To the tears ..

. Love came to him only in a dream. On the moonwalk, on the wall in which, as in the mirror, two were reflected – a man and a woman. He did not see their faces, only silhouettes, only shadows. They slowly slid through the night … they danced ..

Music of their dance interrupted fractional knock. He lowered his eyes and saw on the floor to his feet, bypassing tubes with paint, subframes, tinty with brushes, one overother rolled large pearls. He fell on his knees, wanting to gather them, and … woke up ..

– To the tears, my friend you are my pearls. To the tears … – The housekeeper looked attentively at Vasily Grigorievich. Criedstila. Kissed in the forehead. – Save you God!

He rushed back in a porridge remaining left from yesterday’s dinner and wrapped in a coat, went out to the street … April 1866 issued a nonlaskaya ..

He walked, she walked … passed the bridge, wrapped in the old alley, turned out to be near the factory … Despite the early hour, it was crowded here. Workers returned from Easter to grave summer work. Men, women, children ..

He walked here every day. Third Month. He was looking for a boy. To write off his portrait. Pacificate among the workers was plentious. But … not those ..

Without leaving hope, mischieving on the cobblestone pavement, Vasily Grigorievich stared at the face of passersby. Inside him settled some kind of sludge, half a shot, in which only fractional knock of scattering pearls was heard.

And suddenly … unexpectedly he shudder and … woke up. To meet Vasily Grigorievich was a unclear, exhausted woman in the fallen Katsavei. Next to her, proudly missed the "peasant with marigolds". Large eyes on a pale face … Carelessly opened gates of a stirable shirt … "He!"

– That you, father, her god, invented? Posing … what a word! Shame! Never! And do not persuade, – a woman rested.- No! And no! And the whole tale!
– And give bread? – Suddenly the boy asked. – Toda conversation about what? Come, Mamanya.

He wrote his hour … Or maybe three … Baby face … angular chin. Eyebrows – Wings Swallows. Nose – Lushpayka … barely ajar mouth. He wrote … greedily, fussy, strokes ..

The mother of a positive boy, sitting at the door and with distrust looking at the "paperman", not complained about the hungry, complete diseases of his life, not on the gentlemen who had a husband and kids.
– One son stayed in consolation. One joy ..

Love all the same came to him only in a dream … The clocks, days, months were eclipsed along the moonwalk … Film film faded yesterday ..

After 4 years, when the "paperman" returned home from another walk, the housekeeper reported:
– Old woman waited for you, father. All day promoted. Did not wait. Tomorrow said again please ..

Old woman … what old woman? I do not want to think about anything … nothing. Maybe today he will close his eyes and see someone else’s love … and pearls. "To the tears, my boy is my … Pearls … To the tears".

The next morning, barely Vasily Grigorievich woke up, the housekeeper ran into the room:
– The old woman came again. Requires you, ancient ..

She looked at him with empty eyes. Where he saw her? Where? Give God’s memory … Boy wrote? Oh yeah, of course … she hurt her consolation. Skoronila the joy of its own. Here, came in the legs to bow. Izbu sold, belongings ..
– Sell, native, I am a picture on which my son. Sell, by Christ, ..

The picture was sold long before. Nothing remained a "paperman", as soon as the old woman in Laurelian lane, where in the house of Mr. Tretyakov, among other paintings hung it, with a "written" on her boy and two more kids.

Here it is a wall, that’s picture. Going to the picture, the old woman suddenly fell on his knees:
– Here you are where, my relative! Here and your chisel killed!

"The paperman" came out … after six o’clock, passing around the hall already with the Tretyakov, he froze … The old woman was standing in the same place, knees, without tearing his eyes off on the canvas of the children’s lyrics. Tretyakov looked at the old woman in bewilderment. On the "Troika" picture hanging on the wall. On his friend who wrote this picture. Vasily Grigorievich Perov turned to the window. His shoulders were aggregated. Artist Placale.