Composer Georgy Bashilov, while listening to a regular, primitively crude feast song, frowns. The composer's wife explains to others that he is not offended by singing, but, on the contrary, feels guilty for the fact that his countrymen do not sing at all in the village where he comes from. Bashilov thinks that his guilt is enormous. With his arms wrapped around his gray head (he is over fifty), he is waiting for some kind of punishment, maybe from heaven. And he thinks to himself that at night he will hear in the silence and darkness the high, clear voice of the child.

The emergency village is small, there are only three houses located with the letter "P", the open part, like a sensitive ear, facing the old factory, where fires often occurred. In one of these fires, an eight-year-old Bashilov burned his father and mother. He lived with his uncle, where he fed and dressed, paid for him at a music school in the town where he was transported for thirty kilometers. In the village they sang at funeral parties, on holidays and sang just like that, out of boredom, for long evenings. And little Bashilov sang, gaining strength in his voice, and the boy's voice sounded clear, as if he were just breathing. Then he began to play the harmonica, and people explained to him that no one had ever played like that. The voices in the village were wonderful. The only one whom God noticeably circumvented was the fool Vasik - the antipode of little George. When Vasik tried to mumble, sing along, he was driven away from the table - it was impossible to sing without a voice. When it was time to continue their studies, the village people raised money and sent Bashilov to Moscow, to a music school. Uncle by that time also burned out. He took the boy to the capital, Akhtynsky, the first village strongman with a beautiful low voice. In Moscow, Akhtynsky was shocked by beer. While George passed the exams, the attendant admired his scores and soft beer hops. Upon learning that George entered and will live in a dormitory, Akhtynsky walked on the remnants of money and lost his voice - as it turned out, forever. An old solfeggio teacher explained to Georgy that the whole village paid with Akhtynsky's wonderful voice for the education of Bashilov.

The first time Bashilov went to the village when he was twenty-two years old. In the middle of the house, at the tables, the old women drank tea. George learned, with joyful exclamations people stopped near him. But grandmother Vasilisa, passing by, slowly and separately said: “U, the leech ... sucked the juices out of us!” Our souls have sucked! ” After a noisy feast, Bashilova was bedded by the Chukreevs, in his childhood bedroom. Bashilov, falling asleep, answered someone: “I did not draw out the juices ...” But the thought of wine already settled in his soul.

The song stock of the village seemed great, but only two became musicians - Bashilov and his peer Genka Koshelev. Genka was a weak singer, and he sucked juices from the village in the sense that he pulled money from his parents, even after graduation. He drank, sang in restaurants. Remembering Genka, George decided that the old Vasilisa simply confused them. In the evening, emergency workers sang. When Bashilov began to play the harmonica, two women cried soundlessly.

There was a gradual recognition of Bashilov, the composer, partly for the sake of this recognition, the pianist Bashilov gave a lot of concerts. When he was thirty-five years old, in Pskov, during the break after the first separation, Genka Koshelev came to him. He asked the fellow countryman, a famous composer, to help him move to the suburbs. Bashilov helped. A year later, Genka, in gratitude, invited Bashilov to a country restaurant, where he sang for a guest. By that time, Bashilov had written several successful pop songs, two of which he presented to Gennady for the first performance, which was what shocked Koshelev. Bashilov saw people in the restaurant trying to sing along to the orchestra, mumbling, which sharply reminded the voiceless fool Vasik. The Genkins invited Bashilov as a burden, and he no longer wanted to hear about the Petushok restaurant.

A few years later, Bashilov went to the village with his wife. In the middle of the house stood rotten tables, at which two old women drank tea. Everyone told: the same together and sometimes they sing a song, the young listen, but no one pulls up. Bashilov looked where the sky and the hills converged. This wavy line gave rise to a melody only in memories. Here, in reality, this area was drunk like water. In the evening, he and his wife watched a fire that sharply reminded Bashilov of his childhood, and left early in the morning.

After his concert in Vienna, Bashilov “ran in” his new quartet in the house of his Austrian colleague. The strangers especially liked the third part, including the old, echoing themes of the emergency village. Bashilov could not resist and explained that there was a tragic connection with the village: there, alas, this wonderful topic is no longer there, since it is in his music. He seemed to admit. He is a bush that drains voluntarily or involuntarily a sluggish soil. “What a poetic legend!” - exclaimed the crowns. One of them quietly said: "Metaphysics ..."

Increasingly, the aging Bashilov imagined a blow from above, like reckoning, in the form of a falling board from a distant child’s fire, more and more often he was harassed by guilt.

Bashilov decides to go to the village to teach children music there. There are no tables anymore; the remains of the columns stick out in their place. The old women who remembered him had already died. Bashilov explained to strangers for a long time that he had grown up here. An old man, Chukreev, comes along with the shift, he recognizes George, but offers a wait - fifty kopecks per night. Bashilov goes to Chukreev’s nephew and explains for a long time that he wants to teach village children music. “Children? .. to the choir?” The man exclaims and laughs. And with a confident hand, turns on the transistor - but, they say, you need music. Then, going close to the composer, he said rudely: “What do you want? Get out from here!"

And Bashilov is leaving. But the car turns around - say goodbye to their native places. Bashilov sits on a half-dead bench, feeling a soft peace of mind - this is goodbye and forgiveness. He quietly sings a song - one of those remembered in childhood. And he hears him singing along. This is a moron Vasik, quite an old man. Vasik complains that they beat him and do not sing songs. They sing softly - Vasik mumbles quietly, trying not to fake. “A minute, when the child’s high, clear voice sounded, it approached in silence and darkness inaudibly, by itself.”