Retelling plan

1. Emperor Alexander and the Don Cossack General Platov visiting the English Cabinet of Curiosities (collection of rarities, outlandish things).
2. Alexander buys a metal flea and takes it to Russia.
3. After Alexander's death, another tsar, Nikolai Pavlovich, ordered to show this flea to Russian masters.
4. Platov leaves a flea with the masters.
5. Platov, not understanding what work the Tula craftsmen have done, takes the left-hander with him.
6. The Tsar, his daughter, Platov, see a shod flea.
7. Lefty goes to London, inspects factories, plants.
8. Returning to his homeland, Lefty falls ill.
9. Different attitudes towards the English half-keeper and towards the Lefty in Russia.
10. Lefty's dying words and the attitude of Count Chernyshev and the narrator to them.

Retelling

Chapter 1

When the Vienna Council ended, Emperor Alexander wanted to "travel around Europe and see miracles in different states." Alexander was a sociable person, he talked to everyone, was interested in everything. Under him was the Don Cossack Platov, "who did not like this declension and, missing his household, all the sovereign beckoned home." And when the tsar notices something outlandish, he says that, they say, there is no worse food in Russia either. And the British came up with different tricks for the arrival of the sovereign, "in order to captivate him with strangeness," and agreed with Alexander the next day to go to the armory cabinet of curiosities. Platov did not like this, so "he ordered the orderly to bring in a flask of Caucasian vodka-sour water from the cellar," but did not argue with the tsar, he thought: "The morning is wiser than the night."

Chapter 2

The next day they arrived at the Cabinet of Curiosities - "a large building - an undescribed entrance, corridors to infinity." The emperor looked at Platov, but he did not even take an eye. The British showed all their good, and the tsar was glad for them and asked Platov why he was so insensitive. The Cossack replied that "my Donets, well done, fought without all this and drove out two or ten tongues." And the foreigners said:

- This is a pistol of unknown, inimitable skill ...

Alexander marveled at the thing, and then handed it to Platov, so that he could admire it too. He picked the lock and read the Russian inscription made on the fold: "Ivan Moskvin in the city of Tula." The British gasped that they missed. And the tsar felt sorry for them for such a "embarrassment".

Chapter 3

The next day they went to watch the Cabinet of Curiosities again. Platov kept inviting the Tsar home and making fun of the foreigners, and Alexander told him: "Please, don't spoil my politics." They took them to the last cabinet of curiosities, where there was everything, "from the most enormous Egyptian ceramide to the cutaneous flea." It seems that the sovereign is not surprised at anything, and Platov is calm and joyful from this.

Suddenly the king is presented with a gift on an empty tray. Alexander is at a loss, and the British ask him to take the smallest speck on the tray in their palm. This, it turns out, is a metal flea, for which there is even a key to turn it on, and then it will "go to dance." The Emperor immediately unfastened a million for such a miracle. Platov was very annoyed, because the British "made a gift," and he had to pay for it. And Alexander just kept repeating that he didn’t spoil the politics for him. He put the flea in a diamond nut, and then in his golden snuffbox. And the British praised: "You are the first masters in the whole world ..." And Platov secretly took a small scope and put it in his pocket. They went to Russia, looked in different directions on the way and did not speak.

Chapter 4

In Russia, after the death of Alexander, none of the courtiers understood what to do with this flea, they even wanted to throw it away. But the king forbade. Here, by the way, Platov said: “This, your Majesty, is for sure that the work is very delicate and interesting, but we should not be surprised at this with only ecstasy of feelings, but we should subject it to Russian revisions in Tula or Sesterbek, - then Sestroretsk The name was Sesterbek, - can not our masters surpass this, so that the British do not rise above the Russians? Nikolai Pavlovich agreed, hoping that the Russian masters would be no worse.

Chapter 5

Platov took a steel flea and went to the Tula gunsmiths. The peasants agreed that the thing had been cleverly done, and promised Platov that they would come up with something from the Don before his arrival: “We ourselves do not know what we’ll do, but we will only hope in God, and perhaps the king’s word for our sake is not in shame will". Platov was not satisfied with this answer, but there is nothing to do. He only warned that the artisans did not spoil the delicate work.

Chapter 6

Platov left, and three of the best craftsmen, one of them oblique left-handed, with "a birthmark on his cheek, and tears of hair on his temples," said goodbye to their comrades and went into the forest in the direction of Kiev. Many even thought that they wanted to hide with all this good (the king's golden snuffbox, a diamond), but "however, such an assumption was also completely unfounded and unworthy of skillful people on whom the nation's hope now rested."

Chapter 7

Tula are described. Tulyak is smart, well versed in metal business, very religious. The faith of the Tula people and their skill help them build cathedrals of magnificent beauty.

The craftsmen went not to Kiev, but "to Mtsensk, to the district town of the Oryol province", where the icon of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of trade and military affairs, is located. "They served a prayer service at the icon itself, then at the stone cross, and finally, they returned home at night, and, without telling anyone, set to work in a terrible secret." They were all sitting in the house of the left-hander, the shutters were closed, the doors were locked. For three days they sat without leaving, "we did not see or talk to anyone."

Chapter 8

Platov arrived in Tula, sent people to work. Yes, and most curious and can't wait to see.

Chapter 9

The Tula craftsmen have almost finished their work, it remains to screw in the last screw, and they are already pounding at their doors, shouting. The masters promise to bring soon. And indeed, they came out - two of them were empty in their hands, and the left-hander was carrying the royal casket.

Chapter 10

They gave the box to Platov. He got into the carriage, and most interestingly, he decided to take a look, opens it, and the flea that was, remained so. He asked the tired masters what the problem was. And they say: "See for yourself." Platov saw nothing, got angry and shouted at them, they say, that such a thing was ruined. They took offense at him and said that they would not reveal the secret of what their work was because he did not trust them. And Platov took the left-handed man into his carriage and took him away without a "tugament".

Chapter 11

Platov was afraid that the tsar would remember the flea. Indeed, as soon as he arrived, the king ordered it to be served immediately. And Platov says: "Nymphozoria is all in the same space." To which the king replied: “I know that mine cannot deceive me. Something over and above the concept has been done. "

Chapter 12

They pulled out a flea, the tsar called his daughter Alexandra Nikolaevna, so that with her thin fingers she started a flea with a key. But the flea doesn't dance. Then Platov grabbed the left-hander and began to drag him by the hair, and the artisan says that they did not spoil anything, and asks to bring "the strongest small scope."

Chapter 13

The Tsar is sure that the Russian people will not let him down. Bring a microscope. The king looked and ordered to bring the left-hander to him. The left-hander, all in torn clothes, "without a tugament", came to the king. Nikolai says that he looked, but saw nothing. And the left-hander replies: "It is only necessary to bring one of her legs in detail under the entire microscope and separately look at every heel she steps on." And they did just that. The Tsar both looked and beamed, hugged the dirty left-hander and said that he was sure that he would not be let down. After all, they shod an English flea!

Chapter 14

Everyone looked through the microscope and also began to hug the left-hander. And Platov apologized to him, gave him a hundred rubles and ordered him to wash him in the bathhouse and do his hair in the hairdresser's. They made him a decent man with a decent look and took him to London.

Chapter 15

The courier brought the left-handed man, put him in a hotel room, and took the box with the flea where necessary. The left-hander felt hungry. They took him to the "food reception room". But he refused to eat their food and "waits for the courier in the cool for a small bag." And the British, meanwhile, looked at the flea and wanted to see the master at once. The courier takes them to the room to the left-hander, "the British clap-clap him on the shoulder ..." and praise.

For four days they drank wine together, then, moving away, they began to ask the Tula master where he studied. The left-hander answers: "Our science is simple: according to the Psalter and according to Half-Dream, but we do not know arichmetic in the least." Foreigners are surprised and offer him to stay with them, "learn education", marry and accept their faith. The left-hander refuses: "... our Russian faith is the most correct, and as our righteous fathers believed, the descendants should also believe in the same way." They only persuaded him to stay for a short time, and then they themselves would take him to Petersburg on their own ship.

Chapter 16

The left-hander “watched all of their production: metal factories, soap and saw factories, and all their economic arrangements he really liked, especially with regard to the work maintenance. Every worker with them is constantly satiated, dressed not in scraps, but in every capable jacket ... ”He liked everything, and he wholeheartedly praised everyone. But he wanted to go home somehow - he had no strength, and the British had to take him to Russia. They dressed him properly, gave him money and sent him on the ship. And all the time he looked into the distance and asked: "Where is our Russia?" And then they began to drink with the half-skipper until the very "Riga Dinaminda".

Chapter 17

They got so drunk that they began to row. The captain even wanted to throw the left-hander overboard, but the sailors saw it, reported to the captain, and then locked it up separately. They were taken to St. Petersburg that way, and then “the Englishman was taken to the ambassador’s house on the Aglitskaya embankment, and the left-handed man was taken to the quarter. Hence, their fate began to differ greatly. "

Chapter 18

An Englishman was brought to the embassy, ​​so immediately a doctor, a warm bath, a "gutta-percha pill" was brought to him. And the left-hander was knocked down in the block and began to demand documents, but he became weak and could not answer. A lot in the cold he lay in a sleigh while they were looking for which hospital to put him in. No hospital is accepted without documents, so they drove him until the morning. “Then one clerk told the city policeman to take him to the common people’s Obukhvin hospital, where everyone of an unknown class was accepted to die.”

And the Englishman recovered already and ran to look for the left-hander.

Chapter 19

He quickly found his Russian comrade when he was almost dying. Left-handed to him: "I would certainly have to say two words to the emperor." The Englishman turned to many, but everyone refused to help, even Platov said: “... I don’t know how to help him in such an unfortunate time; because I have already completely served and received full pupletion - now they no longer respect me ... ”And only the commandant Skobelev of the doctor Martyn-Solsky called to the left-hander. And the poor man, already on his last gasp, said to him: "Tell the sovereign that the British do not clean their guns with bricks: let them not clean them here either, otherwise, God save war, they are not good for shooting." He crossed himself and died. Martyn-Solsky went to Count Chernyshev with this news, and he: “Know your emetic and laxative, and don't interfere with your own business: there are generals in Russia for this.

And if they had brought the words of the left-handed people to the sovereign in due time, in the Crimea, in the war with the enemy, there would have been a completely different turn.

Chapter 20

All these were the deeds of the days gone by. The name of the left-hander has been lost, like the names of “many of the greatest geniuses,” but the era is accurately and truly reflected. There are no more such masters in Tula. Workers, of course, know how to appreciate the benefits of mechanical science, but they remember the old days with pride and love.

Chapter first

When Emperor Alexander Pavlovich graduated from the Vienna Council, he wanted to travel around Europe and see miracles in different states. He traveled all the countries and everywhere, through his affectionateness, always had the most internecine conversations with all sorts of people, and everyone surprised him with something and wanted to bow to their side, but with him was the Don Cossack Platov, who did not like this declension and, missing his housekeeping, all the sovereign beckoned home. And as soon as Platov notices that the sovereign is very interested in something foreign, then all the escorts are silent, and Platov will now say: “so and so, and we have our own at home just as well, and will take something away.
The British knew this, and by the time the sovereign arrived, they had invented various tricks to captivate him with strangeness and distract from the Russians, and in many cases they achieved this, especially in large gatherings where Platov could not speak French completely; but he was little interested in this, because he was a married man and considered all French conversations to be trifles that were not worth imagination. And when the British began to call the sovereign to all their zeigauses, arms and soap and saw factories, in order to show their advantage over us in all things and be famous for that, Platov said to himself:
- Well, this is a Sabbath. Until then, I still endured, and then I can’t. Whether or not I can speak, I won't betray my people.
And as soon as he said to himself such a word, the sovereign says to him:
- So and so, tomorrow we are going with you to watch their armory cabinet of curiosities. There, he says, there are such natures of perfection that as you look, you will no longer argue that we, Russians, are worthless with our meaning.
Platov did not answer the emperor, he only lowered his horny nose into a shaggy cloak, and came to his apartment, ordered the orderly to bring a flask of Caucasian vodka from the cellar [Kizlyarki - Approx. author], fiddled with a good glass, prayed to God on the travel fold, covered himself with a burka and snored so that no one could sleep in the whole house for the British.
I thought the morning was wiser than the night.

Chapter two

The next day the Emperor and Platov went to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The Tsar did not take any of the Russians with him anymore, because the carriage was given to them with two seats.
They come to a large building - an undescribed entrance, corridors to infinity, and the rooms are one in one, and, finally, in the main hall there are various huge busts, and in the middle under the Canopy stands Abolon half-vedera.
The sovereign looks back at Platov: is he very surprised and what he is looking at; and he walks with his eyes downcast, as if he sees nothing - he only twists rings from his mustache.
The British immediately began to show various surprises and to explain what they had adapted to for military circumstances: sea boremometers, mantones of foot regiments, and for cavalry, tar waterproofs. The Tsar rejoices at all this, everything seems to him very good, but Platov keeps his anticipation, that for him everything means nothing.
The sovereign says:
- How is this possible - why is there such insensibility in you? Is nothing surprising to you here? And Platov answers:
“One thing is surprising to me here, that my Don's fellows fought without all this and drove out two or ten tongues.
The sovereign says:
- This is recklessness.
Platov answers:
“I don’t know what to attribute to, but I don’t dare to argue and must be silent.
And the British, seeing such an interruption between the sovereign, now brought him to Abolon himself, half of the Vedera, and took from him the Mortimer rifle from one hand, and a pistol from the other.
- Here, - they say, - what our productivity is, - and they serve the gun.
The sovereign looked calmly at the Mortimerov rifle, because he has such in Tsarskoe Selo, and then they give him a pistol and say:
- This is a pistol of unknown, inimitable skill - our admiral pulled it out of his belt from the robber chieftain in Candelabria.
The Emperor glanced at the pistol and could not get enough of it.
I was terribly excited.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he says, “how is it ... how can it even be done so subtly! - And he turns to Platov in Russian and says: - Now, if I had at least one such master in Russia, I would be very happy and proud of it, but I would make that master noble right now.
And Platov, in response to these words, at the same moment lowered his right hand into his large trousers and pulled out a rifle screwdriver from there. The British say: "It does not open," and he, not paying attention, well, pick the lock. Turned once, turned two - the lock and pulled out. Platov shows the sovereign the dog, and there is a Russian inscription on the sugib itself: "Ivan Moskvin in the city of Tula."
The British are surprised and push each other:
- Oh-de, we gave a blunder!
And sovereign Platov says sadly:
“Why did you embarrass them so much, I feel very sorry for them now. Let's go.
They sat down again in the same two-seated carriage and drove off, and the sovereign was at the ball that day, while Platov blew out another large glass of sour liquor and slept in a sound Cossack sleep.
He was also glad that he had embarrassed the British, and put the Tula master on the point of view, but it was also annoying: why did the sovereign regret the British for such a case!
“Through what was the sovereign upset? thought Platov, “I don’t understand that at all,” and in this reasoning he got up twice, crossed himself and drank vodka, until he forced himself into a deep sleep.
And the British did not sleep at that very time either, because they were also sick. While the Tsar was having fun at the ball, they staged such a new surprise for him that they took away all of Platov's fantasy.

Chapter three

The next day, as Platov appeared to the emperor good morning, he said to him:
- Let us now lay down a two-seated carriage, and go to the new cabinet of curiosities to watch.
Platov even dared to report that it’s not enough, they say, to look at foreign products and whether it’s better to go to his place in Russia, but the sovereign says:
- No, I still wish to see other news: they praised me how they make the first grade of sugar.
Go.
The British show everyone to the sovereign: what different first grades they have, and Platov looked, looked, and suddenly he said:
- And show us your sugar factories rumor?
And the British do not even know what this rumor is. They whisper, wink at each other, repeat to each other: "Rumor, rumor", but they cannot understand that it is this kind of sugar that we make, and must confess that they have all the sugar, but no "rumor".
Platov says:
“Well, there’s nothing to brag about. Come to us, we will give you tea with a real rumor of the Bobrin plant.
And the sovereign tugged at his sleeve and said quietly:
- Please, don't spoil my politics.
Then the British called the sovereign to the very last cabinet of curiosities, where they have collected mineral stones and nymphosoria from all over the world, from the largest Egyptian ceramide to the transdermal flea, which is impossible to see with the eyes, and its bite is between the skin and the body.
The sovereign went.
We examined the ceramides and all sorts of stuffed animals and went out, and Platov thought to himself:
"Here, thank God, everything is all right: the sovereign is not surprised at anything."
But they just came to the very last room, and here their workers in jackets and aprons are standing and holding a tray on which there is nothing.
The sovereign was suddenly surprised that he was being served an empty tray.
- What does it mean? - asks; and the English masters answer:
“This is our humble tribute to your Majesty.
- What is this?
- But, - they say, - would you like to see a speck?
The sovereign looked and saw: for sure, the tiniest speck of dust was lying on the silver tray.
The workers say:
- Please let your finger spit and take it in your palm.
- What is this speck to me?
- This, - they answer, - is not a speck, but a nymphosoria.
- Is she alive?
- Not at all, - they answer, - not alive, but from pure Aglitsk steel in the image of a flea we forged, and in the middle there is a plant and a spring. Please turn the key: she will begin to dance now.
The Emperor was curious and asks:
- And where is the key?
And the English say:
- Here is the key in front of your eyes.
“Why,” the sovereign says, “I don’t see him?”
- Because, - they answer, - that it is necessary in a small scope.
A small scope was brought in, and the emperor saw that the key was really on the tray next to the flea.
- Excuse me, - they say, - to take her in the palm of your hand - she has a winding hole in her belly, and the key has seven turns, and then she will go to dance ...
Forcibly, the sovereign grabbed this key and forcibly could hold it in a pinch, and took the flea into another pinch and just inserted the key, when he felt that she was starting to drive with her antennae, then she began to fiddle with her legs, and finally suddenly jumped and on one fly a direct dance and two probabilities to one side, then to the other, and so in three probabilities she danced the whole kavril.
The sovereign immediately ordered the British to give a million in whatever money they wanted - they want it in silver patches, they want it in small banknotes.
The British asked that they be released in silver, because they do not know a lot about the pieces of paper; and then now they showed another trick of theirs: they gave the flea as a gift, but they did not bring the case for it: without the case, you cannot keep it or the key, because they will get lost and they will be thrown into the litter. And the case for her is made of a solid diamond nut and - and her place in the middle is squeezed out. They did not submit this, because the cases, they say, are state-owned, and they have strict about the state-owned, although for the sovereign - you cannot sacrifice.
Platov was very angry because he says:
- What is this fraud for! The gift was given and a million received for it, and still not enough! The case, - he says, - always belongs to every thing.
But the sovereign says:
- Leave, please, it's none of your business - don't spoil my politics. They have their own custom. '' And he asks: “How much is that nut in which the flea is located?
The British put in another five thousand for this.
Sovereign Alexander Pavlovich said: "Pay", and he himself dropped the flea into this nut, and with it the key, and in order not to lose the nut itself, he put it in his golden snuffbox, and ordered the snuffbox to be put in his travel box, which is all lined prelamut and, fish bone. The emperor let go of the Aglitsk masters with honor and told them: "You are the first masters in the whole world, and my people cannot do anything against you."
They were very pleased with this, but Platov could not say anything against the words of the sovereign. He just took a small scope and, without saying anything, put it in his pocket, because "it belongs here," he says, "and you already took a lot of money from us."
The Emperor, he did not know this until his arrival in Russia, but they left soon, because the emperor became melancholy from military affairs and he wanted to have a spiritual confession in Taganrog with priest Fedot [“Pop Fedot” was not taken from the wind: Emperor Alexander Pavlovich before By his death in Taganrog, he confessed to the priest Alexei Fedotov-Chekhovsky, whom he was later called "the confessor of His Majesty," and he liked to present this completely random circumstance to everyone. This Fedotov-Chekhovsky, obviously, is the legendary “priest Fedot”. (Author's note.)]. On their way, they had very little pleasant conversation with Platov, therefore they had completely different thoughts: the sovereign thought that the British had no equal in art, and Platov argued that ours too would look at anything - they could do everything, but only they had no useful learning ... And he imagined to the sovereign that the English masters had completely different rules of life, science and food, and that each person had all the absolute circumstances in front of him, and therefore he had a completely different meaning.
The sovereign did not want to listen to this for a long time, and Platov, seeing this, did not intensify. So they drove in silence, only Platov would come out at each station and out of frustration would drink a leavened glass of vodka, take a bite of a salted lamb, light his root pipe, into which a whole pound of Zhukov’s tobacco entered at once, and then he would sit down and sit next to the tsar in the carriage in silence. The sovereign looks in one direction, and Platov sticks out his chubuk through the other window and smokes into the wind. So they reached St. Petersburg, and the Tsar did not take Platov to the priest Fedot.
“You,” he says, “are incontinent to spiritual conversation, and you smoke so much that I’ve got soot in my head because of your smoke.”
Platov was left with anger and lay down at home on the annoying couch, and so he lay and smoked Zhukov tobacco without stopping.

Chapter four

An amazing flea made of Aglitsk blued steel remained with Alexander Pavlovich in a casket under a fishbone until he died in Taganrog, giving it to priest Fedot, so that he would hand it over later to the Empress, when she calmed down. Empress Elisaveta Alekseevna looked at the flea's probabilities and smiled, but did not engage in it.
“Mine,” he says, “is now a widow’s business, and no amusements are seductive to me,” but after returning to Petersburg, I passed on this curiosity with all the other jewels as an inheritance to the new sovereign.
At first, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich also did not pay any attention to the flea, because at sunrise it was confused, but then once he began to revise the box he had inherited from his brother and took out a snuff-box, and a diamond nut from the snuff-box, and found a steel flea in it, which had not been wound up for a long time and therefore did not work, but lay still, like numb.
The Emperor looked and was surprised.
- What a trifle this is, and why is it here with my brother in such preservation!
The courtiers wanted to throw it out, but the emperor says:
- No, it means something.
Anichkin Bridge called a chemist from Anichkin's nasty pharmacy, who weighed poisons on the smallest scales, and they showed him, and he now took a flea, put it on his tongue and said: "I feel cold, like from strong metal." And then he slightly dented it with his tooth and announced:
- As you wish, but this is not a real flea, but a nymphosoria, and it is made of metal, and this work is not ours, not Russian.
The sovereign ordered to find out now: where does this come from and what does it mean?
They rushed to look at the files and the lists, but nothing was written in the files. They began to ask the other - no one knows anything. But, fortunately, the Don Cossack Platov was still alive and even still lay on his annoying bite and smoked his pipe. As soon as he heard that there was such anxiety in the palace, he got up from the ukushche, hung up the receiver and appeared to the sovereign in all orders. The sovereign says:
- What do you want from me, courageous old man?
And Platov answers:
- I, your Majesty, do not need anything for myself, since I drink and eat what I want and am happy with everything, and I, - he says, - came to report about this nymphosoria, which they found: this, - he says, - and so it was , and this is how it happened in front of my eyes in England - and here she has a key, and I have their own small scope, through which you can see it, and with this key you can start this nymphosoria through the belly, and she will jump in whatever space and side of the likelihood to do.
They brought it in, she went to jump, and Platov said:
- This, - he says, - Your Majesty, for sure, that the work is very delicate and interesting, but only we should not be surprised at this with the delight of feelings alone, but we should subject it to Russian revisions in Tula or in Sesterbek, - then Sestroretsk was called Sesterbek , - can not our masters surpass this, so that the British do not pretend over the Russians.
Sovereign Nikolai Pavlovich was very confident in his Russian people and did not like to yield to any foreigner, he answered Platov:
- It is you, courageous old man, you speak well, and I instruct you to believe this matter. I don't need this box anyway now, with my worries, and you take it with you and don't lie down on your annoying bite anymore, but go to the quiet Don and have internecine conversations with my donors about their life and devotion and what they like. And when you go through Tula, show my Tula masters this nymphosoria, and let them think of it. Tell them from me that my brother was surprised at this thing and praised strangers who did nymphozoria more than anyone else, and I hope on my own that they are no worse than anyone. They will not say my word and will do something.

Chapter five

Platov took a steel flea, and how he went through Tula to the Don, showed it to the Tula gunsmiths and conveyed the words of the sovereign to them, and then asks:
- How can we be now, Orthodox?
The gunsmiths answer:
- We, father, we feel the gracious word of the sovereign and we can never forget it because he hopes for his people, but how we should be in the present case, we cannot say in one minute, because the English nation is also not stupid, but rather even cunning, and art in it with great meaning. Against it, they say, it is necessary to take a thought and with God's blessing. And you, if your grace, like our sovereign, has confidence in us, go to your quiet Don, and leave us this flea, as it is, in a case and in a golden royal snuff box. Take a walk along the Don and heal the wounds that you took for your fatherland, and when you go back through Tula, stop and send after us: by that time, God willing, we will come up with something.
Platov was not entirely happy with the fact that the Tula people took so much time and, moreover, did not say clearly what it was they were hoping to do. He asked them one way or another, and in every manner he slyly spoke to them in the Don language; but the Tula did not yield to him in cunning, because they immediately had such a plan, according to which they did not even hope that Platov would believe them, but wanted to directly fulfill their bold imagination, and then give it back.
They say:
- We ourselves do not know what we will do, but we will only hope in God, and perhaps the king's word for our sake will not be ashamed.
So Platov wags his mind, and so do the Tula.
Platov wagged, wagged, but he saw that he couldn't get over the Tula, gave them a snuffbox with a nymphozoria and said:
- Well, there is nothing to do, let, - he says, - it will be your way; I know what you are, well, at one point, there is nothing to do - I believe you, but just look, so as not to replace the diamond and do not spoil the English fine work, but do not mess around for long, because I am driving a helluva lot: two weeks will not pass, how I’ll turn from the quiet Don back to Petersburg — then I must certainly have something to show the Emperor.
The gunsmiths completely reassured him:
“Fine work,” they say, “we won’t damage it and we won’t exchange a diamond, but two weeks have enough time for us, and by the time you come back, you will have something worthy to present to the sovereign's splendor.
And they didn’t say what exactly.

Chapter six

Platov left Tula, and three gunsmiths, the most skillful of them, one oblique left-handed, a birthmark on his cheek, and the hairs on his temples were torn out during training, said goodbye to their comrades and their family, yes, without saying anything to anyone, they took their bags, put go there that is necessary edible and disappeared from the city.
We only noticed that they had gone not to the Moscow outpost, but in the opposite direction, the Kiev side, and thought that they had gone to Kiev to worship the reposed saints or to advise there with one of the living holy men, who are always in abundance in Kiev. ...
But this was only close to the truth, and not the truth itself. Neither time nor distance allowed the Tula craftsmen to go on foot to Kiev in three weeks, and even then have time to do the shameful work for the English nation. It would be better if they could go to Moscow to pray, which is only "two ninety miles away," and many saints rest there too. And in the other direction, to Orel, the same "two ninety", but for Oryol to Kiev again another good five hundred miles. You won't take such a path soon, and having made it, you will not soon have a rest - your legs will be glazed for a long time and your hands will shake.
Some even thought that the craftsmen had boasted in front of Platov, and then, as they thought it over, they got cold feet and now they completely fled, taking with them both the Tsar's golden snuffbox, and the diamond, and the Aglitsky steel flea that had caused them trouble in a case.
However, such an assumption was also completely unfounded and unworthy of the skillful people on whom the nation's hope now rested.

Chapter Seven

The Tula people, intelligent and knowledgeable in the metal business, are also known as the first experts in religion. Their glory in this respect is also full of their native land, and even Saint Athos: they are not only masters of singing with the Babylonians, but they know how to paint the picture "evening bell", and if one of them devotes himself to greater service and goes to monasticism, then such are reputed to be the finest monastic economists, and from them come the most capable collectors. On Saint Athos they know that the Tula people are the most profitable people, and if it were not for them, then the dark corners of Russia probably would not have seen very many sacred places of the distant East, and Athos would have lost many useful offerings from Russian generosity and piety. Now the "Athos Tula" carry around sacredness throughout our homeland and masterfully collect fees even where there is nothing to take. Tulyak is full of ecclesiastical piety and a great practitioner of this work, and therefore those three masters who undertook to support Platov and the whole of Russia with him did not make a mistake, heading not to Moscow, but to the south. They went not to Kiev at all, but to Mtsensk, to the district town of the Oryol province, in which there is an ancient "stone-cut" icon of St. Nikolay; sailed here in the most ancient times on a large stone cross along the river Zusha. This icon is of the form of "formidable and fearful" - the saint of Myra-Lycia is depicted on it "full-length", all clothed with silver-covered clothes, and with a dark face and holding a temple on one hand, and "military overpowering" in the other. It was in this "overcoming" that the meaning of the thing lay: St. Nikolai is generally a patron of trade and military affairs, and "Nikola of Mtsensk" in particular, and the Tula people went to bow to him. They served a prayer service at the icon itself, then at the stone cross, and finally, they returned home “at night” and, without telling anyone, set to work in a terrible secret. All three of them came together in one house to the left-hander, the doors were locked, the shutters in the windows were closed, the icon lamp was lit in front of Nikoly's image and began to work.
Day, two, three sit and do not go anywhere, everyone pokes with hammers. They forge something like that, but what they forge is unknown.
Everyone is curious, but no one can find out anything, because the workers do not say anything and do not appear outside. Went to the house different people knocking on doors under different kinds, to ask for fire or salt, but the three artisans do not open up to any demand, and even what they eat is unknown. They tried to scare them, as if the house next door was on fire - they might jump out in fright and then show up what they had forged, but nothing took these cunning craftsmen; once only the left-handed man leaned out over his shoulders and shouted:
“Burn yourself, but we have no time,” and again he hid his plucked head, slammed the shutter, and set to work.
Only through small cracks was it possible to see how the light was shining inside the house, and you could hear that thin hammers were being pushed along the ringing anvils.
In a word, the whole business was conducted in such a terrible secret that nothing could be learned, and moreover, it lasted until the very return of the Cossack Platov from the quiet Don to the sovereign, and during all this time the masters did not see anyone or talk to anyone.

Chapter Eight

Platov rode very hastily and with ceremony: he himself sat in a carriage, and on the box two whistling Cossacks with whips on either side of the driver sat down and watered him without mercy so that he could ride. And if any Cossack falls asleep, Platov himself pokes his foot out of the carriage, and rushes even more angrily. These incentive measures acted so successfully that nowhere the horses could be kept at any station, and always a hundred jumps jumped past the stopping place. Then the Cossack will again act over the coachman, and they will turn back to the entrance.
So they rolled to Tula - they also flew at first a hundred jumps beyond the Moscow outpost, and then the Cossack acted on the coachman with a whip in the opposite direction, and began to harness new horses at the porch. Platov, however, did not leave the carriage, but only ordered the whistler to bring the artisans, whom he had left the flea, to him as soon as possible.
One whistler ran, so that they would go as soon as possible and carry him work, with which they were supposed to shame the British, and this whistler ran away a little when Platov sent after him over and over again to send new ones as soon as possible.
He dispersed all the whistlers and began to send ordinary people from the curious audience, and even he himself, out of impatience, puts his legs out of the carriage and wants to run out of impatience, but he creaks his teeth - everything is still not showing up to him soon.
So at that time everything was required very accurately and in speed, so that not a single minute for Russian usefulness was wasted.

Chapter nine

The Tula masters, who were doing an amazing job, were just finishing their work at that time. The whistlers came running to them out of breath, and simple people from the curious audience - they did not run at all, because out of habit on the way their legs fell apart and fell, and then out of fear, so as not to look at Platov, they hit home and hid anywhere.
The whistlers, however, jumped in, now they screamed, and as they see that they are not opening, now without ceremony they pulled the bolts at the shutter, but the bolts were so strong that they did not move at all, they pulled the doors, and the doors were locked from the inside with an oak bolt. Then the whistlers took a log from the street, hooked it up like a fireman under a roof jam, and immediately pulled the whole roof off the small house. But the roof was removed, and they themselves have now tumbled down, because the masters in their cramped mansion had such a sweaty spiral from the restless work in the air that an unfamiliar person could not breathe even once from a fresh wind.
The ambassadors shouted:
- What are you, such-and-such, bastards, doing, and you dare to make mistakes with such a spiral! Or there is no God in you after that!
And they answer:
- We are now hammering in the last carnation and, as we hammer it, then we will take out our work.
And the ambassadors say:
- He will eat us alive until that hour and will not leave his soul for the sake of remembrance.
But the masters answer:
- He will not have time to swallow you, because while you were talking here, we already have this last nail nailed down. Run and say that we are carrying it now.
The whistlers ran, but not confidently: they thought that the masters would deceive them; and therefore they run, run and look back; but the craftsmen followed them and hurried so very quickly that they did not even dress quite properly for the appearance of an important person, and on the way they fasten the hooks in the caftans. Two of them had nothing in their hands, and the third, a left-handed man, had in a green case a royal box with an English steel flea.

Chapter ten

The whistlers ran up to Platov and said:
- Here they are here!
Platov now to the masters:
- Is it ready?
- Everything, - they answer, - it's ready.
- Serve here.
Served.
And the carriage is already harnessed, and the driver and the postilion are in place. The Cossacks immediately sat down next to the driver and lifted the whips above him and held them out, swinging them.
Platov tore off the green cover, opened the box, took out a gold snuff-box from the cotton wool, and a diamond nut from the snuff-box, - he saw: the English flea was there as it was, and there was nothing else besides it.
Platov says:
- What is this? And where is your work, with which you wanted to comfort the Emperor?
The gunsmiths answered:
- This is our job.
Platov asks:
- In what does she enclose herself?
And the gunsmiths answer:
- Why explain this? Everything here is in your mind - and provide.
Platov shrugged his shoulders and shouted:
- Where is the key to the flea?
- And right there, - they answer, - Where is the flea, here is the key, in one nut.
Platov wanted to take the key, but his fingers were scanty: he caught, caught, - he could not grab either the flea or the key from its abdominal plant and suddenly got angry and began to swear in words in the Cossack manner.
Shouted:
- That you, scoundrels, did nothing, and even, perhaps, the whole thing ruined! I'll take your head off!
And the Tula answered him:
- It is in vain that you offend us so much - we must endure all insults from you, as from the sovereign ambassador, but only because you doubted us and thought that we were similar to deceiving the sovereign's name, - we now have no secret of our work say, if you please take us to the sovereign - he will see what kind of people we are and whether he is ashamed of us.
And Platov shouted:
- Well, you are lying, you scoundrels, I will not part with you like that, and one of you will go to Petersburg with me, and I will try to find out what your tricks are.
And with that he reached out his hand, grabbed the left-hander's collar by the scruff of his barefoot fingers, so that all the hooks from the Kazakin flew off, and threw him into his carriage at his feet.
- Sit, - he says, - here all the way to Petersburg, like a pubel, - you will answer me for everyone. And you, - he says with a whistle, - now the guide! Don't yawn, so that the day after tomorrow I will be with the Tsar in Petersburg.
The masters only dared to tell him for their comrade, why, they say, are you taking him away from us so without tugament? he cannot be followed back! And Platov, instead of answering, showed them a fist - so terrible, bumpy and all chopped up, somehow fused together - and, threatening, said: "Here's a tugament for you!" And he says to the Cossacks:
- Guyda, guys!
Cossacks, coachmen and horses - everything worked at once and drove off the left-hander without a tugament, and a day later, as Platov ordered, they drove him up to the sovereign's palace and even galloped past the columns.
Platov got up, picked up the medals and went to the sovereign, and ordered the whistling Cossacks to watch over the oblique left-hander at the entrance.

Chapter eleven

Platov was afraid to appear in front of the sovereign, because Nikolai Pavlovich was terribly wonderful and memorable - he did not forget anything. Platov knew that he would certainly ask him about the flea. And at least he was not afraid of any enemy in the world, but then he got cold feet: he entered the palace with a casket and quietly set it down in the hall behind the stove. Hiding the box, Platov appeared to the sovereign in the office and began to report as soon as possible about the internecine conversations among the Cossacks on the quiet Don. He thought so: in order to occupy the sovereign with this, and then, if the sovereign himself remembers and starts talking about the flea, he must submit and answer, and if he does not speak, then keep silent; tell the cabinet valet to hide the box, and put the left-handed Tula left-hander in the serf kazamat without a time limit so that he can sit there until a certain time, if necessary.
But Tsar Nikolai Pavlovich did not forget about anything, and as soon as Platov finished about internecine conversations, he immediately asked him:
- And what, how did my Tula masters justify themselves against the Aglitsky nymphosoria?
Platov answered in the way that it seemed to him.
- Nymphozoria, - he says, - Your Majesty, everything is in the same space, and I brought her back, and the Tula masters could not have done anything more amazing.
The sovereign replied:
- You are a courageous old man, and this, that you are reporting to me, cannot be.
Platov began to assure him and told him how the whole thing was, and how he went so far as to say that the Tula asked him to show the flea to the emperor, Nikolai Pavlovich slapped him on the shoulder and said:
- Serve here. I know that mine cannot deceive me. Something beyond the concept has been done here.

Chapter twelve

They took out a box from behind the stove, removed the cloth cover from it, opened a gold snuffbox and a diamond nut - and in it lies the flea as it was and how it was lying.
The Emperor looked and said:
- What a dashing! - But he did not diminish his faith in Russian masters, but ordered to call his beloved daughter Alexandra Nikolaevna and ordered her:
- You have thin fingers on your hands - take a small key and start an abdominal machine as soon as possible in this nymphosoria.
The princess began to twist the key, and the flea is now moving its antennae, but does not touch its feet. Alexandra Nikolaevna pulled the whole plant, but the nymphozoria still does not dance a dance and does not throw out a single probability, as before.
Platov turned green and shouted:
- Oh, they are rascals of the dog! Now I understand why they didn’t want to tell me anything there. It's good that I took one of their fools with me.
With these words, he ran out to the entrance, caught the left-hander by the hair and began to flap back and forth so that the tufts flew. And the other, when Platov stopped beating him, recovered and said:
“I’ve already had all my hair torn out during my studies, but I don’t know now why I need such a repetition?”
- This is for the fact, - says Platov, - that I hoped and enlisted in you, and you ruined a rare thing.
The left-hander answers:
- We are much pleased that you vouched for us, and we didn’t spoil anything: take it, look through the strongest small scope.
Platov ran back to talk about the melkoscope, and only threatened the left-hander:
“I’ll tell you,” he says, “so-and-so-so, I’ll ask you more.”
And he ordered the whistling ones to twist their elbows back even tighter to the left-hander, and he himself climbs the steps, out of breath and reads the prayer: “Good mother, pure and pure, good king,” and so on, as needed. And the courtiers, who are standing on the steps, all turn away from him, think: Platov was caught and now they will drive him out of the palace - because they could not endure him for his courage.

Chapter thirteen

As Platov brought the left-handed words to the emperor, he now says with joy:
“I know that my Russian people will not deceive me.” And he ordered a small scope on a pillow.
At the same minute, the small scope was brought in, and the sovereign took the flea and put it under the glass, first upside down, then sideways, then belly - in a word, they turned it in all directions, but there was nothing to see. But the sovereign did not lose his faith here either, but only said:
“Bring this armourer down here to me now.
Platov reports:
- He should be dressed up - he was taken in what, and now in a very evil form.
And the sovereign replies:
- Nothing - enter as it is.
Platov says:
- Now go yourself, such and such, answer the sovereign before the eyes.
And the left-hander answers:
- Well, that's the way I go and answer.
He walks in what he was: in garments, one leg is in a boot, the other is wobbling, and the little hole is old, the hooks are not fastened, they are confused, and the collar is torn; but nothing, not embarrassed.
“What is it? - thinks. - If the sovereign wants to see me, I must go; and if there is no tugament with me, then I have not been caused and I will tell you why it was like that. "
As the left-hander ascended and bowed, the emperor now says to him:
- What is this, brother, does it mean that we looked this way and that, and put it under the small scope, but we see nothing remarkable?
And the left-hander answers:
- Have you, Your Majesty, deigned to watch?
The nobles nod to him: they say, you do not say so! but he does not understand how to do it in a courtier way, with flattery or cunning, but simply speaks.
The sovereign says:
- Leave him to be wise, - let him answer as he knows how.
And now he explained to him:
- We, - he says, - that's how they put it, - And put the flea under the small scope. - Look, - he says, - you can't see anything.
The left-hander answers:
“So, your majesty, it’s impossible to see anything, because our work against this size is much more secret.
The sovereign asked:
- And how is it necessary?
- It is necessary, - he says, - to bring just one of her legs in detail under the entire microscope and separately look at every heel she steps on.
Have mercy, tell me, says the emperor, this is already very shallow!
- And what to do, - answers the left-hander, - if only in this way our work can be noticed: then everything and surprise will turn out to be.
They put it down, as the left-hander said, and the emperor, as soon as he glanced into the upper glass, beamed all over - he took the left-hander, which he was uncleaned and in the dust, unwashed, hugged him and kissed him, and then turned to all the courtiers and said:
“You see, I knew better than anyone that my Russians would not deceive me. Look, please: after all, they, rascals, shod an English flea on horseshoes!

Chapter fourteen

Everyone began to approach and look: the flea was really shod with real horseshoes on all its legs, and the left-hander reported that this was not all surprising.
“If,” he says, “there was a better small scope, which increases by five million, you would deign,” he says, “to see that on each horseshoe a master's name is displayed: what Russian master did that horseshoe.
- And your name is here? - asked the sovereign.
- Not at all, - the left-hander answers, - my one is not.
- Why not?
- And because, - he says, - I worked smaller than these horseshoes: I forged carnations, with which the horseshoes are hammered, - no small scope can take there anymore.
The sovereign asked:
- Where is your small scope, with which you could make this surprise?
And the left-hander replied:
- We are poor people and because of poverty we do not have our own small-scope, but we have so aimed our eyes.
Then the other courtiers, seeing that the left-handed business had burned out, began to kiss him, and Platov gave him a hundred rubles and said:
- Forgive me, brother, that I tore you by the hair.
The left-hander answers:
- God will forgive - this is not the first time we have such a snow on our heads.
And he didn’t speak anymore, and he didn’t have time to talk to anyone, because the sovereign immediately ordered this savvy nymphozoria to be laid down and sent back to England - like a gift so that they would understand that it was not surprising to us. And the sovereign ordered a special courier to carry the flea, who is learned in all languages, and with him that he was left-handed and that he himself could show the British the work and what kind of masters we have in Tula.
Platov baptized him.
- Let, - he says, - there will be a blessing over you, and on the road I will send you my own sour. Don't drink a little, don't drink a lot, but drink moderately.
So he did - he sent it.
And Count Kiselvrode ordered that the left-hander be washed in the Tulyakovsky public baths, shaved in a hairdresser's and dressed in a ceremonial caftan from the court choir, so that it looked like he was wearing some kind of honored rank.
How they formed him in this manner, gave him tea with Platov's sour cream on the way, tightened him with a belt belt as tight as possible so that his intestines would not shake, and took him to London. From here, with the left-hander, foreign species went.

Chapter fifteen

The courier with the left-handed man drove very soon, so that they did not stop anywhere from Petersburg to London, but only at each station they had already pulled the belts by one badge so that the intestines and lungs would not get confused; but as the left-hander, after the presentation to the sovereign, according to Platov's order, the treasury had enough wine from the treasury, he supported himself with this alone and sang Russian songs all over Europe, only did the chorus in a foreign way: ".
As soon as the courier brought him to London, he appeared to whoever needed it and gave the box, and put the left-hander in the hotel room, but he soon got bored and wanted to eat. He knocked on the door and showed the attendant to his mouth, who now took him to the food reception room.
The left-hander sat down at the table and sits, but he doesn’t know how to ask something in a way. But then he guessed: again he would simply knock on the table with his finger and show himself in his mouth - the British guess and serve, only not always what is needed, but he does not accept what is not suitable for him. They gave him their cooking hot studding on the fire, - he says: “I don’t know that such a thing can be eaten,” and did not eat; they changed him and set another food. He also did not drink vodka, because it is green - it seems as if it is filled with vitriol, but chose that everything is natural, and waits for the courier in the cool behind a small bottle.
And those persons to whom the courier handed over the nymphozoria, this very minute they examined it in the strongest microscope and now a description in the public statements, so that tomorrow the slander will go out to the general news.
- And this master himself, - they say, - we now want to see.
The courier escorted them to their room, and from there to the food reception room, where our left-hander had already turned brown, and said: "Here he is!"
The British are left-handed now, slap-slap on the shoulder and, as an equal, on the hands. "Comrade," they say, "Comrade is a good master," we will talk to you with time, after we will, and now we will drink to your well-being. "
They asked for a lot of wine, and the left-hander had the first glass, but he was the first to drink with courtesy: he was thinking, perhaps, you want to poison it out of annoyance.
- No, - he says, - this is not order: and in Poland there is no owner anymore, - eat ahead yourself.
The British tasted all the wines in front of him and then they began to pour him. He got up, crossed himself with his left hand and drank to all their health.
They noticed that he was crossing himself with his left hand, and asked the courier:
- That he is a Lutheran or a Protestant?
The courier replies:
- No, he is not a Lutheran or a Protestant, but of the Russian faith.
- Why does he cross himself with his left hand?
The courier said:
- He is left-handed and does everything with his left hand.
The British began to be even more surprised - and began to pump wine over both the left-handed man and the courier and spent three whole days doing so, and then they said: "Now that's enough." They took the water with the erfix over the symphony and, completely refreshed, began to ask the left-hander: where did he study and what did he learn and how long does he know arithmetic?
The left-hander answers:
- Our science is simple: but the Psalter and according to Half-Dream, and we do not know arithmetic in the least.
The British looked at each other and said:
- It's amazing.
And Lefty answers them:
- We have it so everywhere.
- And what is this, - they ask, - for the book in Russia "Half Dream"?
“This,” he says, “is a book that refers to the fact that if in the Psalter King David unclearly discovered anything about fortune-telling, then in Half-Dream they guess an addition.
They say:
- It's a pity, it would be better if you knew at least four rules of addition from arithmetic, then you would be much more useful than the whole Half-Dream. Then you could figure out that in every machine there is a calculation of force; otherwise you are very skillful in your hands, but you didn’t realize that such a small machine, like in the nymphosoria, is designed for the most accurate accuracy and cannot bear its horseshoes. Through this now nymphozoria does not jump and dance.
The left-hander agreed.
- About this, - he says, - there is no doubt that we have not gone into the sciences, but only faithful to our fatherland.
And the British tell him:
- Stay with us, we will give you a great education, and you will become an amazing master.
But the left-hander did not agree to this.
- I, - he says, - have parents at home.
The British called themselves to send money to his parents, but the left-hander did not take it.
“We,” he says, “are committed to our homeland, and my daddy is already an old man, and my parent is an old woman and are accustomed to going to church in her parish, and I will be very bored here alone, because I’m still a bachelor.”
“You,” they say, “will get used to it, you will accept our law, and we will marry you.
- This, - answered the left-hander, - can never be.
- Why is that?
“Because,” he replies, “our Russian faith is the most correct one, and as our righteous fathers believed, the descendants should also believe in the same way.
“You,” the English say, “don’t know our faith: we contain the same Christian law and the same Gospel.
“The gospel,” the left-hander replies, “really all have one thing, but only our books are thicker against yours, and our faith is fuller.
- Why can you judge it like that?
- We have that, - replies, - there is all the obvious evidence.
- What kind?
- And such, - he says; - that we have idolized icons and coffin-chapters and relics, and you have nothing, and even, except for one Sunday, there are no emergency holidays, and for the second reason - I am with an Englishwoman, even though I was married in the law, it will be embarrassing to live.
“Why is this so?” They ask. “Don’t neglect us: ours also dress very cleanly and housekeepers.
And the left-hander says:
- I do not know them.
The British answer:
- It does not matter the essence - you can find out: we will make you a granddev.
The left-hander was ashamed.
“Why,” he says, “it's no use fooling the girls.”
The British were curious:
“And if,” they say, “without a granddev, then how do you do in such cases in order to make a pleasant choice?
The left-hander explained our situation to them.
“With us,” he says, “when a person wants to find out a detailed intention about a girl, he sends a conversational woman, and as she makes an excuse, then they go to the house together politely and look at the girl without hiding, but with all the family.
They understood, but answered that they did not have conversational women and that such a habit was not found, and the left-hander said:
- This is all the more pleasant, because if you do such a thing, you have to do it with a thorough intention, but as I don't feel this for someone else's natsyi, then why fool the girls?
The British liked him in these judgments, so they again walked over the shoulders and knees with the pleasure of clapping their hands, and they themselves asked:
“We would,” they say, “only wanted to know through curiosity: what vicious omens did you notice in our girls and why do you run around them?
Here the left-hander has already answered them frankly:
“I don’t denigrate them, but I don’t like the fact that the clothes on them are somehow waving, and I cannot make out what is worn and for what need; here is one thing, and below there is still another pinned, and there are some kind of feet on the hands. Quite definitely the sapazhu monkey is a velvet talma.
The British laughed and said:
- What obstacle is there for you?
“Obstacles,” the left-hander answers, “no, but I’m only afraid that it will be a shame to watch and wait for her to figure out all of this.
- Is it really, - they say, - your style is better?
- Our style, - he replies, - in Tula is simple: all in their lace, and our lace, even big ladies wear.
They also showed him to their ladies, and there they poured tea for him and asked:
- Why are you frowning?
He replied that we, he said, were not very sweetly accustomed.
Then he was given a bite in Russian.
It seems to them that it seems to be worse, and he says:
- It tastes better for our taste.
The British could not bring him down with anything, so that he would be seduced by their life, but only persuaded him to stay for a short time, and at that time they would take him to different factories and show all their art.
- And then, - they say, - we will bring him on our ship and deliver him alive to Petersburg.
To this he agreed.

Chapter sixteen

The British took the left-hander into their own hands, and sent the Russian courier back to Russia. Although the courier had a rank and was learned in different languages, they were not interested in him, but they were interested in the left-hander, and they went to drive the left-hander and show him everything. He watched all of their production: both metal factories and soap and saw factories, and all their economic arrangements he really liked, especially about the working content. Every worker with them is constantly satiated, dressed not in scraps, but on each a capable jacket, shod in thick tweezers with iron knobs, so as not to hit his feet anywhere; does not work with boilie, but with training and has an idea. In front of everyone, there is a multiplication groove in full view "and under his hand is a washable tablet: everything that the master does is looking at the groove and verifies it with the concept, and then he writes one thing on the board, erases the other and brings it exactly: what is written on the tsyfir, then and the allotment comes out. And a holiday will come, they will gather in a couple, take a stick in their hands and go for a walk, decorously and nobly, as they should.
The left-hander had seen enough of all their life and all their work, but most of all he paid attention to such a Subject that the British were very surprised. He was not so interested in how the new guns are made, but how the old ones are in what form. He goes around and praises everything and says:
- We can do that too.
And when he gets to the old gun, he sticks his finger in the barrel, walks along the walls and sighs:
“This,” he says, “is superior to ours.
The British could not guess what a left-handed person was noticing, and he asks:
- Can't, - he says, - I know that our generals have seen it or not? They say to him:
- Those who were here, they must have looked.
- And how, - he says, - were they: in a glove or without a glove?
- Your generals, they say, are ceremonial, they always wear gloves; it means that they were here too.
The left-hander said nothing. But suddenly he began to get bored uneasily. Yearned and yearned and said to the English:
- Obediently bless all the refreshments, and I am very pleased with everything with you and have already seen everything that I needed to see, and now I rather want to go home.
They could no longer hold him back. It was impossible to let him on land, because he couldn’t speak all languages, and it was not good to sail on water, because the time was stormy autumn, but he stuck: let go.
- We at the boremmeter, - they say, - looked: there will be a storm, you can drown; it's not like you have the Gulf of Finland, but here is the real Sea of ​​Earth.
“It’s all the same,” he replies, “where to die,“ everything is unique, the will of God, but I want to go to my native place as soon as possible, because otherwise I can get a kind of insanity. ”
They didn’t restrain him with force: they nourished him, rewarded him with money, presented him with a gold watch with trepidation as a keepsake, and for the coolness of the sea on a late autumn journey, they gave him a bike coat with a wind blower over his head. They dressed very warmly and took the left-hander to the ship, which was sailing to Russia. Then they put the left-hander in in the best possible way, like a real master, but he did not like to sit with other gentlemen in closing and was ashamed of himself, but would go to the deck, sit down with a present and ask: "Where is our Russia?"
The Englishman, whom he asks, will point his hand in that direction or wave his head, and he turns his face there and looks impatiently in his native direction.
As they left the buffet for the Mediterranean Sea, so his desire for Russia became such that it was impossible to calm him down. The flooding has become terrible, but the left-hander does not go down into the cabins - he sits under the present, pushed his head down and looks to the fatherland.
Many times the British came to a warm place downstairs to call him, but so that he would not be bothered, he even began to shrug.
“No,” he replies, “it's better for me to be outside; otherwise with me under the roof from spinning Guinea pig will be done.
So all the time and did not go until a special occasion, and through this I really liked one half-keeper, who, on the mountain of our left-hander, knew how to speak Russian. This half-skipper could not have wondered that the Russian land man could withstand all the bad weather anyway.
- Well done, - he says, - Russian! Let's have a drink!
The left-hander drank.
- And the half-skipper says:
- More!
The left-hander also drank and got drunk.
The half-skipper asks him:
- What secret are you taking from our state to Russia?
The left-hander answers:
- It's my business.
- And if so, - answered the half-skipper, - so let's keep an English pair with you.
Lefty asks:
- Which?
- Such that you don't drink anything alone, but drink everything in a sour diet: that one, then certainly the other, ”and whoever drinks whom, that is a hill.
The left-hander thinks: the sky is cloudy, the belly is swollen, - the boredom is great, and the fishing line is long, and you can't see your native place behind the wave - it will still be more fun to bet.
- Okay, - he says, - it's coming!
- Just to be honest.
- Yes, this, - he says, - do not worry.
They agreed and shook hands.

Chapter seventeen

Their bets began in the Mediterranean Sea, and they drank up to Riga Dinaminda, but they all walked on an equal footing and did not yield to each other and so neatly equalized that when one, glancing into the sea, saw the devil climbing out of the water, so now the same thing happened to the other. Only a half-skipper sees the feature of a redhead, and a left-handed person says that he is dark, like a murin.
Lefty says:
- Cross and turn away - this is the devil from the abyss.
And the Englishman argues that "this is a seawater."
- Do you want, - he says, - I'll throw you into the sea? Do not be afraid - he will give you back to me now.
And the left-hander answers:
- If so, throw it.
The half-skipper picked him up and carried him to the side.
The sailors saw this, stopped them and reported to the captain, who ordered them both downstairs to lock them up and give them rum and wine and cold food so that they could eat and drink and withstand their bet - and they did not serve hot studding with fire, because they can catch fire in their gut.
So they were brought locked up to Petersburg, and none of them won a bet from each other; and then they put them on different carts and took the Englishman to the ambassador's house on the Aglitskaya embankment, and the left-hander to the quarter.
Hence, their fate began to differ greatly.

Chapter Eighteen

As soon as the Englishman was brought to the embassy's house, they immediately called a doctor and a pharmacist to him. The doctor told him to put him in a warm bath with him, and the pharmacist immediately rolled a gutta-percha pill and put it in his mouth himself, and then they both took it and put it on the feather bed and covered it with a fur coat on top and left him to sweat, and so that no one interfered with him, all over the order was given to the embassy so that no one would dare to sneeze. The doctor and the pharmacist waited until the half-skipper fell asleep, and then another gutta-percha pill was prepared for him, put on a table near his head and left.
And the left-hander was piled on the floor in the block and asked:
- Who is and where, and is there a passport or some other tugament?
And he has become so weak from illness, from drinking and from a long hesitation that he does not answer a word, but only groans.
Then they searched him now, they took off his colorful dress and the watch with trepidation, and the money was turned off, and the bailiff ordered him to be sent to the hospital free of charge in an oncoming cab.
He led the policeman to put the left-hander on the sled, but for a long time he could not catch a single counter, because the cabbies run from the police. And the left-hander lay on the cold parate all the time; then he caught a city cabman, only without a warm fox, because they hide the fox in the sleigh under themselves so that the police’s feet would soon get cold. They drove the left-hander so uncovered, but how they would start replanting from one cab to another, dropping them, and then picking them up - they tear the fish soup to remember.
They brought him to one hospital - they didn’t accept him without a tugament, they brought him to another - and they don’t accept him there, and so in the third, and in the fourth - until the morning he was dragged along all the distant curves and everyone was transplanted, so that he was beaten all over. Then one clerk told the policeman to take him to the common people of the Obukhvin hospital, where everyone of an unknown class is accepted to die.
Then they ordered to give a receipt, and to put the left-hander on the floor in the corridor until dismantling.
And at that very time the English half-skipper got up the next day, swallowed another gutta-percha pill in his gut, ate a chicken and a lynx for a light breakfast, washed down with a erfix and said:
- Where is my Russian comrade? I'll go look for him.
I got dressed and ran.

Chapter nineteen

In an amazing manner, the half-skipper somehow very soon found the left-hander, only he had not yet been put on the bed, and he was lying on the floor in the corridor and complaining to the Englishman.
“I would,” he says, “I must say two words to the emperor.
The Englishman ran to Count Kleinmichel and made a noise:
- How can you! He has, - he says, - although Ovechkin's fur coat, so is the soul of a little man.
An Englishman is now out of there for this reasoning, so as not to dare to remember the soul of the little man. And then someone said to him: “You'd better go to the Cossack Platov - he simple feelings It has".
The Englishman reached Platov, who was now lying on the couch again. Platov listened to him and remembered about the left-hander.
“Why, brother,” he says, “I know him very briefly, I even tore him by the hair, but I don’t know how to help him on such an unfortunate occasion; because I have already completely served and received full pupletion - now they no longer respect me - and you run to Commandant Skobelev, he is capable and also experienced in this part, he will do something.
The half-skipper went to Skobelev and told everything: what a disease the left-hander had and why it had become. Skobelev says:
- I understand this disease, only the Germans cannot cure it, but here we need some doctor from the clerical rank, because they have grown up in these examples and can help; I will send the Russian doctor Martyn-Solsky there now.
But only when Martyn-Solsky arrived, the left-hander was already over, because the back of his head had split against the parat, and he could only articulate one thing:
- Tell the sovereign that the British do not clean their guns with bricks: let them not clean them here either, otherwise, God save war, they are not good for shooting.
And with this loyalty, the left-hander crossed himself and died. Martyn-Solsky immediately went, reported to Count Chernyshev in order to inform the Emperor, and Count Chernyshev shouted at him:
“Know,” he says, “your emetic and laxative, and don't get in the way of your own business: there are generals in Russia for this.
The sovereign was never told, and the purge continued until the Crimean campaign itself. At that time, they began to load the rifles, and the bullets in them dangled, because the trunks were cleared with bricks.
Here Martyn-Solsky reminded Chernyshev about the left-handed person, and Count Chernyshev said:
“Go to hell, plezirnaya pipe, don’t get in the way of your own business, or I’ll open up that I’ve never heard of this from you, and you’ll get it.”
Martyn-Solsky thought: "And he really will open himself," and was silent.
And if they had brought the words of the left-handed people to the sovereign in due time, in the Crimea, in the war with the enemy, there would have been a completely different turn.

Chapter Twenty

Now all this is already "deeds of bygone days" and "legends of antiquity", although not deep, but there is no need to rush to forget these legends, despite the fabulous makeup of the legend and the epic character of its protagonist. The proper name of the left-hander, like the names of many of the greatest geniuses, is forever lost to posterity; but as a myth personified by folk fantasy, he is interesting, and his adventures can serve as a memory of an era, the general spirit of which has been captured aptly and correctly.
Of course, there are no such masters as the fabulous left-hander in Tula anymore: machines have equalized the inequality of talents and talents, and genius is not torn in the struggle against diligence and accuracy. Fostering the rise of earnings, machines do not favor artistic prowess, which sometimes exceeded the measure, inspiring the folk fantasy to compose fabulous legends like the present.
Workers, of course, know how to appreciate the benefits brought to them by the practical adaptations of mechanical science, but they remember the old days with pride and love. This is their epic, and, moreover, with a very "human soul".

When Emperor Alexander Pavlovich graduated from the Vienna Council, he wanted to travel around Europe and see miracles in different states. He traveled all the countries and everywhere, through his affectionateness, always had the most internecine conversations with all sorts of people, and everyone surprised him with something and wanted to bow to their side, but with him was the Don Cossack Platov, who did not like this declension and, missing his housekeeping, all the sovereign beckoned home. And as soon as Platov notices that the sovereign is very interested in something foreign, then all the escorts are silent, and Platov will now say: “so and so, and we have our own at home, just as well,” and will take something away.

The British knew this, and by the time the sovereign arrived, they had invented various tricks to captivate him with strangeness and distract from the Russians, and in many cases they achieved this, especially in large gatherings where Platov could not speak French completely; but he was little interested in this, because he was a married man and considered all French conversations to be trifles that were not worth imagination. And when the British began to call the sovereign to all their zeigauses, arms and soap-sawing factories, in order to show their advantage over us in all things and be famous for that, Platov said to himself:

- Well, this is a Sabbath. Until then, I still endured, and then I can’t. Whether or not I can speak, I won't betray my people.

And as soon as he said to himself such a word, the sovereign says to him:

- So and so, tomorrow we are going with you to watch their armory cabinet of curiosities. There, he says, there are such natures of perfection that as you look, you will no longer argue that we, Russians, are worthless with our meaning.

[ 1Kizlyarki. (Author's note.)], tugged at a good glass, prayed to God on the travel fold, took cover with a burka and began to snore so that no one could sleep in the whole house for the British.

I thought the morning was wiser than the night.

The next day the Emperor and Platov went to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The Tsar did not take any of the Russians with him anymore, because the carriage was given to them with two seats.

They come to a large building - an undescribed entrance, corridors to infinity, and the rooms are one in one, and, finally, in the main hall there are various huge busts, and in the middle under the Baldachin stands a half-vedera Abolon.

The sovereign looks back at Platov: is he very surprised and what he is looking at; and he walks with his eyes downcast, as if he sees nothing - he only twists rings from his mustache.

The British immediately began to show various surprises and to explain what they had adapted to for military circumstances: sea boremometers, mantones of foot regiments, and for cavalry, tar waterproofs. The Tsar rejoices at all this, everything seems to him very good, but Platov keeps his agitation that for him everything means nothing.

The sovereign says:

- How is this possible - why is there such insensibility in you? Is nothing surprising to you here?

And Platov answers:

“One thing is surprising to me here, that my Don's fellows fought without all this and drove out two or ten tongues.

The sovereign says:

- This is recklessness.

Platov answers:

“I don’t know what to attribute to, but I don’t dare to argue and must be silent.

And the British, seeing such an interruption between the sovereign, now brought him to Abolon himself, half of the Vedera, and took from him the Mortimer rifle from one hand, and a pistol from the other.

- Here, - they say, - what our productivity is, - and they serve the gun.

The sovereign looked calmly at the Mortimerov rifle, because he has such in Tsarskoe Selo, and then they give him a pistol and say:

- This is a pistol of unknown, inimitable skill - our admiral pulled it out of his belt from the robber chieftain in Candelabria.

The Emperor glanced at the pistol and could not get enough of it.

I was terribly excited.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he says, “how is it ... how can it even be done so subtly! - And he turns to Platov in Russian and says: - Now, if I had at least one such master in Russia, I would be very happy and proud of it, but I would make that master noble right now.

And Platov, in response to these words, at the same moment lowered his right hand into his large trousers and pulled out a rifle screwdriver from there. The British say: "It does not open," and he, not paying attention, well, pick the lock. Turned once, turned two - the lock and pulled out. Platov shows the sovereign the dog, and there is a Russian inscription on the sugib itself: "Ivan Moskvin in the city of Tula."

The British are surprised and push each other:

- Oh-de, we gave a blunder!

And sovereign Platov says sadly:

“Why did you embarrass them so much, I feel very sorry for them now. Let's go.

They sat down again in the same two-seated carriage and drove off, and the sovereign was at the ball that day, while Platov blew out another large glass of sour liquor and slept in a sound Cossack sleep.

He was also glad that he had embarrassed the British, and put the Tula master on the point of view, but it was also annoying: why did the sovereign regret the British for such a case!

“Through what was the sovereign upset? Thought Platov, “I don’t understand that at all,” and in this reasoning he got up twice, crossed himself and drank vodka, until he forced himself into a deep sleep.

And the British did not sleep at that very time either, because they were also sick. While the Tsar was having fun at the ball, they staged such a new surprise for him that they took away all of Platov's fantasy.

The next day, as Platov appeared to the emperor good morning, he said to him:

- Let us now lay down a two-seated carriage, and go to the new cabinet of curiosities to watch.

Platov even dared to report that it’s not enough, they say, to look at foreign products and whether it’s better to go to his place in Russia, but the sovereign says:

- No, I still wish to see other news: they praised me how they make the first grade of sugar.

The British show everything to the sovereign: what different first grades they have, and Platov looked, looked and suddenly said:

- And show us your sugar factories rumor?

And the British do not even know what this rumor is. They whisper, wink at each other, repeat to each other: "Rumor, rumor", but they cannot understand that it is this kind of sugar that we make, and must confess that they have all the sugar, but no "rumor".

Platov says:

“Well, there’s nothing to brag about. Come to us, we will give you tea with a real rumor of the Bobrin plant.

And the sovereign tugged at his sleeve and said quietly:

- Please, don't spoil my politics.

Then the British called the sovereign to the very last cabinet of curiosities, where they have collected mineral stones and nymphosoria from all over the world, from the largest Egyptian ceramide to the transdermal flea, which is impossible to see with the eyes, and its bite is between the skin and the body.

The sovereign went.

We examined the ceramides and all sorts of stuffed animals and went out, and Platov thought to himself:

"Here, thank God, everything is all right: the sovereign is not surprised at anything."

But they just came to the very last room, and here their workers in jackets and aprons are standing and holding a tray on which there is nothing.

The sovereign was suddenly surprised that he was being served an empty tray.

- What does it mean? - asks; and the English masters answer:

“This is our humble tribute to your Majesty.

- What is this?

- But, - they say, - would you like to see a speck?

The sovereign looked and saw: for sure, the tiniest speck of dust was lying on the silver tray.

The workers say:

- Please let your finger spit and take it in your palm.

- What is this speck to me?

- This, - they answer, - is not a speck, but a nymphosoria.

- Is she alive?

- Not at all, - they answer, - not alive, but from pure Aglitsky steel in the image of a flea we forged, and in the middle there is a plant and a spring. Please turn the key: she will begin to dance now.

The Emperor was curious and asks:

- And where is the key?

And the English say:

- Here is the key in front of your eyes.

“Why,” the sovereign says, “I don’t see him?”

- Because, - they answer, - that it is necessary in a small scope.

A small scope was brought in, and the emperor saw that the key was really on the tray next to the flea.

- Excuse me, - they say, - to take her in the palm of your hand - she has a winding hole in her belly, and the key has seven turns, and then she will go to dance ...

Forcibly, the sovereign grabbed this key and forcibly could hold it in a pinch, and took the flea into another pinch and just inserted the key, when he felt that she was starting to drive with her antennae, then she began to fiddle with her legs, and finally suddenly jumped and on one fly a direct dance and two probabilities to one side, then to the other, and so in three probabilities she danced the whole kavril.

The Emperor immediately ordered the British to give a million in whatever money they wanted - they want it in silver patches, they want it in small banknotes.

The British asked that they be released in silver, because they do not know a lot about the pieces of paper; and then now they showed another trick of theirs: they gave the flea as a gift, but they did not bring the case for it: without the case, you cannot keep it or the key, because they will get lost and they will be thrown into the litter. And the case for her is made of a solid diamond nut and a place in the middle is squeezed out for her. They did not submit this, because the cases, they say, are state-owned, and they have strict about the state-owned, although for the sovereign - you cannot sacrifice.

Platov was very angry because he says:

- What is this fraud for! The gift was given and a million received for it, and still not enough! The case, - he says, - always belongs to every thing.

But the sovereign says:

- Leave, please, it's none of your business - don't spoil my politics. They have their own custom. - And asks: - How much is that nut, in which the flea is located?

The British put in another five thousand for this.

Sovereign Alexander Pavlovich said: "Pay", and he himself dropped the flea into this nut, and with it the key, and in order not to lose the nut itself, he put it in his golden snuffbox, and ordered the snuffbox to be put in his travel box, which is all lined prelamut and, fish bone. The emperor let go of the Aglitsk masters with honor and told them: "You are the first masters in the whole world, and my people cannot do anything against you."

They were very pleased with this, but Platov could not say anything against the words of the sovereign. He just took a small scope and, without saying anything, put it in his pocket, because "it belongs here," he says, "and you already took a lot of money from us."

The Emperor, this did not know until his arrival in Russia, and they left soon, because the emperor became melancholy from military affairs and he wanted to have spiritual confession in Taganrog with priest Fedot [ 2“Pop Fedot” was not taken from the wind: Emperor Alexander Pavlovich, before his death in Taganrog, confessed to the priest Alexei Fedotov-Chekhovsky, whom he was later called “the confessor of his majesty,” and he liked to put this completely random circumstance in front of everyone. This Fedotov-Chekhovsky, obviously, is the legendary “priest Fedot”. (Author's note.)]. On the way, they had very little pleasant conversation with Platov, therefore they had completely different thoughts: the sovereign thought that the British had no equal in art, and Platov argued that ours too would look at anything - they could do everything, but only they had no useful learning ... And he imagined to the sovereign that the English masters had completely different rules of life, science and food, and that each person had all the absolute circumstances in front of him, and therefore he had a completely different meaning.

The sovereign did not want to listen to this for a long time, and Platov, seeing this, did not intensify. So they drove in silence, only Platov would come out at each station and out of frustration would drink a leavened glass of vodka, take a bite of a salted lamb, light his root pipe, into which a whole pound of Zhukov’s tobacco entered at once, and then he would sit down and sit next to the tsar in the carriage in silence. The sovereign looks in one direction, and Platov sticks out his chubuk through the other window and smokes into the wind. So they reached St. Petersburg, and the Tsar did not take Platov to the priest Fedot.

“You,” he says, “are incontinent to spiritual conversation, and you smoke so much that I’ve got soot in my head because of your smoke.”

Platov was left with anger and lay down at home on the annoying couch, and so he lay and smoked Zhukov tobacco without stopping.

An amazing flea made of Aglitsk blued steel remained with Alexander Pavlovich in a casket under a fishbone until he died in Taganrog, giving it to priest Fedot, so that he would hand it over later to the Empress, when she calmed down. Empress Elisaveta Alekseevna looked at the flea's probabilities and smiled, but did not engage in it.

“Mine,” he says, “is now a widow’s business, and no amusements are seductive to me,” but after returning to Petersburg, I passed on this curiosity with all the other jewels as an inheritance to the new sovereign.

At first, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich also did not pay any attention to the flea, because at sunrise it was confused, but then once he began to revise the box he had inherited from his brother and took out a snuff-box, and a diamond nut from the snuff-box, and found a steel flea in it, which had not been wound up for a long time and therefore did not work, but lay still, like numb.

The Emperor looked and was surprised.

- What a trifle this is, and why is it here with my brother in such preservation!

The courtiers wanted to throw it out, but the emperor says:

- No, it means something.

Anichkin Bridge called a chemist from Anichkin's nasty pharmacy, who weighed poisons on the smallest scales, and they showed him, and he now took a flea, put it on his tongue and said: "I feel cold, like from strong metal." And then he slightly dented it with his tooth and announced:

- As you wish, but this is not a real flea, but a nymphosoria, and it is made of metal, and this work is not ours, not Russian.

The sovereign ordered to find out now: where does this come from and what does it mean?

They rushed to look at the files and the lists, but nothing was written in the files. They began to ask the other - no one knows anything. But, fortunately, the Don Cossack Platov was still alive and even still lay on his annoying bite and smoked his pipe. As soon as he heard that there was such anxiety in the palace, he got up from the ukushche, hung up the receiver and appeared to the sovereign in all orders. The sovereign says:

- What do you want from me, courageous old man?

And Platov answers:

- I, your Majesty, do not need anything for myself, since I drink and eat what I want and am happy with everything, and I, - he says, - came to report about this nymphosoria, which they found: this, - he says, - and so it was , and this is how it happened in front of my eyes in England - and here she has a key, and I have their own small scope, through which you can see it, and with this key you can start this nymphosoria through the belly, and she will jump in whatever space and side of the likelihood to do.

They brought it in, she went to jump, and Platov said:

- This, - he says, - Your Majesty, for sure, that the work is very delicate and interesting, but only we should not be surprised at this with the delight of feelings alone, but we should subject it to Russian revisions in Tula or in Sesterbek, - then Sestroretsk was called Sesterbek , - can not our masters surpass this, so that the British do not pretend over the Russians.

Sovereign Nikolai Pavlovich was very confident in his Russian people and did not like to yield to any foreigner, he answered Platov:

- It is you, courageous old man, you speak well, and I instruct you to believe this matter. I don't need this box anyway now, with my worries, and you take it with you and don't lie down on your annoying bite anymore, but go to the quiet Don and have internecine conversations with my donors about their life and devotion and what they like. And when you go through Tula, show my Tula masters this nymphosoria, and let them think of it. Tell them from me that my brother was surprised at this thing and praised strangers who did nymphozoria more than anyone else, and I hope on my own that they are no worse than anyone. They will not say my word and will do something.

Platov took a steel flea, and how he went through Tula to the Don, showed it to the Tula gunsmiths and conveyed the words of the sovereign to them, and then asks:

- How can we be now, Orthodox?

The gunsmiths answer:

- We, father, we feel the gracious word of the sovereign and we can never forget it because he hopes for his people, but how we should be in the present case, we cannot say in one minute, because the English nation is also not stupid, but rather even cunning, and art in it with great meaning. Against it, they say, it is necessary to take a thought and with God's blessing. And you, if your grace, like our sovereign, has confidence in us, go to your quiet Don, and leave us this flea, as it is, in a case and in a golden royal snuff box. Take a walk along the Don and heal the wounds that you took for your fatherland, and when you go back through Tula, stop and send after us: by that time, God willing, we will come up with something.

Platov was not entirely happy with the fact that the Tula people took so much time and, moreover, did not say clearly what it was they were hoping to do. He asked them one way or another, and in every manner he slyly spoke to them in the Don language; but the Tula did not yield to him in cunning, because they immediately had such a plan, according to which they did not even hope that Platov would believe them, but wanted to directly fulfill their bold imagination, and then give it back.

- We ourselves do not know what we will do, but we will only hope in God, and perhaps the king's word for our sake will not be ashamed.

So Platov wags his mind, and so do the Tula.

Platov wagged, wagged, but he saw that he couldn't get over the Tula, gave them a snuffbox with a nymphozoria and said:

- Well, there is nothing to do, let, - he says, - it will be your way; I know what you are, well, at one point, there is nothing to do - I believe you, but just look, so as not to replace the diamond and do not spoil the English fine work, but do not mess around for long, because I am driving a helluva lot: two weeks will not pass, how I’ll turn from the quiet Don back to Petersburg — then I must certainly have something to show the Emperor.

The gunsmiths completely reassured him:

“Fine work,” they say, “we won’t damage it and we won’t exchange a diamond, but two weeks have enough time for us, and by the time you come back, you will have something worthy to present to the sovereign's splendor.

And they didn’t say what exactly.

Platov left Tula, and three gunsmiths, the most skillful of them, one oblique left-handed, a birthmark on his cheek, and the hairs on his temples were torn out during training, said goodbye to their comrades and their family, yes, without saying anything to anyone, they took their bags, put go there that is necessary edible and disappeared from the city. We only noticed that they had gone not to the Moscow outpost, but in the opposite direction, the Kiev side, and thought that they had gone to Kiev to worship the reposed saints or to advise there with one of the living holy men, who are always in abundance in Kiev. ...

But this was only close to the truth, and not the truth itself. Neither time nor distance allowed the Tula craftsmen to go on foot to Kiev in three weeks, and even then have time to do the shameful work for the English nation. It would be better if they could go to Moscow to pray, which is only "two ninety miles away," and many saints rest there too. And in the other direction, to Orel, the same "two ninety", but for Oryol to Kiev again another good five hundred miles. You won't take such a path soon, and having made it, you will not soon have a rest - your legs will be glazed for a long time and your hands will shake.

Some even thought that the craftsmen had boasted in front of Platov, and then, as they thought it over, they got cold feet and now they completely fled, taking with them both the Tsar's golden snuffbox, and the diamond, and the Aglitsky steel flea that had caused them trouble in a case.

However, such an assumption was also completely unfounded and unworthy of the skillful people on whom the nation's hope now rested.

The Tula people, intelligent and knowledgeable in the metal business, are also known as the first experts in religion. Their glory in this respect is also full of their native land, and even Saint Athos: they are not only masters of singing with the Babylonians, but they know how to paint the picture "evening bell", and if one of them devotes himself to greater service and goes to monasticism, then such are reputed to be the finest monastic economists, and from them come the most capable collectors. On Saint Athos they know that the Tula people are the most profitable people, and if it were not for them, then the dark corners of Russia probably would not have seen very many sacred places of the distant East, and Athos would have lost many useful offerings from Russian generosity and piety. Now the "Athos Tula" carry around sacredness throughout our homeland and masterfully collect fees even where there is nothing to take. Tulyak is full of ecclesiastical piety and a great practitioner of this work, and therefore those three masters who undertook to support Platov and the whole of Russia with him did not make a mistake, heading not to Moscow, but to the south. They went not to Kiev at all, but to Mtsensk, to the district town of the Oryol province, in which there is an ancient "stone-cut" icon of St. Nikolay; sailed here in the most ancient times on a large stone cross along the river Zusha. This icon is of the form of "formidable and fearful" - the saint of Myra-Lycia is depicted on it "full-length", all clothed with silver-covered clothes, and with a dark face and holding a temple on one hand, and "military overpowering" in the other. It was in this "overcoming" that the meaning of the thing lay: St. Nikolai is generally a patron of trade and military affairs, and "Nikola of Mtsensk" in particular, and the Tula people went to bow to him. They served a prayer service at the icon itself, then at the stone cross, and finally, they returned home “at night” and, without telling anyone, set to work in a terrible secret. All three of them came together in one house to the left-hander, the doors were locked, the shutters in the windows were closed, the icon lamp was lit in front of Nikoly's image and began to work.

Day, two, three sit and do not go anywhere, everyone pokes with hammers. They forge something like that, but what they forge is unknown.

Everyone is curious, but no one can find out anything, because the workers do not say anything and do not appear outside. Different people went to the house, knocked on the door under different views to ask for fire or salt, but the three artisans do not open up to any demand, and even what they eat is unknown. They tried to scare them, as if the house next door was on fire - they might jump out in fright and then show up what they had forged, but nothing took these cunning craftsmen; once only the left-handed man leaned out over his shoulders and shouted:

“Burn yourself, but we have no time,” and again he hid his plucked head, slammed the shutter, and set to work.

Only through small cracks was it possible to see how the light was shining inside the house, and you could hear that thin hammers were being pushed along the ringing anvils.

In a word, the whole business was conducted in such a terrible secret that nothing could be learned, and moreover, it lasted until the very return of the Cossack Platov from the quiet Don to the sovereign, and during all this time the masters did not see anyone or talk to anyone.

Platov rode very hastily and with ceremony: he himself sat in a carriage, and on the box two whistling Cossacks with whips on either side of the driver sat down and watered him without mercy so that he could ride. And if any Cossack falls asleep, Platov himself pokes his foot out of the carriage, and rushes even more angrily. These incentive measures acted so successfully that nowhere the horses could be kept at any station, and always a hundred jumps jumped past the stopping place. Then the Cossack will again act over the coachman, and they will turn back to the entrance.

So they rolled up to Tula - they also flew at first a hundred jumps beyond the Moscow outpost, and then the Cossack acted on the coachman with a whip in the opposite direction, and began to harness new horses at the porch. Platov, however, did not leave the carriage, but only ordered the whistler to bring the artisans, whom he had left the flea, to him as soon as possible.

One whistler ran, so that they would go as soon as possible and carry him work, with which they were supposed to shame the British, and this whistler ran away a little when Platov sent after him over and over again to send new ones as soon as possible.

He dispersed all the whistlers and began to send out ordinary people from the curious audience, and even he himself, out of impatience, puts his legs out of the carriage and wants to run out of impatience, but he grinds his teeth - everything is still not showing up to him soon.

So at that time everything was required very accurately and in speed, so that not a single minute for Russian usefulness was wasted.

The Tula masters, who were doing an amazing job, were just finishing their work at that time. The whistlers ran up to them out of breath, and ordinary people from the curious audience did not even run, because out of habit on the way their legs fell apart and fell, and then out of fear, so as not to look at Platov, they hit home and hid anywhere.

The whistlers, however, jumped in, now they screamed, and as they see that they are not opening, now without ceremony they pulled the bolts at the shutter, but the bolts were so strong that they did not move at all, they pulled the doors, and the doors were locked from the inside with an oak bolt. Then the whistlers took a log from the street, hooked it up like a fireman under a roof jam, and immediately pulled the whole roof off the small house. But the roof was removed, and they themselves have now tumbled down, because the masters in their cramped mansion had such a sweaty spiral from the restless work in the air that an unfamiliar person could not breathe even once from a fresh wind.

The ambassadors shouted:

- What are you, such-and-such, bastards, doing, and you dare to make mistakes with such a spiral! Or there is no god in you after that!

And they answer:

- We are now hammering in the last carnation and, as we hammer it, then we will take out our work.

And the ambassadors say:

- He will eat us alive until that hour and will not leave his soul for the sake of remembrance.

But the masters answer:

- He will not have time to swallow you, because while you were talking here, we already have this last nail nailed down. Run and say that we are carrying it now.

The whistlers ran, but not confidently: they thought that the masters would deceive them; and therefore they run, run and look back; but the craftsmen followed them and hurried so very quickly that they did not even dress quite properly for the appearance of an important person, and on the way they fasten the hooks in the caftans. Two of them had nothing in their hands, and the third, a left-handed man, had in a green case a royal box with an English steel flea.

The whistlers ran up to Platov and said:

- Here they are here!

Platov now to the masters:

- Is it ready?

- Everything, - they answer, - it's ready.

- Serve here.

And the carriage is already harnessed, and the driver and the postilion are in place. The Cossacks immediately sat down next to the driver and lifted the whips above him and held them out, swinging them.

Platov tore off the green cover, opened the box, took out a gold snuff-box from the cotton wool, and a diamond nut from the snuff-box, - he saw: the English flea was there as it was, and there was nothing else besides it.

Platov says:

- What is this? And where is your work, with which you wanted to comfort the Emperor?

The gunsmiths answered:

- This is our job.

Platov asks:

- In what does she enclose herself?

And the gunsmiths answer:

- Why explain this? Everything here is in your mind - and provide.

Platov shrugged his shoulders and shouted:

- Where is the key to the flea?

- And right there, - they answer, - Where is the flea, here is the key, in one nut.

Platov wanted to take the key, but his fingers were scanty: he caught, caught, - he could not grab either the flea or the key from its abdominal plant and suddenly got angry and began to swear in words in the Cossack manner.

- That you, scoundrels, did nothing, and even, perhaps, the whole thing ruined! I'll take your head off!

And the Tula answered him:

- It is in vain that you offend us so much - we must endure all insults from you, as from the sovereign ambassador, but only because you doubted us and thought that we were similar to deceiving the sovereign's name, - we now have no secret of our work say, if you please take us to the sovereign - he will see what kind of people we are and whether he is ashamed of us.

And Platov shouted:

- Well, you are lying, you scoundrels, I will not part with you like that, and one of you will go to Petersburg with me, and I will try to find out what your tricks are.

And with that he reached out his hand, grabbed the left-hander's collar by the scruff of his barefoot fingers, so that all the hooks from the Kazakin flew off, and threw him into his carriage at his feet.

- Sit, - he says, - here all the way to Petersburg, like a pubel, - you will answer me for everyone. And you, - he says with a whistle, - now the guide! Don't yawn, so that the day after tomorrow I will be with the Tsar in Petersburg.

The masters only dared to tell him for their comrade, why, they say, are you taking him away from us so without tugament? he cannot be followed back! And Platov, instead of answering, showed them a fist - so terrible, bumpy and all chopped up, somehow fused together - and, threatening, said: "Here's a tugament for you!" And he says to the Cossacks:

- Guyda, guys!

Cossacks, coachmen and horses - everything worked at once and drove off the left-hander without a tugament, and a day later, as Platov ordered, they drove him up to the sovereign's palace and even galloped past the columns.

Platov got up, picked up the medals and went to the sovereign, and ordered the whistling Cossacks to watch over the oblique left-hander at the entrance.

Platov was afraid to appear in front of the sovereign, because Nikolai Pavlovich was terribly wonderful and memorable - he did not forget anything. Platov knew that he would certainly ask him about the flea. And at least he was not afraid of any enemy in the world, but then he got cold feet: he entered the palace with a casket and quietly set it down in the hall behind the stove. Hiding the box, Platov appeared to the sovereign in the office and began to report as soon as possible about the internecine conversations among the Cossacks on the quiet Don. He thought so: in order to occupy the sovereign with this, and then, if the sovereign himself remembers and starts talking about the flea, he must submit and answer, and if he does not speak, then keep silent; tell the cabinet valet to hide the box, and put the left-handed Tula left-hander in the serf kazamat without a time limit so that he can sit there until a certain time, if necessary.

But Tsar Nikolai Pavlovich did not forget about anything, and as soon as Platov finished about internecine conversations, he immediately asked him:

- And what, how did my Tula masters justify themselves against the Aglitsky nymphosoria?

Platov answered in the way that it seemed to him.

- Nymphozoria, - he says, - Your Majesty, everything is in the same space, and I brought her back, and the Tula masters could not have done anything more amazing.

The sovereign replied:

- You are a courageous old man, and this, that you are reporting to me, cannot be.

Platov began to assure him and told him how the whole thing was, and how he went so far as to say that the Tula asked him to show the flea to the emperor, Nikolai Pavlovich slapped him on the shoulder and said:

- Serve here. I know that mine cannot deceive me. Something beyond the concept has been done here.

They took out a box from behind the stove, removed the cloth cover from it, opened a gold snuffbox and a diamond nut - and in it lies the flea as it was and how it was lying.

The Emperor looked and said:

- What a dashing! - But he did not diminish his faith in Russian masters, but ordered to call his beloved daughter Alexandra Nikolaevna and ordered her:

- You have thin fingers on your hands - take a small key and start an abdominal machine as soon as possible in this nymphosoria.

The princess began to twist the key, and the flea is now moving its antennae, but does not touch its feet. Alexandra Nikolaevna pulled the whole plant, but the nymphozoria still does not dance a dance and does not throw out a single probability, as before.

Platov turned green and shouted:

- Oh, they are rascals of the dog! Now I understand why they didn’t want to tell me anything there. It's good that I took one of their fools with me.

With these words, he ran out to the entrance, caught the left-hander by the hair and began to flap back and forth so that the tufts flew. And the other, when Platov stopped beating him, recovered and said:

“I’ve already had all my hair torn out during my studies, but I don’t know now why I need such a repetition?”

- This is for the fact, - says Platov, - that I hoped and enlisted in you, and you ruined a rare thing.

The left-hander answers:

- We are much pleased that you vouched for us, and we didn’t spoil anything: take it, look through the strongest small scope.

Platov ran back to talk about the melkoscope, and only threatened the left-hander:

“I’ll tell you,” he says, “so-and-so-so, I’ll ask you more.”

And he ordered the whistling ones to twist their elbows back even tighter to the left-hander, and he himself climbs the steps, out of breath and reads the prayer: “Good mother, pure and pure, good king,” and so on, as needed. And the courtiers, who are standing on the steps, all turn away from him, think: Platov was caught and now they will drive him out of the palace - because they could not stand him for his courage.

As Platov brought the left-handed words to the emperor, he now says with joy:

- I know that my Russian people will not deceive me. - And he ordered to submit a small scope on a pillow.

At the same moment, the small scope was brought in, and the sovereign took the flea and put it under the glass, first with its back up, then sideways, then with a belly - in a word, they turned it in all directions, but there was nothing to see. But the sovereign did not lose his faith here either, but only said:

“Bring this armourer down here to me now.

Platov reports:

- He should be dressed up - he was taken in what, and now in a very evil form.

And the sovereign replies:

- Nothing - enter as it is.

Platov says:

- Now go yourself, such and such, answer the sovereign before the eyes.

And the left-hander answers:

- Well, that's the way I go and answer.

He walks in what he was: in garments, one leg is in a boot, the other is wobbling, and the little hole is old, the hooks are not fastened, they are confused, and the collar is torn; but nothing, not embarrassed.

“What is it? - thinks. - If the sovereign wants to see me, I must go; and if there is no tugament with me, then I have not been caused and I will tell you why it was like that. "

As the left-hander ascended and bowed, the emperor now says to him:

- What is this, brother, does it mean that we looked this way and that, and put it under the small scope, but we don't see anything remarkable?

And the left-hander answers:

- Have you, your majesty, deigned to watch?

The nobles nod to him: they say, you do not say so! but he does not understand how to do it in a courtier way, with flattery or cunning, but simply speaks.

The sovereign says:

- Leave him to be wise, - let him answer as he knows how.

And now he explained to him:

- We, - he says, - that's how they put it, - And put the flea under the small scope. - Look, - he says, - himself - you can't see anything.

The left-hander answers:

“So, your majesty, it’s impossible to see anything, because our work against this size is much more secret.

The sovereign asked:

- And how is it necessary?

- It is necessary, - he says, - to bring just one of her legs in detail under the entire microscope and separately look at every heel she steps on.

Have mercy, tell me, says the emperor, this is already very shallow!

- And what to do, - answers the left-hander, - if only in this way our work can be noticed: then everything and surprise will turn out to be.

They put it down, as the left-hander said, and the emperor, as soon as he glanced into the upper glass, beamed all over - he took the left-hander, which he was uncleaned and in the dust, unwashed, hugged him and kissed him, and then turned to all the courtiers and said:

“You see, I knew better than anyone that my Russians would not deceive me. Look, please: after all, they, rascals, shod an English flea on horseshoes!

Everyone began to approach and look: the flea was really shod with real horseshoes on all its legs, and the left-hander reported that this was not all surprising.

“If,” he says, “there was a better small scope, which increases by five million, then you would be pleased,” he says, “to see that on each horseshoe a master's name is displayed: what Russian master did that horseshoe.

- And your name is here? - asked the sovereign.

- Not at all, - the left-hander answers, - my one is not.

- Why not?

- And because, - he says, - I worked smaller than these horseshoes: I forged carnations, with which the horseshoes are hammered, - no small scope can take there anymore.

The sovereign asked:

- Where is your small scope, with which you could make this surprise?

And the left-hander replied:

- We are poor people and because of poverty we do not have our own small-scope, but we have so aimed our eyes.

Then the other courtiers, seeing that the left-handed business had burned out, began to kiss him, and Platov gave him a hundred rubles and said:

- Forgive me, brother, that I tore you by the hair.

The left-hander answers:

- God will forgive - this is not the first time we have such a snow on our heads.

And he did not speak anymore, and he had no time to talk to anyone, because the emperor immediately ordered this savvy nymphozoria to be laid down and sent back to England - like a gift, so that they would understand that it was not surprising to us. And the sovereign ordered a special courier to carry the flea, who is learned in all languages, and with him that he was left-handed and that he himself could show the British the work and what kind of masters we have in Tula.

Platov baptized him.

- Let, - he says, - there will be a blessing over you, and on the way I will send you my own sour bottle. Don't drink a little, don't drink a lot, but drink moderately.

So he did - he sent it.

And Count Kiselvrode ordered that the left-hander be washed in the Tulyakovsky public baths, shaved in a hairdresser's and dressed in a ceremonial caftan from the court choir, so that it looked like he was wearing some kind of honored rank.

How they formed him in this manner, gave him tea with Platov's sour cream on the way, tightened him with a belt belt as tight as possible so that his intestines would not shake, and took him to London. From here, with the left-hander, foreign species went.

The courier with the left-handed man drove very soon, so that they did not stop anywhere from Petersburg to London, but only at each station they had already pulled the belts by one badge so that the intestines and lungs would not get confused; but as the left-hander, after the presentation to the sovereign, according to Platov's order, the treasury had enough wine from the treasury, he supported himself with this alone and sang Russian songs all over Europe, only did the chorus in a foreign way: ".

As soon as the courier brought him to London, he appeared to whoever needed it and gave the box, and put the left-hander in the hotel room, but he soon got bored and wanted to eat. He knocked on the door and showed the attendant to his mouth, who now took him to the food reception room.

The left-hander sat down at the table and sits, but he doesn’t know how to ask something in English. But then he guessed: again he would simply knock on the table with his finger and show himself in his mouth - the British guess and serve, only not always what is needed, but he does not accept what is not suitable for him. They gave him their cooking hot studding on the fire, - he says: “I don’t know that such a thing can be eaten,” and did not eat; they changed him and set another food. He also did not drink vodka, because it is green - it seems as if it is filled with vitriol, but chose that everything is natural, and waits for the courier in the cool behind a small bottle.

And those persons to whom the courier handed over the nymphozoria, this very minute they examined it in the strongest microscope and now a description in the public statements, so that tomorrow the slander will go out to the general news.

- And this master himself, - they say, - we now want to see.

The courier escorted them to their room, and from there to the food reception room, where our left-hander had already turned brown, and said: "Here he is!"

The British are left-handed now clap-clap on the shoulder and, as an equal, on the hands. "Comrade," they say, "Comrade is a good master," we will talk to you with time, after we will, and now we will drink to your well-being. "

They asked for a lot of wine, and the left-hander had the first glass, but he was the first to drink with courtesy: he was thinking, perhaps, you want to poison it out of annoyance.

- No, - he says, - this is not order: and in Poland there is no owner anymore, - eat ahead yourself.

The British tasted all the wines in front of him and then they began to pour him. He got up, crossed himself with his left hand and drank to all their health.

They noticed that he was crossing himself with his left hand, and asked the courier:

- That he is a Lutheran or a Protestant?

The courier replies:

- No, he is not a Lutheran or a Protestant, but of the Russian faith.

- Why does he cross himself with his left hand?

The courier said:

- He is left-handed and does everything with his left hand.

The British began to be even more surprised - and began to pump wine over both the left-handed man and the courier and spent three whole days doing so, and then they said: "Now that's enough." They took the water with the erfix over the symphony and, completely refreshed, began to ask the left-hander: where did he study and what did he learn and how long does he know arithmetic?

The left-hander answers:

- Our science is simple: but the Psalter and according to Half-Dream, and we do not know arithmetic in the least.

The British looked at each other and said:

- It's amazing.

And Lefty answers them:

- We have it so everywhere.

- And what is this, - they ask, - for the book in Russia "Half Dream"?

“This,” he says, “is a book that refers to the fact that if in the Psalter King David unclearly revealed anything about fortune-telling, then in Half-Dream, an addition is guessed.

They say:

- It's a pity, it would be better if you knew at least four rules of addition from arithmetic, then you would be much more useful than the whole Half-Dream. Then you could figure out that in every machine there is a calculation of force; otherwise you are very skillful in your hands, but you didn’t realize that such a small machine, like in the nymphosoria, is designed for the most accurate accuracy and cannot bear its horseshoes. Through this now nymphozoria does not jump and dance.

The left-hander agreed.

- About this, - he says, - there is no doubt that we have not gone into the sciences, but only faithful to our fatherland.

And the British tell him:

- Stay with us, we will give you a great education, and you will become an amazing master.

But the left-hander did not agree to this.

- I, - he says, - have parents at home.

The British called themselves to send money to his parents, but the left-hander did not take it.

“We,” he says, “are committed to our homeland, and my daddy is already an old man, and my parent is an old woman and are accustomed to going to church in her parish, and I will be very bored here alone, because I’m still a bachelor.”

“You,” they say, “will get used to it, you will accept our law, and we will marry you.

- This, - answered the left-hander, - can never be.

- Why is that?

“Because,” he replies, “our Russian faith is the most correct one, and as our righteous fathers believed, the descendants should also believe in the same way.

“You,” the English say, “don’t know our faith: we contain the same Christian law and the same Gospel.

“The gospel,” the left-hander replies, “really all have one thing, but only our books are thicker against yours, and our faith is fuller.

- Why can you judge it like that?

- We have that, - replies, - there is all the obvious evidence.

- And such, - he says, - that we have idolized icons and coffin-chapters and relics, and you have nothing, and even, except for one Sunday, there are no emergency holidays, and for the second reason - I am with an Englishwoman, even though I was married in the law, it will be embarrassing to live.

- Why is it so? - they ask. - Do not neglect: ours also dress very cleanly and housekeeping.

And the left-hander says:

- I do not know them.

The British answer:

- It does not matter the essence - you can find out: we will make you a granddev.

The left-hander was ashamed.

- Why, - he says, - in vain to fool the girls. - And he refused. “Grandev,” he says, “this is a master’s business, but we don’t care, and if they find out about this at home, in Tula, they’ll make a big laugh at me.”

The British were curious:

“And if,” they say, “without a granddev, then how do you do in such cases in order to make a pleasant choice?

The left-hander explained our situation to them.

“With us,” he says, “when a person wants to find out a detailed intention about a girl, he sends a conversational woman, and as she makes an excuse, then they go to the house together politely and look at the girl without hiding, but with all the family.

They understood, but answered that they did not have conversational women and that such a habit was not found, and the left-hander said:

- This is all the more pleasant, because if you do such a thing, you have to do it with a thorough intention, but as I don't feel this for someone else's natsyi, then why fool the girls?

The British also liked him in these judgments, so they again walked on the shoulders and on the knees with the pleasure of clapping their hands, and they themselves asked:

“We would,” they say, “only wanted to know through curiosity: what vicious omens did you notice in our girls and why do you run around them?

Here the left-hander has already answered them frankly:

“I don’t denigrate them, but I don’t like the fact that the clothes on them are somehow waving, and I cannot make out what is worn and for what need; here is one thing, and below there is still another pinned, and there are some kind of feet on the hands. Quite definitely the sapazhu monkey is a velvet talma.

The British laughed and said:

- What obstacle is there for you?

“Obstacles,” the left-hander answers, “no, but I’m only afraid that it will be a shame to watch and wait for her to figure out all of this.

- Is it really, - they say, - your style is better?

- Our style, - he replies, - in Tula is simple: all in their lace, and our lace, even big ladies wear.

They also showed him to their ladies, and there they poured tea for him and asked:

- Why are you frowning?

He replied that we, he said, were not very sweetly accustomed.

Then he was given a bite in Russian.

It seems to them that it seems to be worse, and he says:

- It tastes better for our taste.

The British could not bring him down with anything, so that he would be seduced by their life, but only persuaded him to stay for a short time, and at that time they would take him to different factories and show all their art.

- And then, - they say, - we will bring him on our ship and deliver him alive to Petersburg.

To this he agreed.

The British took the left-hander into their own hands, and sent the Russian courier back to Russia. Although the courier had a rank and was learned in different languages, they were not interested in him, but they were interested in the left-hander, and they went to drive the left-hander and show him everything. He watched all of their production: both metal factories and soap and saw factories, and all their economic arrangements he really liked, especially about the working content. Every worker with them is constantly satiated, dressed not in scraps, but on each a capable jacket, shod in thick tweezers with iron knobs, so as not to hit his feet anywhere; does not work with boilie, but with training and has an idea. In front of everyone, there is a multiplication groove in full view, and under his hand is a washable tablet: everything that the master does is looking at the groove and verifies with the concept, and then he writes one thing on the board, erases the other and brings it exactly: what is written on the tsyfir, then and in fact it comes out. And a holiday will come, they will gather in a couple, take a stick in their hands and go for a walk, decorously and nobly, as they should.

The left-hander had seen enough of all their life and all their work, but most of all he paid attention to such a Subject that the British were very surprised. He was not so interested in how the new guns are made, but how the old ones are in what form. He goes around and praises everything and says:

- We can do that too.

And when he gets to the old gun, he sticks his finger in the barrel, walks along the walls and sighs:

“This,” he says, “is superior to ours.

The British could not guess what a left-handed person was noticing, and he asks:

- Can't, - he says, - I know that our generals have seen it or not?

They say to him:

- Those who were here, they must have looked.

- And how, - he says, - were they: in a glove or without a glove?

- Your generals, they say, are ceremonial, they always wear gloves; it means that they were here too.

The left-hander said nothing. But suddenly he began to get bored uneasily. Yearned and yearned and said to the English:

- Obediently bless all the refreshments, and I am very pleased with everything with you and have already seen everything that I needed to see, and now I rather want to go home.

They could no longer hold him back. It was impossible to let him on land, because he couldn’t speak all languages, and it was not good to sail on water, because the time was stormy autumn, but he stuck: let go.

- We at the boremmeter, - they say, - looked: there will be a storm, you can drown; it's not like you have the Gulf of Finland, but here is the real Mediterranean Sea.

“It’s all the same,” he replies, “where to die,“ everything is unique, the will of God, but I want to go to my native place as soon as possible, because otherwise I can get a kind of insanity. ”

They didn’t restrain him with force: they nourished him, rewarded him with money, presented him with a gold watch with trepidation as a keepsake, and for the coolness of the sea on a late autumn journey, they gave him a bike coat with a wind blower over his head. They dressed very warmly and took the left-hander to the ship, which was sailing to Russia. Here they put the left-hander in his best form, like a real master, but he did not like to sit with other gentlemen in the closure and was ashamed, but would go to the deck, sit down with a present and ask: "Where is our Russia?"

The Englishman, whom he asks, will point his hand in that direction or wave his head, and he turns his face there and looks impatiently in his native direction.

As they left the buffet for the Mediterranean Sea, so his desire for Russia became such that it was impossible to calm him down. The watering has become terrible, and the left-hander will not go down to the cabins - he sits under the present, pushed his head down and looks to the fatherland.

Many times the British came to a warm place downstairs to call him, but so that he would not be bothered, he even began to shrug.

“No,” he replies, “it's better for me to be outside; otherwise a guinea pig will become with me under the roof from the flailing.

So all the time and did not go until a special occasion, and through this I really liked one half-keeper, who, on the mountain of our left-hander, knew how to speak Russian. This half-skipper could not have wondered that the Russian land man could withstand all the bad weather anyway.

- Well done, - he says, - Russian! Let's have a drink!

The left-hander drank.

And the half-skipper says:

The left-hander also drank and got drunk.

The half-skipper asks him:

- What secret are you taking from our state to Russia?

The left-hander answers:

- It's my business.

- And if so, - answered the half-skipper, - so let's keep an English pair with you.

Lefty asks:

- Such that you do not drink anything alone, but drink everything in a hot spot: that one, then certainly the other, and who drinks whom, that and a slide.

The left-hander thinks: the sky is cloudy, the belly is swollen, - the boredom is great, but the fishing line is long, and you can't see your native place beyond the wave - it will still be more fun to bet.

- Okay, - he says, - it's coming!

- Just to be honest.

- Yes, this, - he says, - do not worry.

They agreed and shook hands.

Their bets began in the Mediterranean Sea, and they drank until the Riga Dinaminda, but they walked on an equal footing and did not yield to each other and were so neatly equal that when one, looking into the sea, saw the devil climbing out of the water, so now the same thing happened to the other. Only a half-skipper sees the feature of a redhead, and a left-handed person says that he is dark, like a murin.

Lefty says:

- Cross and turn away - this is the devil from the abyss.

And the Englishman argues that "this is a seawater."

- Do you want, - he says, - I'll throw you into the sea? Do not be afraid - he will give you back to me now.

And the left-hander answers:

- If so, throw it.

The half-skipper picked him up and carried him to the side.

The sailors saw this, stopped them and reported to the captain, who ordered them both downstairs to lock them up and give them rum and wine and cold food so that they could eat and drink and withstand their bet - and they did not serve hot studding with fire, because they can catch fire in their gut.

So they were brought locked up to Petersburg, and none of them won a bet from each other; and then they put them on different carts and took the Englishman to the ambassador's house on the Aglitskaya embankment, and the left-hander to the quarter.

Hence, their fate began to differ greatly.

As soon as the Englishman was brought to the embassy's house, they immediately called a doctor and a pharmacist to him. The doctor told him to put him in a warm bath with him, and the pharmacist immediately rolled a gutta-percha pill and put it in his mouth himself, and then they both took it and put it on the feather bed and covered it with a fur coat on top and left him to sweat, and so that no one interfered with him, all over the order was given to the embassy so that no one would dare to sneeze. The doctor and the pharmacist waited until the half-skipper fell asleep, and then another gutta-percha pill was prepared for him, put on a table near his head and left.

And the left-hander was piled on the floor in the block and asked:

- Who is and where, and is there a passport or some other tugament?

And he has become so weak from illness, from drinking and from a long hesitation that he does not answer a word, but only groans.

Then they searched him now, they took off his colorful dress and the watch with trepidation, and the money was turned off, and the bailiff ordered him to be sent to the hospital free of charge in an oncoming cab.

He led the policeman to put the left-hander on the sled, but for a long time he could not catch a single counter, because the cabbies run from the police. And the left-hander lay on the cold parate all the time; then he caught a city cabman, only without a warm fox, because they hide the fox in the sleigh under themselves so that the police’s feet would soon get cold. They drove the left-hander so uncovered, but how they start replanting from one cab to another, they drop everything, but they start picking up - they tear the fish soup to remember it.

They brought him to one hospital - they don't accept him without a tugament, they brought him to another - and they don't accept him there, and so in the third, and in the fourth - until the morning he was dragged along all the distant curves and everyone was transplanted, so that he was beaten all over. Then one clerk told the policeman to take him to the common people of the Obukhvin hospital, where everyone of an unknown class is accepted to die.

Then they ordered to give a receipt, and to put the left-hander on the floor in the corridor until dismantling.

And at that very time the English half-skipper got up the next day, swallowed another gutta-percha pill in his gut, ate a chicken and a lynx for a light breakfast, washed down with a erfix and said:

- Where is my Russian comrade? I'll go look for him.

I got dressed and ran.

In an amazing manner, the half-skipper somehow very soon found the left-hander, only he had not yet been put on the bed, and he was lying on the floor in the corridor and complaining to the Englishman.

“I would,” he says, “I must say two words to the emperor.

The Englishman ran to Count Kleinmichel and made a noise:

- How can you! He has, - he says, - although Ovechkin's fur coat, so is the soul of a little man.

An Englishman is now out of there for this reasoning, so as not to dare to remember the soul of the little man. And then someone said to him: "You'd better go to the Cossack Platov - he has simple feelings."

The Englishman reached Platov, who was now lying on the couch again. Platov listened to him and remembered about the left-hander.

“Why, brother,” he says, “I know him very briefly, I even tore him by the hair, but I don’t know how to help him in such an unfortunate time; because I have already completely served and received full pupletion - now they no longer respect me - and you run to Commandant Skobelev as soon as possible, he is capable and also experienced in this part, he will do something.

The half-skipper went to Skobelev and told everything: what a disease the left-hander had and why it had become. Skobelev says:

- I understand this disease, only the Germans cannot cure it, but here we need some doctor from the clerical rank, because they have grown up in these examples and can help; I will send the Russian doctor Martyn-Solsky there now.

But only when Martyn-Solsky arrived, the left-hander was already over, because the back of his head had split against the parat, and he could only articulate one thing:

- Tell the sovereign that the British do not clean their guns with bricks: let them not clean them here either, otherwise, God save the war, they are not good for shooting.

And with this loyalty, the left-hander crossed himself and died. Martyn-Solsky immediately went, reported to Count Chernyshev in order to inform the Emperor, and Count Chernyshev shouted at him:

“Know,” he says, “your emetic and laxative, and don't get in the way of your own business: there are generals in Russia for this.

The sovereign was never told, and the purge continued until the Crimean campaign itself. At that time, they began to load the rifles, and the bullets in them dangled, because the trunks were cleared with bricks.

Here Martyn-Solsky reminded Chernyshev about the left-handed person, and Count Chernyshev said:

“Go to hell, plezirnaya pipe, don’t get in the way of your own business, or I’ll open up that I’ve never heard of this from you, and you’ll get it.”

Martyn-Solsky thought: "And he really will open himself," and was silent.

And if they had brought the words of the left-handed people to the sovereign in due time, in the Crimea, in the war with the enemy, there would have been a completely different turn.

Now all this is already "the deeds of bygone days": and "legends of antiquity", although not deep, but there is no need to rush to forget these legends, despite the fabulous makeup of the legend and the epic character of its protagonist. The proper name of the left-hander, like the names of many of the greatest geniuses, is forever lost to posterity; but as a myth personified by folk fantasy, he is interesting, and his adventures can serve as a memory of an era, the general spirit of which has been captured aptly and correctly.

Of course, there are no such masters as the fabulous left-hander in Tula anymore: machines have equalized the inequality of talents and talents, and genius is not torn in the struggle against diligence and accuracy. Fostering the rise of earnings, machines do not favor artistic prowess, which sometimes exceeded the measure, inspiring the folk fantasy to compose fabulous legends like the present.

Workers, of course, know how to appreciate the benefits brought to them by the practical adaptations of mechanical science, but they remember the old days with pride and love. This is their epic, and, moreover, with a very "human soul".

Leskov's story "Lefty" was published in 1881. The work is dedicated to the ingenious Tula gunsmith, who managed to surpass the English craftsmen in skill. But his talent was not appreciated at its true worth at home, as a result, forgotten by everyone, he died in the hospital. The title of the story "Levsha" (The Tale of the Tula oblique left-hander and the steel flea) defines the "fairy-tale" manner of the narration. Of the 20 chapters of the story, only the final one represents the thoughts of the author himself. In all the rest, it is narrated on behalf of the narrator, the guild master.

main characters

Lefty- Tula gunsmith, together with his comrades, shod an English mechanical flea.

Other characters

Platov- Ataman of the Don Cossacks, who served under Alexander Pavlovich, and then under Nikolai Pavlovich.

Alexander Pavlovich- the Russian emperor, who was presented with a clockwork flea while traveling in England.

Nikolay Pavlovich- the Russian emperor, who ordered the Tula craftsmen to improve the English flea.

Tula masters- gunsmiths who managed to fill the horseshoes with a microscopic clockwork flea brought by Alexander Pavlovich from England.

English masters- gunsmiths and engineers who recognized the art of the Tula. They persuaded the left-hander not to leave for Russia and introduced him to various technical innovations.

Martyn-Sokolsky- the doctor who tried to convey the last request of Lefty.

Chernyshev- Foreign Secretary.

Chapter 1

The Russian Emperor Alexander Pavlovich, after the Vienna Council, at which the results of the 1812 war with Napoleon were summed up, set off on a trip to Europe. Everywhere he was shown various curiosities that the emperor admired. But the Don chieftain Platov, who was with him on the trip, did not share the opinion of the tsar. He believed that Russian masters were no worse than foreign ones.

At the end of the tour, the king arrives in England.

Chapter 2

The British began to show their technical achievements to the Russian Tsar. Alexander was delighted with foreign science, and was fully convinced that Russians were far from foreigners. Platov, on the other hand, tried in every possible way to belittle the English masters, proving that the Russians had bypassed them in everything. So, the British showed the tsar a "pistol" of the delicate work of "an unknown, inimitable master."

The sovereign was saddened that the Russians were not capable of creating such a miracle. And Platov opened the lock at the pistol and showed that “Ivan Moskvin in the city of Tula” had made it. Such a discovery led the British into confusion, and they decided to create such a miracle of technology, against which Platov would have nothing to object.

Chapter 3

In the morning, the Russian Tsar and Platov went to see the sugar factory, and then they were brought to the "last cabinet of curiosities, where they collected mineral stones and nymphosoria from all over the world." Here Alexander was shown a life-size clockwork mechanical flea created by English craftsmen. She could jump and dance. The admired emperor gave the British a million, and they gave him this miracle of technology for this. The emperor put the flea in a case made of a diamond, put it in a snuffbox and departed for his homeland.

Chapter 4

Until Alexander's death, a flea remained in a snuffbox. When he died, she was handed over to his wife Elizaveta Alekseevna, and from her she went to the new emperor, Nikolai Pavlovich. At first, the tsar was not interested in the flea, but then he began to think why he kept it with his brother Alexander for so many years.

No one could solve this riddle until the old Don Ataman Platov arrived at the palace. He gave Nikolai a "small scope", once taken from English masters, and the tsar saw a steel flea jumping. But, unlike Alexander, the new tsar did not worship foreigners. He instructed Platov to go to the Russian craftsmen so that they would try to create something more amazing than an English flea.

Chapter 5

Fulfilling the will of the sovereign, Platov galloped to Tula, which was famous for its gunsmiths. The gunsmiths undertook to carry out the order, but asked the Don chieftain to leave a flea for them for several days. No matter how much Platov tried to pry, they did not tell him what they had invented. Having achieved nothing, the chieftain went to the Don, leaving an amazing flea to the Tula masters.

Chapter 6

When Platov left, three of the most skillful gunsmiths, among whom was the “oblique left-hander. There is a birthmark on the cheek, and the hairs on the temples were torn out during training, ”we set off away from the city. People began to wonder where they had gone. Many thought that the masters had not come up with anything, and in order to avoid punishment, they decided to hide, taking with them the tsar's snuffbox.

Chapter 7

The craftsmen went to the city of Mtsensk, Oryol province, to ask advice from the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. After praying, they returned to their settlement and locked themselves in Lefty's house. The neighbors were very curious about what the craftsmen were doing. Under various pretexts, they tried to lure the three gunsmiths out of the house. But, not a single attempt was successful. The craftsmen did not open to anyone and did not talk to anyone, working day and night.

Chapter 8

Having finished negotiations on the Don, Platov hurried back to Tula. He himself did not go to the masters any more, but sent many couriers for them.

Chapter 9

The craftsmen were finishing their work at this time. No matter how many couriers knocked on them, they did not let them into the house. Then, to get to the stubborn gunsmiths, the couriers removed the roof from the house. After that, Lefty and his comrades went out of the hut and said that they had finished their work and could go to Platov.

Chapter 10

The gunsmiths gave the chieftain a steel flea in a snuffbox. He began to ask them where their work was. But, they, offended by the insults, said that only the sovereign would be able to see her. Angry Platov threw Lefty into his cart and took him with him to St. Petersburg. On arrival, he himself went to Nikolai Pavlovich, and left the master below with his hands tied.

Chapter 11

Platov hoped to distract the tsar from the flea by talking about the Cossacks. But he did not succeed. Nikolai remembered the commission and ordered to bring the work of the Tula masters. Platov said that the Tula did not create anything new, but returned the English flea back. The sovereign could not believe in the deception and decided for himself to be convinced of the words of the chieftain.

Chapter 12

When they brought the flea and started it up with a key, it turned out that the "nymphosoria" had stopped jumping. Platov was furious. He decided that the gunsmiths had broken the mechanism. The chieftain went to the stairs, where he left Lefty, and began to beat him, calling him a deceiver. The left-hander, however, claimed that the work was done, but it could only be seen through the "small scope".

Chapter 13

They brought Lefty to the king, and he showed what the work of the gunsmiths was. It turns out that they managed to stuff horseshoes on the legs of an English flea. The sovereign was surprised and delighted that his Russian masters were able to surpass the British.

Chapter 14

Nikolai decided to send the master to England so that he would show his fine work to foreign masters. They dressed him better and sent him abroad with a special courier.

Chapter 15

The courier left Lefty at the hotel. And he himself took the flea to the masters. We found out the master who managed to shoe a flea, and came to the master at the hotel. For three days they fed and watered him, and then they began to ask about education. It turned out that the master studied "according to the Psalter and the Half-Dream", but did not know arithmetic at all.

Chapter 16

The British sent the courier home, and they began to drive Lefty to the factories and persuade him to stay with them. But Lefty yearned for his native Tula and asked to be released back. They put the English gunsmith on a ship and sent him to Russia, giving money for the journey and donating a gold watch as a keepsake.

Chapter 17

On the ship, Lefty found it boring, and he made a bet with the half-skipper that he would get drunk on him. They drank until the very end of the voyage, which made both of them sick, but no one won.

Chapter 18

In Russia, half-skipper was brought to the British embassy, ​​where excellent conditions were organized for him. And Lefty, weakened, unable even to talk, was taken to the quarter. There they robbed him and decided to send him to some hospital for treatment. Since the gunsmith did not have a "tugament" with him, he was not accepted in any hospital. By morning it became clear that Lefty would not live long, and he was taken to die in the Obukhvin hospital for the common people.

Chapter 19

The half-skipper was very worried about his friend. Miraculously, he found Lefty in the hospital and made sure that a doctor was sent to him. The dying master asks Martyn-Sokolsky to tell the sovereign that "the British do not clean their guns with bricks." The doctor tries to convey the words of Lefty to Chernyshev, but no one listens to him, and the purge continues until the beginning of the war.

Chapter 20

Conclusion

In the story "Lefty" Nikolai Leskov, an unsurpassed master of small literary forms, shows how many talents in the Russian people who have not developed in full force due to living conditions. A brief retelling of the work "Lefty" by chapters cannot reveal the full power of the writer's artistic talent. Therefore, we recommend that you get acquainted with full version story.

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As soon as the courier brought him to London, he appeared to whoever needed it and gave the box, and put the left-hander in the hotel room, but he soon got bored and wanted to eat. He knocked on the door and showed the attendant to his mouth, who now took him to the food reception room.

The left-hander sat down at the table and sits, but how to ask something in English, he does not know how. But then he guessed: again he would simply knock on the table with his finger and show himself in his mouth - the British guess and serve, only not always what is needed, but he does not accept what is not suitable for him. They gave him their cooking hot studding on the fire, - he says: “I don’t know that such a thing can be eaten,” and did not eat; they changed him and set another food. He also did not drink vodka, because it is green - it seems as if it is filled with vitriol, but chose that everything is natural, and waits for the courier in the cool behind a small bottle.

And those persons to whom the courier handed over the nymphozoria, this very minute they examined it in the strongest microscope and now a description in the public statements, so that tomorrow the slander will go out to the general news.

And this master himself, they say, we now want to see.

The courier escorted them to their room, and from there to the food reception room, where our left-hander had already turned brown, and said: "Here he is!"

The British are left-handed now, slap-slap on the shoulder and, as an equal, on the hands. "Comrade," they say, "Comrade is a good master," we will talk to you with time, after we will, and now we will drink to your well-being. "

They asked for a lot of wine, and the left-hander had the first glass, but he was the first to drink with courtesy: he was thinking, perhaps, you want to poison it out of annoyance.

No, - he says, - this is not order: there is no owner in Poland anymore, - eat ahead yourself.

The British tasted all the wines in front of him and then they began to pour him. He got up, crossed himself with his left hand and drank to all their health.

They noticed that he was crossing himself with his left hand, and asked the courier:

Is he a Lutheran or a Protestant?

The courier replies:

No, he is not a Lutheran or Protestant, but of the Russian faith.

And why does he cross himself with his left hand?

The courier said:

He is left-handed and does everything with his left hand.

The British began to be even more surprised and began to pump wine over both the left-handed man and the courier, and so they spent three whole days, and then they said: "Now that's enough." They took the water with the erfix over the symphony and, completely refreshed, began to ask the left-hander: where did he study and what did he learn and how long does he know arithmetic?

The left-hander answers:

Our science is simple: according to the Psalms and according to Half-Dream, but we do not know arithmetic in the least.

The British looked at each other and said:

It's amazing.

And the left-hander answers them:

We have it so everywhere.

And what is this, - they ask, for the book in Russia "Half Dream"?

This, - he says, - is a book that refers to the fact that if in the Psalter King David unclearly revealed anything about fortune-telling, then in Half-Dream the addition is guessed.

They say:

This is a pity, it would be better if you knew at least four rules of addition from arithmetic, then you would be much more useful than the whole Half-Dream. Then you could figure out that in every machine there is a calculation of force, but you are very skillful in your hands, but you didn’t realize that such a small machine, like in the nymphosoria, is designed for the most accurate accuracy and cannot bear its horseshoes. Through this now nymphozoria does not jump and dance.

The left-hander agreed.

About this, - he says, - there is no doubt that we have not gone into the sciences, but only faithful to our fatherland.

And the British tell him:

Stay with us, we will give you great education, and you will become an amazing master.

But the left-hander did not agree to this.

I, - he says, - have parents at home.

The British called themselves to send money to his parents, but the left-hander did not take it.

We, - he says, - are committed to our homeland, and my old man is already an old man, and my parent is an old woman and are used to going to church in her parish, and I will be very bored here alone, because I am still a bachelor.

You, they say, will get used to it, you will accept our law, and we will marry you.

This, - answered the left-hander, - can never be.

Why is that?

Because, - he replies, - that our Russian faith is the most correct, and as our righteous fathers believed, the descendants should also believe in the same way.

You, - say the English, - do not know our faith: we contain the same Christian law and the same gospel.

The gospel, the left-hander replies, really is the same for everyone, but our books are thicker against yours, and our faith is fuller.

Why can you judge it like that?

We have all the obvious proofs, - he replies.

And such, - he says, - that we have idolized icons and coffin-chapters and relics, but you have nothing, and even, except for one Sunday, there are no emergency holidays, and for the second reason - I am with an Englishwoman, even though I was married in law, it will be embarrassing to live.

Why is it so? - they ask. - Do not neglect: ours also dress very cleanly and housekeeping.

And the left-hander says:

I do not know them.

It does not matter the essence - you can find out: we will make you a grandeeva.

The left-hander was ashamed.

Why, - he says, - in vain to fool the girls. - And he refused. “Grandev,” he says, “this is a master’s business, but we don’t care, and if they find out about this at home, in Tula, they’ll make a big laugh at me.”

The British were curious:

And if, - they say, - without a granddev, then how do you do in such cases in order to make a pleasant choice?

The left-hander explained our situation to them.

With us, - he says, - when a person wants to find out a detailed intention about a girl, he sends a conversational woman, and as she makes an excuse, then they go to the house together politely and look at the girl without hiding, but with all the kinship.

They understood, but answered that they did not have conversational women and that such a habit was not found, and the left-hander said:

This is all the more pleasant, because if you do such a thing, you have to do it with a thorough intention, but as I don't feel this for someone else's natsyi, then why fool the girls?

The English also liked him in these judgments, so they again walked on the shoulders and knees with the pleasure of clapping their hands, and they themselves asked:

We would, they say, only wanted to know through curiosity: what vicious omens did you notice in our girls and why do you run around them?

Here the left-hander has already answered them frankly:

The British laughed and said:

What obstacle is there to you?

Obstacles, - the left-hander answers, - no, but I only fear that it will be a shame to watch and wait for her to figure out all of this.

Is it really, - they say, - your style is better?

Our style, - he replies, - in Tula is simple: all in their lace, and even big ladies wear our lace.

They also showed him to their ladies, and there they poured tea for him and asked:

Why are you frowning?

He replied that we, he said, were not very sweetly accustomed.

Then he was given a bite in Russian.

It seems to them that it seems to be worse, and he says:

It tastes better for our taste.

The British could not bring him down with anything, so that he would be seduced by their life, but only persuaded him to stay for a short time, and at that time they would take him to different factories and show all their art.

And then, they say, we will bring him on our ship and deliver him alive to Petersburg.

Lefty says:

Cross yourself and turn away - this is the devil from the abyss.

And the Englishman argues that "this is a seawater."

Do you want, - he says, - I'll throw you into the sea? Do not be afraid - he will give you back to me now.

And the left-hander answers:

If so, throw it.

The half-skipper picked him up and carried him to the side.

The sailors saw this, stopped them and reported to the captain, who ordered them both downstairs to lock them up and give them rum and wine and cold food so that they could eat and drink and withstand their bet - and they did not serve hot studding with fire, because they can catch fire in their gut.

So they were brought locked up to Petersburg, and none of them won a bet from each other; and then they put them on different carts and took the Englishman to the ambassador's house on the Aglitskaya embankment, and the left-hander to the quarter.

Hence, their fate began to differ greatly.

Chapter Eighteen

As soon as the Englishman was brought to the embassy's house, they immediately called a doctor and a pharmacist to him. The doctor told him to put him in a warm bath with him, and the pharmacist immediately rolled a gutta-percha pill and put it in his mouth himself, and then they both took it and put it on the feather bed and covered it with a fur coat on top and left him to sweat, and so that no one interfered with him, all over the order was given to the embassy so that no one would dare to sneeze. The doctor and the pharmacist waited until the half-skipper fell asleep, and then another gutta-percha pill was prepared for him, put on a table near his head and left.

And the left-hander was piled on the floor in the block and asked:

Who is and where is, and is there a passport or some other tugament?

And he has become so weak from illness, from drinking and from a long hesitation that he does not answer a word, but only groans.

Then they searched him now, they took off his colorful dress and the watch with trepidation, and the money was turned off, and the bailiff ordered him to be sent to the hospital free of charge in an oncoming cab.

He led the policeman to put the left-hander on the sled, but for a long time he could not catch a single counter, because the cabbies run from the police. And all this time the left-hander lay on a cold parate; then he caught a city cabman, only without a warm fox, because they hide the fox in the sleigh under themselves so that the police’s feet would soon get cold. They drove the left-hander so uncovered, but how they start replanting from one cab to another, they drop everything, but they pick it up - they tear the fish soup to remember. They brought him to one hospital - they don't accept him without a tugament, they brought him to another - and they don't accept him there, and so in the third, and in the fourth - until the morning he was dragged along all the distant curves and everyone was transplanted, so that he was beaten all over. Then one clerk told the policeman to take him to the common people of the Obukhvin hospital, where everyone of an unknown class is accepted to die.

Then they ordered to give a receipt, and to put the left-hander on the floor in the corridor until dismantling.

And at that very time the English half-skipper got up the next day, swallowed another gutta-percha pill in his gut, ate a chicken and a lynx for a light breakfast, washed down with a erfix and said:

Where is my Russian comrade? I'll go look for him.

I got dressed and ran.

Chapter nineteen

In an amazing manner, the half-skipper somehow very soon found the left-hander, only he had not yet been put on the bed, and he was lying on the floor in the corridor and complaining to the Englishman.

I would, - he says, - must say two words to the emperor.

The Englishman ran to Count Kleinmichel and made a noise:

How can it be! He has, - he says, - although he has Ovechkin's coat, so is the soul of a man.

An Englishman is now out of there for this reasoning, so as not to dare to remember the soul of the little man. And then someone said to him: "You'd better go to the Cossack Platov - he has simple feelings."

The Englishman reached Platov, who was now lying on the couch again. Platov listened to him and remembered about the left-hander.

How, brother, - he says, - I know him very briefly, even tore him by the hair, only I don't know how to help him in such an unfortunate time; because I have already completely served and received full pupletion - now they no longer respect me - and you run to Commandant Skobelev, he is capable and also experienced in this part, he will do something.

The half-skipper went to Skobelev and told everything: what a disease the left-hander had and why it had become. Skobelev says:

I understand this disease, only the Germans cannot cure it, but here we need some doctor from the clerical rank, because they have grown up in these examples and can help; I will send the Russian doctor Martyn-Solsky there now.

But only when Martyn-Solsky arrived, the left-hander was already over, because the back of his head had split against the parat, and he could only articulate one thing:

Tell the sovereign that the British do not clean their guns with bricks: let them not clean them here either, otherwise, God save war, they are not good for shooting.

And with this loyalty, the left-hander crossed himself and died.

Martyn-Solsky immediately went, reported to Count Chernyshev in order to inform the Emperor, and Count Chernyshev shouted at him:

Know, - he says, - your emetic and laxative, and do not interfere with your business: in Russia there are generals for this.

The sovereign was never told, and the purge continued until the Crimean campaign itself. At that time, they began to load the rifles, and the bullets in them dangled, because the trunks were cleared with bricks.

Here Martyn-Solsky reminded Chernyshev about the left-handed person, and Count Chernyshev said:

Go to hell, plezirnaya pipe, don't get in the way of your own business, or I'll open up that I've never heard of this from you, and you'll get it.

Martyn-Solsky thought: "And he really will open himself," and was silent.

And if they had brought the words of the left-handed people to the sovereign in due time, in the Crimea, in the war with the enemy, there would have been a completely different turn.

Chapter Twenty

Now all this is already "deeds of bygone days" and "legends of antiquity", although not deep, but there is no need to rush to forget these legends, despite the fabulous makeup of the legend and the epic character of its protagonist. The proper name of the left-hander, like the names of many of the greatest geniuses, is forever lost to posterity; but as a myth personified by folk fantasy, he is interesting, and his adventures can serve as a memory of an era, the general spirit of which has been captured aptly and correctly.

Of course, there are no such masters as the fabulous left-hander in Tula anymore: machines have equalized the inequality of talents and talents, and genius is not torn in the struggle against diligence and accuracy. Fostering the rise of earnings, machines do not favor artistic prowess, which sometimes exceeded the measure, inspiring the folk fantasy to compose fabulous legends like the present.

Workers, of course, know how to appreciate the benefits brought to them by the practical adaptations of mechanical science, but they remember the old days with pride and love. This is their epic, and, moreover, with a very "human soul".