Grandma and gasped, instantly jumped from the bed and wringing her hands.
-What are you, dear! Well you done-t?!
-Yes, it's not me.
-And who.? Look-t, ручищи all-tonnes in blood!
"But I say! — I raised voice to grandma little остепенилась. — Ivan saved me. Today at night. Water man.
Bat-тюшки! — Pelageya again threw up her hands. "What's the лихоманка-t marsh-t?
I don't know it me with мосткка threw off and pulled into the maelstrom. Ivan saved.
"Oh, you! So why don-t мостку at night doing-t?!
-Washing...
-Ugh — сплюнула Pelageya Panteleevna. — You are well-t, the simpleton, in such a hard night шатаешься?!
-Yes Ivan went.
-Where?
-In house to Barbara. He asked to wait on the porch. And I was hot. Well, I went to the river to wash. It all happened.
-What Ivan in the house Варовары forgot?
I briefly conveyed only what is asked of her, Ivan, losing not concerning her подробностти about the cemetery and everything else. Pelageya Panteleevna only shook her head, Yes перекрестлась, not finding the answer, then погшла into a room with images, where he stayed for one and a half hours. Appearing otttuda, she said to me:
-Yes, the guy-stripper-t you. Not in your case you got, not his. Tick you-t from here it is necessary. Immediately.
"I can't, Pelageya Panteleevna, — I said to her in a more alienated, official tone. Promised.
-Who promised what he promised-t? "inquired Grandmother.
-Ivan.
Grandma ниченго no answer, only waved a hand, turned and walked away.
"Okay, if that Varvara — I'll help you, but for the rest — himself квитайся.
-And where Alena now?
-At home, probably-t, where else? — Pelageya suddenly bethought. — A-yay-yay, it's her father died! Mount-t, the mount-t what, Ah-Ah-Ah!
She sighed, crossing himself, bustled, засобиралась, took my hand:
-Go to it. where t is he? The bath-t, you say?
Through the village has not yet проснувшуюся, not очнувшуюся from a restless night, on the fog we went to the house of a shepherd, knocked.
Alena opened immediately. Her face was wrinkled and заспанное. I am speechless and couldn't even say Hello, in an instant, placing in my head of what happened last night.
Pelageya pushed forward, entered the porch, and shut the front of my nose door.
Ten minutes later, she came out and asked me:
-Go men gather, Ivan the house include the need to prepare.
"Where could I go? I don't know.
-Go, say, tea, nobody-t Ivan shepherd knows it! When people grief, no one asks who you are. Yes and how can he not know? The whole village saw beside him, poor guy. Go tell-t, go away, " she angrily furrowed her brow, and I instinctively obeyed, ashamed of her words.
I обстучал courtyards, gathered some as three men, one of whom was a friend of the deceased Peter Nicholas. We brought started stiffening and скрючиваться in States such as in the house, where were already waiting for Alena, Pelageya and a few neighbors. The girl was pale, Baba serious and gloomy. See, they often had to celebrate the solemn ceremony, but maybe the presence of evil fate, спустившегося its heavy burden on their quiet, nobody unknown and uninteresting life, which they felt even more clearly than the last time when an absurd death came to Peter, fell on their faces serene, but mask the harsh obedience to his doom.
I pulled Alena for the sleeve out of the room. She did not resist. We went into the yard.
I'm very sorry, " I said Alena, taking her hand. She stood, with his eyes cast down. — Look, I'm not to blame. I would have died to-night, if the — if your father hadn't saved me. But he died not because of me. Anyway, it was something else. Did you see how he wounded?
Alena slightly nodded, but she гляз not raised.
I told her something else, trying to prove that is innocent in death of her father, although he doubted the reality of what was said. Perhaps fatal injuries from which he died, were inflicted on him and in the battle with water man, though something told me that it was only the final episode of the drama, which I observed either in a dream or in a sort of trance through space and time, whether the reality.
I told the girl about the last moments of the life of her father and to spare her nerves, missed the most unpleasant moments and that the barbarian, who was her mother — she knew it or not, is also doomed. At my request send me a weapon and silver bullets, which told me Ivan Noodles, she did not reply at once and thought for a long time, still not looking up about something.
-Why do you need this? They memory of his father, and he kept them, as some valuable things never shown anyone, and I rarely reminded about them.
-Now they need me, Alena, " I replied.
She looked up:
-Really? How they can be useful to you? The fact that silver bullet?
-Yes, exactly this. Thy father asked to give it to me. Not for fun, for the case. Today I have a terrible night, and the silver bullet great to me will help me.
Alena сощурилась.
"It's not whether you shoot with it going.
-Exactly.
The girl snatched my hand and walked into the house. I tried to stop her, but she retorted:
-Listen, I have a mountain, and you're with some rubbish climb.
I don't expect her to do, so always meek and humble, similar words, and literally taken aback for a while. But then shook his head, collected his thoughts and hurried in search of saws, axes and other tools, because the sun is shining, like rush things, hastened to the West, already getting to the Zenith.
The day promised to pass quickly, in feverish preparations, and anxiety.
Ivan said I need to cut myself stake and build осиновую gallows at an abandoned tomb in the corner of the cemetery on the edge of the forest, where I grew up the old oak tree, but to my shame and misery, I don't even know how the most aspen. And besides that it is still necessary to find the black cat and вздернуть it. But as I walked through the village, never seen a black cat no.
Resorting to shameful tricks and tricks, I most fear, QC would I not be exposed suddenly, that I am not familiar with such simple things, inquired of местнгых children, that is an aspen, and where it grows, and then, armed with an axe, went to cut it down.
Go from the village turned out pretty far edge of the swamp, where meanly passing from the solid ground immediately in trickling moisture and step farther almost in the hole, and where обозначившимся open, transparent, but some reddish-rusty water backwaters, the bottom of which was fairly deep, but not promised that will keep pace and not fail, if you step on it.
Swamp was a huge, heavily overgrown with bushes and утыканное birch сухостоем. Now and then heard the gurgling from всплыввающих on the surface of gases, sometimes so strong that might seem somewhere, in the midst of his безбрежья sports and the splashing of the wondrous beast, which stand quagmire.
Finally, I came across something similar with aspen, and after some hesitation slightly cut some trees, cut their trunks and took on the shoulder and walked back to the village.
When I walked to the edge of the forest, примыкавшую its угллом to the bridge over the river from swamps, heavy чечеру, and this has spurred me how good возжи stallion. I rushed into the village over in the grass at the fringes of the aspen logs, not to attract attention.
In the house of Alena and her deceased father still fussing, bringing back the body. Someone has already cut the tendons and pulled those members of the body of the shepherd, and Ivan Noodles now lay in an empty room on the table, standing in the middle, dressed up all in my underwear, clean, with a candle in his hand. His features заострились, nose, snapped to attention, and the hair and the nails of the fingers have grown strongly. Here was the least of the people. Other женщимны dealt in other rooms of the house.
Alena was sitting on a chair opposite the headboard and silently looking through the surrounding her in the distant world of his thoughts and dreams. However, judging from her expression, there, in that distant world was nothing but a detachment. I sat down on an empty chair.
-Alenka, " said me by accident, because she seemed to not notice me, approaching evening ahead of me rough night. Your father, I involuntarily glanced up at lying before us corpse, прибранный in my underwear with воткнутой in the hands of a candle, " he asked you to give me his gun and the silver bullet. This is very important.
The girl did not answer at first, then opened her mouth, but the second surprised me not smaller than the first one. At first I thought that Alena оглохла, then, that she lost her mind.
-Well, here you bury them according to all the rules, " the girl said. — In large Василихе would not have suffered so with a candle in hand, a dead man was lying. It would selsovet came and the police. And here is good: the wilderness, and bury you can.
-What Peter then so should not be buried?
-Not wanted.
-And your father's want?
-Wanted to — I wanted to. It in the Testament написанобыло to him buried in all the Orthodox Christian customs and traditions. I today Testament read, and we have so is not usual to the last will of the deceased to cease.
-What your father even Testament wrote? He knew that he would die?
-All ever die. And the clever people write Testament in advance.
But what about the neighbours? They consider him a fool. As they took his will?
"All things considered. It is, and all. And, in General, leave me alone. I ask you to do.
-Well, just give me the gun and the bullets, and I'm gone.
Alena округлила eyes, as if she had heard for the first time such a request.
Is a family heirloom. The why should I give him?
-But I have to...
-I don't want to hear anything! For what it may need such a weapon? You know how much it cost?!
I'll bring him back. Tomorrow morning you get it, — I felt: the ratio of Alyona to me changed sharply, and if previously she was kind and affable, Yes andnot refused me in this matter, now from the speech it felt cold, heartlessness, and detachment. Ill guess that is, apparently, the impact of barbarians, which clearly intensified now ceased to be a counterbalance to it together with the death of Ivan Noodles, flashed in my head, and, as if catching смои thoughts, the girl said:
-You probably this gun to kill her, my mother?! — her eyes lighted by an evil spark, which I had never seen her, but one day the same gleam I watched a witch, its dark as night, Shine.
-You that, Alena?! — I wanted to add: "God is with you," but stopped short.
-I feel. I know of. Speak out, what do you need it.
"Okay, then give me at least a silver cross, — at first I forgot about him at all.
Credit-eats. Oh, what захоте-ate, Yes you got me right to Rob the fatherless, will you, huh?
It was unthinkable, and it was clear that no cross, no gun I can't see. I decided to make one last attempt to reason with her:
-Alena, listen. Just this morning I would have to leave your village and never come back, but... I promised to your father do before the end of his case, and that's why I stayed, stayed to meet those against which it fought...
"Does he struggled with something?! — Alena дурашливо smiled, than made in my soul stirred up feeling uncomfortable. Ha! I never knew! His case... Yes he has one thing to cattle to graze. If you want, tomorrow you will go to pasture instead. Only I don't know, why would you stay there. Ha.
To continue the conversation going was useless. I left the house and walked slowly back across the curve of the village street, ныряющей on пригоркам. Already at the house Barbara I heard someone's rapid steps, and turned, saw me catching Alena. She mysteriously smiled at the girl's arms was a big tarnished from time to time, silver cross, flecked with inscriptions and ornaments, on which lay a sculptural image of the crucifixion of Christ, and the same old gun, similar to the musket last century, with silicon ardour, cast heavy barrel', decorated with ornaments, and a large wooden handle, clumsy and only slightly subsided.
In the hope that with Alyona again happened change, I stopped, waited for her at the entrance of ддвор Barbara and when she came closer, his hand towards it, but девушкка suddenly turned to ддому ведьмячки, and an involuntary movement I had to open the gate.
"I'll take this to the mother, abandoned, passing by, девушкак. — Here it is safer to be maintained, and in the evening father will burial, people собберется much. Steal, look.
I only mouth opened in surprise. The girl was in the house.
Time passed already four o'clock, and I almost physically felt the ruin plans to prepare for the fight. Little of what is known to me was what was ahead, but what should have been done, 't work.
I walked into the house. Pelageya was not. Thoughts in my head spun disorderly in a circle. I раздирало the two. My whole being felt terrible danger, hanging over my life. My soul was torn away from the village, but the duty of the promise given to Ivan, forced to stay and go to the cemetery. At least I had a wooden stake, Yes, and hangman was almost ready. Only had to look for somewhere black cat, Yes cut and burn oak at the grave in a corner of the garden.
Whatever happened, I decided to make something that promised to Ivan Noodles.
Quickly grew dark. I got out of the house into the street, almost running sprinted to the other end of the village, where at the fringes of the left aspen stakes.
To the house of Ivan stretched Noodles villagers, singly, in pairs, threes, frowning all, thoughtful. From the forest on the other side of marshy plain, jumped machine, jeep "UAZ", passed on a curve of the mound, and jumped over the bridge, jumped up on a hill at the entrance to the village and creaked brakes at the gate to the courtyard of the shepherd. I was under the hill, and turned, saw Kaak of the car in black frocks climbed pop with a long white beard and дьяконс незажженным censer, which loose in his hand.
"Where to find the black cat? — painfully I mused, mechanically watching pop crossed the yard to the house of Ivan Noodles, deacon просеменил after him, trying not to step in a puddle and rising above the mud floor of the black caftan pop and old women, расступившись, missed a priest to the house, they bowed to him and quickly crossing himself. — Where to take the black cat?"
Out Василихи to the forest, which had a cemetery, I saw постреленка of five or six, возившегося alone in a roadside ditch and something made in the muck, взболтанной from a puddle.
"Hey, what are you doing? — I went to him, put a bunch of претьев on the ground and stroked мальченку on белобрысой, dirty mind, hair which hung straight icicles.
