Wild landlord complete. Mikhail Saltykov is a generous landowner

home / Cheating husband

The stupid landowner is getting rid of the peasants. Food disappears in the bazaar, money runs out in the treasury, and he himself runs wild. Everything returns to normal when the men again appear on the estate.

Once upon a time there was a stupid and rich landowner, Prince Urus-Kuchum-Kildibaev. He loved to lay out grand solitaire and read the Vesti newspaper. Once the landowner prayed to God to save him from the peasants - it was painfully their spirit interfered with him. God knew that the landowner was stupid, and did not heed the prayer. Then the landowner looked into the "Vest" and began to try - to strangle the peasant with fines.

The cattle will go out to the watering hole - the landowner shouts: “My water!”, The chicken will wander out of the outskirts - the landowner shouts: “My land!” And the earth, and water, and air - all of it became!

The peasants prayed to God, he heard and cleared the estate of them - only a chaff whirlwind swept through the air.

The landowner began to breathe clean air. Yes, but whoever does not come to him - everyone calls him a fool. Then the landowner laid out the grand solitaire three times, made sure that he was not stupid at all, and there was no doubt left in him. He began to think about how he would order cars from England, breed gardens, livestock, and all this - without a peasant. Only now the landowner did not look in the mirror - it was overgrown with dust, and he ate only candy and gingerbread.

The police officer came to the landowner, began to scold him for the fact that there was no one to pay taxes, and there was no bread or meat in the market, then he called him a fool and left. The landowner was afraid, but he did not retreat from his principles. Time has passed. The garden of the estate was overgrown, the beasts started up in it, and the landowner ran wild. He stopped washing, cutting his nails and blowing his nose, became overgrown with hair, began to run on all fours, hunt hares and made friends with a bear.

He even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds and acquired some special victorious click, an average between a whistle, hiss and bark. But I haven't got the tail yet.

Meanwhile, the provincial authorities learned that the peasant had disappeared, and the police officer had been attacked by a bear-man, got alarmed and decided to put the peasant in his place. A swarm of peasants flew through the provincial town. They were collected and taken to the estate. Meat and bread immediately appeared in the bazaar, and money appeared in the treasury. The master was caught, washed, blew his nose and the newspaper "Vest" was taken away. He is still alive - he lays out grand solitaire, yearns for a wild life, washes under duress and sometimes bellows.

In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a landowner, he lived and looked at the light and rejoiced. He had enough of everything: peasants, and bread, and cattle, and land, and gardens. And that landowner was stupid, he read the newspaper "Vest" [a political and literary newspaper (1863-1870), an organ of the reactionary-noble opposition of the 60s] and his body was soft, white and crumbly.

Only this landowner once prayed to God:

God! I am pleased with everything from you, awarded everything! Only one thing is unbearable to my heart: there are too many peasants divorced in our kingdom!

But God knew that the landowner was stupid, and did not heed his request.

The landowner sees that the muzhik does not decrease every day, but everything arrives, - he sees and fears: "Well, how will he get all the goods from me?"

The landowner will look into the newspaper "Vest", as in this case one should act, and will read: "Try!"

Only one word is written, - says the stupid landowner, - and this word is golden!

And he began to try, and not just somehow, but everything according to the rule. Whether a peasant's chicken wanders into the master's oats - now, as a rule, it's into the soup; if a peasant gathers to chop wood in secret in the master's forest - now this same firewood is for the master's yard, and, as a rule, a fine is imposed on the chopper.

I now act on them with these fines more! - the landowner says to his neighbors, - because for them it is more understandable.

The peasants see: although their landowner is stupid, he has a great mind. He reduced them so that there was nowhere to stick out his nose: wherever you look - everything is impossible, but not allowed, but not yours! A cattle will go out to the watering place - the landowner shouts: "My water!", a chicken wanders out of the outskirts - the landowner shouts: "My land!" And earth, and water, and air - all of it became! There was no torch for the peasant to light in the light, there was no more rod than to sweep the hut. So the peasants prayed with the whole world to the Lord God:

God! It’s easier for us to disappear even with small children than to suffer like this all our lives!

The merciful God heard the orphan's tearful prayer, and there was no peasant in the entire space of the possessions of the stupid landowner. No one noticed where the peasant had gone, but people only saw how suddenly a chaff whirlwind arose and, like a black cloud, the peasant's trousers swept through the air. The landowner went out onto the balcony, pulled his nose and smelled: clean, pure air in all his possessions became. Naturally, he was pleased. He thinks: "Now I will carry my white body, my body is white, loose, crumbly!"

And he began to live and live and began to think how he could console his soul.

"I'll start, I think, a theater at home! I'll write to the actor Sadovsky: come, they say, dear friend! And bring actors with you!"

The actor Sadovsky obeyed: he himself came and brought the actors. He only sees that the landowner's house is empty and there is no one to put up a theater and there is no one to raise the curtain.

Where are you taking your peasants? - Sadovsky asks the landowner.

But God, by my prayer, cleared all my possessions from the peasant!

However, brother, you are a stupid landowner! who gives you, stupid, a wash?

Yes, and how many days I go unwashed!

So, are you going to grow champignons on your face? - said Sadovsky, and with this word he left, and took the actors away.

The landowner remembered that he had four general acquaintances nearby; he thinks: "What am I doing grand solitaire and grand solitaire! I'll try to play a bullet or two with the generals five of us!"

No sooner said than done: I wrote invitations, appointed a day and sent letters to the address. Although the generals were real, they were hungry, and therefore they arrived very soon. We arrived - and cannot be surprised why the landowner's air has become so clean.

And because of this, - the landowner boasts, - that God, through my prayer, cleared all my possessions from the peasant!

Ah, how good it is! - the generals praise the landowner, - so now you will not have this servile smell at all?

Not at all, the landowner replies.

They played a bullet, they played another; the generals feel that their time has come to drink vodka, they become restless, look around.

It must be that you, gentlemen generals, wanted to have a bite to eat? - asks the landowner.

Not bad, mister landowner!

He got up from the table, went to the cupboard and took out a lollipop and a printed gingerbread for each person.

What is it? the generals ask, bulging their eyes at him.

And here, eat what God sent!

Yes, we would have beef! beef to us!

Well, I don’t have beef about you, gentlemen, generals, because since God delivered me from the peasant, the stove in the kitchen has not been heated!

The generals got angry with him, so that even their teeth chattered.

Are you eating anything by yourself? they pounced on him.

I eat some raw materials, but there are still gingerbread cookies ...

However, brother, you are a stupid landowner! - said the generals and, without finishing the bullets, dispersed to their homes.

The landowner saw that another time he was being honored as a fool, and he was about to think, but since at that time a deck of cards caught his eye, he waved his hand at everything and began to lay out grand solitaire.

Let's see, - he says, - gentlemen liberals, who will defeat whom! I will prove to you what the true firmness of the soul can do!

He lays out the "ladies' whim" and thinks: "If it comes out three times in a row, therefore, we must not look at it." And as luck would have it, no matter how many times he decomposes - everything comes out with him, everything comes out! There was not even any doubt left in him.

If, - he says, - fortune itself indicates, therefore, we must remain firm to the end. And now, for now, enough grand solitaire to lay out, I'll go and do it!

And so he walks, walks through the rooms, then sits down and sits. And everyone thinks. He thinks what kind of cars he will order from England, so that everything will be by ferry and steam, but there will be no servile spirit at all. He thinks what kind of orchard he will plant: "Here there will be pears, plums; here - peaches, here - a walnut!" He looks out the window - everything is there, as he planned, everything is exactly the way it is! Pear, peach, apricot trees break, at the behest of a pike, under a load of fruits, and he only knows the fruits by machines and puts them in his mouth! He thinks what kind of cows he will breed, that no skin, no meat, but all one milk, all milk! He thinks about what kind of strawberries he will plant, all double and triple, five berries per pound, and how many of these strawberries he will sell in Moscow. Finally, he gets tired of thinking, he goes to the mirror to look - and there is already an inch of dust ...

Senka! - he suddenly shouts, forgetting himself, but then he catches himself and says, - well, let him stand for the time being, for the time being! and I will prove to these liberals what hardness of soul can do!

Lights up in this manner until it gets dark - and sleep!

And in a dream, dreams are even more fun than in reality, they dream. He dreams that the governor himself found out about his landowner's inflexibility and asks the police officer: "What kind of hard chicken son did you have in the district?" Then he dreams that he was made a minister for this very inflexibility, and he walks in ribbons, and writes circulars: "Be firm and do not look!" Then he dreams that he walks along the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris ... [that is, according to biblical legends, in paradise]

Eve my friend! he says.

But now I reviewed all my dreams: I have to get up.

Senka! - he shouts again, forgetting himself, but suddenly he remembers ... and bows his head.

What would you like to do, though? - he asks himself, - if only the goblin of some difficult brought!

And at this word of his, the police captain himself suddenly arrives. The stupid landowner rejoiced at him inexpressibly; ran into the closet, took out two printed gingerbread and thought: "Well, this one, it seems, will be satisfied!"

Please tell me, Mr. Landowner, by what miracle did all your temporarily liable [according to the Regulations of February 19, the peasants freed from serfdom were temporarily obliged to work for him until an agreement was concluded with the landowner] suddenly disappeared? - asks the police officer.

And so and so, God, through my prayer, completely cleared all my possessions from the peasant!

So-with; But don't you know, Mr. landowner, who will pay taxes for them?

Give? .. it's them! it's them themselves! it is their sacred duty and duty!

So-with; and in what manner can this tax be exacted from them, if, through your prayer, they are scattered over the face of the earth?

This is... I don't know... I, for my part, do not agree to pay!

But do you know, Mr. landowner, that the treasury cannot exist without taxes and duties, and even more so without wine and salt regalia [state monopoly on sales, royal right to receive income].

I'm... I'm ready! a glass of vodka... I'll cry!

But do you know that, by your grace, in our bazaar you cannot buy a piece of meat or a pound of bread? do you know what it smells like?

Have mercy! I, for my part, am ready to donate! here are two whole gingerbread!

You are stupid, mister landowner! - said the police officer, turned and left without even looking at the printed gingerbread.

This time the landowner thought seriously. Now the third person is honoring him with a fool, the third person will look, look at him, spit and walk away. Is he really a fool? Is it possible that the inflexibility that he so cherished in his soul, translated into ordinary language, means only stupidity and madness? and is it possible that, due to his inflexibility alone, both taxes and regalia stopped, and it became impossible to get a pound of flour or a piece of meat in the market?

And what a stupid landowner he was, at first he even snorted with pleasure at the thought of what trick he had played, but then he remembered the police chief's words: "Do you know what it smells like?" - and chickened out in earnest.

He began, as usual, to walk up and down the rooms and kept thinking: "What does this smell like? Doesn't it smell like some sort of establishment? For example, Cheboksary? Or, perhaps, Varnavin?"

If only in Cheboksary, or something! at least the world would be convinced of what firmness of soul means! - says the landowner, and secretly from himself he already thinks: "In Cheboksary, maybe I would see my dear peasant!"

The landowner walks around, and sits, and walks around again. Whatever it comes up with, everything seems to say just like that: "And you are stupid, mister landowner!" He sees a little mouse running across the room and stealing towards the cards with which he made grand solitaire and already oiled it enough to excite the mouse's appetite with them.

Kshsh... - he rushed to the little mouse.

But the mouse was smart and understood that the landowner without Senka could not do him any harm. He only wagged his tail in response to the landowner’s menacing exclamation, and in a moment was already looking at him from under the sofa, as if saying: “Wait, stupid landowner! oil it up properly!"

How much, how little time has passed, only the landowner sees that in his garden the paths are overgrown with burdock, in the bushes snakes and all sorts of reptiles are swarming, and in the park wild animals howl. Once a bear came up to the estate itself, squatted down, looked out the windows at the landowner and licked his lips.

Senka! cried the landowner, but suddenly caught himself ... and began to cry.

However, the firmness of the soul still did not leave him. Several times he weakened, but as soon as he felt that his heart began to dissolve, he would immediately rush to the newspaper "Vest" and in one minute become hardened again.

No, it’s better to go completely wild, it’s better to let me wander through the forests with wild animals, but let no one say that the Russian nobleman, Prince Urus-Kuchum-Kildibaev, retreated from principles!

And so he went wild. Although at that time autumn had already come and the frosts were decent, he did not even feel the cold. All of him, from head to toe, was covered with hair, like the ancient Esau, and his nails became like iron. He had long ago stopped blowing his nose, but he walked more and more on all fours and was even surprised that he had not noticed before that this way of walking was the most decent and most convenient. He even lost the ability to utter articulate sounds and acquired some special victorious click, an average between a whistle, hiss and bark. But the tail has not yet acquired.

He will go out into his park, in which he once did not live his body loose, white, crumbly, like a cat, in an instant, he will climb to the very top of the tree and guard from there. He will come running, this, a hare, will stand on his hind legs and listen, if there is any danger from where, - and he is already right there. As if an arrow would jump off a tree, cling to its prey, tear it apart with its nails, and so with all the insides, even with the skin, and eat it.

And he became terribly strong, so strong that he even considered himself entitled to enter into friendly relations with the same bear that once looked at him through the window.

Do you want, Mikhail Ivanovich, we will go hiking together on hares? he said to the bear.

Want - why not want! - the bear answered, - only, brother, you destroyed this peasant in vain!

And why?

But because this peasant is not an example more capable than your nobleman brother. And so I'll tell you straight out: you're a stupid landowner, even though you're my friend!

Meanwhile, the police captain, although patronizing the landowners, did not dare to remain silent in view of such a fact as the disappearance of a peasant from the face of the earth. The provincial authorities were also alarmed by his report, writing to him: “And what do you think, who will pay taxes now? Who will drink wine in taverns? Who will be engaged in innocent occupations?” The police captain answers: now the treasury should be abolished, and innocent occupations have been abolished by themselves, instead of them robberies, robbery and murders have spread in the county. The other day, de, and he, the police officer, some kind of bear is not a bear, a man not a man almost pulled up, in which man-bear he suspects that same stupid landowner, who is the instigator of all confusion.

The chiefs were worried and gathered a council. They decided: to catch and install the peasant, and to inspire the stupid landowner, who is the instigator of all the turmoil, in the most delicate way, so that he would stop his fanfare and do not interfere with the receipt of taxes in the treasury.

As if on purpose, at that time a swarm of peasants, which had formed, flew through the provincial town and showered the entire market square. Now this grace has been taken away, put in a basket and sent to the county.

And suddenly there was again a smell in that district of chaff and sheepskins; but at the same time, flour, and meat, and all kinds of living creatures appeared in the bazaar, and so many taxes were received in one day that the treasurer, seeing such a pile of money, only clasped his hands in surprise and cried out:

And where do you, rogues, take !!

"What happened, however, to the landowner?" readers will ask me. To this, I can say that, although with great difficulty, they caught him. Having caught them, they immediately blew their nose, washed and trimmed their nails. Then the police captain gave him a proper reprimand, took away the newspaper "Vest" and, entrusting him with Senka's supervision, left.

He is alive to this day. He lays out grand solitaire, yearns for his former life in the forests, washes only under duress, and hums from time to time.

Illustrations: Kukryniksy

Only this landowner once prayed to God:

- God! I am pleased with everything from you, awarded everything! Only one thing is unbearable to my heart: there are too many peasants divorced in our kingdom!

But God knew that the landowner was stupid, and did not heed his request.

The landowner sees that the muzhik does not decrease every day, but everything arrives, - he sees and fears: “Well, how will he get all the goods from me?”

The landowner will look into the newspaper "Vest", as in this case it should be done, and will read: "Try!"

“Only one word has been written,” says the stupid landowner, “and this is a golden word!”

And he began to try, and not just somehow, but everything according to the rule. If a peasant chicken wanders into the master's oats - now, as a rule, it is in soup; if a peasant gathers to chop wood in secret in the master's forest - now this very firewood is sent to the master's yard, and, as a rule, a fine is imposed on the chopper.

– I now act on them with these fines more! - says the landowner to his neighbors. Because it makes more sense to them.

The peasants see: although their landowner is stupid, he has a great mind. He reduced them so that there was nowhere to stick his nose: wherever they look - everything is impossible, but not allowed, but not yours! The cattle will come out to the watering hole - the landowner shouts: “My water!” - a chicken will wander out of the village - the landowner shouts: "My land!" And earth, and water, and air - all of it became! There was no torch for the peasant to light in the light, there was no more rod than to sweep the hut. So the peasants prayed with the whole world to the Lord God:

- God! It’s easier for us to disappear even with small children than to suffer like this all our lives!

The merciful God heard the orphan's tearful prayer, and there was no peasant in the entire space of the possessions of the stupid landowner. No one noticed where the peasant had gone, but people only saw how suddenly a whirlwind of chaff arose and, like a black cloud, the peasant's trousers swept through the air. The landowner went out onto the balcony, pulled his nose and smelled: clean, pure air in all his possessions became. Naturally, he was pleased. He thinks: “Now I will carry my white body, my body is white, loose, crumbly!”

And he began to live and live and began to think how he could console his soul.

“I’ll start, I think, the theater is at my place! I will write to the actor Sadovsky: come, they say, dear friend! and bring actors with you!”

The actor Sadovsky obeyed: he himself came and brought the actors. He only sees that the landowner's house is empty and there is no one to put up a theater and there is no one to raise the curtain.

Only this landowner once prayed to God:

God! I am pleased with everything from you, awarded everything! Only one thing is unbearable to my heart: there are too many peasants divorced in our kingdom!

But God knew that the landowner was stupid, and did not heed his request.

The landowner sees that the muzhik does not decrease every day, but everything arrives, - he sees and fears: "Well, how will he get all the goods from me?"

The landowner will look into the newspaper "Vest", as in this case one should act, and will read: "Try!"

Only one word is written, - says the stupid landowner, - and this word is golden!

I now act on them with these fines more! - the landowner says to his neighbors, - because for them it is more understandable.

The peasants see: although their landowner is stupid, he has a great mind. He shortened them so that there was nowhere to stick your nose: wherever you look - everything is impossible, but not allowed, but not yours! A cattle will go out to the watering place - the landowner shouts: "My water!" And earth, and water, and air - all of it became! There was no torch for the peasant to light in the light, there was no more rod than to sweep the hut. So the peasants prayed with the whole world to the Lord God:

God! It’s easier for us to disappear even with small children than to suffer like this all our lives!

The merciful God heard the orphan's tearful prayer, and there was no peasant in the entire space of the possessions of the stupid landowner. No one noticed where the peasant had gone, but people only saw how suddenly a whirlwind of chaff arose and, like a black cloud, the peasant's trousers swept through the air. The landowner went out onto the balcony, pulled his nose and smelled: clean, pure air in all his possessions became. Naturally, he was pleased. He thinks: "Now I will carry my white body, my body is white, loose, crumbly!"