"What is it, me?" He shook off. He looked at his watch. "I've been chatting for more than two hours." I started talking to you completely.

"Well, what are you talking about!

"Do I really have a good house?" And I have good children! If you are in our area, at least alone, even with friends, come to visit. I will always be happy. We went to the house. The Big Dipper was descending behind the forest.

July 14. Rivets.

Andrey Trofimovich's daughters collected brakes for my road. The whole large family, led by the owner of the house, went out to see off the night guest. Several times I turn around, there are fewer and fewer figures of people. And soon the wall of the approaching forest hides from me not only them, but also the village. I look at the mighty green heroes in a completely different way. Their noise does not seem so cheerful to me. Apparently. Meshchera will become another victim of the "creative" activity of man. The old forester told me how the swamps in the Meshchera forests were drained, how first the mosquitoes disappeared, then the birds, and how the animals left. Sand is advancing on the forests, trees have stopped growing.The bitterness was in the words of Andrey Trofimovich:

"You say how wonderful it is here. There is no doubt that it is wonderful. But we, those who were born in these forests, remember what Meshchera was like before the drainage. And now... As if you were attending a funeral. What will we leave to our children? He waved his hand hopelessly and added, like a nail in a coffin: "They killed Meshchera. Near the village of Malinovka there was a tall structure, which apparently served forestry workers to monitor the forest. Climbing to the very top, I once again remembered the words of Andrei Trofimovich. I remembered when my breath was taken away by what I saw. Malinovka lay like ant buildings below, and the Forest stood majestically and calmly all around, wherever the eye could see. That's right, with a capital letter. This dark green sea was stunning from horizon to horizon. Is it possible that all this will perish? Will he perish from human stupidity, greed, insatiability? A huge cloud was coming from the north. Probably, there will be rain with a thunderstorm. But no matter how much it goes, it will definitely pass. The sky will be blue again. And will the thunderstorm that has risen over this green ocean with a huge invisible front pass Meshchera? Will it pass?

I am trying to see Spas-Klepiki in the east. But they are not visible. Well, I'll have to walk today. However, the road in this forest region is not at all a burden. And the eyes never cease to be surprised. Take, for example, local villages. I have already written that the people here are friendly. But kind, sympathetic people were met all along the way. But the cows in the local villages are simply extraordinary. Cows walk through the forest like moose, nibbling grass, shepherds are not visible. Or they will go out onto the road and cross it, calmly, with a sense of self-dignity, and again disappear into the thicket of the forest. Probably, in India there are the same people. However, the closer I got to Klepiki, the fewer cows I saw wandering in the forest. But flocks of tourists began to come across more and more often. Surroundings of the Pra River

- Paradise for this cheerful restless brethren. This day passed quietly and calmly for me. Klepiki turned out to be a very nice town. I got to the hotel across the city and spent almost two hours on it. Only in the city center, one-story houses gave way to two-story ones. At home, they saw young Sergei Yesenin, who had studied at the local school for some time. Yes, it seems to me that not only individual houses, but also Klepiki as a whole have remained the same as eighty years ago. Just as quiet, a little patriarchal. In the same way, probably, the women were gossiping, leaning on the painted fences, the same way the men were discussing the local news, huddled together, smoking cigarettes in a dignified manner. In the evening, you can afford it.

The hotel in Klepiki was located at the very end of the town. I no longer hoped to see her. All the more sweet seemed to me the tea that the attendant treated, and the bed in the modest room softer.

July 15. Patriots live in Tuma.

Apparently, almost a month of walking is beginning to take its toll. It seems that I had a good rest during the night, but my legs are filled with lead. Slowly, with difficulty, I wander in the direction of the working village of Tume. I rest often, since I come across villages every three or four kilometers.

In one of them, he met the Morozov family. Their house is almost the last in Kobylenka. Entering the village, I saw an old woman sitting by the window, as if in a portrait frame. The old woman was very ancient and blind. She turned her face to the sunlight, and her blind eyes, without blinking, looked into the distance. It was the mother of the owner of the house. I do not remember with what words my acquaintance with these simple, but very kind people began. I only remember that we were sitting on a bench under the window, I was treated to milk, the hosts were telling me about their life, and above us, in the window frame, an old woman towered, from time to time uttering the same phrase: "You drink milk, it gives you strength." And near the neighboring house sat a man on a bench, dressed in a sweatshirt despite the heat. He occasionally glanced in our direction. Judging by the remarks of my new acquaintances, they did not like this man very much. And I forgot about him when he disappeared behind the gate of his house.

But when I, having said goodbye to the Morozovs and promised them to look into their house on occasion, went on, someone's voice called out to me from behind the gate of the neighboring house.

"Won't you have a cigarette?" The voice belonged to a person I had seen earlier. I replied that I did not smoke and wanted to go on, but he asked something else, and I realized that the man really wanted to talk. Later, reflecting on the meetings that took place during the day, it became clear to me why the people I met were so eager to communicate. I was a stranger, not quite ordinary for them. But this is not the main thing. They all needed simple human companionship because they were lonely. Their children lived in cities, they visited their homeland rarely, if at all. And there was no one to visit anyone at all. Like the man in the sweatshirt whose name I didn't even have time to ask. He lived completely alone. Apparently, he was sick. I was sweating from the heat on my forehead, and he was chillily wrapped in his sweatshirt. He was happy to tell me about the village I had wandered into. When I learned that it used to be a large village, I asked him about the church. He somehow shuddered, which, however, I did not pay attention to, and muffled thus: "They broke it before the war."