Platonov Andrey

Andrey Platonov

Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on a large Moscow road; he worked as an assistant to the chief blacksmith, because he could not see well with his eyes and had little strength in his hands. He carried water, sand and coal to the forge, fanned the furnace with fur, held the hot iron on the anvil with tongs while the chief blacksmith forged it, brought the horse into the machine to forge it, and did any other work that needed to be done. His name was Efim, but all the people called him Yushka. He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face, instead of a mustache and beard, sparse gray hairs grew separately; His eyes were white, like a blind man’s, and there was always moisture in them, like never-cooling tears.

Yushka lived in the apartment of the owner of the forge, in the kitchen. In the morning he went to the forge, and in the evening he went back to spend the night. The owner fed him for his work with bread, cabbage soup and porridge, and Yushka had his own tea, sugar and clothes; he must buy them for his salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. But Yushka didn’t drink tea or buy sugar, he drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years without changing: in the summer he wore trousers and a blouse, black and sooty from work, burned through by sparks, so that in several places his white body was visible, and he was barefoot; in winter, over his blouse, he put on a sheepskin coat, which he had inherited from his deceased father, and his feet were shod in felt boots, which he had been hemming since the fall, and wore the same pair every winter all his life.

When Yushka walked down the street to the forge early in the morning, the old men and women got up and said that Yushka had already gone to work, it was time to get up, and they woke up the young people. And in the evening, when Yushka went to spend the night, people said that it was time to have dinner and go to bed - and Yushka had already gone to bed.

And small children and even those who became teenagers, seeing old Yushka walking quietly, stopped playing in the street, ran after Yushka and shouted:

There comes Yushka! There's Yushka!

The children picked up dry branches, pebbles, and rubbish from the ground in handfuls and threw them at Yushka.

Yushka! - the children shouted. - Are you really Yushka?

The old man did not answer the children and was not offended by them; he walked as quietly as before, and did not cover his face, into which pebbles and earthen debris fell.

The children were surprised that Yushka was alive and was not angry with them. And they called out to the old man again:

Yushka, are you true or not?

Then the children again threw objects from the ground at him, ran up to him, touched him and pushed him, not understanding why he did not scold them, take a twig and chase them, as all big people do. The children did not know another person like him, and they thought - is Yushka really alive? Having touched Yushka with their hands or hit him, they saw that he was hard and alive.

Then the children again pushed Yushka and threw clods of earth at him, he had better be angry, since he really lives in the world. But Yushka walked and was silent. Then the children themselves began to get angry with Yushka. They were bored and it was not good to play if Yushka was always silent, did not scare them and did not chase them. And they pushed the old man even harder and shouted around him so that he would respond to them with evil and cheer them up. Then they would run away from him and, in fear, in joy, would again tease him from afar and call him to them, then running away to hide in the dusk of the evening, in the canopy of houses, in the thickets of gardens and vegetable gardens. But Yushka did not touch them and did not answer them.

When the children stopped Yushka altogether or hurt him too much, he told them:

What are you doing, my dears, what are you doing, little ones!.. You must love me!.. Why do you all need me?.. Wait, don’t touch me, you got into my eyes, I can’t see.

The children did not hear or understand him. They still pushed Yushka and laughed at him. They were happy that they could do whatever they wanted with him, but he didn’t do anything to them.

Yushka was also happy. He knew why the children laughed at him and tormented him. He believed that children loved him, that they needed him, only they did not know how to love a person and did not know what to do for love, and therefore they tormented him.

At home, fathers and mothers reproached their children when they did not study well or did not obey their parents: “You will be just like Yushka!” You will grow up and walk barefoot in the summer, and in thin felt boots in the winter, and everyone will torment you, and have tea with You won’t drink sugar, just water!”

Elderly adults, meeting Yushka on the street, also sometimes offended him. Adults had angry grief or resentment, or they were drunk, then their hearts were filled with fierce rage. Seeing Yushka going to the forge or to the yard for the night, an adult said to him:

Why are you walking around here so blissfully and unlike you? What do you think is so special?

Yushka stopped, listened and was silent in response.

You don't have any words, you're such an animal! You live simply and honestly, as I live, and don’t think anything secretly! Tell me, will you live the way you should? Won't you? Aha!.. Well okay!

And after a conversation during which Yushka was silent, the adult became convinced that Yushka was to blame for everything, and immediately beat him. Because of Yushka’s meekness, an adult became embittered and spoiled him more than he wanted at first, and in this evil he forgot his grief for a while.

Yushka then lay in the dust on the road for a long time. When he woke up, he got up on his own, and sometimes the daughter of the owner of the forge came for him, she picked him up and took him away with her.

It would be better if you died, Yushka,” said the owner’s daughter. - Why do you live?

Yushka looked at her in surprise. He did not understand why he should die when he was born to live.

“It was my father and mother who gave birth to me, it was their will,” Yushka answered, “I can’t die, and I’m helping your father in the forge.”

If only someone else could take your place, what a helper!

People love me, Dasha!

Dasha laughed.

Now you have blood on your cheek, and last week your ear was torn, and you say - the people love you!..

“He loves me without a clue,” said Yushka. - People's hearts can be blind.

Their hearts are blind, but their eyes are sighted! - Dasha said. - Go quickly, or something! They love you according to your heart, but they beat you according to their calculations.

Out of calculation, they are angry with me, it’s true,” Yushka agreed. They don’t tell me to walk on the street and they mutilate my body.

Oh, Yushka, Yushka! - Dasha sighed. - But you, my father said, are not old yet!

How old I am!.. I have suffered from breast problems since childhood, it was because of my illness that I made a mistake in appearance and became old...

Due to this illness, Yushka left his owner for a month every summer. He went on foot to a remote remote village, where he must have had relatives. Nobody knew who they were to him.

Even Yushka himself forgot, and one summer he said that his widowed sister lived in the village, and the next that his niece was there. Sometimes he said that he was going to the village, and other times that he was going to Moscow itself. And people thought that Yushka’s beloved daughter lived in a distant village, as kind and unnecessary to people as her father.

In July or August, Yushka put a knapsack with bread on his shoulders and left our city. On the way, he breathed the fragrance of grasses and forests, looked at the white clouds born in the sky, floating and dying in the bright airy warmth, listened to the voice of the rivers muttering on the stone rifts, and Yushka’s sore chest rested, he no longer felt his illness - consumption. Having gone far away, where it was completely deserted, Yushka no longer hid his love for living beings. He bent down to the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to breathe on them so that they would not be spoiled by his breath, he stroked the bark of the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles from the path that had fallen dead, and peered at their faces for a long time, feeling himself without them orphaned. But living birds sang in the sky, dragonflies, beetles and hard-working grasshoppers made cheerful sounds in the grass, and therefore Yushka’s soul was light, the sweet air of flowers smelling of moisture and sunlight entered his chest.

On the way, Yushka rested. He sat in the shade of a road tree and dozed in peace and warmth. Having rested and caught his breath in the field, he no longer remembered the illness and walked on cheerfully, as healthy person. Yushka was forty years old, but illness had long tormented him and aged him before his time, so that he seemed decrepit to everyone.

And so every year Yushka left through fields, forests and rivers to a distant village or to Moscow, where someone was waiting for him or no one was waiting - no one in the city knew about this.

Platonov wrote the story “Yushka” in the 30s of the twentieth century. In literature, the author’s works are usually considered within the framework of Russian cosmism, a philosophical movement whose central ideas were theses about the integral nature of the universe, the cosmic destiny of man, and the harmony of existence.

In the story “Yushka” Platonov touches on the themes of universal love and compassion. The main character of the work, the holy fool Yushka, becomes the embodiment of human kindness and mercy.

Main characters

Yushka (Efim Dmitrievich)- “forty years old”, “illness has long tormented him and made him old before his time”; worked as a blacksmith's assistant for twenty-five years; He was offended by both children and adults.

Yushka's daughter- an orphan girl whom Yushka helped to study; became a doctor.

Blacksmith- Yushka worked as an assistant for him.

“Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street.” He worked as an assistant in a forge, as he had poor vision and “had little strength in his hands.” The man helped carry sand, coal, water to the forge, fanned the forge and did other auxiliary work.

The man's name was Efim, but all the people called him Yushka. “He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face” “sparse gray hairs grew separately; his eyes were white, like those of a blind man.”

For his work, the blacksmith fed him and also gave him a salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. However, Yushka hardly spent any money - he didn’t drink tea with sugar, and “he wore the same clothes for many years.”

When Yushka went to work early in the morning, everyone understood that it was time to get up. And when he returned in the evening, it was time to have dinner and go to bed.

Everyone in the city offended Yushka. As the man walked down the street, children threw stones and branches at him. Yushka did not swear, did not take offense at them and did not even cover his face. The children “rejoiced that they could do whatever they wanted with him.” Yushka didn’t understand why they were torturing him. “He believed that children loved him,” “only they do not know how to love, and therefore they torment him.”

Parents, scolding their children, said: “You will be just like Yushka!” .

Sometimes drunk adults began to scold and beat Yushka severely. He endured everything in silence and “then lay in the dust for a long time on the road.” Then the blacksmith’s daughter came for him and, picking him up, asked Yushka why he was living - it would be better if he had already died. But the man was surprised every time: “why would he die when he was born to live.” Yushka was sure that although the people beat him, they loved him: “People have blind hearts.”

Yushka “suffered from breastfeeding” since childhood; consumption made him look much older than his age. Every summer, in July or August, he went to the village. No one knew why, they only guessed that his daughter lived there somewhere.

Going out of the city, Yushka “breathed the fragrance of herbs and forests,” here he did not feel the consumption that tormented him. Having gone far, he “bent down to the ground and kissed the flowers,” “raised butterflies and beetles from the path that had fallen dead,” “feeling orphaned without them.”

A month later he returned and again “worked from morning to evening in the forge” and again people “tormented” him. And again he waited for the summer, took with him the accumulated “one hundred rubles” and left.

However, the illness tormented Yushka more and more, so one summer he stayed in the city. Once, when a man was walking down the street, a “cheerful passerby” began to touch him, asking when Yushka would die. Always meekly silent, Yushka suddenly became angry and said that since he was “born according to the law,” then without him, like without a passer-by, “the whole world cannot do it.”

The passer-by immediately became indignant that Yushka dared to level him with himself, and hit the man hard in the chest. Yushka fell, “turned face down and didn’t move or get up anymore.” A carpenter found Yushka dead: “Farewell, Yushka, and forgive us all. People rejected you, and who is your judge!..” All the people who tormented him during his life came to Yushka’s funeral.

“They buried Yushka and forgot him.” But people began to live worse without him - now all the anger and mockery that they took out on Yushka “remained among the people and was spent among them.”

In late autumn, a girl came to the blacksmith and asked where to find Efim Dmitrievich. She said that she was an orphan, and Yushka placed her little one “with a family in Moscow, then sent her to a boarding school.” Every year he came to visit her, bringing money so that she could live and study. Now she has already graduated from the university, having studied to be a doctor, and came herself, since Efim Dmitrievich did not come to visit her this summer.

The girl remained in the city and began working in a hospital for consumptives, helping sick people for free. “And everyone knows her, calling her the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.”

Conclusion

In Platonov’s story “Yushka,” the holy fool Efim is depicted as a kind and warm-hearted person. Despite the fact that everyone in the city offends him, taking out all their anger on him, the man endures all the bullying. Yushka understands that without him the world would be worse, that he has his own special purpose in life. After the death of the holy fool, his kindness is embodied in his adopted daughter. Taking care of the little orphan, Yushka teaches her to love the world around us and people the same way he loves. And the girl adopts his science, then helping the whole city.

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Retelling rating

Average rating: 4.3. Total ratings received: 2328.

Retelling plan

1. Who is Yushka. His portrait.
2. Children’s attitude towards Yushka.
3. The anger of adults at the sight of Yushka.
4. Conversation between Yushka and the daughter of the owner of the forge, Dasha.
5. Yushka’s annual vacation.
6. The death of this person.
7. A girl comes to the town and asks for Efim Dmitrievich.
8. She stays in the city and treats people with tuberculosis all her life.

Retelling and brief description works

Heroes of the story: Efim (nicknamed Yushka), a blacksmith, his daughter Dasha, an orphan girl (Yushka’s pupil). The author, in a lengthy exposition, describes Yushka’s appearance, usual activities and character. The climax is the moment when Yushka speaks out in his own defense for the first time and dies from a brutal blow to the chest. The denouement is the arrival of Yushka’s pupil, who talks about herself.

Yushka is the blacksmith's assistant, he does all the work at hand. He looks like an old man: small in stature, thin, has poor vision, he has weak hands, he is only forty years old, but the “chest disease” consumption (tuberculosis) has undermined his strength since childhood. His name is Efim, but all the people, young and old, call him Yushka. He lives in the blacksmith's house. The owner feeds him for his work with bread, cabbage soup and porridge. He must buy sugar, tea and clothes for himself. However, the hero of the story does not spend his meager salary (7 rubles 60 kopecks per month) on anything.

He works from dawn to dusk. His appearance on the streets of the town in the morning and evening serves as a sign to people that either it’s time for everyone to get up and get to work, or it’s time to go to bed.

The children are happy when they see Yushka, but their joy quickly gives way to anger. Why doesn't he behave like other people? The children would have fun if they either attacked the angry Yushka or ran away from him. Adults, like children, throw out “their evil grief and resentment” on this person who is unlike them. And the unrequited Yushka, beaten, suffering from people’s malice, says that people love him very much, they just don’t know how to express this love. He says that “people’s hearts can be blind,” preventing them from understanding who a person really loves, so that they can do only good to the one they love.

Yushka goes somewhere for a month every year. Platonov shows his hero away from people, on the way to another city. Where no one torments or torments him, he almost does not feel his terrible illness. “Yushka no longer hid his love for living beings. He bent down to the ground and kissed the flowers... he stroked the bark of the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles from the path.”

No one knows exactly where and to whom he carries his earned money in a bag in his bosom. Only after Yushka’s death do we learn that all his savings were intended for an orphan girl who was not even his relative. The people around him believed that this man’s life was devoid of any meaning, because he didn’t tell anyone anything. This man, so worthless and pitiful in the eyes of other people, modestly and quietly did his good deed. Only once did he rebel, saying in his defense: “I was ordered to live by my parents, I was born by law, the whole world needs me too... It means it’s impossible without me.”

After Yushka’s death, life for people in the town becomes worse. Now no one unrequitedly takes on their anger, and it is spent between people. The girl, Yushka’s pupil, “heals and comforts sick people, without tiring of quenching suffering and delaying death from the weakened.” So Yushka’s selfless love for people continued to do its good work even after his death.

About the great power of love, A. Platonov said this: “The love of one person can bring to life a talent in another person, or at least awaken him to action. I know this miracle..."

Good books about sincere people who are ready for self-sacrifice touch the soul, teach decency and compassion. Such is the story of A.P. Platonov “Yushka”. A brief summary of the short story will introduce readers to this extraordinary creation.

The main character of the story

Andrei Platonovich Platonov wrote this amazing story in 1935. The author narrates in the first person, so the reader seems to know the main character of the work well.

His name was Efim, but everyone called him Yushka. This man looked old. There was already little strength in his hands, and his vision was failing - the man saw poorly. He worked in a forge on a large road that stretched towards Moscow - he carried out feasible tasks. Efim carried coal, water, sand, and fanned the forge with bellows. He also had other duties at the forge. This is how Yushka worked.

He lived with the owner of the forge in the apartment. He went to work early in the morning and came back late in the evening. For the good performance of his duties, the owner fed him porridge, cabbage soup, and bread. Yushka had to buy tea, sugar, and clothes with his salary, which was 7 rubles 60 kopecks.

How a blacksmith's assistant dressed

He didn't allow himself to spend money. Why? You will learn about this at the very end of the story “Yushka”. A brief summary of the work makes it possible to better examine the depth of this person’s soul. An elderly man drank water instead of sweet tea. He constantly refused to buy new clothes, so I always wore the same thing. In the summer, his poor wardrobe consisted of a blouse and trousers, which over time became heavily smoked and burned by sparks. The hero of the story did not have summer shoes, so in the warm season he always walked barefoot.

The winter wardrobe was the same, only over the shirt the blacksmith’s assistant wore an old sheepskin coat, inherited from his father. On my feet were felt boots, which also had holes from time to time. But every autumn they were hemmed by the tireless Yushka.

Bullying a resigned person

Perhaps only the blacksmith and his daughter treated Yefim kindly. The rest of the town's residents took out all their accumulated anger on the generous man. Children were also unkind, out of boredom or because they learned this from adults. Andrei Platonov (“Yushka”) describes such scenes in his work. The summary of the story, namely the episodes presented below, draws the reader’s attention to this bleak moment.

When Efim passed by children and teenagers on their way to work or back, they ran up to him and began throwing earth, sticks, and stones at the middle-aged man. They were surprised that he never scolded them for what they had done, so they tried their best to piss Yushka off.

The old man was silent. When people caused him severe pain, he spoke to them kindly, calling them “darlings” and “relatives.” He was sure that they loved him, they needed him, since they attracted attention in this way. Efim thought that children simply do not know how to express their love in any other way, so they do this.

Adults who met Yushka on the street called him blessed and often beat him for no reason. He fell to the ground and could not get up for a long time. After some time, the blacksmith’s daughter came for Yefim, helped him get up and took him home. The reader can meet such a hero, who makes you sympathize and reconsider your views on life, in the story “Yushka” (Platonov). The summary of the work moves on to pleasant episodes in the life of this harmless man.

Efim and nature

To understand how open-hearted, sincere, capable of loving living things he was main character works, the next part of the story helps.

Yefim walked for a long time, through forests, rivers and fields. When he found himself in nature, he was transformed. After all, Yushka suffered from consumption (tuberculosis), which is why he was so thin and exhausted. But, having dozed on a stump in the shade of the trees, he woke up rested. It seemed to him that the illness had subsided, and this man walked further with vigorous steps.

It turns out that Efim was only 40 years old, he looked so bad due to illness. Once a year, Yushka was entitled to leave, so in July or August he took a knapsack with bread and went somewhere for a month, saying at the same time that he was going to see his relatives in a distant village or going to Moscow itself.

The story “Yushka” tells how reverently a person can treat all living things. A brief summary, namely some of the most striking episodes of the work, introduces readers to this rare phenomenon today.

Knowing that no one could see him, Yefim knelt down to the ground and kissed it, breathing in deeply. unique aroma flowers. He picked up insects that did not move, looked at them and was sad that they were not alive.

But the forests and fields were full of sounds. Insects chirped and birds sang here. It was so good that the man stopped being upset and moved on. It should be noted that such touching moments make the reader better understand the broad soul of such an unusual person as Yushka.

Platonov ( summary The story will not be silent about this either) decides to end his work with a rather tragic moment, which makes many of us rethink our entire lives.

They killed Yushka

A month later, Efim returned back to the city and continued to work. One evening he was walking home. He met a man who began pestering him with stupid conversations. Probably for the first time in his life, the blacksmith's assistant decided to answer the stranger. But the interlocutor did not like his words, although they were harmless, and the passer-by hit Yushka in the chest, and he himself went home to drink tea.

The fallen man never got up again. A furniture workshop worker walked past, leaned over Yushka and realized that he had died.

The owner of the forge and his daughter buried Efim with dignity, in a Christian manner.

Named daughter

This is how Yushka died. The very brief summary of the story continues with an unexpected visit to the girl’s forge. She came in the fall and asked to call Efim Dmitrievich. The blacksmith did not immediately understand that she was talking about Yushka. He told the girl what happened. He asked who she was related to this man.

The girl replied that she was an orphan, and Efim Dmitrievich was not related to her. He took care of the girl from childhood, once a year he brought her the money he had saved up for living and studying.

Thanks to him, she graduated from university and became a doctor. And now she came to cure the person dear to her, but it was too late.

However, the girl did not leave the city; she began working here in a tuberculosis hospital, visiting the homes of all those in need for free, and treating them.

Even when she grew old, she did not stop helping people. In the city they nicknamed her the daughter of the good Yushka, realizing too late what an extraordinary and pure soul the man they had destroyed was.

Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on a large Moscow road; he worked as an assistant to the chief blacksmith, because he could not see well with his eyes and had little strength in his hands. He carried water, sand and coal to the forge, fanned the furnace with fur, held the hot iron on the anvil with tongs while the chief blacksmith forged it, brought the horse into the machine to forge it, and did any other work that needed to be done. His name was Efim, but all the people called him Yushka. He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face, instead of a mustache and beard, sparse gray hairs grew separately; His eyes were white, like a blind man’s, and there was always moisture in them, like never-cooling tears.
Yushka lived in the apartment of the owner of the forge, in the kitchen. In the morning he went to the forge, and in the evening he went back to spend the night. The owner fed him for his work with bread, cabbage soup and porridge, and Yushka had his own tea, sugar and clothes; he must buy them for his salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. But Yushka didn’t drink tea or buy sugar, he drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years without changing: in the summer he wore trousers and a blouse, black and sooty from work, burned through by sparks, so that in several places his white body was visible, and he was barefoot; in winter, he put on a sheepskin coat over his blouse, which he inherited from his deceased father, and his feet were shod in felt boots, which he hemmed in the fall, and wore the same pair every winter all his life.
When Yushka walked down the street to the forge early in the morning, the old men and women got up and said that Yushka had already gone to work, it was time to get up, and they woke up the young people. And in the evening, when Yushka went to spend the night, people said that it was time to have dinner and go to bed - and Yushka had already gone to bed.
And small children and even those who became teenagers, seeing old Yushka walking quietly, stopped playing in the street, ran after Yushka and shouted:
- There comes Yushka! There's Yushka!
The children picked up dry branches, pebbles, and rubbish from the ground in handfuls and threw them at Yushka.
- Yushka! - the children shouted. - Are you really Yushka?
The old man did not answer the children and was not offended by them; he walked as quietly as before, and did not cover his face, into which pebbles and earthen debris fell.
The children were surprised that Yushka was alive and was not angry with them. And they called out to the old man again:
- Yushka, are you true or not?
Then the children again threw objects from the ground at him, ran up to him, touched him and pushed him, don’t understand why he didn’t scold them, take a twig and chase them, like all big people do. The children did not know another person like him, and they thought - is Yushka really alive? Having touched Yushka with their hands or hit him, they saw that he was hard and alive.
Then the children again pushed Yushka and threw clods of earth at him - he’d better be angry, since he really lives in the world. But Yushka walked and was silent. Then the children themselves began to get angry with Yushka. They were bored and it was not good to play if Yushka was always silent, did not scare them and did not chase them. And they pushed the old man even harder and shouted around him so that he would respond to them with evil and cheer them up. Then they would run away from him and, in fear, in joy, would again tease him from afar and call him to them, then running away to hide in the darkness of the evening, in the canopy of houses, in the thickets of gardens and vegetable gardens. But Yushka did not touch them and did not answer them.
When the children stopped Yushka altogether or hurt him too much, he told them:
- What are you doing, my dears, what are you doing, little ones! . You must love me!. . Why do you all need me? . Wait, don’t touch me, you hit me with dirt in my eyes, I can’t see.
The children did not hear or understand him. They still pushed Yushka and laughed at him. They were happy that they could do whatever they wanted with him, but he didn’t do anything to them.
Yushka was also happy. He knew why the children laughed at him and tormented him. He believed that children loved him, that they needed him, only they did not know how to love a person and did not know what to do for love, and therefore they tormented him.
At home, fathers and mothers reproached their children when they did not study well or did not obey their parents: “Now you will be the same as Yushka! “You will grow up and walk barefoot in the summer and in thin felt boots in the winter, and everyone will torment you, and you will not drink tea with sugar, but only water!”
Elderly adults, meeting Yushka on the street, also sometimes offended him. Adults had angry grief or resentment, or they were drunk, then their hearts were filled with fierce rage. Seeing Yushka going to the forge or to the yard for the night, an adult said to him:
-Why are you walking around here so blessed and unlikeable? What do you think is so special?
Yushka stopped, listened and was silent in response.
- You don’t have any words, you’re such an animal! You live simply and honestly, as I live, and don’t think anything secretly! Tell me, will you live the way you should? Won't you? Aha!. . OK!
And after a conversation during which Yushka was silent, the adult became convinced that Yushka was to blame for everything, and immediately beat him. Because of Yushka’s meekness, the adult became embittered and beat him more than he wanted at first, and in this evil he forgot his grief for a while.
Yushka then lay in the dust on the road for a long time. When he woke up, he got up on his own, and sometimes the daughter of the owner of the forge came for him, she picked him up and took him away with her.
“It would be better if you died, Yushka,” said the owner’s daughter. - Why do you live?
Yushka looked at her in surprise. He did not understand why he should die when he was born to live.
“It was my father and mother who gave birth to me, it was their will,” Yushka answered, “I can’t die, and I’m helping your father in the forge.”