On this cold and rainy October, Katerina Petrovna became even more difficult to get up in the morning. The old house in which she lived her life was built by her father, a famous artist, and was under the protection of the regional museum. The house stood in the village of Zaborye. Every day Manyurya, the daughter of a collective farm cobbler, came running to Katerina Petrovna and helped with the housework. Sometimes Tikhon came in, a watchman at a fire barn. He remembered how the father of Katerina Petrovna built this house.
Nastya, the only daughter of Katerina Petrovna, lived in Leningrad. The last time she came three years ago. Katerina Petrovna very rarely wrote to Nastya — she did not want to interfere, but she thought about her constantly. Nastya also did not write, only once every two to three months the postman brought Katerina Petrovna a translation of two hundred rubles.
Once at the end of October, at night, someone knocked on the gate for a long time. Katerina Petrovna went out to see, but there was nobody there. On the same night, she wrote her daughter a letter asking him to come.
Nastya worked as a secretary in the Union of Artists. Artists called her Solveig for blond hair and large cold eyes. She was very busy - she organized an exhibition of the young sculptor Timofeev, so she put her mother’s letter in her purse without reading it, only breathed a sigh of relief: if the mother writes, it means she is alive. In the workshop of Timofeev, Nastya saw a sculpture of Gogol. It seemed to her that the writer was mockingly and reproachfully looking at her.
Two weeks Nastya was busy with the device of the exhibition Timofeev. At the opening of the exhibition, the courier brought Nastya a telegram from Zaborye: “Katya is dying. Tikhon. " Nastya crumpled a telegram and again felt Gogol's reproachful look on her. That evening, Nastya left for Zaborye.
Katerina Petrovna did not get up already the tenth day. Manyushka did not leave her for six days. Tikhon went to the post office and wrote something for a long time on the letterhead, then he brought it to Katerina Petrovna and scaredly read: “Wait, I left. I always remain your loving daughter, Nastya. ” Katerina Petrovna thanked Tikhon for the kind word, turned away to the wall, and as if fell asleep.
Katerina Petrovna was buried the next day. Old women and boys gathered for the funeral. On the way to the cemetery, a young teacher saw the funeral and remembered her old mother, who was left alone. The teacher went to the coffin and kissed Katerina Petrovna on a dry yellow hand.
Nastya arrived in Zaborye on the second day after the funeral. She found a fresh grave hill in the cemetery and a cold dark room from which life had left. In this room, Nastya cried all night. She left from Zaborye to sneak so that no one would notice or ask about anything. It seemed to her that no one but Katerina Petrovna could take off her load of irreparable guilt.
