The Horse with the Pink Mane (Astafyev)
Short summary
A Siberian village near the Yenisei River, presumably 1930s-1940s. A boy lived with his grandmother and grandfather.
His grandmother promised to buy him a gingerbread horse with a pink mane if he picked a basket of wild strawberries. The boy went berry-picking with the neighbor Levonty's unruly children. He picked berries diligently, but Sanka, one of Levonty's sons, challenged him to eat all his berries. Unable to back down, the boy ate them all.
On Sanka's advice, the boy filled his basket with grass and covered it with a few berries on top. His grandmother praised him for his hard work and promised to sell the berries in town. The boy felt guilty but said nothing. Sanka then blackmailed him, threatening to tell grandmother everything unless the boy brought him kalaches from the pantry. The boy stole several kalaches to keep Sanka quiet.
When grandmother returned from town, she discovered the deception. She scolded the boy severely for his dishonesty and theft. The boy was overcome with shame and remorse. Despite his wrongdoing, grandmother forgave him.
Across the scrubbed kitchen table... on pink hooves, galloped a white horse with a pink mane. "Take it, take it, why are you staring? Maybe you'll think twice before deceiving your grandmother again..."
Years passed, and the narrator, now an old man himself, could never forget that gingerbread horse with the pink mane.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
The promise of the gingerbread horse and Levontiys family
The narrator's grandmother returned from the neighbors and told him that Levontiy's children were going to the hill to pick wild strawberries, and ordered him to go with them. She promised that if he filled a birch-bark container with berries, she would take them to the city along with her own, sell them, and buy him a gingerbread.
A gingerbread horse! That's the dream of all village children. It's white-white, this horse. And its mane is pink, tail pink, eyes pink, hooves also pink.
The boy dreamed of this gingerbread horse. He could hide it under his shirt, run around and feel the horse kicking with its hooves against his bare belly. With such a horse, he would receive so much respect and attention from Levontiy's children, who would fawn over him and let him play first, just to be allowed to bite off a piece of the horse or lick it.
Levontiy, the narrator's neighbor, worked on rafts together with another man. Once every ten or fifteen days, Levontiy received his wages, and then a feast began in the neighboring house full of children. Early in the morning, aunt Vasenya, Levontiy's wife, would run to grandmother with money clutched in her fist to repay her debt, breathless and hurried, ready to rush away immediately.
Levontiy's house stood by itself, in the open, with nothing to obstruct its view of the world through poorly glazed windows—no fence, no gates, no shutters. On payday evenings, Levontiy would rock the cradle and sing a song about a sailor who brought a little monkey from Africa. The family would quiet down, listening to their father's voice. After the feast, when the children were fed and not fighting, their united chorus would pour out through the broken windows.
The berry-picking expedition and the deception
The narrator set off to pick strawberries with Levontiy's children. The boys carried glasses with chipped edges, old birch-bark containers half torn for kindling, and pots tied with strings around their necks. Along the way, they fooled around, fought, raided someone's garden, ate spring onions until their mouths were green, and made whistles from the remaining stalks. When they reached the stony hill, everyone scattered through the forest and began picking strawberries.
I picked diligently and soon covered the bottom of the neat little birch-bark container... I sighed with relief and began gathering strawberries faster, and there were more and more of them higher up the hill.
Levontiy's children soon started eating their berries or lying in the grass. The eldest scolded them and fought with his brothers, spilling his own berries in the process. After the fight, he too began eating the crushed berries. The brothers eventually made peace and decided to go down to the Fokina River to splash around.
The narrator wanted to go to the river too, but he had not yet filled his container. Sanka mocked him for being afraid of grandmother and called him greedy. To prove he was not afraid, the boy boasted that he would eat all his berries.
"You can't do it!" he said. "I can't?!" I boasted... and, so as not to back down, not to chicken out, not to disgrace myself, I decisively dumped the berries onto the grass: "Here! Eat them with me!"
Levontiy's gang pounced on the berries, and they disappeared in an instant. The narrator received only a few tiny berries. He felt sorry for the berries and sad, his heart sensed the coming meeting with grandmother, but he pretended to be reckless and ran down the hill with Levontiy's children to the river, boasting that he would also steal a kalach from grandmother.
They ran along the shallow river, splashed in the cold water, caught fish under stones, threw stones at flying birds and wounded a white-bellied swallow. They tried to revive the bird with water, but it died. They buried the little bird on the shore and soon forgot about it, occupied with running into the mouth of a cold cave where, according to village knowledge, evil spirits lived.
When it was time to return home, Sanka reminded the narrator that they had eaten his berries and laughed that grandmother would punish him. The boy knew that Levontiy's children would get away with it, but he would not. He trailed quietly behind them. Sanka returned and advised him to stuff the container with grass and cover it with berries on top. The narrator followed this advice.
I stuffed the container tight with grass... gathered a few handfuls of berries, covered the grass with them — it looked like there were even more strawberries. "My dear child!" grandmother wailed... "The Lord helped you!"
Guilt, fear, and grandmothers discovery
Grandmother praised the boy, promised to buy him the biggest gingerbread, and said she would not even transfer his berries to her own container but would take them to the city in his birch-bark container. The boy felt relieved. He thought grandmother would immediately discover his fraud and punish him, but everything worked out. Grandmother took the container to the cellar, praised him again, fed him, and he thought that perhaps life was not so bad after all.
After eating, the boy went outside to play and foolishly told Sanka everything. Sanka immediately began to blackmail him, demanding that he bring a kalach or he would tell grandmother. The boy sneaked into the pantry and brought Sanka one kalach, then another, and another, until Sanka was full.
"I deceived grandmother. Stole the kalatches! What will happen now?" I tormented myself at night... Sleep wouldn't take me, 'angelic' peace wouldn't descend upon my thieving, my criminal soul.
Grandmother asked from the darkness if he was tossing because his legs hurt from wading in the river. He said he had a bad dream. She told him to sleep with God and not be afraid, that life was scarier than dreams. The boy thought about climbing down from the sleeping platform and confessing everything to grandmother, but he heard her difficult breathing and did not want to wake her. He decided to wait until morning and tell her everything, and from this decision he felt better and fell asleep.
Grandfather was at the farmstead, five kilometers from the village. The boy wandered around the empty house and went to Levontiy's. Sanka was going fishing and demanded a hook. The narrator rushed home, grabbed fishing rods, stuffed bread in his pocket, and they went to the stone piers beyond the pasture that descended straight into the Yenisei River. They caught fish, fried it on the shore, and spent the day by the river.
Confession, repentance, and forgiveness
From there, the narrator could see the railway bridge in the city, from where grandmother was supposed to return by boat. He thought about what would happen and wished he had not listened to Levontiy's children. He even thought that perhaps the boat would capsize and grandmother would drown, but immediately rejected this thought, remembering how his mother had drowned.
When mother drowned, grandmother wouldn't leave the shore... She kept calling and calling for mother, threw bread crumbs into the river... tore hair from her head, tied it around her finger and sent it downstream.
Suddenly, behind the nearest stone pier, iron-shod poles splashed against the bottom, and a boat appeared from around the cape. The narrator saw someone sitting on the bench wearing a half-shawl—it was grandmother returning from the city. He jumped up, grabbed the grass, and ran along the shore away from the boat. Grandmother shouted for him to stop, but he ran with all his might to the upper end of the village.
He stayed there until evening, playing lapta with his cousin. An aunt brought him home. In the dark house, grandmother and the aunt talked in the main room while the boy hid in the cold pantry. He heard grandmother telling someone how a cultured lady in a hat bought all his berries, and he felt he was falling through the earth with shame. Grandmother scolded him all the next day, and he cried, truly repenting.
Only now, understanding fully what bottomless abyss my trickery had plunged me into... if I started swindling so early... I burst into tears, not simply repenting, but frightened that I was lost.
Grandfather came from the farmstead at night, covered the sleeping boy with his old sheepskin coat, and in the morning encouraged him to ask for forgiveness. The boy came out of the pantry, holding his pants with one hand and pressing the other to his eyes, and began: 'I won't anymore... I won't anymore...' Grandmother, still stern but without thunder, told him to wash up and sit down to eat. When he raised his head, he saw before him on the table a white horse with a pink mane.
How many years have passed since then! How many events have gone by... but I still cannot forget grandmother's gingerbread — that wondrous horse with the pink mane.