the warrior Eustathius, addressed to the true God by the call of the Crucified himself, who shone with the sun among the horns of a deer, by him, Eustathius, persecuted by an animal catch, about the labors of Savva the Sanctified, who lived in the Valley of Fire, and about many, many, bitter days and nights spent by desert streams, in crypts and mountain kennels ... In adolescence, she saw herself in a dream in a long linen shirt and an iron crown on her head. And Katerina said to her: "This is for you, sister, for an early death."

And in her fifteenth year she became just like a girl, and the people marveled at her good looks: the golden-white color of her oblong face slightly played with a subtle blush; her eyebrows were thick, light blond, her eyes were blue; light, fine, - perhaps not too high, thin and long-armed - she quietly and well lifted her long eyelashes. The winter that year was especially severe. Forests and lakes were covered with snow, ice-holes were thickly covered with ice, it burned with a frosty wind and played in the morning dawns with two mirrored, in iridescent rings, suns. Before Christmas time, Katerina ate tyurya, oatmeal, while Anna ate only bread. “I want to post another prophetic dream,” she said to her sister. And on New Year's Eve she dreamed again: she saw an early frosty morning, a blinding icy sun had just rolled out from behind the snows, a sharp wind took her breath away; and into the wind, into the sun, across a white field, she flew on skis, chasing some marvelous ermine, but suddenly fell off somewhere into an abyss - and she became blind, suffocated in a cloud of snow dust that rose from under her skis on a fall ... It was impossible to understand anything in this dream, but Anna for the whole day of the New Year never once looked into her sister's eyes; the priests drove around the village, they also went to the Skuratovs - she hid behind a curtain under the curtains. That winter, not yet firmly established in her thoughts, she was often bored, and Katerina said to her: “I have been calling to Father Rodion for a long time, he would have taken everything from you!”

She read to her that winter about Alexei the God-man and John Kuschnik, who died in poverty at the gates of their noble parents, she read about Simeon the Stylite, who rotted alive in a stone pillar. Anna asked her: “But why isn’t Father Rodion standing?” - And she answered her that the exploits of holy people are different, that our passion-bearers mostly escaped through Kiev caves, and then through dense forests or reached the kingdom of heaven in the form of naked, indecent fools. That winter, Anna also learned about the Russian saints - about her spiritual ancestors: about Matthew the Perspicacious, who was granted to see only one dark and low in the world, to penetrate into the innermost filth of human hearts, to see the faces of underground devils and hear their unholy advice, about Mark the Gravedigger, who devoted himself to burying the dead and found himself in constant proximity with Death. we have such power over her that she trembled at his voice, about Isaac the Recluse, who dressed his body in the raw skin of a goat, forever attached to him, and indulged in crazy dances with demons, at night dragging him into galloping and wobbling to his loud cries, pipes, timbrels and harps ... “From him, Isaac, the holy fools went, - Ka told her Terina, - and how many of them there were later, that cannot be counted! Father Rodion so bayed: they were not in any country, only the Lord visited us with them because of our great sins and by his great mercy. And she added that she had heard in the monastery - a sad story about how Russia left Kiev for impenetrable forests and swamps, for her bast towns, under the cruel power of the Moscow princes, how she suffered from unrest, civil strife, from the ferocious Tatar hordes and from other punishments of the Lord - from pestilence and famine, from conflagrations and heavenly signs. There were then, she said, so many multitudes of God's people, suffering and foolish for Christ's sake, that in the churches one could not hear divine singing from their squeak and cry. And a considerable number of them, she said, were counted among the face of heaven: there is Simon, from the Volga forests, who wandered and hid the human eye through wild tracts in one tattered shirt, after that, living in the city, he was beaten every day by citizens for his indecency and died from wounds caused by beatings; there is Procopius, who took incessant torment in the city of Vyatka, at night he ran up to the bell towers and struck the bells often and with alarm, as if during a fiery ignition; there is Procopius, born in the Zyryansk region, among savage hunters, who walked all his life with three pokers in his hands and adored empty places, sad forest shores above Sukhona, where, sitting on a pebble, he prayed with tears for those sailing along it; there is Jacob the Blessed, who sailed in the tomb oak deck along the river Mete to the dark inhabitants of that poor area; there is John Vlasaty, from under Rostov the Great, whose hair was so luxuriant that all who saw him fell into fear; there is John of Vologda, called the Big Cap, small in stature, with a wrinkled face, all hung with crosses, until his death he did not take off his cap, like cast iron; there is Vasily Nagokhodets, who instead of clothes wore both in the winter cold and in the summer pitch only iron chains and a handkerchief in his hand ... “Now, sister,” said Katerina, “they all stand before the Lord, rejoice in the host of his saints, but their relics rest incorruptible in cypress and silver shrines, in holy cathedrals, next to kings and saints!” - “But why didn’t Father Rodion play the fool?” Anna asked again. And Katerina answered that he followed in the footsteps of those who imitated not Isaac, but Sergius of Radonezh, in the footsteps of the forest monasteries. Father Rodion, she said, first saved himself in one ancient and glorious desert, based on those very places where, in the middle of a dense forest, in the hollow of a three-century-old oak, the once great saint lived; there he carried strict obedience and took monastic vows, for his repentant tears and heartlessness to the flesh of the contemplation of the Queen of Heaven herself, withstood the vow of seven years of seclusion and seven years of silence, but he was not content with that either, left the monastery and came - already many, many years ago - to our forests, put on bast bast shoes, a white robe made of sackcloth, a black stole with an eight-pointed cross on it , with the image of the skull and bones of Adam, eats only water and unboiled succulent, blocked the window of his hut with an icon, sleeps in a coffin, under an inextinguishable lamp, and at midnight hours the howling animals, crowds of furious dead and devils are constantly besieging him ...

Fifteen years old, at the very time when a girl should become a bride, Anna left the world.

How she lived there, how she was saved, no one knows in full about that, due to the prescription of time. But still something remained in the people's memory. One day, praying women went from different and distant lands to that forest region where Anna was born. They met at the river through which they had to cross, a habitual wanderer in holy places, in appearance unprepossessing, disheveled, even, just to say, wonderful, his eyes were blindfolded under the old master's bowler hat. They began to ask him about the ways, about the roads to the monastery, about Rodion himself and about Anna. In response, he first spoke to them about himself: I, they say, are sisters, and I myself don’t know God knows what, but I can partly talk with you, because I’m returning from those localities; you, he said, I suppose it’s terrifying with me - and I’m not surprised at this, many are not honey with me: whether he meets on foot, whether on horseback, he sees - a wanderer is walking through the forest, hobbles alone with a white handkerchief over his eyes, and even sings psalms - it’s understandable, he takes it dumbfounded; because of my sins, my eyes are greedy and quick, my eyesight is so rare and piercing that even at night I see like a cat, being generally unreasonably sighted, due to the fact that I do not go with people, but on the sidelines; Well, so I decided to shorten my bodily vision a little ... Then he began to tell how much, according to his calculation, the pilgrims still had to go, what areas they had to follow the path to, where to have overnight stays and rest, and what kind of monastery it was.

“First,” he said, “the village on Svyat-Ozero will come, then the same village where Anna was born, and there you will see another lake, a monastery one, although shallow, but decent, and we will have to sail on this lake in a boat. And as soon as you land, the monastery itself is within easy reach. It is clear that on the other side of the forest there is no end, and through the forest, as usual, the walls of the monastery, the domes of the church, the cells, the hospices look...

Then he spoke for a long time about the life of Rodion, about Anna's childhood and adolescence, at the end he spoke about her stay in the monastery:

“Her stay was, oh, short! - he said. - It's a pity, you say, such beauty and youth? We, the stupid ones, understandably, it's a pity. Yes, it is clear that Father Rodion knew well what he was doing. After all, he was like that with everyone - and affectionate, and meek, and joyful, but persistent to the point of ruthlessness, especially with Aglaya. I, butterflies, was at the place of her rest... A long grave, beautiful, all overgrown with grass, green... And I won’t hide it, I won’t hide it: it was there, on the grave, that I thought of blindfolding myself, it was Aglaya’s example that advised me: after all, you need to know, during her entire stay in the monastery she didn’t raise her eyes for a single hour - as she moved the veil over them, she remained, and she was so stingy with speech, so evasive that even Father Rodion himself marveled at her. But, I suppose, it was not easy for her to lift such a feat - to part with the earth, with a human face forever! And she carried the hardest work in the monastery, and stood idle at night in prayer, But then, they say, her father Rodion loved her! He distinguished her from everyone, daily allowed her into his hut, had long conversations with her about the future glory of the monastery, even revealed his visions to her - understandably, with a strict commandment of silence. Well, here it burned down, like a candle, in the shortest possible time ... Are you sighing again, sorry? I agree: sad! But I will tell you much more: for her great humility, for her neglect of the earthly world, for her silence and unbearable labor, he did something unheard of: at the end of the third year of her feat, he deceived her, and then, through prayer and holy reflection, called her to him in a single terrible hour - and ordered her to die. Yes, so directly and said to her: “My happiness, your time has come! Remain in my memory as beautiful as you are standing in front of me at this hour: go to the Lord! And what do you think? A day later, she passed away. Fell down, blazed with fire - and ended. True, he consoled her - he told her before his death that, since only a small part of his secret conversations she could not hide in the first days of obedience, only her mouth would decay. He granted silver for her funeral, copper for distribution at her burial, a hammer of candles for a magpie on her, a yellow ruble candle for her coffin, and the coffin itself - round, oak, hollowed out. And with his blessing, they put her, thin and with a superbly long sprout, in that coffin with her hair loose, in two shroud shirts, in a white cassock, girded with black hem, and over it - in a black mantle with white crosses; they put a green velvet cap embroidered with gold on the head, a kamilavka on the cap, after that they tied it with a blue shawl with tassels, and put leather beads in the handles ... They removed it, in a word, where it’s so good! And yet, butterflies, there is a tricky, demonic rumor that she didn’t want to die, oh, how she still didn’t want to! Departing in such youth and in such beauty, they say, she said goodbye to everyone in tears, she said loudly to everyone: “Forgive me!” In the end, she closed her eyes and said separately: “And you, Mother Earth, have sinned with soul and body - will you forgive me?” And those words are terrible: bowing down to the ground, they were read in a penitential prayer in ancient Rus' during the evening under the Trinity, under the pagan mermaid day.