Polysemous words and homonyms.

And the bell ringing of the former was no longer - from light to light - in many churches the large bells were removed and taken to the Liteiny Dvor, cast into cannons. A sexton from Old Pimen, when dragoons smelling of tobacco dragged the great bell from his bell tower, got drunk and wanted to hang himself on the crossbar, and then, lying tied up on a chest, in a frenzy of mind shouted that Moscow was glorious with crimson ringing, and now it will be in Moscow languidly.

Previously, at every boyar's yard, at the gates, insolent courtyard slaves in hats knocked over their ears scoffed, played pile, threw money, or simply - they did not give passage to either horse or foot - laughter, pampering, grabbing with hands. Today the gates are closed tightly, in the wide courtyard it is quiet, the little people are taken to war, the boyar's sons and sons-in-law are either in the regiments of non-commissioned officers, or sent overseas, the underage are sent to schools - to learn navigation, mathematics and fortification, the boyar himself is sitting idle with open window, - glad that, even for a short time, Tsar Peter, upon departure, will not forbid him to smoke tobacco, scrape his beard or in white stockings up to his knees, in a wig of woman's hair - up to the navel - twirl and jerk his legs.

The boyar is not happy, languidly thinking at the window ... “All the same, Mavo Mishka cannot be taught mathematics, Moscow is set up without mathematics, we lived, thank God, five hundred years without mathematics — better than the present; from this war, of course, there is nothing to expect, except for the ultimate ruin, no matter how much you drag the godless Neptunes and Veneroks around Moscow in gilded carts in the name of the glorious Victoria on the Neva ... they will leave the Crimea as a horde, climb through the Oka ... Oh, ho-ho! "

The boyar reached with a thick finger for a plate of raspberries - the damned wasps stuck around the whole plate and the window sill! Lazily fingering a rosary of olive pits - from Athos - the boyar looked at the courtyard. Desolation! It's been a year for tsarist ventures and amusements and there is no time to think about your own ... The cages are twisted, the sod roofs have sagged in the cellars, ugly weeds are everywhere ... behind the pig - dirty and skinny. Oh, ho-ho! .. "The boyar understood intellectually that he ought to shout the cowgirl and the hen-woman and then immediately whip them under the window and whip with the vine, lifting up their skirts. In such heat, screaming and getting angry is more dear to yourself.

Boyarin turned his eyes higher - behind the tyn, behind the lindens, covered with white-yellow color and humming bees. Not so far away was the dilapidated Kremlin wall, on which bushes grew between the battlements. And laughter and sin, - Peter Alekseevich reigned! The fortress moat from the Trinity Gate itself, where heaps of mu-copa lay, began to swamp completely, the chicken would cross, and the stinks from it! .. And the Neglinnaya river became shallow, on the right side along it - the Patchwork Bazaar, where they sell all stolen goods right from the hands, and on the left bank under the wall there are boys in dirty shirts sitting with fishing rods, and no one drives them out of there ...

In the rows on Red Square, merchants are locking up the shops, they are going to go to dinner, all the same, the trade is quiet, they hang pood locks on the doors. And the sexton closed the doors, shook his goat beard at the beggars, also went home on the sly - to sip kvass with onions, with dried fish, then to sniff in the chill under an elderberry. And the beggars, the miserable, all sorts of freaks crawled off the porch, wandered under the midday heat - who where ...

In fact, it would be time to get ready for dinner, otherwise languor has completely overcome, such boring. The boyarin looked closely, stretched out his neck and lips, even got up from the stool and covered his eyes with his palm from above, - along the brick bridge that is thrown from the Trinity Gate across the Neglinnaya to the Patchwork Bazaar, a glass carriage of fours rode, gleaming with the sun - a train of gray horses, with a crimson gaydu on the remote. This is Princess Natalya, the beloved sister of Tsar Peter, with the same restless disposition as her brother's, went out on a campaign. Where did she go, priests? The boyar, angrily waving his handkerchief from the wasps, leaned out the window.

- Grishutka, - he shouted to a small boy in a long canvas shirt with red armpits, who was wetting his bare feet in a puddle near the well, - run as much as you can, here I am! - tell me where she went ...

The four gray horses, with red sultans under their ears, with brass plaques and bells on their harness, carried the carriage with a heavy gallop across a wide meadow and stopped at the old Izmailovsky palace. It was installed by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who loved all sorts of ideas in his village of Izmailovo, where tame moose cows were still grazing with a cow herd, bears were sitting in pits, peacocks walked in the poultry yard, climbing the trees in summer to sleep. You cannot count how many on the log palace, darkened by time, there were motley and tinned roofs over the rooms, passages and porches: both steep, with a comb, like a ruff, and a barrel, and a kokoshnik. Evil swifts cut the air above them in the midday silence. All windows in the palace are locked. On the porch an old rooster was dozing on one leg - when the carriage drove up, he caught himself, screamed, ran, and, like a fire, chickens screamed under all the porches. Then a low door opened from the basement, and a watchman, also old, leaned out. Seeing the carriage, he slowly knelt down and bowed his forehead to the ground.

Princess Natalya, sticking her head out of the carriage, asked impatiently:

- Where are the hawthorns, grandfather?

The grandfather got up, put out a gray beard, stretched out his lips:

- Hello, mother, hello, beautiful princess Natalya Alekseevna, - and looked at her affectionately from under the eyebrows that covered his eyes, - oh you, God-given, oh you, dear ... Where are the hawthorns, you ask? And I don’t know where the hawthorns are, I haven’t seen them.

Natalya jumped out of the carriage, pulled off a heavy, pearl, horned crown from her head, threw off the brocade summer dress from her shoulders, - she put on an old Moscow dress only for the trip, - the near noblewoman, Vasilisa Myasnaya, grabbed things into the carriage. Natalya, tall, thin, fast, in a light Dutch dress, walked across the meadow to the grove. There, in the coolness, she closed her eyes - so strong and sweet was the spirit of the blossoming linden tree.

- Hey! - Natalya shouted. Not far away, in the direction where the sun shone unbearably in the water behind the branches, a lazy female voice responded. On the bank of the pond, near the water, by the sand, by the footbridges, stood a motley tent, in its shade on the pillows, languishing, lay four young women. They hurriedly got up to meet Natalya, exhausted, with developed braids. The older one, short, long-nosed, Anisya Tolstaya, ran up to her first and splashed herself, twirling with agile eyes:

- Our light, Natalyushka, empress-princess, ah, ah, a foreign toilet! Oh, oh, deity!

The other two, the sisters of Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, recently taken by order of Peter from their father's house to the Izmailovsky palace under the supervision of Anisya Tolstaya to teach politeness and reading and writing, are the young virgins Martha and Anna, both magnificent, still little hewn, puffed up their swollen mouths and opened eyelashes, transparently looking at the princess. She wore a Dutch dress - red, fine wool a wide skirt with a triple gold edging along the hem and an unprecedented narrow shower jacket - neck, shoulders - bare, arms up to the elbows - bare. Natalya herself understood that only a goddess could be compared with her, well, with Diana, her roundish face, with a raised, short, like a brother's nose, small ears, little mouth - everything was clear, young, haughty.

- The toilet was brought to me yesterday, sent from The Hague by Sanka, Alexandra Ivanovna Volkova ... Nice and - the body is free ... Of course - not for a big exit, but for the grove, for the meadow, for fun.

Natalya turned, giving herself a good look. The fourth young woman stood at a distance, her lowered hands modestly folded in front, smiling with a fresh, like a cherry, sly mouth, and her eyes were cherry, easily flashing, feminine. Round cheeks - blush from the heat, dark curly hair - also damp. Natalya, turning under the gasps and bursts of the pyk, glanced at her several times, obstinately stuck out her lower lip, - she still did not understand: whether this Marienburg glade, taken in a soldier's caftan from under a cart to a tent to Field Marshal Sheremetyev, was kind or unpleasant to her. Menshikov and meekly - one night, by the burning hearth, over a glass of wine - he gave to Pyotr Alekseevich.

Natalya was a virgin, unlike her half-sisters, the sisters of the ruler Sophia imprisoned in the monastery, the princesses Katka and Mashka, who all of Moscow made fun of. Natalia's disposition was ardent and irreconcilable. She repeatedly scolded Katka and Masha with sluts and cows, getting hot, and beat them on the cheeks. The old prison customs, the hot, slow whispers of various backyard women, she drove out of her palace. She also reprimanded her brother, Pyotr Alekseevich, when at one time, having forever sent the shameless favorite Anna Mons away from him, he became very promiscuous and simple with women. At first, Natalya thought that this one - the soldier's meadow - would also only be for half an hour for him: she would shake herself up and forget. No, Pyotr Alekseevich did not forget that evening at Menshikov's, when the wind was raging and Catherine, taking a candle, shone a light on the king in the bedroom. The Menshikov housekeeper was ordered to buy a small house on the Arbat, where Alexander Danilovich himself took her to bed, bundles and boxes, and after a short time from there she was transported to the Izmailovo Palace under the supervision of Anisya Tolstaya.

Chapter one

It became boring in Moscow. At lunchtime - in the heat of July - only stray dogs roamed the crooked streets; drooping their tails, sniffing all the rubbish that people threw out as unnecessary at the gate. There was no previous pushing and shouting in the squares, when another respectable person had the floor torn off, beckoning to the tents, or the pockets were turned out before he bought something in such a swirling place. Sometimes, even before dawn, from all the settlements - Arbat, Sukharev and Zamoskvoretsky, - full carts of red, hardware and leather goods - pots, cups, bowls, pretzels, sieves with berries and all kinds of vegetables, carried poles with bast shoes, trays with in haste, carts and tents in the squares were pies. The streltsy settlements were emptied, the courtyards fell on them, overgrown with deaf nettles. A lot of people were now working in the newly established factories, together with the convicts and the enslaved. The cloth and cloth from there went straight to the Preobrazhensky Prikaz. Swords, spears, stirrups and spurs were forged in all Moscow forges. Hemp rope could not be bought in Moscow - all hemp was taken into the treasury.

Princess Natalya, sticking her head out of the carriage, asked impatiently:

- Where are the hawthorns, grandfather?

The grandfather got up, put out a gray beard, stretched out his lips:

- Our light, Natalyushka, empress-princess, ah, ah, a foreign toilet! Oh, oh, deity!

The other two, the sisters of Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, who were recently taken by order of Peter from their father's house to the Izmailovsky palace under the supervision of Anisya Tolstaya for teaching polite and literacy, are the young virgins Martha and Anna, both magnificent, still little hewn, puffed up their swollen mouths and opened eyelashes, transparently looking at the princess. She wore a Dutch dress — a red, fine wool wide skirt with a triple gold border along the hem and an unprecedented narrow jacket — her neck, her shoulders were bare, her arms were bare to the elbows. Natalya herself understood that only a goddess can be compared with her, well, with Diana, her roundish face, with a raised, short, like a brother's nose, small ears, little mouth - everything was clear, young, haughty.

Here Katerina lived without sorrow, always cheerful, simple-minded, fresh, although at one time she was lying under a soldier's cart. Pyotr Alekseevich often sent her short funny letters on occasion, from Svir, where he began to build a fleet for Baltic Sea, then from the new city of St. Petersburg, then from Voronezh. He missed her. She, sorting through the warehouses of his notes, only blossomed more. Natalya's curiosity was pissed off: how did she charm him?

- Do you want me to sew you the same toilet for the arrival of the sovereign? - said Natalya, looking sternly at Katerina. She sat down, embarrassed, uttered:

- I really want ... Thank you ...

“She is shy of you, light Natalyushka,” Anisya Tolstaya whispered, “do not burn her eyes, be looser with her ... I tell her - this and that - about your kindness, she know her own:“ Princess is sinless, I am a sinner, her, says that kindness has not deserved anything ... That, he says, the sovereign fell in love with me - it’s surprising to me, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, I can’t come to my senses ... ”Yes, and these two fools of mine all climb up to her with questions, - what happened to her yes as? I ordered them to think and talk about it. Here's to you, I say, Greek gods yes cupids, think and talk about their adventures ... No and no, this redneck has eaten into them - twittering about everything vulgar ... From morning till night I repeat to them one thing: you were slaves, you became goddesses.

From the heat, the grasshoppers cracked up in the mown grass so that their ears were dry. Far away, on the far side of the pond, a black pine forest seemed to ooze in a haze. Dragonflies perched on sedges, “spiders stood on pale water. Natalya went under the shade of the tent, threw off her jacket, twisted her dark blond braids around her head, unbuttoned, dropped her skirt, got out of it, pulled down her thin shirt and, just like on the printed Dutch sheets that were sent from time to time along with books from the Palace Order, - not ashamed of nakedness, - went to the walkway.

- Everyone to swim! - Natalya shouted, turning to the tent and still twisting her braids. Martha and Anna mocked, undressing, until Anisya Tolstaya shouted at them: "Why are you squatting, thick-fleshed, no one will steal your charms." Katerina was also embarrassed, noticing that the princess was looking at her intently. Natalia seemed to disdain and admire her. When Katerina, drooping her curly head, cautiously walked along the mown grass, and the heat made her rich, round-shouldered, hipster, filled with health and strength, Natalya thought that her brother, building ships in the north, of course, should miss this woman, he probably seen through tobacco smoke, as here it is - beautiful hands will bring the baby to a high breast ... Natalya exhaled a full chest of air and, closing her eyes, rushed into cold water... In this place, keys were beating from the bottom ...

Katerina gravely climbed sideways from the walkway, plunging more and more boldly, laughed with joy, and only then Natalya finally realized that, it seemed, she was ready to love her. She swam over and put her hands on her dark shoulders.

- You are beautiful, Katerina, I am glad that my brother loves you.

- Thank you, lady ...

- You can call me Natasha ...

She kissed Katerina on a cold, round, wet cheek, looked into her cherry eyes.

- Be smart, Katerina, I will be your friend ...

Martha and Anna, dipping now one or the other leg, were still afraid and squealed on the walkways, - Anisya Tolstaya, angry, forcefully pushed both magnificent maidens into the water. All the spiders scattered, all the dragonflies, having fallen from the sedge, flew, pushed over the bathing goddesses.

In the shade of the tent, twisting her wet hair, Natalya drank the berry waters, pear honey and sour kvask that had just been brought from the cellar. Putting a small piece of sugar gingerbread in her mouth, she said:

- It's a shame to see our ignorance. Thank God - we are no more stupid than other peoples, our virgins are stately and beautiful like no others - that's all foreigners say - are capable of learning and politeness. A brother who has been beating for a year, he drags people out of the towers, out of the mustiness by force ... Fathers and mothers are reluctant, but not girls. My brother, leaving for the war, he asked me: "Natasha, please don't give them peace - the Old Testament bearded men ... annoy them if they don't want good ... This swamp will suck us in ..." I fight, I am alone ... Thanks to the Queen Praskovye, in recent times She helps me - although it is difficult for her to break the old days - she has nevertheless introduced new rules for her daughters: on Sundays after mass they wear French clothes, drink coffee, listen to the music box and talk about worldly things ... But here in the Kremlin in autumn there will be a novelty so a novelty.

- What kind of novelty will you have, our light? Anisya Tolstaya asked, wiping her sweet lips.

- The novelty will be a hefty one ... Tyatr ... Not quite, of course, as at the French court ... There, in Versailles, all over the world glorious actors, and dancers, and painters, and musicians ... And here - I am alone, I transfer tragedies from French to Russian, I’ll write - what’s missing, I’m fiddling with the comedians ...

When Natalya pronounced "tyiatrist", both the Menshikov maidens, Anisya Tolstaya, and Katerina, who was listening to her, glaring at her with a dark gaze, looked at each other, threw up their hands ...

- To begin with, in order not to scare too much, the "Cave Action" will be presented, with the singing of verses ... And by the new year, when the sovereign arrives for the holidays and from St. ... ". I will tell everyone to come to the tiatrist, they will start to resist - I will send dragoons for the audience ... It's a pity that Alexandra Ivanovna Volkova is not in Moscow - she would be very helpful ... Here she is, for example, from a black peasant family, her father belted her belly, literacy herself I began to study when I got married ... She speaks briskly in three languages, composes verses, now she is in The Hague under our after Andrei Artamonovich Matveyev. Cavaliers fight on swords because of her, and there are killed ... And she is going to Paris, to the court of Louis the Fourteenth - to shine ... Do you understand the benefits of teaching?

Anisya Tolstaya immediately poked Martha and Anna under the side with a hard pinch.

- Have you got a question? But the sovereign will come, yes - if it happens to him - he will bring a gallant gentleman to you or to you, and he will listen to how you become disgraced ...

- Leave them, Anisya, it's hot, - said Natalya, - well, goodbye. I still need to stop by in the German settlement. Again complaints about the sisters. I'm afraid it will come to the Tsar. I want to talk to them cool.

Tsarevnas Catherine and Marya long ago, after Sophia was imprisoned in the Novodevichy Convent, were evicted from the Kremlin - out of sight - to Pokrovka. The palace order gave them food and all kinds of pleasure, paid their salaries to the choristers, grooms and all courtyard people, but did not give money for the hands of the princesses, firstly, there was no need, and besides, it was dangerous, knowing their stupidity.

Katya was about forty, Masha was a year younger. All of Moscow knew that they were furious with fat on Pokrovka. They get up late, spend half a day unkempt at the windows and yawn to tears. And when it gets dark, singers with domras and pipes come to them in the upper room; princesses, reddened like apples, wearing soot eyebrows, discharged, listen to songs, drink sweet liqueurs and jump, dance until late at night so that the old log house all shaking. It is as if the princesses live with the singers, and give birth to children from them, and give those children to the city of Kimry for upbringing.

These singers have spoiled themselves so much - on weekdays they wear crimson silk shirts, weasel's high hats and morocco boots, constantly extort money from the princesses and drink it in a circle at the Pokrovsky Gate. The princesses, in order to get money, send a Kimryan woman, Domna Vakhrameeva, to the Patchwork Bazaar, who lives in their closet, under the stairs, and the woman sells all their worn clothes; but this money is not enough for them, and Princess Catherine dreams of finding treasures, for this she orders Domna Vakhrameeva to dream about treasures. Domna sees such dreams, and the princess hopes to be with money.

Natalya had long been going to talk to the sisters coolly, but there was no time - either pouring rain with thunder, or something else interfered. Yesterday she was told about their new adventures: the princesses got into the habit of going to the German settlement. We went in an open carriage to the courtyard of the Dutch envoy; while he, in surprise, put on a wig and a caftan, and a sword, Katka and Masha, sitting in his upper room on chairs, whispered and laughed. When he began to bow to them, as it should be in front of tall persons - sweeping the floor with his hat, they could not answer, only lifted their backs over the chairs and flopped down again, and immediately asked: "Where does the German sugar bowl live here who sells sugar and sweets?" - for this they, de, and stopped by him.

The Dutch envoy kindly escorted the princesses to the sugar bowl, all the way to her shop. There, clutching this and that with their hands, they chose sugar, sweets, pies, marzipan apples and eggs - for nine rubles. Marya said:

- Rather, carry it to the carriage.

The sugar bowl replied:

- I won't take it without money.

The princesses whispered angrily and said to her:

- Wrap it up and seal it, we will send it afterwards.

From the sugar bowl, they completely lost their shame, went to the former favorite, Anna Mons, who still lived in the same house built for her by Pyotr Alekseevich. They did not let her in at once, they had to knock for a long time, and the chain dogs howled. The former favorite received them in bed, must have gone to bed on purpose. They told her:

- Hello for many years, dear Anna Ivanovna, we know that you give money in growth, give us at least a hundred rubles, but I would like two hundred.

Monsicha replied with all cruelty:

- I won’t give it without a mortgage.

Catherine even cried:

- We are dashing, there is no mortgage, they thought to beg.

And the princesses went away from the courtyard of the favorite.

At that time they wanted to eat. They ordered the carriage to stop at a house, where they could see through the open windows how the guests were having fun - there the wife of Sergeant Danila Yudin, who was at that time in Livonia during the war, gave birth to twins, and she was baptized. The princesses entered the house and asked for food, and they were honored.

Three hours later, when they drove away from the sergeant's wife, the English merchant William Peel who was walking along the road recognized them in the carriage, they stopped and asked him if he would like to treat them to dinner? William Peel tossed his hat up and said cheerfully: "With all excellent pleasure." The princesses went to him, ate and drank Aglitsk vodka and beer. And an hour before the evening, having driven away from Pil, they began to ride around the settlement, looking into the lighted windows. Ekaterina wanted to ask for supper somewhere else, and Marya held her back. So they chilled out until dark.

Natalia's carriage galloped along the German settlement past wooden houses long merchant barns with gates bound with iron, skillfully painted to resemble brick, past the amusingly trimmed trees in the front gardens; everywhere - across to the street - there were painted signs, in the shops the doors were open, hung with all kinds of goods. Natalya sat with her lips pursed, not looking at anyone, like a doll, in a horned crown, in a summer year draped over her shoulders. Fat men in suspenders and knitted caps bowed to her; sedate women in straw hats pointed children to her carriage; some dandy in a caftan spread out on the sides jumped off the road and covered himself with a hat from dust; Natalya almost cried with shame, realizing well how Masha and Katka made the whole settlement laugh and everyone, of course - Dutch women, Swiss women, English women, German women - gossip about the fact that Tsar Peter's sisters are barbarians, hungry beggars.

She saw the sisters' open carriage in a crooked alley near the striped - red and yellow - gates of the courtyard of the Prussian envoy Keyserling, about whom they said that he wanted to marry Anna Mons and was only still afraid of Pyotr Alekseevich. Natalya rattled her rings on the front window, the coachman wrapped a resinous beard, shouted out loud: "Whoa, pigeons!" The gray horses came to a halt with heavy side reins. Natalya said to the close boyaryna:

- Go, Vasilisa Matveyevna, tell the German envoy that, they say, I really need Ekaterina Alekseevna and Marya Alekseevna ... But don't let them swallow a piece, take them away at least by force! ..

Vasilisa Myasnaya, groaning softly, climbed out of the carriage. Natalya leaned back and waited, crunching her fingers. Soon the envoy Keyserling fled from the porch, thin, small, with calf eyelashes; clutching the hastily grabbed hat and cane to his chest, bowed at every step, twisting his legs in red stockings, affectionately stretching out his pointed nose, begging the princess to come and drink a cold beer.

- Lack of time! - Natalya answered harshly. - Yes, and I will not drink beer with you ... You are engaged in shameful things, father ... (And not letting him open his mouth.) Go, go, send me princesses as soon as possible ...

Ekaterina Alekseevna and Marya Alekseevna finally left the house, like two heaps - in wide dresses with hooks and frills, round faces on both - frightened, stupid, rouged, instead of their hair - black, highly twisted wigs, hung with beads (Natalya even groaned through teeth). The princesses blinked their swollen eyes at the sun, behind the noblewoman Myasnaya hissed: "Do not be ashamed, you rather sit down in her carriage." Kay-zerling opened the door with a bow. The princesses, forgetting to say goodbye to him, climbed up and barely fit on the bench opposite Natalya. The carriage, dusting with red wheels and falling to the sides, rushed through the wasteland to Pokrovka.

All the way Natalya was silent, the princesses fanned themselves with handkerchiefs in surprise. And only after entering the upper room with them and ordering them to lock the doors, Natalya spoke out:

- Have you, shameless, completely backed away from your mind, or did you want to go to monastic confinement? Little glory for you in Moscow? It took you to be ashamed before the whole world! Who taught you to go to the messengers? Look in the mirror - cheeks burst from satiety, they also wanted Dutch and German pickles! How smart were you to go and bow in two hundred rubles to your nasty wife Anna Monsova? She is glad that she drove you out, beggars - Keyserling will certainly scribble a letter about this to the Prussian king, and the king will ring the bell all over Europe! They wanted to steal from the sugar bowl - they wanted to, do not deny it! Well, she guessed, she didn't give it to you without money. Lord, what will the sovereign say now? What should he do with you cows now? Shave, but on the river to Pechora, to Pustozersk ...

Without taking off the crown and the annual, Natalya walked around the room, squeezing her hands in excitement, sword-burning gazes at Katka and Mashka - they first stood, then, unable to control their legs, sat down: their noses turned red, their fat faces were shaking, puffed out with a cry, but it was scary to give them a vote.

“The sovereign is pulling us out of the abyss beyond his strength,” said Natalya. - He is undernourished, undernourished, he saws boards himself, he drives nails himself, under bullets, he walks with cannonballs, only to make people of us ... His enemies are waiting for him - to dishonor and destroy. And these! Yes, not a single fierce enemy will guess what you have done ... Yes, I will never believe, I will find out - who advised you to go to the German settlement ... You are old girls, clumsy ...

Here Katka and Masha, loosening their swollen lips, burst into tears.

- Nobody advised us, - Katka wailed, - we should sink into the ground ...

Natalya shouted to her:

- You're lying! Who told you about the sugar bowl? And who said that Monsicha gives money for growth? ..

Marya also voiced:

- The Kimryan woman, Domna Vakhrameeva, told us about it. She saw this sugar bowl in a dream, we believe her, we wanted marzipan ...

Natalya rushed, threw open the door, - an old man jumped out behind her - a roomy mischief in a woman's dress, backslidden grandmothers, freak grandmothers, cracker-grandmothers with stuffed thorns in their hair backed away. Natalya grabbed the hand of a neat, soft woman in a black headscarf.

- Are you a Kimryan baba?

The woman silently waved her whole body a heartfelt bow:

- Sovereign-princess, for sure, I am from Kimry, poor widow Domna Vakhrameeva ...

- Did you persuade the princesses to go to the German settlement? Answer ...

Vakhrameeva's white face trembled, her long lips twisted:

- I am a spoiled wife, my sovereign, I speak absurd words in a frenzy, the benefactress princesses amuse themselves with my stupid words, but I’m even happy ... I see unspeakable dreams at night. And whether my dreams are believed by the benefactress-princess, whether or not - I don’t know ... I have never been to the German Quarter, never seen any sugar bowl. - Again waving a bow to Natalya, the widow of Vakhrameeva stood, folded her hands on her stomach under the handkerchief, turned to stone, - at least torture with fire ...

Natalya looked gloomily at her sisters - Katka and Mashka only groaned softly, tossing themselves in the heat. An old mischievous man with only nostrils instead of a nose pushed through the door - his mustache, beard tousled, lips twisted.

- Ai need to make you laugh? - Marya vexedly waved her handkerchief at him. But already a dozen hands grabbed the door from the other side, and the crackers, freaks in rags, simple-haired, others in stupid sundresses, in bast kokoshniks, pushing the old mischievous man, burst into the room. Agile, shameless, they began to jump, scream, fight among themselves, dragging by the hair, slapping on the cheeks. An old mischievous man climbed on top of a hunchbacked grandmother, exposing sandals from under a patchwork skirt, shouted nasally: “But a German rode a German woman on horseback to drink beer ...” In the hallway, singers arrived in time with a whistle. Domna Vakhrameeva walked away and stood behind the stove, dropping her handkerchief over her eyebrows.

In annoyance, in anger, Natalya stamped with red shoes, - "Away!" - shouted at this tumbling rag and rubbish, - "away!" But the fools and crackers only screamed louder. What could she do alone with this demonic mass! All Moscow is full of it, in every boyar house, around every porch this pitch-black darkness swirled ... Natalya disdainfully picked up the hem, - she realized that that was the end of her conversation with the sisters. And it would be stupid to leave now, - Katka and Masha, leaning out the windows, would have laughed after her carriage ...

Suddenly, in the midst of the noise and fuss, there was a horse trampling and the rumbling of wheels in the yard. The singers in the entryway fell silent. The old mischievous man shouted, bared his teeth: "Run away!" - fools and crackers, like rats, rushed through the doors. It was as if everything in the house had died at once. Wooden ladder began to creak under heavy steps.

An obese man entered the room, panting, holding in his hand a staff, forged with silver, and a hat. He was dressed in old Moscow style in a long - floor-length - spacious cranberry army jacket; his broad, swarthy face is shaved off, his black mustache is twisted like a Polish one, the light-colored one has a tear — his eyes are bulging like those of a crayfish. He silently bowed - with his hat to the floor - to Natalya Alekseevna, turned heavily and bowed in the same way to the princesses Katerina and Marya, choked with fear. Then he sat down on the bench, placing his hat and staff beside him.

- Wow, - he said, - well, here I come. - He pulled out a large colored scarf from his bosom, wiped his face, neck, wet hair combed over his forehead.

This was the most terrible person in Moscow - Prince-Caesar Fyodor Yuryevich Romodanovsky.

- We have heard, we have heard, that something was wrong here. Ah ah ah! - Throwing a handkerchief into the bosom of the Armenian, the prince-Caesar rolled his eyes to the princesses Katerina and Marya. - Marzipan wanted? So, so, so ... And stupidity is worse than theft ... The noise came out great. - He turned, like an idol, a broad face to Natalia. - They were sent for money to the German settlement - that's what. It means that someone needs money. Don't be angry with me - you will have to put a guard near your sisters' house. A Kimryan woman lives in their closet and secretly carries food in a pot to a vacant lot behind the garden, to an abandoned bathhouse. In that bathhouse there lives a runaway grishka ... (Here Katerina and Marya turned white, grabbed their cheeks.) Which grishka boiled, as if in a bathhouse, a love potion, and a potion from conception, and so that the fruit would be thrown off. OK. We know that Grishka, besides, writes anonymous letters of thieves in the bathhouse, and at night he goes to the German settlement in the courtyards of some of the envoys, and visits a Chernoryask woman who, Chernoryaska, visits the Novodevichy Convent, washes the floors there, and washes the floor in the cell of the former ruler Sophia Alekseevna ... (The prince-Caesar spoke quietly, slowly, in the parlor, no one breathed.) So I will stay here for a short time, dear Natalya Alekseevna, and don't you mess with these matters, go home by the coolness of the evening ...

1

It became boring in Moscow. At lunchtime - in the July heat - some stray dogs roamed the crooked streets, drooping their tails, sniffing all the rubbish that people threw out as unnecessary at the gate. There was no previous pushing and shouting in the squares, when another respectable person had the floor torn off, beckoning to the tents, or the pockets were turned out before he bought something in such a swirling place. Sometimes, even before dawn, from all the settlements - Arbat, Sukharev and Zamoskvoretsky, they were carrying full carts of red, hardware and leather goods - pots, cups, bowls, pretzels, sieves with berries and all kinds of vegetables, they carried poles with bast shoes, trays with in haste, carts and tents in the squares were pies. The streltsy settlements were emptied, the courtyards fell on them, overgrown with deaf nettles. A lot of people were now working in the newly established factories, together with the convicts and the enslaved. The cloth and cloth from there went straight to the Preobrazhensky Prikaz. Swords, spears, stirrups and spurs were forged in all Moscow forges. Hemp rope could not be bought in Moscow - all hemp was taken into the treasury. And the bell ringing of the former was no longer - from light to light - in many churches the large bells were removed and taken to the Liteiny Dvor, cast into cannons. A sexton from Old Pimen, when dragoons smelling of tobacco dragged the great bell from his belfry, got drunk and wanted to hang himself on the crossbar, and then, lying tied up on a chest, in a frenzy of mind shouted that Moscow was glorious with crimson ringing, and now it will be in Moscow tomno. Previously, at every boyar court, at the gates, insolent courtyard slaves scoffed, in hats knocked over their ear, played pile, threw money, or simply - they did not give passage to either horse or foot - laughter, pampering, grabbing with hands. Today the gates are closed tightly, in the wide courtyard it is quiet, the little people are taken to war, the boyar's sons and sons-in-law are either in the regiments of non-commissioned officers, or sent overseas, the underage are sent to schools - to learn navigation, mathematics and fortification, the boyar himself is sitting idle with open window, - glad that, even for a short time, Tsar Peter, upon departure, will not forbid him to smoke tobacco, scrape his beard or in white stockings up to his knees, in a wig of woman's hair - up to the navel - twirl and jerk his legs. Not fun, the boyar thinks at the window ... “All the same, Mavo Mishka cannot be taught mathematics, Moscow is set up without mathematics, and, thank God, they lived five hundred years without mathematics — better than the present; from this war, of course, there is nothing to expect, except for the ultimate ruin, no matter how much you drag the godless Neptunes and Veneroks around Moscow in gilded carts in the name of the glorious Victoria on the Neva ... How to drink, the Swede will beat our army, and the Tatars, for a long time waiting, they will leave the Crimea in a horde, climb through the Oka ... O-ho-ho! " The boyar reached with a thick finger for a plate of raspberries - the damned wasps stuck around the whole plate and the window sill! Lazily fingering a rosary of olive pits - from Athos - the boyar looked at the courtyard. Desolation! What a year for royal undertakings and amusements and there is no time to think about your own ... The cages are twisted, the sod roofs have sagged in the cellars, ugly weeds are everywhere ... the hunchbacked pigs follow the pig in single file - dirty and skinny. Oh-ho-ho! .. ”The boyar understood intellectually that he ought to shout the cowgirl and the hen-woman and then immediately whip them under the window and whip with the vine, lifting up their skirts. In such heat, screaming and getting angry is more dear to yourself. Boyarin turned his eyes higher - behind the tyn, behind the lindens, covered with white-yellow color and humming bees. Not so far away was the dilapidated Kremlin wall, on which bushes grew between the battlements. Both laughter and sin, - Peter Alekseevich reigned to reign! The fortress moat from the Trinity Gate itself, where heaps of garbage lay, began to swamp completely, the chicken would cross, and the stinks from it! on the left bank, under the wall, boys in dirty shirts sit with fishing rods, and no one drives them out of there ... In the rows on Red Square, merchants are locking up the shops, they are going to go to dinner, all the same, the trade is quiet, they hang pood locks on the doors. And the sexton closed the doors, shook his goat beard at the beggars, also went slowly home - to sip kvass with onions, with dried fish, then - to sniff in the chill under an elderberry. And the beggars, the miserable, all sorts of monsters crawled off the porch, wandered under the midday heat - who where ... In fact, it would be time to get ready for dinner, otherwise languor has completely overcome, such boring. Boyarin looked closely, stretched out his neck and lips, even got up from the stool and covered his eyes with his palm from above, - along the brick bridge that is thrown from the Trinity Gate across the Neglinnaya to the Patchwork Bazaar, a glass carriage of fours rode, in the glare of the sun, in a train of gray horses, with crimson with a hayduck on a portable one. This is Princess Natalya, the beloved sister of Tsar Peter, with the same restless disposition as her brother's, went out on a campaign. Where did she go, priests? The boyar, angrily waving his handkerchief from the wasps, leaned out the window. - Grishutka, - he shouted to a small boy in a long canvas shirt with red armpits, who was wetting his bare feet in a puddle near the well, - run as much as you can, here I am! - tell me where she went ...

And very few people returned from there. There people were chained to anvils and foundry furnaces. The obstinate was crossed with vines.

There is nowhere to run - horse Cossacks with lassos guarded all the roads and forest paths. And those who tried to rebel were thrown into deep mines, drowned in ponds.

After Christmas, a new recruitment began. In all cities, the tsarist recruiters recruited carpenters, masons, excavators. From Moscow to Novgorod, they rewrote all of them for transportation.

Why aren't you showing Katerina?

She's shy, min hertz ... She fell in love with me so much, became attached, - she doesn't raise her eyes to anyone ... Just marry her ...

Why aren't you getting married?

Well, how, after all ...

Menshikov sat down on the waxed floor by the fireplace, turning his face away, stirring the burning logs. The wind howled in the chimney, the tin roof thundered. Snow was thrown into the glass of the tall window. The lights of two wax candles on the table. Peter smoked, drank wine, wiped his red face and wet hair with a napkin. He had just returned from Tula - from the factories - and, without stopping by at the Preobrazhenskie, - straight to Menshikov, to the bathhouse. He steamed for three hours. In Aleksashka's perfumed linen, in his silk caftan, without a neckerchief, with an open chest, he sat down, had supper (ordered no one to be in the small dining room, not even the servants), asked about various trifling matters, and laughed. And suddenly he asked about Katerina (from that conversation in the carriage he remembered her for the first time).

To marry, Pyotr Alekseevich, with my thin relative and in captivity ... I don’t know ... (I was digging with a poker, sprinkled with sparks.) They are wooing me to Arsenyev Avdotya. An ancient clan, from the Golden Horde ... All the same - he will make my pies. Foreigners are constantly in my palace, - the first thing they ask is who is married to, what is my title? Ours - fat-assed, generous - are happy to whisper to them: he was taken from the street ...

That's right, - said Peter. Dry with a napkin. His eyes were shining.

I should at least get some kind of graph - a title. - Aleksashka threw the poker. He blocked the fire with a copper net and returned to the table. - Blizzard, horror. You, min hertz, have nothing to think about - go home.

I'm not going to.

Menshikov took up the glass, - trembled in his hand. He sat without raising his eyes.

I didn’t start this conversation, you started it, ”said Peter. - Go and call her ...

Aleksashka turned pale. With a strong movement he got up. Came out.

Peter sat swinging his leg. The house was quiet, except for a snowstorm in the large attics. Peter listened with raised eyebrows. The leg swayed like a clockwork. Steps again, fast, angry. Aleksashka, returning, stood in open door, bit his lips:

Now it is coming.

Pyotr's ears tightened up, - he heard: in the silence of the house, it seemed that light female legs on tapping heels seemed to fly merrily, carelessly.

Come in, don't be afraid, - Aleksashka let Katerina through the door. She narrowed her eyes a little - from the darkness of the corridor to the light of the candles. As if asking, she looked at Aleksashka (she was up to his shoulder, black-haired, with movable eyebrows), with the same light step, without timidity, she went up to Peter, sat down low, took, like a thing, his big hand, lying on the table, kissed. He felt the warmth of her lips and the chill of her even white teeth. I put my hands under the white apron, - stopped in front of Peter's chair. Under her skirts, the legs that had brought her here so easily were slightly apart. She looked into the eyes clearly, cheerfully.

Sit down, Katerina.

She answered in Russian - broken, but so pleasant voice, - he immediately felt warm from the fireplace, comfortable from the howling of the wind, unclenched his ears, gave up swinging his leg. She answered:

I'll sit down, thanks. She sat down on the end of the chair now, her hands still on her stomach under the apron.

Do you drink wine?

I drink, thanks.

Do you not live badly in captivity?

Not bad, thanks…

Aleksashka approached gloomily and poured wine for all three:

That got one thing right: thank you, thank you. Tell me something.

As I will say, they are not an ordinary person.

She freed her hands from under her apron, took a glass, smiled quickly at Peter:

They themselves know - how to start a conversation ...

Peter laughed. I haven't laughed so kindly for a long time. I began to ask Katerina - where did she come from, where did she live, how did she get “taken prisoner? In reply, she sat down deeper in the chair, rested her bare elbows on the tablecloth - her dark eyes glittered, her black curls glittered like silk, falling in two strands on her easily breathing chest. And it seemed - just as easily as she had just been here on the stairs, she ran through all the hardships of her short life ...

Aleksashka topped up everything in glasses. I put more logs in the fireplace. A blizzard howled at midnight. Peter stretched, wrinkling his short nose, and looked at Katerina:

Well, what - to sleep, or what? I'll go ... Katyusha, take a candle, shine a light on me ...

A gloomy man, Fedka Wash himself with Mud, with a fresh crimson brand on his forehead, spreading his bare feet bound by a chain on high trestles, intercepting the long handle of an oak sledgehammer, hitting the end of the pile with a brace ... The man was healthy. Others — some who lowered the wheelbarrow, some stood waist-deep in the water with their beards raised, others threw a log off their shoulders — watched the pile sink into the swampy shore with every blow.

The first pile was driven in for the embankment of the small island of Yannisaari, - in Finnish - Hare Island. Three weeks ago the Russian troops took on a chord - two versts up the Neva - the earthen fortress of Nyenskans. The Swedes, leaving the Neva banks, went to the Sestra River. The Swedish fleet, for fear of shallows, darkened the sails behind the swell of the sun in the distance of the bay. Two small ships dared to enter the mouth of the Neva - to the island of Khivrisaari, where Captain Vasiliev's battery was hiding in the forest, but they were stuck around by galleys and taken on board.

Through bloody efforts, the passage from Ladoga to the open sea was opened. Countless carts, crowds of workers and convicts stretched from the east. (Peter wrote to Romodanovsky: “... there is a great need for people, they were led to collect thieves in all cities, orders and town halls - to send them here.”) Thousands of workers who came thousands of miles away were transported on rafts and canoes to the right bank of the Neva, to Koibusaari Island, where huts and dugouts stood on the shore, fires were smoked, axes knocked, saws squealed. Here, to the ends of the earth, working people went and went without a return. In front of Koibusaari - on the Neva - on the marshy island of Yannisaari, in order to save the dearly mined mouth of all the trade roads of the Russian land, they began to build a fortress of six bastions. ("... To build them for six chiefs: the first bastion is being built by the bombardier Pyotr Alekseev, the second by Menshikov, the third by Prince Trubetskoy, the fourth by the prince-dad Zotov ...") Palbe, the fortress was thought to be called Piterburkh.

The open sea was just a stone's throw from here. Wind. covered him with a merry swell. In the west, behind the sails of Swedish ships, there were high sea clouds, like the smoke of another world. We looked at these non-Russian clouds, at expanses of water, on the terrible fires of the evening dawn, only sentinel soldiers on the deserted Kotlin Island. There was not enough bread. From devastated Ingria, where the plague began, there was no supply. Ate roots and pounded tree bark... Peter wrote to the prince-Caesar, asking him to send more people, - "they are very sick here, and many have died." Carts, workers, convicts walked and walked ...

Fedka Wash with Mud, throwing his hair onto his sore, wet forehead, hitting and hitting the piles with an oak sledgehammer ...

BOOK THREE

Chapter one

And the bell ringing of the former was no longer - from light to light - in many churches the large bells were removed and taken to the Liteiny Dvor, cast into cannons. A sexton from Old Pimen, when dragoons smelling of tobacco dragged the great bell from his belfry, got drunk and wanted to hang himself on the crossbar, and then, lying tied up on a chest, in a frenzy of mind shouted that Moscow was glorious with crimson ringing, and now it will be in Moscow languidly.

It’s not fun, the boyar thinks languidly at the window ... “All the same, Mavo Mishka cannot be taught mathematics, Moscow is set up without mathematics, we lived, thank God, five hundred years without mathematics — better than the present; there is nothing to expect from this war, except for the ultimate ruin, no matter how much you drag the godless Neptunes and Veneroks in gilded carts around Moscow in the name of the glorious Victoria on the Neva ... from the Crimea, climb through the Oka ... Oh, ho-ho! "

The boyar reached with a thick finger for a plate of raspberries - the damned wasps stuck around the whole plate and the window sill! Lazily fingering a rosary of olive pits - from Athos - the boyar looked at the courtyard. Desolation! It's been a year for tsarist ventures and amusements and there is no time to think about your own ... The cages are twisted, the sod roofs have sagged in the cellars, ugly weeds are everywhere ... behind the pig - dirty and skinny. Oh, ho-ho! .. ”The boyar understood intellectually that he ought to shout the cowgirl and the hen-woman and then immediately whip them under the window and whip with the vine, lifting up their skirts. In such heat, screaming and getting angry is more dear to yourself.

Boyarin turned his eyes higher - behind the tyn, behind the lindens, covered with white-yellow color and humming bees. Not so far away was the dilapidated Kremlin wall, on which bushes grew between the battlements. And laughter and sin, - Peter Alekseevich reigned! The fortress moat from the Trinity Gate itself, where heaps of garbage lay, began to swamp completely, the chicken would cross, and the stinks from it! on the left bank, under the wall, boys in dirty shirts sit with fishing rods, and no one drives them out of there ...

In the rows on Red Square, merchants are locking up the shops, they are going to go to dinner, all the same, the trade is quiet, they hang pood locks on the doors. And the sexton closed the doors, shook his goat beard at the beggars, also went slowly home - to sip kvass with onions, with dried fish, then - to sniff in the chill under an elderberry. And the beggars, the miserable, all sorts of freaks crawled off the porch, wandered under the midday heat - who where ...

In fact, it would be time to get ready for dinner, otherwise languor has completely overcome, such boring. Boyarin looked closely, stretched out his neck and lips, even got up from the stool and covered his eyes with his palm from above, - along the brick bridge that is thrown from the Trinity Gate across the Neglinnaya to the Patchwork Bazaar, a glass carriage of fours rode, in the glare of the sun, in a train of gray horses, with crimson with a hayduck on a portable one. This is Princess Natalya, the beloved sister of Tsar Peter, with the same restless disposition as her brother's, went out on a campaign. Where did she go, priests? The boyar, angrily waving his handkerchief from the wasps, leaned out the window.

Grishutka, - he shouted to a small boy in a long canvas shirt with red armpits, who was wetting his bare feet in a puddle near the well, - run as much as you can, here I am! tell me where she went ...

The four gray horses, with red sultans under their ears, with brass plaques and bells on their harness, carried the carriage with a heavy gallop across a wide meadow and stopped at the old Izmailovsky palace. It was installed by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who loved all sorts of ideas in his village of Izmailovo, where tame moose cows were still grazing with a cow herd, bears were sitting in pits, peacocks walked in the poultry yard, climbing the trees in summer to sleep. You cannot count how many on the log palace, darkened by time, there were motley and tinned roofs over the rooms, passages and porches: both steep, with a comb, like a ruff, and a barrel, and a kokoshnik. Evil swifts cut the air above them in the midday silence. All the windows in the palace are locked On the porch an old rooster was dozing on one leg - when the carriage drove up, he caught himself, screamed, ran, and, like a fire, under all the porches chickens screamed.Then a low door opened from the basement, and a watchman, also old ... Seeing the carriage, he slowly knelt down and bowed his forehead to the ground.

Princess Natalya, sticking her head out of the carriage, asked impatiently:

Where are the hawthorns, grandfather?

The grandfather got up, put out a gray beard, stretched out his lips:

Hello, mother, hello, beautiful princess Natalya Alekseevna, - and affectionately looked at her from under the eyebrows that covered his eyes, - oh you, God-given, oh you, dear ... Where are the hawthorns, you ask? And I don’t know where the hawthorns are, I haven’t seen them.

Hey! - Natalya shouted. Not far away, in the direction where the sun shone unbearably in the water behind the branches, a lazy female voice responded. On the bank of the pond, near the water, by the sand, by the footbridges, stood a motley tent, in its shade on the pillows, languishing, lay four young women. They hurriedly got up to meet Natalya, exhausted, with developed braids. The older one, short, long-nosed, Anisya Tolstaya, ran up to her first and splashed herself, twirling with agile eyes:

Our light, Natalyushka, empress-princess, ah, ah, a foreign toilet! Oh, oh, deity!

The other two, the sisters of Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, recently taken by order of Peter from their father's house to the Izmailovo palace under the supervision of Anisya Tolstaya to teach politicization and reading and writing, are the young maidens Martha and Anna, both magnificent, still little hewn, puffed up their swollen mouths and opened their eyelashes, transparently looking at the princess. She wore a Dutch dress — a red, fine wool wide skirt with a triple gold border along the hem and an unprecedented narrow jacket — her neck, her shoulders were bare, her arms were bare to the elbows. Natalya herself understood that only a goddess can be compared with her, well, with Diana, her roundish face, with a raised, short, like a brother's nose, small ears, a mouth - everything was clear, young, haughty.

The toilet was brought to me yesterday, sent from The Hague by Sanka, Alexandra Ivanovna Volkova ... Beautiful - the body is free ... Of course - not for a big exit, but for the grove, for the meadow, for fun.

Natalya turned, giving herself a good look. The fourth young woman stood at a distance, her lowered hands modestly folded in front, smiling with a fresh, like a cherry, sly mouth, and her eyes were cherry, easily flashing, feminine. Round cheeks - blush from the heat, dark curly hair - also damp. Natalya, turning under the gasps and splashes of her hands, glanced at her several times, obstinately stuck out her lower lip, - she herself did not yet understand: whether this Marienburg glade, taken in a soldier's caftan from under a cart to a tent to Field Marshal Sheremetyev, was kind or unpleasant to her. Menshikov and meekly - one night, by the burning hearth, over a glass of wine - he gave to Pyotr Alekseevich.

Natalya was a virgin, unlike her half-sisters, the sisters of the ruler Sophia imprisoned in the monastery, the princesses Katka and Mashka, who all of Moscow made fun of. Natalya's disposition was ardent and irreconcilable Katka and Mashka, she repeatedly scolded the sluts and cows, getting hot, and beat them on the cheeks. The old Terem customs, the hot, modest whispers of various backyard women, she drove out of her palace. She also reprimanded her brother, Pyotr Alekseevich, when at one time, having forever sent the shameless favorite Anna Mons away from him, he became very promiscuous and simple with women. At first, Natalya thought that this one - the soldier's meadow - would also only be for half an hour for him: she would shake herself up and forget. No, Pyotr Alekseevich did not forget that evening at Menshikov's, when the wind was raging and Catherine, taking a candle, shone a light on the king in the bedroom. For the Menshikov housekeeper, he was ordered to buy a small house on the Arbat, where Alexander Danilovich himself took her to bed, bundles and boxes, and after a short time from there she was transported to the Izmailovsky Palace under the supervision of Anisya Tolstaya.

Here Katerina lived without sorrow, always cheerful, simple-minded, fresh, although at one time she was lying under a soldier's cart. Pyotr Alekseevich often sent her short funny letters on occasion - either from Svir, where he began to build a fleet for the Baltic Sea, then from the new city of St. Petersburg, then from Voronezh. He missed her. She, sorting through the warehouses of his notes, only blossomed more. Natalya's curiosity was pissed off: how did she charm him?

Do you want me to sew you the same toilet for the arrival of the sovereign? - said Natalya, looking sternly at Katerina. She sat down, embarrassed, uttered:

I really want ... Thank you ...

She is shy of you, light Natalyushka, - Anisya Tolstaya whispered, - do not burn her eyes, be looser with her ... I tell her - this and that - about your kindness, she know her own; “The princess is sinless, I am a sinner, she, she says, didn’t deserve kindness ... What, he says, the sovereign fell in love with me, is surprising to me, like a bolt from the blue, I can’t come to my senses ...” Yes, and these two fools of mine are all to her climb with questions - what happened to her and how? I ordered them to think and talk about it. Here, I say, Greek gods and cupids, think and talk about their adventures ... No and no, this redneck has eaten into them - chirping about everything vulgar ... From morning till night I repeat to them one thing: you were slaves, you became goddesses.

From the heat, the grasshoppers cracked up in the mown grass so that their ears were dry. Far away, on the far side of the pond, a black pine forest seemed to ooze in a haze. Dragonflies perched on sedges, spiders perched on the pale water. Natalya entered under the shade of the tent, threw off her jacket, twisted her dark blond braids around her head, unbuttoned, dropped her skirt, got out of it, pulled down her thin shirt and, just like on the printed Dutch sheets, which from time to time were sent along with books from the Palace Order, - not ashamed of nakedness, - went to the walkway.

Swim for everyone! - Natalya shouted, turning to the tent and still twisting her braids. Martha and Anna mocked, undressing, until Anisya Tolstaya shouted at them: "Why are you squatting, thick-fleshed, no one will steal your charms." Katerina was also embarrassed, noticing that the princess was looking at her intently. Natalia seemed to disdain and admire her. When Katerina, drooping her curly head, cautiously walked over the mown grass, and the heat made her rich, round-shouldered, hipster, cast in health and strength, Natalya thought that her brother, building ships in the north, of course, should miss this woman, he probably , it is seen through the tobacco smoke, as here she is - with beautiful hands she will bring the baby to the high breast ... Natalya exhaled a full chest of breath and, closing her eyes, rushed into the cold water ... In this place, keys beat from the bottom ...

You are beautiful, Katerina, I am glad that my brother loves you.

Thank you, lady ...

You can call me Natasha ...

She kissed Katerina on a cold, round, wet cheek, looked into her cherry eyes.

Be smart. Katerina, I will be your friend ...

It's a shame to see our ignorance. Thank God - we are no more stupid than other peoples, our virgins are stately and beautiful like no others - that's all foreigners say - are capable of learning and politeness. A brother who has been beating for a year, he drags people out of the towers, out of the mustiness by force ... Fathers and mothers are reluctant, but not girls. Brother, leaving for war, as he asked me. “Natasha, please don’t give them peace - the old-testament bearded men… Annoy them if they don’t want good… This swamp will suck us in…” I fight, I am alone. Thanks to Tsarina Praskovya, lately she has been helping me - although it is difficult for her to break the old days - she has nevertheless introduced new rules for her daughters: on Sundays after mass they come to her in French dress, drink coffee, listen to the music box and talk about the mundane ... But I will have a novelty in the Kremlin in the fall, so a novelty.

What kind of novelty will you have, our light? Anisya Tolstaya asked, wiping her sweet lips.

The novelty will be a hefty one ... Tyatr ... Not quite, of course, as at the French court ... There, in Versailles, all over the world glorious actors, dancers, painters, and musicians ... And here - I am alone, and I transfer tragedies from French to Russian , I also compose - what is missing, I fiddle with the comedians ...

To begin with, in order not to scare too much, the "Cave action" will be presented, with the singing of verses ... And by the new year, when the sovereign arrives for the holidays and from St. ... "I will tell everyone to come to the tiatrist, they will start to resist - I will send the dragoons for the audience ... It's a pity that Alexandra Ivanovna Volkova is not in Moscow, she would be very helpful ... Here she is, for example, from a black peasant family, her father belted her ribbons, she herself began to learn to read and write when she got married ... She speaks briskly in three languages, composes verses, now she is in The Hague under our post-Andrei Artamonovich Matveyev. Cavaliers fight with swords because of her, and there are killed ... And she is going to Paris, to the court of Louis the Fourteenth - to shine ... Do you understand the benefits of teaching?

Anisya Tolstaya immediately poked Martha and Anna under the side with a hard pinch.

Have a question? But the sovereign will come, yes - if it happens to him - he will bring a gallant gentleman to you or to you, and he will listen to how you begin to be ashamed ...

Leave them, Anisya, it's hot, - said Natalya, - well, goodbye. I still need to stop by in the German settlement. Again complaints about the sisters. I'm afraid it will come to the Tsar. I want to talk to them cool.

Katya was about forty, Masha was a year younger. All of Moscow knew that they were furious with fat on Pokrovka. They get up late, half a day unkempt sit at the windows and yawn to tears. And when it gets dark, singers with domras and pipes come to them in the upper room; princesses, reddened like apples, shaking their eyebrows with soot, discharged, listen to songs, drink sweet liqueurs and jump, dance until late at night so that the old log house is shaking all over. It is as if the princesses live with the singers, and give birth to children from them, and give those children to the city of Kimry for upbringing.

the same hustle and bustle in the squares, when the honorable man

the floors will be torn off, beckoning to the tents, or pockets turned out, before

will buy something on such a swirling place It used to be, even before dawn, from all

bod, - Arbat, Sukharev, Izamoskvoretsky, - full carts

red, hardware and leather goods, -pots, cups, bowls,

pretzels, sieves with berries and all sorts of vegetables, they carried poles with bast shoes,

pies, in a hurry, became tents on the squares.

Streltsy settlements and courtyards fell into oblivion, overgrown with dull nettles.

A lot of people worked with the newly established manufactories together

jellies

Preobrazhensky order. In all the Moscow smithies, there are boots, spears,

stirrups and spurs. Hemp rope could not be bought in Moscow - all

hemp is taken to the treasury.

And the bell ringing of the former was no longer - from light to light,

in many churches, large bells were taken down and taken to the Foundry,

poured into cannons. Sexton from Old Pimen when you smell tobacco

the dragoons pulled the great bell off the bell tower, got drunk and wanted

hang on the bar, apot, lying tied on the chest, in

in a frenzy of mind, he shouted that the glory of Moscow was a ringing

now Moscow will become languid.

Before, at every boyar court, at the gates, insolent courtiers scoffed

slaves in hats knocked over their ears played pile, threw money or simply

They did not give the passage to either horse or foot, - laughter, pampering, grabbing

hands. Today the gates are closed tightly, in the wide courtyard it is quiet, little people

taken to the war, boyar sons and sons-in-law,

either sent overseas, undersized, given to schools to learn navigation,

mathematics and fortification, samboyarinside

window, - I'm glad that at least in little time Tsar Peter, after leaving, did not

does not allow him to smoke tobacco, scrape his beard or in white stockings up to his knee, in

a wig made of woman's hair - up to the navel - twirl and jerk your legs.

Not fun, the boyar thinks languidly at the window ... "

You can't teach mathematics, Moscow was set up without mathematics, we lived, thank God,

five hundred years without mathematics is better than the present; from this war

there is nothing to wait except for the ultimate ruin.

the gilded carts of the godless Neptunov and Venus in the name of the glorious

Victoria on the Neva ... How to drink, the Swede will beat our army, and more Tatars,

waiting for this for a long time, they will leave the Crimea in a horde, climb through the Eye ... Oh,

The boyar reached out with a thick finger to a plate of raspberries,

covered the whole plate and the windowsill! Idly fingering the beads of the oil

bones - from Athos, - the boyar looked at the courtyard.