The Omniscient Literature offers you a brief retelling of Victor Astafiev’s work “A Horse with a Pink Mane”. This text may be useful for you to prepare for literature lessons, as well as in writing essays.
The story begins with the fact that the grandmother tells Vita to go to the forest for berries - for wild strawberries. She proposes to take the neighboring “Lavrentievsky” children to the company. And for the berries collected in the forest, Grandma promises Vitya a gift - a gingerbread in the form of a horse with a pink mane, which is sold in the city. To get this gingerbread is a longtime dream of Viti, and he is very happy because all the neighboring children will envy him.
Further, the author talks about the Levontius family, whose children have already been mentioned. This family is extremely poor. Levontiy, the father of the family works in logging, cuts wood for the lime plant. On the day when the family’s father is paid a salary, his wife Vasya immediately goes to the neighbors to distribute the debts accumulated over the month. However, he never monitors money; he can give a ruble, or even three extra ones. The house of this family is very groomed, full of dirty, eternally hungry children. The author speaks of the Levontius house as a kind of living creature, standing in the open and looking at the light with its somewhat glazed windows.
Levontiy often drinks, does no housework, and only likes to sing a song about the sailor, since he himself served in the Navy in the past. By the way, all the villagers have their own soulful favorite song. Despite all this, Vita really likes to visit Levontius.
On the day of pay in this house is a feast for the whole world. And the drunk Levontius does not spare the refreshments for Viti, because he is an orphan. The family sings songs, pours out on the table everything that they have and feasts all night with all their heart. Often during such a feast Levontius rages, smashes glass in the house and breaks the furniture in the hut. In the morning he woke up, hastily repairing broken belongings and goes back to work. And after a while, his wife Vasya again walks in the neighbors with an outstretched hand.
During the gathering of berries in the forest, the Leontief children started quarreling because the youngest of the children ate the collected berries. The two elders grappled in a fight and crushed all the strawberries they had gathered. Then the children went for a swim to the river and called Vitya with them, but he refused, because he wanted to collect a full tuez of strawberries. The most harmful of the older guys, Sanka, began to tease Vitya, saying that he was a coward and a greedy man. Then Vitya poured all the years on the ground and said that he would allow the children to eat them, he no longer needed them, and he would also steal the grandmother from the storeroom.
The guys still laughed and played in the forest. We ran into one of the dark caves and competed on who ran further there. Sanka builds himself the most fearless - runs into envy of everyone deeper than the rest and says that he is not afraid of anyone, not even snakes or brownies. He also told terrible stories that terrified everyone. When it came time to go home, Vitya suddenly remembered that he had no berries. How can he now see the eyes of grandmother Petrovna. Then Sanka advises him to fill the basket with grass, and put some berries on top, thereby deceiving his grandmother. Victor follows his advice. Grandmother does not notice anything and praises her grandson.
Then she says that the Lord himself apparently helped him in picking berries, because he brought so much. She promises him to buy the biggest gingerbread in the city. And she will not pour the berries into another basket. So in this tuesk and lucky.
After dinner, Victor went outside and began to brag to Sanka how cleverly he managed to deceive his grandmother. Sanka quickly realized where his goldmine was and began to tease Vitya and blackmail him that he would go right away and tell everything to his grandmother if Vitya did not bring him kalach. Vitya sneaks into the pantry and steals one kalach, but Vitya is not enough. He asks for more. Then Vitya goes and again steals some more cakes for him, until Sanka is full. And at night Vitya begins to torment his torments of conscience, he regrets his bad deeds and wants to tell everything to his grandmother, but unnoticed for himself falls asleep.
In the morning, Vitya thinks that it would be nice for him to go to his grandfather for a loan. Grandfather’s House is located five kilometers from the village in the “at the mouth of the Mana River”, where oats and buckwheat grow. But this distance seems too far for a little boy, and instead he decides to go again to the Leontief children. They are going fishing in the morning, but have lost their hook and I can’t find it with the whole family. Then Sanka offers Vitya to bring her hook, and in return he promises to take Vitya with him for fishing. He agrees.
While Sanya was fishing, the rest of his brothers and sisters collected wild sorrel, garlic and other herbs. Suddenly Sanya catches big fish and the guys make a fire on the shore, bake and eat it. After that they still fish, chat and play on the shore. Vitya continues to be tormented by remorse for his act with strawberries. What will he do when his grandmother returns? Sanka advises him to hide and not go out for a long time until everyone starts looking for him. And when the grandmother begins to cry and lament, go out and then all offenses will be forgiven him immediately. But Victor does not want to do that. Instead, he goes to the other end of the village with his relatives and passes the rest of the day with them in order to somehow delay his sentence. But finally, in the evening, Aunt Fenya takes him home. During a conversation between Aunt Feni and grandmother, Victor goes to bed in the pantry, everything is waiting for his grandmother to come to him. But she does not come. Lying on the floor, he recalls the events after the death of his mother, who drowned. According to the stories, the grief of the grandmother was so great that she did not leave the shore for six days, she hoped. And then she lay on the floor in a hut, in grief and unconsciousness.
In the morning Vitya woke up from his grandmother's voice. She was telling someone about his pranks. Vitya understands that his grandfather arrived - on the hanger he sees his short fur coat. This morning, neighbors and relatives come to visit my grandmother, and she tells everyone the story of the grandson’s bad deed. Vitya is still afraid to leave the pantry and pretends to be sleeping until his grandfather comes to him and orders him to go and ask for forgiveness from his grandmother.
With remorse, the boy goes to his grandmother and at breakfast hears all her accusations.
And after a real miracle occurs, despite all his actions, his grandmother still gives him the promised gingerbread - a white horse with a pink mane. Vitya is happy, he remembers it for life.
Finally, an adult author already says on his own that his grandparents have long been dead. He himself, too, is far from a young man, but still cannot forget that story and this horse with a pink mane.
