What the horse is crying about is a summary. Abramov, Analysis of the work What Horses Cry, Plan. Ryzhukha's conversation with the hero of the story

Every time When the narrator went down from the ugr (hill) to the meadow, he seemed to find himself again in his distant Childhood - in the world of fragrant herbs, dragonflies, butterflies and, of course, horses that grazed on a leash, each near its own stake. He often took with him and treated the horses, and if there was no bread, he still stopped beside them, gently stroked, ruffled his warm velvet lips. Horses worried him, but more often caused a feeling of pity and some incomprehensible guilt in front of them.

Groom Mikolka, always drunk, sometimes did not come to them for days, and the horses stood hungry, languishing with thirst, suffering from the gnat that hovered over them in clouds.

This time the man did not go, but ran to the horses, because he saw among them his favorite Redhead, a medium-sized horse, unsightly, but very hardy and somehow especially clean, neat, with a lively, cheerful character. Usually she happily greeted him, but that day she stood near the stake motionless, petrified, even turned her head away from the treat. The man grabbed her by the bangs, pulled her to him and, shocked, saw ... tears. Big horse tears. "Redhead, Redhead, what's wrong with you?"

And she said that they (the horses) had a dispute about life, horse life, of course. Ryzhukha said that there was a time when horses were loved and cared for, spared and taken care of.

Her comrades laughed at her. Speaking of this, the filly burst into tears again. The man forcibly calmed her down. And this is what she said.

At the far mowing where she worked (and the work was hard labor), Ryzhukha walked in a team with one old mare, who tried to cheer her partner up with her songs. From these songs Ryzhukha learned about the times when horses were called nurses, were groomed and caressed, fed deliciously, and decorated with ribbons. Listening to the songs of Zabava (that was the name of the old horse), her partner forgot about the heat, about the heavy mower she was dragging, about the blows of an evil man. Redhead could not believe that it was a carefree horse life, on Zabava assured that everything was true in the songs, her mother sang them. And their mother heard them from her mother.

When the horses were taken out to the meadow... Ryzhukha did not become a song of the old mare, but they shouted at her: “What lies to her! .. Don't poison our souls. And so sick. " And now the horse with hope and supplication turned to the man: "Tell me, were there times when we horses lived well?" The narrator could not stand her direct, honest gaze, and averted his eyes. And then it seemed to him that all the horses were looking at him, waiting for an answer.

It is not known how long this silent torture lasted, but the man was sweating. He knew the old mare was telling the truth. Yes, there were such times, and quite recently, when the horse was breathing, they fed it the most tidbit, or even the last crust of bread, the whole family greeted her after work, and how many affectionate words she listened to, with what love they looked after her, took her to watering, scraping, cleaning.

The horse was the treasure, hope and support of the peasant family.

And how they had fun on the holidays! How reckless, how beautiful were the Russian festivities on horseback in Maslenitsa. You will not see this anywhere else.

“Everything was transformed like in a fairy tale. Men and boys were transformed ... horses were transformed. Eh, golushki, eh, darlings! Do not disappoint! Amuse your young heart! .. Colorful, patterned arcs danced like rainbows in the frosty air ... and bells, bells - the delight of the Russian soul. "

The first toy of the peasant there was a wooden horse for his son, his mother sang about a burka, and every porch greeted him with a horseshoe - a symbol of happiness - in the village. "Everything is a horse, everything is from a horse: the whole life of a peasant, from birth to death."

Is it any wonder that because of the horse, because of the mare, passions boiled over in the first collective farm years. At the stables they hustled from morning till night, each looked closely at his horse, scolded the grooms for negligence. After all, the men have been fed from the horse all their lives.

The narrator recalls how long ago, even before the war, he could not calmly walk past his Kar'ka, who, like the sun, illuminated the whole life of their large family. At the forty-seventh he returned to the village. Hunger, ruin, desolation. And I immediately remembered Karko.

The old groom answered him that Karok was no longer there. I gave my soul to God. I should have celebrated such a day. With what? And when Kar'ko with his cart dragged out of the forest, heavy logs fell on him from above, from a pile ...

In every person lives probably the Pushkin prince Oleg: once again arriving in the village, the narrator decided to find the remains of his beloved horse. Here is the place where the logging took place. Desolation, nettle thickets. He did not find any remains.

... The redhead and the other horses still looked at him with hope and supplication. It seemed that the whole meadow was filled with horse eyes. Everyone, both the living and those who had not been for a long time, questioned the person.

And he had to let reckless prowess: "Well, well, stop souring! .. Let's better gnaw the bread while it is gnawing." Avoiding looking into Ryzhukha's eyes, he gave her a piece of bread that had been prepared in advance, and dressed other horses as well. With daring recklessness, theatrically raised his hand: "Pockel!" And what could he answer to these poor fellows? To say that the old mare didn't invent anything, that horses had happy times? He saw nothing around. I waited for them to start gnawing bread, to cut the grass with the usual horse crunch. But no sound came from the meadow.

And the man realized that he had done what- that irreparable, terrible thing that deceived these unfortunate nags, that he and Ryzhukha would never have more sincere trust. And a heavy horse melancholy fell on him, bent him to the ground ...

What horses cry about is a story in a story that was written by the wonderful writer Abramov. If you briefly describe the story What horses cry about for a reader's diary, then this work is about the difficult fate of horses. The horse asked the hero if it was true that horses were valued before, but the hero could not answer the truth, thereby betraying his friendship with the animal.

Abramov What Horses Cry

Abramov at Work What Horses Cry About, introduces us to a hero who loved horses, came to the meadow and fed the horses. The storyteller especially liked Ryzhukha's horse. With her, he had some special feelings and relationships. Only once the hero saw how his horse was crying, and when he asked her, the horse asked a question about his past life, that in the song he heard how well the horses lived before, how they were looked after and loved, appreciated and cherished. Not like now, horses are easily left in the heat, starved to death and watched as emaciated horses die. Only the narrator could not answer the horse the truth, and meanwhile everyone began to mock her.

What do the horses cry about?

In the story What Horses Cry About, the main character is the narrator. The narrator appears before us in the form of a kind, caring person who loves animals very much, and especially horses, which remind him of the years of childhood and adolescence.

Also, the hero of the story is a horse, which was interested in the past life of horses.

What do horses cry about?

If we turn to the story What horses cry about and its main idea, then it seems to me that the author wanted to show us how indifferent modern people have become, they are callous and have no pity. Meanwhile, the horses are dying, they are suffering, they are starving. But the person does not care about this, because what is the use of a horse that has already been developed. I think the author, with the help of the story, wanted to urge people to treat our brothers less with respect and love, calls to think about our actions, because sometimes people have such an attitude not only towards animals.

Plan

1. Distant childhood - the world of horses
2. The narrator feeds the horses
3. The groom is a drunkard who doesn't care about horses
4. Redhead's favorite and her tears
5. Ryzhukha's story about the past life of horses
6. The narrator is unable to confirm the veracity of Ryzhukha's story.
7. The remorse of the hero.

In the lesson, students using the example of the story of F.I. Abramov "What Horses Cry About" will learn attentive, thoughtful reading; get acquainted with the features of journalistic style; touched upon the moral problem of human responsibility to all living things that surrounds him.

Topic: From the literature of the XX century

Lesson: The story of F.A. Abramova "What do the horses cry about"

Fedor Aleksandrovich Abramov (Fig. 1) was born on February 29, 1920 in the distant northern village of Verkolka, fenced off from the city by endless forests, swamps, and lakes.

Rice. 1. Photo. F. Abramov ()

Somehow late, early,

But in the Abramov family

A son appeared.

He was born with a temper,

He was nicknamed Fedor.

He goes to Pinega with buckets

I went to fetch water.

Pure water,

Flashes of lightning

Siverko, blizzards -

The years have passed.

The childhood and adolescence of the future writer, spent in the remote taiga wilderness, was not easy. A large, large, early orphaned family. The father died when the boy was not even two years old. Difficult half-starved childhood and youth hardened character, instilled diligence, will, perseverance. And the immense Siberian expanses, the amazing beauty of nature taught him a careful, reverent attitude towards all life on Earth.

Only at the age of eighteen, the future writer saw the city, the railway. He came to Leningrad, entered the philological faculty of the university. The village youth was alarmed by the city crowd, where people live in the same house and do not know each other.

The further fate of F.A. Abramova was inseparable from the fate of Russia. Together with his people, he went through the Great Patriotic War, after the victory he returned to Leningrad, finished his studies, taught at the university, and became a writer. But, perhaps, he could not get used to life in a big city. That is why most of the author's works are devoted to village theme.

The writer Abramov notes the special beauty of the horse, admires this kind and intelligent animal. However, this admiration is mixed with a feeling of pity for the horses and even guilt in front of them, because the life of a village horse is tragic: “The groom Mikolka, always drunk, sometimes did not show up to them day and night, and around the stake was not like grass - the sod was gnawed off and knocked out by a daughter. They were constantly languishing, dying of thirst, they were harassed by a vile - on calm evenings a mosquito and midges swirled over them like a gray cloud, like a cloud.

In general, what can I say - life was not easy for the poor. "

Fedor Abramov in the story endows the horse with human character traits. Together with the narrator, the main character of the story becomes the collective farm horse Ryzhukha. “And yet Ryzhukha stood out favorably among her relatives. Some of them just couldn't look at urine. Some unkempt, drooping, with an unfading tattered skin, with festering eyes, with a kind of dull submissiveness and doom in their eyes, in their whole dejected, hunched figure. But Ryzhukha - no. The redhead was a clean filly, and besides, she still retained her cheerful, cheerful character, the restiveness of her youth. "

To emphasize the inextricable connection between man and animal, Abramov shows the friendship between them, and even uses artistic exaggeration... Redhead is endowed with the ability to speak. And this gift manifests itself at the moment when the horse is hardest of all, she is tormented by the question: "There were times when we, horses, lived well?"

This question made the narrator ponder. At this stage of the narrative, the gift of Abramov as a publicist is clearly manifested. Here narrative gives way to reasoning:

“There were, there were such times, and there were more recently, in my memory, when the horse breathed and lived, when it was fed the most tidbit, or even the last crust of bread - we somehow exhale, we and the hungry we wash our belly until morning. We are no strangers. And what was done in the evenings, when the horse, which had worked out during the day, entered its alley! The whole family, young and old, ran out to greet her, and how many affectionate, how many grateful words she listened to, with what love they unharnessed her, nursed her, took her to a watering hole, scraped her, cleaned her! And how many times during the night did the owners get up to visit their treasure! "

note for this passage. It clearly shows features of journalistic style:

emotionality is conveyed by exclamation points;

Abramov talks about the role of the horse in the life of the village:"The main support and hope of all peasant life, because without a horse - nowhere: neither in the field, nor in the forest."

Rice. 2. Photo. Ridge on the roof of the house ()

“The first toy of a peasant son is a wooden horse. The horse looked at the child from the roof of his father's house, about the horse-hero, about the sivka-cloak, the mother sang and talked about, with the horse he decorated the spinning wheel for his betrothed with the horse, he prayed to the horse - I don't remember a single goddess in my village without Yegor the Victorious ... And almost every porch greeted you with a horseshoe - a sign of the long-awaited peasant happiness - ”(Fig. 2).

In the author's discussion of the great role of the horse in the life of a Russian person, the reader is struck by another tragic memory. About the horse Kar'ka, who at one time, as the sun, illuminated the hard life of the early orphaned large family of Abramovs. This horse, like other horses, together with the people went through the war and did a lot for the Victory.

“Your Kar'ka isn’t there,” the old groom answered me. - I gave my soul to God on the forest front. Do you think only people fought in this war? No, the horses also forged victory, and how ... "

In his discussion of horses, Abramov recalls the work of A.S. Pushkin's "Song of the Prophetic Oleg." In this poem, the horse, the prince's faithful companion, is unjustly exposed to exile and oblivion. Likewise, the past reverence for horses is unjustly forgotten. And now they look at us with hope and supplication from the pages of the story:

“... The redhead still looked at me with hope and supplication. And other horses watched. And it seemed that all the space in the meadow, under the mountain - was completely one horse's eyes. Everyone, both alive, on a leash, and those who have long been gone - the entire horse kingdom, living and dead, was asking me now. "

The author was unable to explain why the happy times for horses are over. But you and I understand that the reason is that a person has ceased to need a horse. Combines and tractors are working on the collective farm fields, the cavalry in the army has been replaced by tanks. Instead of carriages - cars and trains. Man learned to do without a horse, and the animal immediately lost attention, care, love.

At one time, the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery in the fairy tale "The Little Prince" wrote a phrase that became winged: "We are responsible for those we have tamed." . Following Exupery, Abramov also reminds us of the responsibility for all life on Earth, because if a person is the king of nature, then all his subjects should feel under his protection.

Bibliography

Korovina V.Ya. Didactic materials on literature. 7th grade. - 2008.
Tishchenko O.A. Homework on literature for the 7th grade (to the textbook by V.Ya. Korovina). - 2012.
Kuteinikova N.E. Literature lessons in grade 7. - 2009.
Korovina V.Ya. Literature textbook. 7th grade. Part 1. - 2012.
Korovina V.Ya. Literature textbook. 7th grade. Part 2. - 2009.
Ladygin M.B., Zaitseva O.N. Textbook-reader on literature. 7th grade. - 2012.
Kurdyumova T.F. Textbook-reader on literature. 7th grade. Part 1. - 2011.

FEB: Dictionary of literary terms ().
Dictionaries. Literary terms and concepts ().
Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language ().
Abramov F.A. "What do horses cry about" ().
Abramov F.A. Biography and creativity ().

Homework

Read the story of F.A. Abramova "What Horses Cry About". Make a story outline.
What is the climax of the story?
What makes the author think about?
What works on a similar topic have you read?
Can a similar story be addressed to other animals? How? Justify the answer.

Dear visitor, thank you for such a good choice, the story "What the Horses Cry About" Abramov Fedor is definitely worth your attention and deserves your approval. Fascination, admiration and indescribable inner joy produce pictures drawn by our imagination when reading such works. All the heroes were "honed" by the experience of the people, who for centuries created, strengthened and transformed them, giving great and deep importance to children's education. Devotion, friendship and self-sacrifice and other positive feelings overcome all opposing them: anger, deceit, lies and hypocrisy. The dialogues of the heroes often cause tenderness, they are full of gentleness, kindness, directness, and with their help a different picture of reality emerges. All descriptions of the environment are created and presented with a feeling of deepest love and appreciation for the object of presentation and creation. It is sweet and gratifying to plunge into a world in which love, nobility, morality and disinterestedness always prevail, with which the reader is edified. "What the Horses Cry About" Abramov Fedor read for free online should parents to their children, with their comments and reasoning and parental admonitions.

Every time, when I descended from the village ugr to the meadow, I, as it were, again and again fell into my distant childhood - into the world of fragrant herbs, dragonflies and butterflies and, of course, into the world of horses that grazed on a leash, each near its own cola.

I often took bread with me and fed the horses, and if there was no bread, I would stop beside them anyway, patting them on the back, on the neck, encouraging them with an affectionate word, patting on warm velvet lips, and then for a long time, almost all day, I felt in the palm of your hand an incomparable horse scent.

These horses evoked the most complex, most contradictory feelings in me.

They excited, delighted my peasant heart, gave the desert meadow with rare bumps and bushes of willow its own special - equine - beauty, and I could not for minutes, for hours look at these kind and intelligent animals, listen to their monotonous crunching, occasionally interrupted by that disgruntled snorting , then in a short snore - dusty or inedible grass was caught.

But more often than not, these horses aroused in me a feeling of pity and even some incomprehensible guilt in front of them.

The groom Mikolka, always drunk, sometimes did not come to them day and night, and around the stake was not like grass - the sod was gnawed and knocked out by his daughter. They were constantly languishing, dying of thirst, they were pestered by the vile - on calm evenings a mosquito and midges swirled over them like a gray cloud, like a cloud.

In general, what to say - life was not easy for the poor fellows. And that's why I tried as best I could to brighten up, to facilitate their share. And not only me. A rare old woman, a rare woman, finding herself in a meadow, passed by them indifferently.

This time I did not go - I ran to the horses, for who did I see among them today? My favorite Klara, or Ryzhukha, as I called her easily, in an old-fashioned way, according to the custom of those times, when there were still no Thunderstorms, no Ideas, no Victories, no Udarniki, no Stars, but there were Karki and Karyukhi, Voronki and Voronukhi , Gnedki and Gnedukhi are ordinary horses with ordinary horse names.

The redhead was of the same articles and the same blood as the rest of the mares and geldings. From the breed of so-called mesenoks, medium-sized horses, unsightly, but very hardy and unpretentious, well adapted to the harsh conditions of the North. And Ryzhukha got no less than her friends and comrades. At the age of four or five, her back under the saddle was already knocked down, her belly sagged noticeably and even the veins in her groins began to swell.

And yet Ryzhukha stood out favorably among her relatives.

Some of them just couldn't look at urine. Some unkempt, drooping, with an unfading tattered skin, with festering eyes, with a kind of dull submissiveness and doom in their eyes, in their whole dejected, hunched figure.

But Ryzhukha - no. The redhead was a clean filly, and besides, she still retained her cheerful, cheerful character, the restiveness of her youth.

Usually, when she saw me descending from the eel, she would all get up, stretch herself to the string, give her sonorous voice, and sometimes as wide as the rope allowed, she ran around the stake, that is, she made, as I called it, her welcoming circle of joy.

Today Ryzhukha did not show the slightest enthusiasm at my approach. She stood near the stake motionless, petrified, earnestly, as only horses can stand, and in nothing, absolutely nothing different from the rest of the mares and horses.

“What's wrong with her? I thought anxiously. - Sick? Have you forgotten me during this time? " (Ryzhukha spent two weeks at a distant haymaking.)

On the way, I began to break off a large piece of the loaf - with this, with feeding, our friendship began, but then the mare completely puzzled me: she turned her head to the side.

- Redhead, Redhead ... Yes, it's me ... I ...

I grabbed her by the thick, gray bangs, which I cut my own hair about three weeks ago - it completely clogged my eyes, pulled her to me. And what did I see? Tears. Large, bean-sized, horse tears.

- Redhead, Redhead, what's wrong with you?

The redhead silently continued to cry.

- Well, well, you have grief, you have trouble. But can you tell me what's the matter?

- We had one dispute here ...

- Who - with us?

- We, the horses.

- Do you have a dispute? - I was surprised. - About what?

- About a horse's life. I told them that there were times when we, horses, were pitied and protected more than anything else in the world, and they made fun of me, began to scoff at me ... - and then Ryzhukha burst into tears again.

I forced her to calm down. And this is what she finally told me.

On a far mowing mow, from which Ryzhukha had just returned, she met an old mare, with whom she went for a couple in a horse mower. And this old mare, when it became completely unbearable for them (and the work there was hard labor, for wear and tear), began to cheer her up with her songs.

“I’ve never heard anything like it in my life,” said Ryzhukha. - From these songs, I learned that there were times when we horses were called nurses, groomed and caressed, decorated with ribbons. And when I listened to these songs, I forgot about the heat, about the gadflies, about the strikes of the belt, with which the evil man beat us every now and then. And it was easier for me, by God, it was easier to drag a heavy mower. I asked Fun - that was the name of the old mare - if she was comforting me. Didn't she herself come up with all these beautiful songs about a horse's carefree life? But she assured me that all this is true and that these songs were sung to her by her mother. Sang when she was a sucker. And their mother heard them from her mother. And so these songs about happy horse times were passed down from generation to generation in their family.

“And so,” Ryzhukha concluded her story, “this morning, as soon as we were taken out to the meadow, I began to sing the songs of the old mare to my comrades and comrades, and they shouted in one voice:“ All this lies, nonsense! Shut up! Do not poison us: the soul. And so sick. "

The redhead with hope, with a supplication raised her huge, still wet, sad eyes to me, in the violet depth of which I suddenly saw myself - a small, tiny man.

- Tell me ... You are a man, you all know, you are one of those who command us all our lives ... Tell me, were there times when we, horses, lived well? Did the old mare lie to me? Didn't you deceive?

I could not bear the direct, questioning gaze of Ryzhukha. I averted my eyes to the side and then it seemed to me that from everywhere, from all sides, large and inquisitive horse eyes were looking at me. Could it be that what Ryzhukha was asking me about was of interest to other horses as well? In any case, there was no usual crunch, which is always heard in the meadow.

I don’t know how long this silent torture lasted for me on a green meadow under the mountain - maybe a minute, maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour, but I was sweating from head to toe.

Everything, everything was right, the old mare spoke, she didn’t lie. There were, there were such times, and there were more recently, in my memory, when the horse breathed and lived, when it was fed the most tasty morsel, or even the last crust of bread - we somehow exhale it, we even have a hungry belly we will wash until the morning. We are no strangers. And what was done in the evenings, when the horse, which had worked out during the day, entered its alley! The whole family, young and old, ran out to greet her, and how many affectionate, how many grateful words she listened to, with what love they unharnessed her, nursed her, took her to a watering hole, scraped her, cleaned her! And how many times during the night the owners got up to visit their treasure!

Yes, yes, treasure. The main support and hope of all peasant life, because without a horse - nowhere: neither in the field, nor in the forest. And do not take a walk properly.

I have lived half a century in this world and, as they say, have seen a lot of miracles - both my own and overseas, but no, there is nothing to compare with Russian horse rides about Shrovetide.

Everything was transformed as in a fairy tale. Men and boys were transformed - the devil bent over on light painted sleds with iron undercuts, horses were transformed. Eh, golushki, eh, darlings! Do not disappoint! Amuse your heart! Fan the blizzard-fire all over the street!

And the horses were fanning. Colorful, patterned arcs danced like rainbows in the winter air, the July heat smelled of polished copper harnesses, and bells, bells - the delight of the Russian soul ...

The first toy of the peasant son is a wooden horse. The horse looked at the child from the roof of his father's house, about the horse-hero, about the sivka-cloak, the mother sang and talked about, with the horse he decorated the spinning wheel for his betrothed with the horse, he prayed to the horse - I don't remember a single goddess in my village without Yegor the Victorious ... And almost every porch greeted you with a horseshoe - a sign of long-awaited peasant happiness. Everything is a horse, everything is from a horse: the whole life of a peasant, from birth to death ...

Well, what is surprising that because of the horse, because of the mare, all the main passions boiled up in the first years of the collective farm!

They huddled at the stables, held meetings from morning till night, and sorted out their relations there. He knocked down the withers at the Funnel, did not give Gnedukha a drink in time, piled too large a cart, drove Chaly too quickly, and now there was a cry, they drove a fist into the snout.

Uh, what's the point of talking about the owners, about the peasants who have been feeding on horses all their lives!

I, a cut-off piece, a university student, even on the eve of the war, could not calmly walk past my Karok, who once, like the sun, illuminated the whole life of our large, early orphaned family. And even the war, even the war, did not erase the memory of my native horse in me.

I remember that in the forty-seventh I returned to the village. Hunger, devastation, desolation, every house weeps for those who have not returned from the war. And as soon as I saw the first horse, and Kar'ko came to the idea.

“Your Karok isn’t there,” the old groom answered me. - I gave my soul to God on the forest front. Do you think only people fought in this war? No, the horses also forged victory, and how ...

Kar'ko, as I learned later, finished his life on the very Victory Day. It was necessary to somehow celebrate, to celebrate such a day. But as? How? So they decided to sacrifice the oldest goner. In short, when Kar'ko dragged himself out of the forest with his next cart, heavy logs were brought down on top of him, from a pile ...

In each of us, Pushkin's prophetic Oleg must be living, and three years ago, when I happened to be in Rosokh, where logging was once in the war, I tried to find the remains of my horse.

The logging center was gone for a long time. The old barracks, somehow cobbled together by old men and boys, collapsed, overgrown with nettles, and on the site of the katischa, where the earth was generously fertilized with chips and bark, thick thickets of pink willow tea were plowed out.

I wandered around these thickets, in two or three places I even laid a path through them, but I did not find any remains ...

... The redhead was looking at me with hope and supplication. And other horses watched. And it seemed that all the space in the meadow, under the mountain - was completely one horse's eyes. Everyone, both the living, on a leash, and those who had been gone for a long time - the entire horse kingdom, living and dead, was asking me now. And I suddenly put on a reckless prowess and exclaimed:

- Well, well, enough sour! Stop stuffing your head with all sorts of nonsense. Let's better nibble the bread while it is nibbling.

And after that, avoiding looking into Ryzhukha's eyes, I hastily threw a piece of bread that had been prepared for a long time in front of her elongated muzzle, then quickly put bread on other horses and, with the same daring recklessness, theatrically raised my hand:

- Pockel! In the entom business without a can, we still can't figure it out ... - And, deeply thrusting his hands into the pockets of fashionable jeans, with a quick, cheeky gait, he moved to the river.

And what could I answer to these poor fellows? To say that the old mare didn't invent anything, that horses had happy times?

I crossed the dry lake, went out to the old border, preserved from the pre-kolkhoz times, which always delighted me with its wild herbs.

But I didn't see anything now.

All my being, all my ears were turned back to the horses. I waited, with every nerve I waited, when they would begin to gnaw bread, with the usual horse crunch and grunt to cut the grass in the meadow.

Not the slightest sound came from there.

And then I suddenly began to understand that I had done something irreparable, terrible, that I had deceived Redhead, deceived all these unfortunate nags and goners, and that never, never again, Redhead and I would have the sincerity and trust that we had before so far.

And longing, heavy horse anguish fell on me, bent to the ground. And soon I myself seemed to myself some kind of ridiculous, obsolete creature. A creature from the same horse breed ...

The story "What the Horses Cry" by Abramov was written in 1973. The form of this work is “a story within a story,” in which the author consoles his beloved mare Ryzhukha and recalls his horse Kork, who was killed during the war.

For a reader's diary and better preparation for a literature lesson, we recommend reading the online summary "What Horses Cry About". You can check the knowledge gained using the test on our website.

main characters

The narrator- a villager, a kind person with a sensitive, loving heart.

Other characters

Mikolka- an eternally drunk groom, an irresponsible and lazy worker.

Every time the narrator finds himself in a meadow, he seems to find himself again "in his distant childhood - in the world of fragrant herbs, dragonflies and butterflies." Often he takes a piece of bread with him to feed the horses he loves very much.

Horses cause conflicting feelings in the hero: they excite, delight him, but at the same time cause "a feeling of pity and even some incomprehensible guilt in front of them." He knows that life is very hard for these beautiful, intelligent animals. “The groom Mikolka, always drunk,” may not appear in the meadow for days on end, and then the horses suffer greatly from hunger and thirst.

Among other horses, the hero is especially fond of Ryzhukha - a small unsightly filly, perfectly adapted to life in the North. She compares favorably with the fact that she was able to maintain "her cheerful, cheerful character, resilience of youth."

Redhead was always happy when the hero appeared, but this time she was surprisingly indifferent. Wanting to appease the mare, he hands her a piece of bread, and suddenly notices in her big intelligent eyes ... tears.

The hero tries to find out from Ryzhukha the reason for her tears, and in response he hears a sad story about how horses used to live. The mare says that the other horses made her laugh when she sang to them a song about the former free and satisfying horse life.

After all, there were times when horses were "called nurses, groomed and caressed, decorated with ribbons." Ryzhukha wanted to cheer up her companions with this song, in response they asked her to shut up and not poison their souls.

The redhead gazes intently with her tear-stained, expressive eyes into the face of the narrator, and asks if it was true that horses had such a life before?

The hero is forced to admit that in the old days the peasants revered the horse as a real treasure, took care and cared for, "because without a horse - nowhere: neither in the field, nor in the forest."

His faithful horse, Karko, pops up in his memory, who served people with faith and truth throughout the war, and "finished his life on the very Victory Day." Collective farmers from above "brought down heavy logs" on him to celebrate the holiday.

The hero leaves the meadow, but feels that Ryzhukha will no longer have the former trust in him, and "longing, heavy horse anguish" falls on him ...