F. Iskander “The Beginning of Form. Funny stories for schoolchildren F Iskander beginning forms to read

The beginning of the form. Sixty-five-year-old Georgy Andreevich, a famous nuclear physicist and winner of several international awards, was worried that his youngest son was fond of sports and read almost nothing.

Composition

From time immemorial, books have been man's best friend, she was a pleasant companion, an antidepressant, a motivator and just a way to have an interesting pastime.

In his text, Fazil Abdulovich Iskander invites us to think about the question: "What is the role of fiction in the spiritual life of a person?"

The author, leading to the problem, acquaints us with a story from the life of Georgy Andreevich, a famous nuclear physicist who tried to impose on his son a love of reading. The writer draws our attention to the attitude of Georgy Andreevich to books: the hero, watching how his son prefers sports, TV and computer games to reading, exclaims indignantly: “It cannot be that a book is the most comfortable, most convenient way to communicate with a thinker and an artist, she passed away! " The man is trying with all his might to introduce his son to literature: he reads books to him aloud and even agrees to a badminton duel, which is dangerous for his age, hoping to win at least a little respect from his son. It is the fact that such a well-known, intelligent, wise man has to win the respect of his own son: the boy did not just disrespect his father, he did not even notice his condition and, with a huge age difference, played at full strength, as if trying harm the father, "push him out of life." The boy, brought up on games, television, had no simple respect for an adult, let alone love and awe for Georgy Andreevich as a father.

Fazil Abdulovich Iskander believes that the books contain the spiritual experience of mankind, tact and norms that any educated and educated person should know. Books are able to comprehensively develop a person, charge him with "excitement of inspiration" and help him discover and understand himself.
I completely agree with the opinion of the writer and also believe that reading contributes to the moral, spiritual and mental development of a person. It is through books that we gain an irreplaceable experience of communication with advanced, honest thinkers of the past.

In the novel by A.S. Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" the author, using the example of Tatiana, shows us what role fiction plays in the spiritual life of a person. " The girl grew up in a simple, uneducated family, but the author describes her as an unusual girl who renounced hateful and ordinary things. A.S. Pushkin emphasizes that instead of noisy games and girlish conversations with her sisters, Tatyana prefers reading. Thanks to good classical literature and long sincere conversations with her nanny, the heroine has a deep romantic soul, and with her subtle emotional impulses she cannot but arouse the sympathy of readers and the author himself. And even later, in the vulgarity of secular society, already being an adult, stately person, Tatyana did not lose her naturalness and dignity, but only embellished them with a slight haze of the greatness of a society lady. What stood out against the background of ordinary beauties.

Ray Bradbury's dystopia Fahrenheit 451 vividly shows what a society becomes when it is against the law to read books. In a society where books are burned, we see a complete spiritual emptiness and degradation of people as individuals. People in this society are spiritless, immoral, they have no opinion of their own, no critical thinking and generally no desire to think independently, all their development is concentrated around walls that resemble TV screens. But the main character at first, like the people around him, does not notice anything bad in his way of life, until he meets an unusual girl who can think and feel differently, and until he decides to read the book. And only after reading the hero realized how empty, stupid and unhappy those around him, he realized that reading can replace his wife and friends and even the whole world, spiritless and empty. The author brings us to the idea that the book contains the experience of the most worthy people, and the reader has the opportunity to live the fate of a great personality, to absorb her thoughts and experience, as if having communicated with him live.

Thus, we can conclude that fiction allows us to cognize and educate ourselves, to improve and develop ourselves, to be charged with emotions, love, the desire for life, to receive an irreplaceable experience of communication with the greatest personalities, thereby playing a very important role in spiritual life. person.

Fazil Iskander biography for children will briefly tell about the life and work of the writer.

Fazil Abdulovich Iskander short biography

Fazil Iskander was born on March 6, 1929 in Sukhumi (Abkhazia), in the family of the owner of a brick factory. He finished school in Abkhazia.

After graduating from school, Fazil Iskander entered the Moscow Library Institute, but in 1951 he transferred to the V.I. A.M. Gorky, graduating in 1954.

In 1954-1956 he worked as a journalist in Bryansk (newspaper "Bryansk Komsomolets") and Kursk (newspaper "Kurskaya Pravda"). In 1956 he moved to Sukhumi, becoming an editor at the Abkhaz branch of the State Publishing House, where he worked until the early 1990s.

In 1957, Iskander's first book of poems, Mountain Trails, was published. But real fame came to him with prose.
Back in 1956, the Pioneer magazine published the story The First Deed. Six years later, two of his new stories appear - "A Story about the Sea" and "Rooster". In 1964, the magazine "Rural Youth" published the story "The Thirteenth Feat of Hercules". And in the same year, 8 of Iskander's stories were included in the 5-volume "Library of Soviet Writers' Works".
Published in the magazines "Literary Abkhazia", ​​"Youth", "New World", "Week".

Let's just talk. Let's talk about things that are optional and therefore pleasant. Let's talk about the funny properties of human nature, embodied in our friends. There is no greater delight than talking about some of the strange habits of our acquaintances. After all, we are talking about this, as if listening to our own healthy normality, and at the same time we mean that we could afford this kind of deviation, but we do not want it, we do not need it. Or maybe we still want to?

One of the amusing properties of human nature is that each person seeks to play out his own image, imposed on him by the people around him. Someone squeaks, but plays out.

If, say, those around you wanted to see you as an executive mule, no matter how hard you resist, nothing will work. By your resistance, on the contrary, you will gain a foothold in this title. Instead of a simple executive mule, you will turn into a stubborn or even embittered mule.

True, in some cases, a person manages to impose his desired image on those around him. Most often, people succeed in doing this a lot, but systematically drinkers.

What, they say, a good person would be if he did not drink. They say about one of my acquaintances: they say, a talented engineer of human souls, ruins his talent with wine. Try to say out loud that, firstly, he is not an engineer, but a technician of human souls, and secondly, who saw his talent? You cannot tell, because it turns out ignoble. A person already drinks, and you still complicate his life with all sorts of slander. If you can't help the drinker, then at least don't bother him.

But still, a person plays out the image that is imposed on him by the people around him. Here's an example.

Once, when I was in school, our whole class worked on one seaside wasteland, trying to turn it into a place for cultural recreation. Strange as it may seem, it was actually turned.

We planted the wasteland with eucalyptus seedlings, which was the most advanced nesting method for that time. True, when there were few seedlings left, and there was still enough free space in the vacant lot, we began to plant one seedling per hole, thus giving the opportunity for the new, progressive method and the old one to prove themselves in free competition.

A few years later, a beautiful eucalyptus grove grew on the wasteland, and it was no longer possible to distinguish between nests and solitary ones. Then they said that single seedlings in the immediate vicinity of the nesting ones, envying them with Good Envy, are pulling up and growing not lagging behind.

Anyway, now, coming to my hometown, sometimes in the heat I relax under our, now huge, trees and feel like an Excited Patriarch. In general, eucalyptus grows very quickly, and anyone who wants to feel like an Excited Patriarch can plant a eucalyptus and wait for its tall crown, clinking like Christmas tree decorations.

But it's not that. The fact is that on that old day, when we were cultivating the wasteland, one of the guys drew the attention of the others to how I hold the stretcher on which we were dragging the land. The military instructor who looked after us also paid attention to how I hold the stretcher. Everyone paid attention to how I hold the stretcher. It was necessary to find a reason for fun, and the reason was found. It turned out that I was holding the stretcher like a Notorious Bummer.

This was the first crystal that fell out of solution, and then a businesslike crystallization process was going on, which I myself was now helping to finally crystallize in a given direction.

Now everything worked for the image. If I sat on a math test, not bothering anyone, calmly waiting for my friend to solve the problem, then everyone attributed this to my laziness, not stupidity. Naturally, I did not try to disbelieve anyone in this. When I wrote in Russian written directly out of my head, without using textbooks and cheat sheets, this all the more served as proof of my incorrigible laziness.

In order to stay in character, I stopped acting as a duty officer. They got used to it so much that when one of the students forgot to perform the duties of a duty officer, the teachers, under the approving noise of the class, forced me to erase from the blackboard or drag physical appliances into the classroom. However, there were no instruments then, but I had to carry something.

The development of the image led to the fact that I had to stop doing homework. At the same time, in order to keep the situation sharp, I had to study well enough.

For this reason, every day, as soon as the explanation of the material on humanitarian subjects began, I lay down on my desk and pretended to doze. If the teachers were indignant at my posture, I said that I was ill, but I did not want to miss classes in order to keep up. Lying on the desk, I listened attentively to the teacher's voice, not being distracted by the usual pranks, and tried to remember everything he said. After explaining the new material, if there was time left, I would volunteer to answer for a future lesson.

This pleased the teachers, because it flattered their pedagogical pride. It turned out that they convey their subject so well and intelligibly that the students, even without using textbooks, learn everything.

The teacher gave me a good grade in the journal, the bell rang, and everyone was happy. And no one, except me, knew that the newly recorded knowledge was crumbling from my head, like the barbell collapsing from the hands of a weightlifter after the judge sounded: "The weight was taken!"

To be completely accurate, I must say that sometimes, when I, pretending to doze, lay on the desk, I really sank into a doze, although the teacher's voice continued to be heard. Much later, I learned that this, or almost the same, method is used to learn languages. I think it will not seem too immodest if I say now that the discovery belongs to me. I am not talking about cases of complete falling asleep, because they were rare.

After a while, rumors about the Notorious Lazy Man reached the headmaster of the school, and for some reason he decided that it was me who had stolen the telescope, which disappeared from the geographical office six months ago. I don’t know why he decided that. Perhaps the very idea of ​​at least visually shortening the distance, he decided, could most of all seduce a lazy person. I cannot find any other explanation. Fortunately, they found the telescope, but they continued to look at me closely, for some reason expecting that I was going to throw out some kind of trick. It soon became clear that I was not going to throw out any tricks, that I, on the contrary, was a very obedient and conscientious lazy person. Moreover, being a lazy person, I studied pretty well.

Then they decided to apply to me the method of massive upbringing, which was fashionable in those years. Its essence was that all the teachers unexpectedly piled on one careless student and, taking advantage of his confusion, brought his academic performance to exemplary brilliance.

The idea of ​​the method was that after that other careless students, envying him with Good Envy, would themselves pull up to his level, like single plantings of eucalyptus trees. The effect was achieved by the surprise of a massive attack. Otherwise, the student could slip away or spoil the method itself.

As a rule, the experience was successful. No sooner had the small pile, formed by the massive attack, dissipated, than the transformed student stood among the best, impudently smiling with the embarrassed smile of the dishonored.

In this case, the teachers, jealous of each other, maybe not too Good Envy, jealously followed the magazine how it improves academic performance, and, of course, everyone tried to ensure that the academic curve on the segment of his subject did not break the winning steepness. Either they pounced on me too amicably, or they forgot my own decent level, but when they began to summarize the experience of working with me, it turned out that I had been brought to the level of a candidate for medalists.

You can pull on the silver one, '' the class teacher once announced, looking anxiously into my eyes.

BOY AND WAR

LIVED AN OLD MAN WITH HIS OLD WOMAN

LIVED AN OLD MAN WITH HIS OLD WOMAN

In Chegem, a village old woman's husband died. He was wounded during the war and lost half of his legs. From then until his death he walked on crutches. But he continued to work on crutches and remained a hospitable host, as he was before the war. During the festive feasts, he could drink no less than others, and if after drinking he returned from the guests, his crutches flew around. And no one could understand whether he was drunk or sober, because both drunk and sober he was always equally cheerful.

But then he died. He was buried with honors, and the whole village came to mourn him. Many also came from other villages. He was such a nice old man. And the old woman grieved him very much.

On the fourth day after the funeral, the old woman dreamed of her old man. It seems to be standing on a path leading to some kind of mountain, clumsily jumping up on one leg and asking her:

Come, for God's sake, my crutches. I can’t get to paradise without them.

The old woman woke up and felt sorry for her old man. Thinks: why would this dream? How can I send him crutches?

The next night she dreamed the same thing. Again the old man asks her to send him crutches, because otherwise he will not get to heaven. But how should he send crutches? - thought the old woman, waking up. And I just couldn't think of it. If he dreams again and asks for crutches, I'll ask him himself, she decided.

Now he dreamed of her every night and every night asked for crutches, but the old woman was lost in her sleep, she did not catch herself asking in time, and the dream went somewhere. Finally she pulled herself together and began to watch in her sleep. And now, as soon as she saw her old man and without even letting him open his mouth, she asked:

How can you send crutches?

Through the person who is the first to die in our village, ”the old man answered and, jumping awkwardly on one leg, sat down on the path, stroking his stump. From pity for him, the old woman even shed a tear in her sleep.

However, when she woke up, she cheered up. She now knew what to do. Another old man lived on the outskirts of Chegem. This other old man was friends with her husband during her husband's life, and they often drank together.

It's good for you to drink, - he used to say to her old man, - no matter how much you drink, you always lean on sober crutches. And the wine hits my legs.

That was his joke. But now he was seriously ill, and his fellow villagers expected him to die any minute.

And the old woman decided to come to an agreement with this old man and, with his consent, when he dies, put her old man's crutches in his coffin, so that later, when he meets in the next world, he will give them to him.

In the morning she told her family about her plan. Her son and wife and one grown-up grandson remained in her house. All her other children and grandchildren lived in their own homes. After she told them that she was going to go to the dying old man and ask him to put her husband's crutches in his coffin, everyone began to laugh at her as a very dark old woman. Her grandson laughed especially loudly, as the most educated person in the family who graduated from ten grades. This opportunity, of course, was used by her daughter-in-law, who also laughed loudly, although, unlike her son, she did not finish her ten years. Laughing, the daughter-in-law said:

It’s even inconvenient to ask a living old man to die so that your husband’s crutches can be put in his coffin.

But the old woman had already thought it over.

I will not ask him for sure to die now, - she answered. - Let him die when his term comes. If only he agreed to take crutches.

This was the answer of this sensible and rather delicate old woman. And although she was dissuaded, she came to the house of this old man on the same day. Has brought good gifts. Partly as a sick man, partly to cajole both the dying old man and his family before their unexpected request.

Apparently, and I will be there soon and will meet with your old man.

And then the old woman perked up.

By the way, - she began and told him about her dream and about her old man's request to send him crutches through a fellow villager who would be the first to die. “I’m not rushing you,” she added, “but if something happens, let me put crutches in your coffin so that my old man limped to paradise.

This old man, dying with a pipe in his teeth, was a sharp-tongued and even hospitable person, but not to such an extent that he could take other people's crutches into his coffin. He terribly did not want to take other people's crutches into his coffin. Was he ashamed or what? Maybe he was afraid that people from foreign villages who would attend his funeral would suspect his dead body of disability? But direct refusal was also inconvenient. Therefore, he began to politicize with her.

Didn't the Bolsheviks close the paradise? - he tried to get rid of her from this side.

But the old woman turned out to be not only delicate, but also resourceful. She really wanted to send her husband's crutches to the next world with this old man.

No, - she said confidently, - the Bolsheviks did not close the paradise, because Lenin was detained in the Mausoleum. And the rest cannot do it.

Then the old man decided to get rid of her with a joke.

Better you put a bottle of good chacha in my coffin, - he suggested, your old man and I will drink it there when we meet.

You're kidding, - the old woman sighed, - but he waits and every night he asks to send crutches.

The old man realized that it was difficult to get rid of this old woman. In general, he did not want to die, and even more did not want to take crutches with him into the coffin.

But I won't catch up with him now, - said the old man, thinking, - he died a month ago. Even if I am sent along the same path to heaven, which I doubt. There is a sin ...

I know your sin, - the old woman disagreed. - My old man with the same sin, as you see, was sent to paradise. And about what to catch up - do not make people laugh. My old man on one leg could not gallop far. If, say, you die tomorrow, although I am not rushing you, you will catch up the day after tomorrow. He will not go anywhere from you ...

Fazil Abdulovich Iskander

All the mathematicians I met in school and after school were sloppy people, weak-willed and quite brilliant. So the statement that the Pythagorean pants are supposedly equal in all directions is hardly absolutely accurate.

Perhaps Pythagoras himself had this, but his followers, probably, forgot about it and paid little attention to their appearance.

And yet there was one mathematician in our school who was different from all the others. He could not be called weak-willed, much less slovenly. I do not know if he was a genius - now it is difficult to establish. I think it was most likely.

His name was Harlampy Diogenovich. Like Pythagoras, he was of Greek origin. He appeared in our class from the new school year. Before that, we had not heard of him and did not even know that such mathematicians could exist.

He immediately established an exemplary silence in our class. The silence was so terrible that sometimes the director would open the door in fright, because he could not understand if we were on the spot or had fled to the stadium.

The stadium was located next to the schoolyard and constantly, especially during large competitions, interfered with the pedagogical process. The director even wrote somewhere to be moved to another place. He said that the stadium makes schoolchildren nervous. In fact, it was not the stadium that made us nervous, but the stadium commandant, Uncle Vasya, who recognized us unmistakably, even if we were without books, and drove us out of there with anger that did not fade over the years.

Fortunately, our director did not obey and the stadium was left in place, only the wooden fence was replaced with a stone one. So now those who used to look at the stadium through the cracks in the wooden fence also had to climb over.

Yet our director was in vain to fear that we might run away from the mathematics lesson. It was inconceivable. It was like going up to the director at recess and silently throwing off his hat, although everyone was pretty tired of it. He always, both winter and summer, wore the same hat, evergreen like a magnolia. And he was always afraid of something.

From the outside it might seem that he was most afraid of the commission from the city council, in fact, he was most afraid of our head teacher. It was a demonic woman. Someday I will write a poem about her in the Byronic spirit, but now I am talking about something else.

Of course, there was no way we could escape math class. If we ever ran away from a lesson, it was usually a singing lesson.

Sometimes, as soon as our Kharlampy Diogenovich enters the class, everyone immediately calms down, and so on until the very end of the lesson. True, sometimes he made us laugh, but it was not spontaneous laughter, but fun organized from above by the teacher himself. It did not violate the discipline, but served it, as in geometry a proof of the opposite.

It happened something like this. For example, another student is a little late for the lesson, well, about half a second after the call, and Kharlampy Diogenovich is already entering the door. The poor student is about to fall through the floor. Maybe it would have failed if the teacher's room hadn't been directly under our classroom.

Some teacher will not pay attention to such a trifle, another will scold in the heat of the moment, but not Kharlampy Diogenovich. In such cases, he stopped at the door, shifted the magazine from hand to hand and, with a gesture full of respect for the personality of the student, indicated the passage.

The student hesitates, his confused face expresses a desire to somehow slip through the door after the teacher more imperceptibly. But the face of Kharlampy Diogenovich expresses joyful hospitality, restrained by decency and an understanding of the unusualness of this moment. He makes it known that the very appearance of such a student is a rare holiday for our class and personally for him, Kharlampy Diogenovich, that no one expected him, and since he came, no one would dare to reproach him for this little lateness, all the more he, modest a teacher who, of course, will go into the classroom after such a wonderful student and himself will close the door behind him as a sign that the dear guest will not be released soon.

All this lasts for several seconds, and in the end the student, awkwardly squeezing through the door, stumbles back to his place.

Kharlampy Diogenovich looks after him and says something wonderful. For example:

The class laughs. And although we do not know who the Prince of Wales is, we understand that he cannot appear in our class. He just has nothing to do here, because the princes are mainly engaged in hunting deer. And if he gets tired of hunting for his deer and wants to visit some school, then he will certainly be taken to the first school, which is near the power plant. Because she is exemplary. In extreme cases, if he wanted to come to us, they would have warned us long ago and prepared the class for his arrival.

That is why we laughed, realizing that our student could not be a prince, especially some kind of Welsh.

But now Kharlampy Diogenovich sits down. The class is instantly silenced. The lesson begins.

Big-headed, short, neatly dressed, carefully shaved, he held the class in his hands imperiously and calmly. In addition to the magazine, he had a notebook where he entered something after the questioning. I do not remember him shouting at anyone, or persuading to study, or threatening to call his parents to school. All these things were of no use to him.

During the tests, he did not even think of running between the rows, looking into the desks or there vigilantly raising his head at any rustle, as others did. No, he was quietly reading something to himself or fingering a rosary with beads as yellow as cat's eyes.

It was almost useless to write off from him, because he immediately recognized the written-off work and began to ridicule it. So we wrote off only as a last resort, if there was no way out.

Sometimes, during the test, he would tear himself away from his rosary or book and say:

Sakharov, please sit down with Avdeenko.

Sakharov gets up and looks at Kharlampy Diogenovich inquiringly. He does not understand why he, an excellent student, should change to Avdeenko, who is a poor student.

Have pity on Avdeenko, he may break his neck.

Avdeenko stares blankly at Kharlampy Diogenovich, as if not understanding, and maybe not really understanding why he might break his neck.

Avdeenko thinks that he is a swan, - explains Kharlampy Diogenovich. “Black swan,” he adds after a moment, hinting at Avdeenko’s tanned, sullen face. - Sakharov, you can continue, - says Kharlampy Diogenovich.

And you too, - he turns to Avdeenko, but something in his voice barely perceptibly shifted. A precisely metered dose of mockery poured into him. “… Unless, of course, you break your neck… the black swan! - he firmly concludes, as if expressing a courageous hope that Alexander Avdeenko will find the strength to work independently.

Shurik Avdeenko sits, bending furiously over a notebook, showing the powerful efforts of the mind and will, thrown into the solution of the problem.

Harlampy Diogenovich's main weapon is to make a person funny. A student who deviates from school rules is not a lazy person, not a loaf, not a bully, but just a funny person. Rather, not just funny, perhaps many would agree to this, but some insultingly funny. Funny, not realizing that he is funny, or the last to guess about it.

And when the teacher makes you funny, the mutual responsibility of the students immediately disintegrates, and the whole class laughs at you. Everyone laughs against one. If one person is laughing at you, you can still deal with it somehow. But you can't make the whole class laugh. And if you turned out to be funny, I wanted to prove by all means that, although you are funny, you are not so completely ridiculous.

I must say that Kharlampy Diogenovich did not give privileges to anyone. Anyone could be funny. Of course, I also did not escape the common fate.

On that day, I did not complete the homework problem. There was something about an artillery shell that flies somewhere with some speed and for some time. It was necessary to find out how many kilometers he would fly if he flew at a different speed and almost in a different direction.

In general, the task was somehow confusing and stupid. My solution did not agree with the answer in any way. And by the way, in the problem books of those years, probably because of pests, the answers were sometimes incorrect. True, very rarely, because by that time almost all of them had been overfished. But, apparently, someone else was working in the wild.

But I still had some doubts. Pests are pests, but, as they say, don't do it yourself.

So the next day I came to school an hour before class. We studied in the second shift. The most inveterate footballers were already there. I asked one of them about the problem, it turned out that he did not solve it either. My conscience finally calmed down. We split into two teams and played until the very bell.

And now we enter the classroom. Barely catching my breath, just in case I ask the excellent student Sakharov:

Nothing, he says, decided. At the same time, he briefly and significantly nodded his head in the sense that there were difficulties, but we overcame them.

How did you decide, because the answer is wrong?

Correct, - he nods his head to me with such disgusting confidence on a smart, conscientious face that at that very moment I hated him for his well-being, albeit deserved, but all the more unpleasant. I still wanted to doubt it, but he turned away, robbing me of the last consolation of those falling: to grab hold of the air with his hands.

It turns out that at this time Kharlampy Diogenovich appeared at the door, but I did not notice him and continued to gesticulate, although he was standing almost next to me. Finally, I guessed what was the matter, frightenedly slammed the book and froze.

A source:
13 Feat of Hercules
13 Feat of Hercules, Page 1 - Iskander Fazil Abdulovich. Contemporary prose, Prose
http://fanread.ru/book/6046316/?page=1

Fazil Iskander the beginning

Let's just talk. Let's talk about things that are optional and therefore pleasant. Let's talk about the funny properties of human nature, embodied in our friends. There is no greater delight than talking about some of the strange habits of our acquaintances. After all, we are talking about this, as if listening to our own healthy normality, and at the same time we mean that we could afford this kind of deviation, but we do not want it, we do not need it. Or maybe we still want to?

One of the amusing properties of human nature is that each person seeks to play out his own image, imposed on him by the people around him. Someone squeaks, but plays out.

If, say, those around you wanted to see you as an executive mule, no matter how hard you resist, nothing will work. By your resistance, on the contrary, you will gain a foothold in this title. Instead of a simple executive mule, you will turn into a stubborn or even embittered mule.

True, in some cases, a person manages to impose his desired image on those around him. Most often, people succeed in doing this a lot, but systematically drinkers.

What, they say, a good person would be if he did not drink. They say about one of my acquaintances: they say, a talented engineer of human souls, ruins his talent with wine. Try to say out loud that, firstly, he is not an engineer, but a technician of human souls, and secondly, who saw his talent? You cannot tell, because it turns out ignoble. A person already drinks, and you still complicate his life with all sorts of slander. If you can't help the drinker, then at least don't bother him.

But still, a person plays out the image that is imposed on him by the people around him. Here's an example.

Once, when I was in school, our whole class worked on one seaside wasteland, trying to turn it into a place for cultural recreation. Strange as it may seem, it was actually turned.

We planted the wasteland with eucalyptus seedlings, which was the most advanced nesting method for that time. True, when there were few seedlings left, and there was still enough free space in the vacant lot, we began to plant one seedling per hole, thus giving the opportunity for the new, progressive method and the old one to prove themselves in free competition.

A few years later, a beautiful eucalyptus grove grew on the wasteland, and it was no longer possible to distinguish between nests and solitary ones. Then they said that single seedlings in the immediate vicinity of the nesting ones, envying them with Good Envy, are pulling up and growing not lagging behind.

Anyway, now, coming to my hometown, sometimes in the heat I relax under our, now huge, trees and feel like an Excited Patriarch. In general, eucalyptus grows very quickly, and anyone who wants to feel like an Excited Patriarch can plant a eucalyptus and wait for its tall crown, clinking like Christmas tree decorations.

But it's not that. The fact is that on that old day, when we were cultivating the wasteland, one of the guys drew the attention of the others to how I hold the stretcher on which we were dragging the land. The military instructor who looked after us also paid attention to how I hold the stretcher. Everyone paid attention to how I hold the stretcher. It was necessary to find a reason for fun, and the reason was found. It turned out that I was holding the stretcher like a Notorious Bummer.

This was the first crystal that fell out of solution, and then a businesslike crystallization process was going on, which I myself was now helping to finally crystallize in a given direction.

Now everything worked for the image. If I sat on a math test, not bothering anyone, calmly waiting for my friend to solve the problem, then everyone attributed this to my laziness, not stupidity. Naturally, I did not try to disbelieve anyone in this. When I wrote in Russian written directly out of my head, without using textbooks and cheat sheets, this all the more served as proof of my incorrigible laziness.

In order to stay in character, I stopped acting as a duty officer. They got used to it so much that when one of the students forgot to perform the duties of a duty officer, the teachers, under the approving noise of the class, forced me to erase from the blackboard or drag physical appliances into the classroom. However, there were no instruments then, but I had to carry something.

The development of the image led to the fact that I had to stop doing homework. At the same time, in order to keep the situation sharp, I had to study well enough.

For this reason, every day, as soon as the explanation of the material on humanitarian subjects began, I lay down on my desk and pretended to doze. If the teachers were indignant at my posture, I said that I was ill, but I did not want to miss classes in order to keep up. Lying on the desk, I listened attentively to the teacher's voice, not being distracted by the usual pranks, and tried to remember everything he said. After explaining the new material, if there was time left, I would volunteer to answer for a future lesson.

This pleased the teachers, because it flattered their pedagogical pride. It turned out that they convey their subject so well and intelligibly that the students, even without using textbooks, learn everything.

The teacher gave me a good grade in the journal, the bell rang, and everyone was happy. And no one, except me, knew that the newly recorded knowledge was crumbling from my head, like the barbell collapsing from the hands of a weightlifter after the judge sounded: "The weight was taken!"

To be completely accurate, I must say that sometimes, when I, pretending to doze, lay on the desk, I really sank into a doze, although the teacher's voice continued to be heard. Much later, I learned that this, or almost the same, method is used to learn languages. I think it will not seem too immodest if I say now that the discovery belongs to me. I am not talking about cases of complete falling asleep, because they were rare.

After a while, rumors about the Notorious Lazy Man reached the headmaster of the school, and for some reason he decided that it was me who had stolen the telescope, which disappeared from the geographical office six months ago. I don’t know why he decided that. Perhaps the very idea of ​​at least visually shortening the distance, he decided, could most of all seduce a lazy person. I cannot find any other explanation. Fortunately, they found the telescope, but they continued to look at me closely, for some reason expecting that I was going to throw out some kind of trick. It soon became clear that I was not going to throw out any tricks, that I, on the contrary, was a very obedient and conscientious lazy person. Moreover, being a lazy person, I studied pretty well.

Then they decided to apply to me the method of massive upbringing, which was fashionable in those years. Its essence was that all the teachers unexpectedly piled on one careless student and, taking advantage of his confusion, brought his academic performance to exemplary brilliance.

The idea of ​​the method was that after that other careless students, envying him with Good Envy, would themselves pull up to his level, like single plantings of eucalyptus trees. The effect was achieved by the surprise of a massive attack. Otherwise, the student could slip away or spoil the method itself.

As a rule, the experience was successful. No sooner had the small pile, formed by the massive attack, dissipated, than the transformed student stood among the best, impudently smiling with the embarrassed smile of the dishonored.

In this case, the teachers, jealous of each other, maybe not too Good Envy, jealously followed the magazine how it improves academic performance, and, of course, everyone tried to ensure that the academic curve on the segment of his subject did not break the winning steepness. Either they pounced on me too amicably, or they forgot my own decent level, but when they began to summarize the experience of working with me, it turned out that I had been brought to the level of a candidate for medalists.

You can pull on the silver one, '' the class teacher once announced, looking anxiously into my eyes.