“Long ago, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street. He worked in a forge on the main Moscow road... as an assistant to the chief blacksmith...”

Blind and weak, he carried water, coal, inflated bellows - in a word, wherever he was sent.

His name was Efim, but people called him Yushka.

He lived in a blacksmith’s apartment and was fed bread, cabbage soup and porridge. They also paid him a salary so that he could buy himself sugar, tea and clothes. But Yushka drank water and wore clothes long years the same one without a shift, black and grimy from work. Barefoot in summer, wearing the same pair of felt boots in winter.

He went to work early - the old people used it to wake up the young, and returned late - Yushka was coming home from work, which meant it was time for everyone to sleep.

The children teased Yushka, threw sticks and clods of earth at him and were angry that he did not chase them and did not scold them.

Strangely he answered 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.

Parents told disobedient children: “When you grow up, you will be like Yushka.”

Adults also offended Yushka, and when they got drunk, they even beat him.

The blacksmith's daughter lifted him out of the way and said:

It would be better if you died, Yushka.

But Yushka did not want to die - since he was born to live. And he also believed that his people loved him, but they just loved him without a clue.

In July or August, Yushka put a knapsack with bread on his shoulders and left the city. He admired the sky, the grass, kissed the flowers and stroked the trees. In nature, his illness - consumption - receded.

“But year after year Yushka grew weaker and weaker, so the time of his life passed and passed and chest illness tormented his body and exhausted him. IN -one summer When the time was already approaching for Yushka to go to his distant village, he did not go anywhere. He wandered, as usual, in the evening, already dark, from the forge to the owner for the night. A cheerful passerby who knew Yushka laughed at him:

Why are you trampling our land, God’s scarecrow! If only you were dead, it would be more fun without you, otherwise I’m afraid of getting bored...

Why am I bothering you? Why am I bothering you!.. I was ordered to live by my parents, I was born by law, the whole world needs me too, just like you, without me too, that means it’s impossible!”

This passer-by became angry with Yushka and pushed him in the chest. He fell on the road and never got up again.

“He’s dead,” the carpenter sighed. - Goodbye, Yushka, and forgive us all. People rejected you, and who is your judge!..

All the people, old and young, came to the body of the deceased to say goodbye to him, all the people who knew Yushka, and made fun of him, and tormented him during his life.

Then Yushka was buried and forgotten. However, without Yushka, people’s lives became worse. Now all the anger and mockery remained among the people and wasted among them, because there was no Yushka, who unrequitedly endured all other people’s evil, bitterness, ridicule and ill will.”

And after some time she came to this area young girl and said that Yushka (she called him Efim Dmitrievich) placed an orphan completely alien to him in a boarding school and once a year came to her in Moscow to visit her and brought money earned for the year.

At the cemetery, “the girl fell to the ground in which lay the dead Yushka, the man who had fed her since childhood, who had never eaten sugar, so that she would eat it.

She knew what Yushka was sick with, and now she herself has completed her studies as a doctor and came here to treat the one who loved her more than anything in the world and whom she herself loved with all the warmth and light of her heart...

A lot of time has passed since then. The girl doctor remained forever in our city. She began working in a hospital for consumptives, she went to houses where there were tuberculosis patients, and did not charge anyone for her work.

Now she herself has also grown old, but still all day long she heals and comforts sick people, without tiring of quenching suffering and delaying death from the weakened. And everyone in the city knows her, calling her the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.”

Andrey Platonovich Platonov

"Yushka"

A long time ago, in a forge along a large Moscow road, there lived a man. He worked as a blacksmith's assistant and did all the hard work. This man's name was Efim, but everyone called him Yushka. Yushka was short, thin, with sparse gray hair on his head. The owner fed the assistant for his work, but Yushka never spent his own salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks, and did not buy sugar or tea. I wore the same clothes for years without changing.

People treated Yushka evilly. Children threw stones and clods of earth in his face, childish cruelty towards the blacksmith's assistant flourished only because Yushka never responded to aggression, which means that you could do whatever you wanted with him. Adults also loved to take their anger out on Yushka. Because of his meekness, the people became even more brutal and beat him harder and harder. Since childhood, Efim suffered from consumption, this disease weakened him and ate him from the inside, which is why the blacksmith’s assistant was so weak.

Every summer Yushka left the city to visit his relatives. Along the way, he breathed in the grass and forest air, then his tormented lungs at least for a short time received rest from the smoke of the forge. Then Yushka returned to the forge and worked from morning to evening, saving money for the next summer. Every year children and adults mocked Yefim, every year consumption ate away at his chest more and more, every year Yushka grew weaker.

And then one day he no longer had the strength to go to visit his relatives. Another passer-by decided to attack Yushka, but for the first time in his life Efim fought back his offender. An angry passer-by hit Yushka hard in the chest. He fell to the ground and didn’t move again. A passing acquaintance realized that Efim had died. The blacksmith's assistant was buried and forgotten. But without a scapegoat in the person of Yushka, the townspeople began to live worse, because all their anger now circulated between them, resulting in conflicts and fights.

And then in the fall a young girl came to the forge, looking for Efim Dmitrievich. The blacksmith showed the girl Efim’s grave. The meek, sad girl was the adopted daughter of Yushka, who took her in many years ago. He visited her every summer, and Efim took all the money he had saved to his daughter so that she could study. The girl graduated from her studies and became a doctor; she treated consumptives free of charge until her old age.

Essays

Current page: 1 (book has 1 pages in total)

Andrey Platonovich Platonov
Yushka

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 you could see him white body, and barefoot, in winter he put on a sheepskin coat over his blouse, which he inherited from his deceased father, and shod his feet 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 then Yushka went 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 goes 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 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 didn’t scold them, take a twig and chase them, like everyone else 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? You will not? 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, 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.

end of introductory fragment

Attention! This is an introductory fragment of the book.

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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. Main character works, 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 don’t 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’s hearts can be blind.”

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 away, 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 and people just as he loves. And the girl adopts his science, then helping the whole city.

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Average rating: 4.3. Total ratings received: 778.

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 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? You will not? 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.”