In a small town, on one of the streets lived a holy fool, whom everyone called Yushka. He suffered from consumption, but still worked in a forge and received a small salary. Both children and adults offended him and often beat him. Once a year he went away for a whole month in an unknown direction. One day he was beaten by a random passer-by, after which Yushka died. After some time, a girl arrived and said that she was an orphan, but thanks to Yushka, she was assigned to a boarding school and was able to study to become a doctor. Once a year he took her all the money he earned at the forge. In gratitude to him, she stayed in this town to treat people.
A long time ago, in the old days, in one city on one street there lived an old-looking man who was only forty years old. He looked old because of consumption, which had tormented him for years. This man's name was Efim Dmitrievich, but everyone called him Yushka. He worked all his life in a forge, although he was weak and blind. He had worked there for so long that some residents of this street set their watches by him.
Outwardly, he was short and thin, his eyes were always moist, and his face was wrinkled. His clothes were old, shabby, poor. He wore the same clothes for years, and took everything he earned somewhere. Nobody knew to whom and why he was leaving all these years. It was rumored that Yushka had a daughter as pitiful as himself. At the forge, his duties included carrying water, coal and sand, fanning the furnace with fur, and helping the chief forge in the affairs of the anvil.
He lived in the owner's apartment and ate in his kitchen. Passers-by and children often offended him, they could throw a stone at him or simply make him angry, but he never lost his temper and was not offended by anyone. He perceived their behavior as a kind of love for himself. Over the years, consumption worsened, and Yushka grew weaker. He still endured ridicule and did not try to fight back. One summer he again got ready to go to his mysterious village.
In the evening, he was returning from the forge as usual, when he met another overly cheerful passer-by making fun of him. For the first time in his life, Yushka could not stand the bullying directed at himself and snapped. He, without thinking twice, took and pushed the poor man in the chest, so much so that the patient fell on the road and died. A carpenter passing by found him. Soon Yushka was buried. There were a lot of people at the funeral, almost all neighbors from the street and even those who offended the poor man.
Now they had no one to take their anger out on, and they began to quarrel among themselves. After some time, a stranger arrived in town, pale and frail, just like Yushka. Everyone thought it was his daughter. And indeed she asked the residents if they knew where Efim Dmitrievich lived. In fact, she was not Yushka’s daughter. She was an ordinary orphan, whom out of pity he always helped in any way he could. Yushka took care of her and paid for her studies at the boarding school.
Now it became clear to everyone where he took all his hard-earned money every summer. The girl studied to be a doctor in order to cure her benefactor of consumption. Since he did not make himself known for a long time, she decided to come to the city herself. The blacksmith told her that Yushka had died and took her to the cemetery. She remained working in this city, helping everyone in need free of charge. Meanwhile, the city residents nicknamed her “Yushka’s daughter,” no longer remembering who this kind fellow was.
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 - philosophical movement, the central ideas of which were theses about the holistic 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.
Yushka (Efim Dmitrievich)- “I’m 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" "grew individually rare White hair; 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.”
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 the same way he loves. And the girl adopts his science, then helping the whole city.
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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 forge 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 wore 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, which was hit by pebbles and earthen debris.
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 didn’t scold them, take a twig and chase after 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 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? 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, 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.
According to calculations, 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, just as kind and unnecessary for people, as 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 into 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, like a 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.
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 forge 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 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 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, which was hit by pebbles and earthen debris. 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’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.
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 forge 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, which was hit by pebbles and earthen debris.
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 got 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.”
