Turgenev: Cabbage soup

Text \ Turgenev

An old peasant woman, a widow, with only one son, twenty years old, was the strongest worker in the village, but he died.

The mistress of the village, hearing of the old peasant woman's misery, visited her on the day of the funeral.

The hostess found her at home.

I saw this old woman who had just lost her son standing at the table, in the very center of the hut, unhurried and calm, and suddenly raised her right arm (the left arm was hanging weakly by her side), scooped up the light cabbage soup from the blackened pot, and drank spoon by spoon. Her face was sunken and dark, her eyes swollen and bloodshot, but she stood solemnly straight, as if she were in a church.

"Oh my God!" The hostess thought, "At such a moment, she can even drink soup, how can this person be so indifferent, she does not know the cold and warm of the world?" ”

At this moment, the hostess remembered that a few years ago, when she lost her young daughter who was only nine months old, because she was so sad, she refused to go to the villa near Petersburg to escape the summer, and spent a whole summer in the city!

And this old peasant woman drank cabbage soup casually.

The hostess finally couldn't hold her breath: "Tatina," she said, "no, I'm so surprised!" Don't you really care about your son at all? How can you have the appetite to eat, how can you drink cabbage soup! ”

"My son Vasha is dead." The old peasant woman said in a calm voice, tears of grief now rolling down her deep cheeks, "Of course I am sad. He died, and I went with him, and he pulled my heart out of my body. She couldn't cry, but suddenly changed back to a calm tone, "But this soup can't be wasted, there is salt in it." ”

The hostess shrugged her shoulders and left helplessly. Yeah, salt wasn't worth a few bucks to her.

May 1878