A man, Ivan Afri-ka-novich Drynov, is riding on a log. He got drunk with the truck-to-rist Mishka Petrov and is now talking to the gelding Parmen. He’s carrying goods from the general store for the store, but he’s drunkenly driven into the wrong village, which means he’s only getting home in the morning... It’s a common thing. And at night, on the road, the same Mishka catches up with Ivan Afri-ka-no-vich. We also drank. And then Ivan Afri-ka-novich decides to marry Mishka to his three-sister, forty-year-old Nyushka the zootechnician. True, she has a cataract, but if you look from the left side, you can’t see it... Nyushka drives her friends away with a grab, and they have to spend the night in the bathhouse.
And just at this time, Ivan Afri-ka-no-vich’s wife Katerina will give birth to the ninth, Ivan. And Katerina, even though the paramedic strictly forbade her, after giving birth she went straight to work, seriously ill. And Katerina remembers how on Peter’s Day Ivan fornicated with a lively woman from their village, Dashka Putanka, and then, when Katerina forgave him, in his joy he exchanged the Bible he had inherited from his grandfather for an “accordion” - amuse the wife. And now Dashka doesn’t want to take care of the calves, so Katerina has to work for her too (otherwise you won’t be able to feed the family). Exhausted by work and illness, Katerina suddenly faints. She is taken to the hospital. Hypertension, stroke. And only after more than two weeks she returns home.
And Ivan Afri-ka-novich also remembers about the accordion: before he even learned to play the bass, it was taken away for lack of income.
It's time to make hay. Ivan Afri-ka-novich is in the forest, secretly, seven miles from the village, mowing at night. If you don’t mow three haystacks, there is nothing to feed the cow: ten percent of the hay harvested on the collective farm is enough for at most a month. One night, Ivan Afrikanovich takes his little son Grishka with him, and he then foolishly tells the district commissioner that he went with his father at night to mow the forest. Ivan Afri-ka-no-vich is threatened with court: after all, he is a deputy of the village council, and then the same authorized representative demands to “tell me” who else is mowing in the forest at night, to write a list ... For this he promises “not to generalize” Drynov’s personal stacks. Ivan Afri-ka-novich makes an agreement with the neighbor’s chairman and, together with Katerina, goes into the forest to mow someone else’s territory at night.
At this time, Mitka Polyakov, Katerina’s brother, comes to their village from Murmansk without a penny of money. Less than a week had passed since he had given the whole village water, the authorities had barked, Mishka had wooed Dashka Putanka, and he had provided the cow with hay. And everything seemed to happen. Dasha Putanka gives Mishka a love potion, and then he vomits for a long time, and a day later, at Mitka’s instigation, they go to the village council and sign up. Soon Dashka tears off a reproduction of Rubens’s painting “The Union of Earth and Water” from Mishka’s tractor (there is a picture of a naked woman, who, by all accounts, is the spitting image of Nyushka) and burns the “picture” in the oven out of jealousy. In response, Mishka almost throws Dasha, who was washing in the bathhouse, with a tractor, right into the river. As a result, the tractor was damaged, and illegally cut hay was found in the attic of the bathhouse. At the same time, everyone in the village begins to look for hay, and it’s Ivan Afri-ka-no-vich’s turn. It's a common thing.
Mitka is summoned to the police, to the district (for complicity in damaging a tractor and for hay), but by mistake they give fifteen days not to him, but to another Polyakov, also from Sosnovka (half of Polya’s village is there) -kovy). Mishka serves his fifteen days right in his village, without interruption from production, getting drunk in the evenings with the sergeant assigned to him.
After Ivan Afri-ka-no-vich is taken away from all the hay he has secretly mown, Mitka convinces him to leave the village and go to the Arctic to earn money. Drynov doesn’t want to leave his native place, but if you listen to Mitka, then there is no other way out... And Ivan Afrikanovich makes up his mind. The chairman doesn’t want to give him a certificate with which he can get a passport, but Drynov, in despair, threatens him with a poker, and the chairman suddenly collapses: “At least everyone runs away.” - be sure..."
Now Ivan Afri-ka-novich is a free Cossack. He says goodbye to Katerina and suddenly shrinks all over from pain, pity and love for her. And, without saying anything, he pushes her away, as if from the shore into a pool.
And after his departure, Katerina has to mow it alone. It was there, while mowing, that the second blow overtook her. Barely alive, they bring her home. And you can’t go to the hospital in this condition - if he dies, they won’t take him to the hospital.
And Ivan Afri-ka-novich returns to his native village. Run over. And he tells a guy he barely knows from a distant village beyond the lake about how Mitka and I went, but he was selling onions and didn’t have time to jump on the train on time, but he still had all the tickets. They dropped off Ivan Afri-ka-no-vich and demanded that he go back to the village within three hours, and that a fine, they say, would be sent to the collective farm, but only how to go, if there is nothing to pay - they didn't say. And suddenly the train approached and Mitka got off. So then Ivan Afrikanovich begged: “I don’t need anything, just let me go home.” They sold the onions, bought a return ticket, and Drynov finally went home.
And the guy, in response to the story, reports the news: in the village of Ivan Afri-ka-no-vich, a woman has died, and there are many quiet children left. The guy leaves, and Drynov suddenly falls on the road, clutches his head with his hands and rolls into a roadside ditch. Thumps his fist into the meadow, gnaws the ground...
Rogulya, Ivan Afrikanovich’s cow, remembers her life, as if surprised by it, by the cosmic sun, by the warmth. She was always indifferent to herself, and her timeless, immense contemplation was very rarely violated. Katerina's mother Evstolya comes, cries over her bucket and tells all the children to hug Rogulya and say goodbye. Drynov asks Mishka to slaughter the cow, but he cannot do it himself. They promise to take the meat to the canteen. Ivan Afri-ka-novich is biting Rogu-lina’s offal, and tears are dripping onto his blood-soaked fingers.
The children of Ivan Afri-ka-no-vich, Mitka and Vaska, are sent to an orphanage,
Antoshka is at school. Mitka writes to send Katyushka to him in Murmansk, but it’s too small. Grishka and Marusya and two babies remain. And it’s difficult: Eustolya is old, her arms have become thin. She remembers how Katerina, before her death, already without memory, called her husband: “Ivan, it’s windy, oh, Ivan, how windy!”
After the death of his wife, Ivan Afri-ka-novich does not want to live. He walks around, overgrown, scary, and smoking bitter rural tobacco. And Nyushka takes care of his children.
Ivan Afri-ka-novich goes into the forest (looking for an aspen tree for a new boat) and suddenly sees Katerina’s scarf on a branch. Swallowing tears, she inhales the bitter, homely smell of her hair... We must go. Go. Gradually he realizes that he is lost. And without bread there is a skirmish in the forest. He thinks a lot about death, becomes increasingly weaker, and only on the third day, when he is already crawling on all fours, does he suddenly hear the hum of a tractor. And Mishka, who saved his friend, at first thinks that Ivan Afri-ka-novich is drunk, but he still doesn’t understand anything. It's a common thing.
Two days later, on the fortieth day after Katerina’s death, Ivan Afrikanovich, sitting on his wife’s grave, tells her about the children, says that he feels bad without her, that he will go to her. And asks to wait... “My dear, my bright one... I brought you rowan berries...”
He's shaking all over. Grief plasters him on the soil that has grown cold and not overgrown with grass. And no one sees it.
“The usual thing” by V.I. Belov is a poeticization of the hut, the folk way of life, and the traditions of peasant culture. This short story with a deliberately modest, but tragically intense title, the internal refrain “life is a common thing,” first appeared in the provincial magazine “North” (Petrozavodsk). Vasily Belov was already famous. He began as a poet, a student of the famous Vologda poet who lived in Moscow, Alexander Yashin, who in 1956 came out with the story “Levers”, the story “Vologda Wedding” (1962). In 1961, V. Belov published the story “The Village of Berdyayka” - about a quiet tragedy, the dying of one village, where the cries of newborns have not been heard for a long time... This story introduced the reader to the main humanistic problems of V. Belov’s work.
And above all, he made his alarm heard: the village lives not just badly, poorly - it lives below the line of mercy, compassion, ordinary human attention! She survives, not lives...
The story “A Business as Usual” is small in volume, simple in its cast of characters - this is a large family of peasant Ivan Afrikanovich Drynov and his wife, milkmaid Katerina, their neighbors and friends. The character series includes the cow-nurse Rogul and the horse Parmen as equal members of the family and rural community. The things surrounding Ivan Afrikanovich - a well, a bathhouse, a spring, and finally, a treasured forest - are also members of his family.
These are shrines, his support, helping him survive. There are few “events of life” in the story: Katerina’s work, Ivan Afrikanovich’s trip to the city, “to a foreign land,” with a bag of onions to save his family, to earn money. The reader meets a married couple who is very shy in expressing high feelings. “It’s okay to come, it’s okay,” says Katerina, for example, in her dialect, when Ivan Afrikinovich came running to the maternity hospital. But she loves this “disobedience” in her husband; for the sake of such moments, she is ready for endless work in the name of her home and family.
It hurts your heart when you read how Ivan Afrikanovich, having survived his wife’s funeral, having distributed some of his children to orphanages and relatives, grieves on his fortieth day at his wife’s grave:
“...But he was a fool, he took bad care of you, you know it yourself... Now I’m alone... Like I walk on fire, I walk on you, forgive me... I feel bad without you, I can’t breathe, Katya. It’s so bad, I thought after you... But I recovered... But I remember your voice. And all of you, Katerina, I remember so well that... Yes. So, don’t think anything about being timid. They will rise. There’s the youngest one, Vanyushka, who speaks the words... he’s such a smart guy and his eyes look exactly like you. I really... yes. I’ll come to you, and you wait for me sometimes... Katya... You, Katya, where are you? My dear, my bright one, I... I need something... Well... now... I brought you rowan berries... Katya, my dear.”
In this fragment of a “tale” with typical peasant repetitions (“it’s bad for me”, “it’s bad” instead of “bad”, “it hurts”), with a pagan feeling of the inseparability of being, blurring the boundaries between life and death (“after death”), with rare inclusions pathos (“My dear, my bright one”), V. Belov’s rare ear for folk speech is noticeable, his art of getting used to the people’s character is obvious. This art will also be revealed in his “Carpenter's Stories” (1968), where two “sworn friends” Avenir Kozonkov and Olesha Smolin argue, in “Vologda Bukhtins” (1969), in the great novel about collectivization “Eves” (1972-1976).
This supposedly “passive” hero either actively appeals to the world for compassion, for mercy for the village, or wages a painful struggle for his home as a corner of Russia, a center of survival, for a spring of humanized existence. “If I survive, the people will survive!” - as if this powerless, passportless hero is speaking, every now and then driven even from the land dear to him.
What is sacred, eternal, priceless for Ivan Afrikanovich, for Katerina? They, perhaps, will not even admit that the simplest, “cheapest”, and easily given things are most valuable to them. Thus, the “focus” of the space dear to them in the story is their hut, their “home”. It is not rich at all, not “expensive”, in everything it is ordinary - with a front corner, with a samovar, a stove, with a pole screwed to the ceiling, a cradle (“cochet”) for rocking the cradle of another baby. “Ochep” is a kind of “axis” of the entire rural, isolated world. In “Farewell to Matera” by V. Rasputin, the “axis” on which the whole wheel of life and the universe seemed to spin was the royal foliage, the holy tree, in the middle of the village.
The house of Ivan Afrikanovich suffered many blows - and the eternal need of the post-war years, the experiments of “de-peasantization”, but miraculously survived thanks to the “harmony”, peasant memory, common sense, and the protective power of the family. The whole story is a chain of comic or humorous situations, scenes of labor and harmless quarrels of the heroes within the framework of “their” natural world, the “village space”, living according to the laws of harmony, “lada”.
However, one should not see in V. Belov, the author of “Business as Usual,” a moralizer, a preacher, or an enemy of urban civilization. He is not such even in the novel “Everything Is Ahead” (1986). V. Belov, of course, experiences considerable creative happiness, getting used to the characters of his “children of the earth,” listening to their voices (he knows how to depict the word itself, the poetry of the “tale”), skillfully combining motley scenes into a single whole. The writer shows how his hero secretly mows hay in the forest at night for his cow (“on the third night Ivan Afrikanovich slept for only two hours, it’s a common thing”), and how he furiously demands a passport certificate to travel to the city (“stepped into the middle office and shouted: “Give me a certificate! Write a certificate in front of my eyes!”). And the final scenes of the story also contain scenes that reveal the same character. Having lost Katerina, Ivan Afrikanovich got lost in the forest, helplessly exposed his face to the “silent clinging rain”, heard some kind of “universal and still ghostly noise”... But by some miracle, despair was defeated, the hero returned to the village, to the orphaned house. ..
Because the writer’s gaze increasingly began to turn to the past, to folklore, folk aesthetics, V. Belov’s prose became even more modern. The current “discord” can be corrected by the former “harmony” (harmony between man and nature). The result of many of V. Belov’s judgments about “lada” in connection with Belov’s stories, the book “Lad” itself, this encyclopedia of the life of a peasant, full of legends, fairy tales, stories and pictures, was summed up by researcher Yu. Seleznev:
“His goal (“lada.” - V.Ch.) ... is to comprehend the foundations, to understand the nature of its unity, its integrity, through the diversity of manifestations of people’s life. This basis... Belov embodied in the concept of “lady”.
This extremely capacious Russian word truly represents the unity of diversity: it is also a universal harmony - the whole world, the harmony of the world order; this is also the mode of a certain way of social life - life and love: friendship, brotherhood, good neighborliness, mutual understanding; and family life: lad is marriage, lada is a beloved, dear, desired person; and labor - to get along - to do well, with skill, taste... harmony is agreement, harmony.”
V. I. Belov
THINGS AS USUAL
CHAPTER ONE
1. STRAIGHT MOVE
Parme-en? Where is my Parmenko? And here he is, Parmenko. Cold? It's cold, boy, it's cold. You are a fool, Parmenko. Parmenko is silent for me. Now, let's go home. Do you want to go home? Parmen you, Parmen...
Ivan Afrikanovich barely untied the frozen reins.
Were you standing there? I was standing. Were you waiting for Ivan Afrikanovich?
I've been waiting, tell me. What did Ivan Afrikanovich do? And I, Parmesha, drank a little, drank, my friend, don’t judge me. Yes, don't judge, that is. But isn’t it possible for a Russian person to even drink? No, tell me, can a Russian person have a drink? Especially if he was first frozen to the guts in the wind, and then hungry to the very bones? Well, that means we drank the bastard. Yes. And Mishka says to me: “Why, Ivan Afrikanovich, just one thing has corroded my nostril. “Come on,” he says, “secondary.” We all, Parmenushko, walk under the village, don’t scold me. Yes, honey, don't scold me. But where did the whole thing start? And it’s gone, Parmesh, since this morning, when you and I took you to hand over empty dishes. They loaded it and drove it.
The saleswoman says to me: “Bring the dishes, Ivan Afrikanovich, and bring the goods back. Just,” he says, “don’t lose the invoice.” And when did Drinov lose the invoice? Ivan Afrikanovich did not lose the invoice. “There,” I say, Parmen won’t let me lie, he didn’t lose the invoice.” Have we brought the dishes? They brought me! Did we give her up, the whore? Passed!
We handed it over and received all the goods in cash! So why can’t you and I have a drink? Can we have a drink, by God, we can. So you are standing at the village, at the high porch, and Mishka and I are standing. Bear. This Bear is a Bear to all Bears. I'm telling you. It's a common thing. “Come on,” he says, “Ivan Afrikanovich, for a bet, I won’t,” he says, “if I don’t drink all the wine from the dish with the bread.” I say: “What a rogue you are, Mishka. “You,” I say, “are a scoundrel!” Well, who sips wine with bread with a spoon? After all, - I say, - this is not some kind of soup, not soup with chicken, so that you can slurp it, wine, with a spoon, like a prison.” “But,” he says, “let’s argue.” - "Let's!" I, Parmesh, was puzzled by this secret. “What,” Mishka asks me, “what,” he asks, “are you going to argue?” I’m saying that if you take it slowly, I’ll bet you another white-eyed one, and if you lose, that’s it for you. Well, he took the dish from the watchwoman. I crumbled half a dish of bread.
“Lei,” he says. “It’s a big dish, marinated.” Well, I dumped the entire bottle of white into this dish. The bosses who have gone wrong here, these procurers, and the chairman of the village himself, Vasily Trifonovich, look on and have quieted down, which means. And what would you, Parmenushko, say if this dog, this Mishka, swallowed all this crumble with a spoon? He slurps and quacks, he slurps and yes. quacks. He swallowed it, the devil, and even licked the spoon dry. Well, it’s true, as soon as he wanted to light a cigarette, he tore the newspaper from me, and his face turned; Apparently, he was pinned down here. He jumped out from the table and into the street.
Kicked him, the rogue, out of the hut. The village has a high porch, how can he burp from the porch! Well, you were standing here at the porch, you saw him, mazurika. He comes back, there is no blood in his face, but he burst out laughing! This means we have a conflict with him. All opinions were divided in half: some say that I lost my bet, and some say that Mishka did not keep his word. And Vasily Trifonovich, the chairman of the village, took my side and said:
“You took it, Ivan Afrikanovich. Because, of course, he gulped it down, but he couldn’t hold it in his gut.” I say to Mishka: “Okay, fool with you! Let's buy it in half. So that no one will be offended." What? What are you, Parmen? Why did you get up? Ah, come on, come on. I’ll also spray with you for company. It’s always for company, Parmesha... Whoops!
Parmen? Who do they tell? Whoops! So you didn't wait for me, did you go? I'm holding the reins for you now. Whoops!
You will know Ivan Afrikanovich! Look! Well, just stand like a human, where do I have these... buttons... Yes, hmm, hmm.
We don't have long to walk, but only until nine.
Stay, dear, make a rich fortune.
Now let's go, go with nuts, gallop with caps...
Ivan Afrikanovich put on his mittens and again sat down on the logs loaded with Selpov goods. Without any prodding, the gelding pulled off the runners that were stuck to the snow, he quickly dragged the heavy cart, occasionally snorted and twitched his ears, listening to the owner.
Yes, brother Parmenko. This is how things turned out for Mishka and me. After all, we got enough. We got ready.
He went to the club to see the girls, there were a lot of girls around the village, some in the bakery, some at the post office, so he went to the girls. And the girls are all so thick-footed, good, not like in our village, in our country they have all moved away. The entire first grade was sorted out by marriage, leaving only the second and third. It's a common thing. I say: “Let’s go home, Misha” - no, I went to the girls. Well, it’s understandable, we, too, Parmesha, were young, now all our deadlines have expired and the juices have flowed out, it’s a common thing, yes... What do you think, Parmenko, will we get it from the woman? It will hit, by God it will hit, that’s for sure! Well, this is her woman’s business, she also needs to give a discount, woman, a discount, Parmenko. After all, how many robots does she have? And she, these clients, never mind, she doesn’t have honey either, woman, because there are eight of them... Are there nine? No, Parmen, like eight... And with this one, which... Well, this one, what... which has something in its belly... Nine? Al eight? Hmm... So, it’s like this: Anatoshka is my second, Tanka is my first. Vaska was with Anatoshka, on the first of May she gave birth, as I remember now, after Vaska Katyushka, after Katyushka Mishka. After, that is.
Bear. W-w-wait, where is Grishka? I forgot Grishka, who is he after? Vaska followed Anatoshka, he was born on the first of May, after Vaska Grishka, after Grishka... Well, the devil, take away how much he has accumulated! Mishka, that means, is behind Katyushka, Volodya is behind Mishka, and Marusya, this little one, was born in the middle of milking... And who was before Katyushka? So, so, Antoshka is my second, Tanka is my first. Vaska was born on the first of May, Grishka... Oh, to hell with him, everyone will grow up!
We don’t have long to walk... But only until the ninth...
Whoa, wait, Parmenko, we need to slowly do this, so as not to tumble over.
Ivan Afrikanovich got down onto the road. He supported the cart with such seriousness and pulled the reins that the gelding somehow even condescendingly, deliberately for Ivan Afrikanovich, slowed down. Someone, like Parmen, knew this whole road well... “Well, that’s it, come on, it looks like we’ve crossed the bridge,” the driver said. - We just don’t want to waste the invoice with you, the invoice... But this is how I remember you, Parmenko. After all, you were still sucking the womb’s tit back then, that’s how I remember you. And I remember your uterus, it was called Button, it was so small and round, they drove off the dead little head for sausage, the uterus. I used to go on it to pick up hay at Shrovetide, to the old haystacks, the road was all through a tree stump, and she, your uterus, is like a lizard with a cart, sometimes crawling, sometimes hopping, so obedient was in the shafts. Not like you are now. After all, you, a fool, didn’t plow, and didn’t travel further than the general store in a cab, after all, you only carry wine and the authorities, you have a life like Christ in your bosom. How else do I remember you? Well, of course, you got it too. Do you remember how they were transporting seed peas, and you got out of the shaft! How did we get you, the scoundrel, out of the ditch and back on your feet? But I still remember you when you were little - you used to run across the bridge, all festive, and your hooves kept clanking and clanking, and you didn’t have any worries then. Now what? Well, you carry plenty of wine, well, they feed you and give you water, and then what? They’ll turn you over for sausage too, they can do it at any moment, but what about you? It’s okay, you’ll go like a pretty girl. That's what you say, grandma. Baba, she, of course, is a woman. Only my woman is not like that, she will give a dusting to anyone she wants. I don't care about being drunk. She won’t lay a finger on me when I’m drunk, because she knows Ivan Afrikanovich, they’ve lived together forever. Now, if I’ve been drinking, don’t say a word to me and don’t get in my way, my hand will throw soot at anyone. Am I right, Parmen? That’s it, I’m definitely saying this, it’s just like in a pharmacy, I’ll make up the soot. What?
In this article we will look at a work written by Vasily Belov. “Business as usual” (a brief summary will be presented below) is a story written in 1966. It brought fame to its author and established him as one of the founders of “village prose.” Even before this, Belov’s work was characterized by a description of the everyday life of the village world, but for the first time this was manifested with the greatest force only in “A Habitual Business.” So, let's turn to the plot of the work.
Belov, “Business as usual”: summary. Chapters 1 and 2
Ivan Afrikanovich Drynov, a simple man, rides drunk on a firewood. Before that, he got drunk with Mishka Petrov, a tractor driver, and now he is having a conversation with Parmen, a gelding. He was tasked with bringing goods for the store from the general store, but drunk, Ivan got confused on the road and drove into a strange village. Now he won't get home until morning. But for him this is a completely common thing.
That is why he spends the night on the road. It is at this moment that Mishka catches up with Drynov. The old friends drink some more. And at this moment, Ivan Afrikanovich comes up with the idea of marrying his second cousin Nyushka to the tractor driver. The woman is already 40 years old and works as a livestock specialist. True, it has one drawback - an eyesore, but if you look at it from the left side, nothing is noticeable. The friends go to Nyushka, but she chases them away, and they have to go to the bathhouse to spend the night.
Chapter 3. Katerina
At the same time, the ninth son, Ivan, was born to Drynov’s wife, Katerina. Katerina herself, despite the paramedic’s strict prohibition, immediately after giving birth goes to hard work, sick. Katerina begins to remember how one day, on Peter’s Day, Ivan fornicated her with a lively village woman, Daria Putanka. And when Katerina nevertheless forgave him, he went out of joy and exchanged the Bible he had inherited from his grandfather for an “accordion.” Ivan did this to cheer his wife up with music.
But now that same Dasha refuses to look after the calves, and Katerina has to do both her and her work. Exhausted by illness and work, a woman faints in exhaustion. An ambulance is called, and Katerina ends up in the hospital. She is diagnosed with hypertension. Only two weeks later she was discharged and allowed to return home.
Ivan Afrikanovich also remembers the accordion - before he had time to learn how to play properly, he had only somehow mastered the bass, when the instrument was taken away from him for arrears.
Chapter 4. Haymaking
Belov describes simple village life in his works. “Business as usual” (the summary illustrates this perfectly) is another description of peasant life in the 60s.
It's time for haymaking. At night, Ivan Afrikanovich secretly mows hay in the forest 7 miles from his native village. This is because the collective farm gives ten percent of what is mown to the peasants, and this is enough for a month, no more, and the winter is long. To feed a cow, you need at least three haystacks, so you have to steal.
On one of these nights, Drynov decides to take his son Grishka, still very young, with him. And then Grishka foolishly told the district commissioner that he and his father had gone to mow at night in the forest. Ivan Afrikanovich is facing trial - he is also a deputy of the village council. As a result, the district commissioner begins to demand that Drynov show who else goes out to mow at night, or better yet, write a list. And for this service, he promises not only to turn a blind eye to Ivan Afrikanovich’s misconduct, but also not to “socialize” his personal haystacks. Drynov comes to an agreement with the neighboring chairman and already goes to mow at night on someone else's territory together with Katerina.
Chapter 4 (continued). Bear and Dashka
A brief summary (“Business as usual”) tells about the appearance of a guest in the Drinov family. Belov V.I. depicts life in the village without embellishment. Another trouble fell on Ivan Afanasyevich’s head - Katya’s brother Mitya Polyakov arrived from Murmansk, and completely without money. He settled with the Drinovs and in less than a week managed to get the whole village drunk, curse the bosses out loud, woo Mishka Daria Putanka and even provide the cow with hay. And he did it all, as if along the way.
Dashka gives it to Mishka, which then starts to make him feel sick, and after a couple of days they are already going to sign up for the village council, also not without Mitka’s participation. After some time, the first quarrel between the newlyweds occurs. Mishka has a reproduction of the canvas “Union of Earth and Water” (Rubens) hanging in his tractor, which depicts a naked woman, who, according to the whole village, looks very similar to Nyushka. It is this picture that Dashka finds, and then tears it down and burns in the oven. The angry Mishka responds by almost throwing the bathhouse, in which Daria was washing at that moment, into the river with a tractor. As a result, the tractor is damaged, and hay is found in the attic of the bathhouse, which was cut illegally. This incident leads to the search for hay throughout the village. The Drinovs’ turn comes - it’s a common thing.
The summary of the book “Business as Usual” cannot be called a tragedy or a comedy. The presentation of this work rather resembles the drama of life in which people are forced to adapt to everything in order to survive. Searches, theft, drunkenness - everything becomes commonplace for them.
Mitka is summoned to the district police for damaging the tractor and for cutting hay. But by mistake they give 15 days to a completely different Polyakov, although also from Sosnovka. There are generally a lot of Polyakovs in the village. And Misha himself serves his 15 days in his native village under the supervision of a guard, continuing to work during the day and get drunk in the evenings with the assigned sergeant.
Chapter 5. Departure
Belov also talks about what forces peasants to leave the village (“Business as usual”). The summary describes how, after the searches began, illegal hay was found from Ivan Afrikanovich and everything was taken away. Mitka begins to convince him to go to work in the Arctic, leaving everything here. Drynov doesn’t want to leave his native place, but Mitka continues to persuade him, and in the end Ivan Afanasyevich agrees.
Drinov goes to the chairman - he must give him a certificate that will allow the collective farmer to receive a passport. However, the chairman refuses to issue the document. The angry Drinov threatens him with a poker, and only then does the chairman give up.
Ivan Afrikanovich says goodbye to his wife, he feels sorry for leaving Katerina, he feels sorry for her and loves her. Nevertheless, Drynov leaves. After he leaves, Katerina goes mowing alone. And while mowing, the woman gets a second blow. They bring her home barely alive - it’s a long way to the hospital, she’ll die and won’t survive.
Chapter 5 (continued). Return
Depicts the everyday life of Belov. “Business as usual” (a summary of the chapters confirms this) is not a story about some unprecedented sorrows and sorrows, it is just a description of human existence.
Ivan Afrikanovich returns to his native village. At first, he and Mitka traded onions on the train, but such a life was not for Drynov, and he decided to return.
Upon his return, Ivan Afrikanovich learns that his wife has died and the children are left alone. Having learned about this, Drynov falls straight onto the road, clasps his head in his hands and rolls into a roadside ditch. He hammers the ground with his fists and gnaws at it.
Chapter 6. Cow
It’s not easy for the hero created by Vasily Belov (“Business as usual”). The summary tells how he had to make a difficult decision - to slaughter a cow, his only breadwinner. But she needed money, and there was nothing to feed her in the winter. Ivan Afrikanovich could not kill her with his own hands, so he asked Mishka. While sorting through the offal of a dead cow, Drynov cries.
Two children, Vaska and Mitka, have to be sent to an orphanage. Antoshka is sent to school. Only Marusya and two babies remain in the care of her father.
Chapter 7
So the summary of Belov’s story “A Business as Usual” has come to an end. After Katerina's death, Drynov does not want to live. Nyushka took care of his children. One day, while wandering through the forest, Ivan Afrikanovich got lost. So he was lost for three days until the tractor driver Mishka found him, who at first thought that his friend was drunk.
Two days after this, on the fortieth day of Katerina’s death, Drynov sits at her grave and tells her about the children, about how bad he feels, and asks her to wait for him. Grief bent him, but no one noticed it.
This is how the summary ends with an image of a grave and a description of the grief of an unfortunate person (“Business as usual” by Belov). If you read the work chapter by chapter, it makes an even stronger impression.
Characteristics of heroes
Let's start with Ivan Afrikanovich. This hero does not make the best impression at first, but his true nature is gradually revealed. He appears as a man worried about the fate of the village - he did not want to leave because he believed that his place was in the village. In addition, he is capable of sincere feelings - he loves his wife affectionately and tenderly, despite the difficult years they have lived together. Drinov realizes that the existing structure of village life is incorrect and needs to be changed. This is what sets the hero apart from his fellow villagers, who have come to terms with what is happening.
The image of Katerina Drynova is also noteworthy. This is a calm, quiet woman who is used to enduring any hardships and working without rest. She does not spare herself and her health to provide for her family.
Her brother Mitka, on the contrary, is not endowed with his sister’s humility. This is a man without a family and without his own corner. He lives one day at a time and does not think about the future. It was his appearance that led to the death of the Drinov family - the departure of Ivan, the death of Katerina. Mitka’s ideas and thoughts destroyed the Drinovs’ usual way of life.
In this article we will look at a work written by Vasily Belov. “Business as usual” (a brief summary will be presented below) is a story written in 1966. It brought fame to its author and established him as one of the founders of “village prose.” Even before this, Belov’s work was characterized by a description of the everyday life of the village world, but for the first time this was manifested with the greatest force only in “A Habitual Business.” So, let's turn to the plot of the work.
Belov, “Business as usual”: summary. Chapters 1 and 2
Ivan Afrikanovich Drynov, a simple man, rides drunk on a firewood. Before that, he got drunk with Mishka Petrov, a tractor driver, and now he is having a conversation with Parmen, a gelding. He was tasked with bringing goods for the store from the general store, but drunk, Ivan got confused on the road and drove into a strange village. Now he won't get home until morning. But for him this is a completely common thing.
That is why he spends the night on the road. It is at this moment that Mishka catches up with Drynov. The old friends drink some more. And at this moment, Ivan Afrikanovich comes up with the idea of marrying his second cousin Nyushka to the tractor driver. The woman is already 40 years old and works as a livestock specialist. True, it has one drawback - an eyesore, but if you look at it from the left side, nothing is noticeable. The friends go to Nyushka, but she chases them away, and they have to go to the bathhouse to spend the night.
Chapter 3. Katerina
At the same time, the ninth son, Ivan, was born to Drynov’s wife, Katerina. Katerina herself, despite the paramedic’s strict prohibition, immediately after giving birth goes to hard work, sick. Katerina begins to remember how one day, on Peter’s Day, Ivan fornicated her with a lively village woman, Daria Putanka. And when Katerina nevertheless forgave him, he went out of joy and exchanged the Bible he had inherited from his grandfather for an “accordion.” Ivan did this to cheer his wife up with music.
But now that same Dasha refuses to look after the calves, and Katerina has to do both her and her work. Exhausted by illness and work, a woman faints in exhaustion. An ambulance is called, and Katerina ends up in the hospital. She is diagnosed with hypertension. Only two weeks later she was discharged and allowed to return home.
Ivan Afrikanovich also remembers the accordion - before he had time to learn how to play properly, he had just somehow mastered the bass, when the instrument was taken away from him for arrears.
Chapter 4. Haymaking
Belov describes simple village life in his works. “Business as usual” (the summary illustrates this perfectly) is another description of peasant life in the 60s.
It's time for haymaking. At night, Ivan Afrikanovich secretly mows hay in the forest 7 miles from his native village. This is because the collective farm gives ten percent of what is mown to the peasants, and this is enough for a month, no more, and the winter is long. To feed a cow, you need at least three haystacks, so you have to steal.
On one of these nights, Drynov decides to take his son Grishka, still very young, with him. And then Grishka foolishly told the district commissioner that he and his father had gone to mow at night in the forest. Ivan Afrikanovich is facing trial - he is also a deputy of the village council. As a result, the district commissioner begins to demand that Drynov show who else goes out to mow at night, or better yet, write a list. And for this service, he promises not only to turn a blind eye to Ivan Afrikanovich’s misconduct, but also not to “socialize” his personal haystacks. Drynov comes to an agreement with the neighboring chairman and already goes to mow at night on someone else's territory together with Katerina.
Chapter 4 (continued). Bear and Dashka
A brief summary (“Business as usual”) tells about the appearance of a guest in the Drinov family. Belov V.I. depicts life in the village without embellishment. Another trouble fell on Ivan Afanasyevich’s head - Katya’s brother Mitya Polyakov arrived from Murmansk, and completely without money. He settled with the Drinovs and in less than a week managed to get the whole village drunk, curse the bosses out loud, woo Mishka Daria Putanka and even provide the cow with hay. And he did it all, as if along the way.
Dashka gives Mishka a love potion, which then makes him feel sick, and a couple of days later they go to sign up for the village council, also not without Mitka’s participation. After some time, the first quarrel between the newlyweds occurs. Mishka has a reproduction of the canvas “Union of Earth and Water” (Rubens) hanging in his tractor, which depicts a naked woman, who, according to the whole village, looks very similar to Nyushka. It is this picture that Dashka finds, and then tears it down and burns in the oven. The angry Mishka responds by almost throwing the bathhouse, in which Daria was washing at that moment, into the river with a tractor. As a result, the tractor is damaged, and hay is found in the attic of the bathhouse, which was cut illegally. This incident leads to the search for hay throughout the village. The Drinovs’ turn comes – it’s a common thing.
The summary of the book “Business as Usual” cannot be called a tragedy or a comedy. The presentation of this work rather resembles the drama of life in which people are forced to adapt to everything in order to survive. Searches, theft, drunkenness - everything becomes commonplace for them.
Mitka is summoned to the district police for damaging the tractor and for cutting hay. But by mistake they give 15 days to a completely different Polyakov, although also from Sosnovka. There are generally a lot of Polyakovs in the village. And Misha himself serves his 15 days in his native village under the supervision of a guard, continuing to work during the day and get drunk in the evenings with the assigned sergeant.
Chapter 5. Departure
Belov also talks about what forces peasants to leave the village (“Business as usual”). The summary describes how, after the searches began, illegal hay was found from Ivan Afrikanovich and everything was taken away. Mitka begins to convince him to go to work in the Arctic, leaving everything here. Drynov doesn’t want to leave his native place, but Mitka continues to persuade him, and in the end Ivan Afanasyevich agrees.
Drinov goes to the chairman - he must give him a certificate that will allow the collective farmer to receive a passport. However, the chairman refuses to issue the document. The angry Drinov threatens him with a poker, and only then does the chairman give up.
Ivan Afrikanovich says goodbye to his wife, he feels sorry for leaving Katerina, he feels sorry for her and loves her. Nevertheless, Drynov leaves. After he leaves, Katerina goes mowing alone. And while mowing, the woman gets a second blow. As soon as they bring her home alive, it’s too far to the hospital; she’ll die and won’t survive.
Chapter 5 (continued). Return
Depicts the everyday life of Belov. “Business as usual” (a summary of the chapters confirms this) is not a story about some unprecedented sorrows and sorrows, it is just a description of human existence.
Ivan Afrikanovich returns to his native village. At first, he and Mitka traded onions on the train, but such a life was not for Drynov, and he decided to return.
Upon his return, Ivan Afrikanovich learns that his wife has died and the children are left alone. Having learned about this, Drynov falls straight onto the road, clasps his head in his hands and rolls into a roadside ditch. He hammers the ground with his fists and gnaws at it.
Chapter 6. Cow
It’s not easy for the hero created by Vasily Belov (“Business as usual”). The summary tells how he had to make a difficult decision - to slaughter a cow, his only breadwinner. But she needed money, and there was nothing to feed her in the winter. Ivan Afrikanovich could not kill her with his own hands, so he asked Mishka. While sorting through the offal of a dead cow, Drynov cries.
Two children, Vaska and Mitka, have to be sent to an orphanage. Antoshka is sent to school. Only Marusya and two babies remain in the care of her father.
Chapter 7
So the summary of Belov’s story “A Business as Usual” has come to an end. After Katerina's death, Drynov does not want to live. Nyushka took care of his children. One day, while wandering through the forest, Ivan Afrikanovich got lost. So he was lost for three days until the tractor driver Mishka found him, who at first thought that his friend was drunk.
Two days after this, on the fortieth day of Katerina’s death, Drynov sits at her grave and tells her about the children, about how bad he feels, and asks her to wait for him. Grief bent him, but no one noticed it.
This is how the summary ends with an image of a grave and a description of the grief of an unfortunate person (“Business as usual” by Belov). If you read the work chapter by chapter, it makes an even stronger impression.
Characteristics of heroes
Let's start with Ivan Afrikanovich. This hero does not make the best impression at first, but his true nature is gradually revealed. He appears as a man worried about the fate of the village - he did not want to leave because he believed that his place was in the village. In addition, he is capable of sincere feelings - he loves his wife affectionately and tenderly, despite the difficult years they have lived together. Drinov realizes that the existing structure of village life is incorrect and needs to be changed. This is what sets the hero apart from his fellow villagers, who have come to terms with what is happening.
The image of Katerina Drynova is also noteworthy. This is a calm, quiet woman who is used to enduring any hardships and working without rest. She does not spare herself and her health to provide for her family.
Her brother Mitka, on the contrary, is not endowed with his sister’s humility. This is a man without a family and without his own corner. He lives one day at a time and does not think about the future. It was his appearance that led to the death of the Drinov family - the departure of Ivan, the death of Katerina. Ideas
and Mitka’s thoughts destroyed the Drinovs’ usual way of life.
