It happens that a fascinating book is found in the school curriculum, where the main events are buried in colorful details. It is interesting to read, but to describe the plot in abbreviation is very difficult. “Bezhin Meadow” is just such a work. The Literaguru team has prepared a short retelling to help you. Enjoy reading!
(501 words) The story begins with the author's description of the July day when, during a hunt with his dog Dianka, he got lost. While the writer was wandering around the grove, he reached Bezhin Meadows, but it was already night, and the author understood that there was no way to get to the house. Several people sat in the meadow, whom the storyteller initially mistook for the cultivators, but these people were peasant children from neighboring villages. The guys watched the horses feeding in the field at night. The hunter said that he was lost and sat down with the boys. The writer was tired, so lay down and just looked around.
After describing the landscape around the fire, the author talks about the guys. The oldest Fedya is fourteen years old, then Pavlush and Ilyush, they are twelve years old, then the ten-year-old Kostya and the youngest Vanya, he is seven. When the writer pretended to be asleep, the children gradually started talking again. At first, they “poked about this and that,” and then they returned, as if to an interrupted conversation. Children told each other different mystical stories. Ilyusha talked about the brownie, whom he heard in an old roll, when he stayed there for the night. Kostya remembered the gloomy suburban carpenter Gavril, who once went nuts into the woods and got lost, and when he lay down and dozed off, he heard that a thin voice was calling from somewhere, it turned out to be a mermaid. Then Ilyusha told the story of dogma Yermila and the lamb, whom he picked up on the grave of the drowned man, but the story remains incomplete due to the boys suddenly running away with barking dogs. At this moment, the writer speaks of Pavlush, who, without hesitation, chased after four-legged friends. The boy’s face “burned with bold spirit and firm determination”.
Returning to the stories, they recall the wandering deceased gentleman, whom the old man Trofimych once met in Varnavitsy. After Ilyusha says that there is a way to meet a man who will die that year. He talks about the woman Ulyana, who used it, and saw the deceased Ivashka Fedoseyev, and then himself. Ivashka died in the spring, and she, according to the boys, will die soon. We talked about ghosts and Trishka - an amazing, crafty man who would come "to seduce the people of Khrestia." Suddenly a heron cried out and the guys got scared. Then Kostya recalled how he once heard the plaintive groan of Akima drowning from a buzzing sound.
Then there was a story about a goblin that a peasant had recently “circumvented”. After Fedya spoke with Vanya about his sister Anyuta, and Pavel went to the river to get water. When he left, the rest started talking about the water man and mentioned Akulin the little fool who “went crazy” like she had been in the water, where she ruined her and the water man. Then they agreed that she drowned from the fact that her lover had deceived. Suddenly, the guys remembered the drowned Vasya, in whom his mother Feklist did not look for a soul, and after the death of her son went crazy.
Pavel comes back and tells that on the river I heard him called Vasya, whom the boys had just recalled. Ilyusha called it a bad omen, to which Pavlusha said "you will not pass your fate." The boys went to bed. At the beginning of the morning, the writer woke up, stood up, nodded goodbye to Paul, who had risen (the rest were asleep) and went home. Nature woke up. Suddenly, a rested herd with familiar guys flashed past the author.
In conclusion, the author bitterly says that Pavlushi died that same year, but he did not drown, but crashed when he fell from his horse.
