The story "Biryuk" by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev was included in the famous series "Notes of the Hunter", which was published from 1847 to 1851 in the journal Sovremennik, and was published in a separate publication in 1852.
Stories (or essays, as some literary scholars call them) were written after the writerâs rest and hunt in the estate of Spasskoye-Lutovinovoâs mother, which is located in the Mtsensk district of the Oryol region.
It is known that the story is based on real events that occurred with a forester who served on the estate. True, in them the fate of this man turned out differently: embittered peasants killed him.
The narration, as in all stories of the cycle, is conducted in the first person, and the narrator himself participates in the plot.
A summary of Biryuk from the Notes of the Hunter is given below.
Start
The author of the story returned from the hunt in the evening. The mare cheerfully ran along the road, drove running jitter. But the house was still decent - eight miles. A thunderstorm suddenly began along the way:
Ahead a huge purple cloud slowly rose from behind the forest; long gray clouds rushed towards me and towards me; rockets moved anxiously and babbled. The stuffy heat suddenly gave way to a wet cold; the shadows quickly thickened.
It began to rain heavily. The hunter somehow took refuge in the branches of a large bush and began to expect the end of the weather. Suddenly, in the light of lightning, he saw a man who suddenly, as if out of nowhere, appeared in front of him.
It was a local forester. He invited the "gentleman" to his hut to wait out the thunderstorm. He took the mare under the bridle and led to the house.
Development of events
The hut of the forester, as it should be noted in the summary of Turgenev's story "Biryuk", stood in the middle of a wide yard surrounded by wattle fence. At the knock the door was opened to them by a twelve-year-old girl, the owner's daughter. She was barefoot, in one belted shirt. While the forester put the horse under a canopy, the girl, shining a lantern, led the author into the hut.
The whole hut inside was a single room with a low ceiling with no walls and partitions. The walls are smoked, the decoration is the most wretched: a tattered sheepskin coat hung on the wall, a gun lay on the bench, a pile of rags lay in the corner. A splinter burned on the table, a cradle hanging from the ceiling with a baby sleeping in it. She, crouching, began to shake the girl.
The forester entered the hut, and the author saw that he was a real hero - a tall and handsome man. By the message that his name was Thomas, nicknamed Biryuk, he was very surprised by the storyteller - even from his servant Yermolai he heard a lot about him, how stern and quick he was to deal with poachers.
In the summary, compiled from Turgenevâs short story âBiryuk,â we give the words of Yermolai about the forester:
He will not let you pull off the bundles of brushwood; no matter what the time, even at midnight, it will come like snow on your head, and you donât think to resist, itâs strong, they say, and adroit like a demon ... And you cannot take it with anything: neither wine, nor money; does not go to any bait. Well, more than once kind people were going to squeeze it from the light, but no - it is not given ...
To the author's surprised exclamations, he simply and gloomily replied that, they say, he was simply fulfilling his post, and it was not for nothing that the masterâs bread was being eaten.
To questions about life, he said that he didnât have a wife - she ran away "with a passing tradesman", leaving a small child behind.
The storm is over. Biryuk suggested that the guest be seen before leaving the forest. Leaving, he took a gun - they say, they play pranks in the woods, cut down the woods. But, no matter how hard he tried, the author could not hear the knock of an ax - only the foliage of trees rustled in the wind.
He invited the hero of the story to accompany him in the capture of the "robber" - they together left the forest, passed the ravine.
The capture of the criminal
Further, in the summary of Biryuk, we say that the forester grabbed the thief already from the tree he had felled. He looked sorry - he was wearing some rags wet from the rain. Nearby stood a horse covered with an old matting.
Rain poured again, and the trinity had to return to the forester's hut. There, the owner planted a thief with his hands tucked in a corner in the corner, and the narrator felt sorry for him: he promised himself to free the poor man.
A man, in a âdeaf and shattered voice" asked Thomas Kuzmich (Biryuk) to let him go, explaining his act by extreme need and poverty. The forester did not agree, objecting that, they say, he knows all their settlement, there whoever you take - all thieves.
The peasant continued to beg, trembling, as if in a fever, talking about the clerk-destroyer and that, they say, "the children are squeaking," and all theft is from hunger. He promised that he would pay, and asked to return at least a horse, but Biryuk refused.
Realizing that now death is certain from starvation - after all, he was left without a horse, the last cattle in his household, and without a tree cut down, and even under the threat of future punishment, the caught rebelled:
The man suddenly straightened up. His eyes lit up, and paint appeared on his face. âWell, eat, eat, choke on,â he began, squinting his eyes and lowering the corners of his lips, âon, a murderer cursed: drink Christian blood, drink ..."
The forester ordered him to be silent.
Ending story
The culmination of the story "Biryuk" (and in its summary) was the last sentence uttered by a captured peasant:
âI will not be silent,â the unfortunate continued. - Everything is the same - to ring something. Youâre a murderer, beast, there is no death on you ... Yes, wait a minute, you will not reign long! tighten your throat, wait!
The forester grabbed him by the shoulder, and the narrator, about to intercede for the peasant, stood up ...
And suddenly, to his amazement, Biryuk tore off the tied sash from the thiefâs hands, clutched his hat on him and grabbed him by the collar and pushed him out of the door. With parting words: "Get the hell out with your horse and, look, don't get caught anymore!" - he returned to the hut and, under the sound of the wheels of a peasant cart leaving the courtyard, began, as if nothing had happened, to delve into the corner.
The author was very surprised. "You, I see, a glorious fellow ..." - only he could say. But Biryuk asked him not to tell anyone about what happened.
And on that story ended. And after half an hour, the forester led the narrator to the edge of the forest and said goodbye to him.
The image of Biryuk
In a brief summary of the story "Biryuk" dwell on the images of two of its central characters.
The protagonist is vividly and colorfully written out. Almost epic, not without admiration for the author, there are words about his appearance at the beginning of the story (the storytellerâs first visit to the hut):
He was tall, shoulder-length and built to fame. From under his wet shirt, his mighty muscles were convex. A black curly beard covered half of his stern and courageous face; small brown eyes boldly looked from beneath fused wide eyebrows.
By the way, "nimble shirt" means made of a rough homespun canvas. The mention of the simplicity of the clothes works on the general characterization of the hero: he seems to be poor, his clothes are not rich, the dwelling is poor and âsadâ, only bread and water come from food. And he is not looking for any advantages in his service. It is enough for the forester to realize that he is not in vain receiving a salary, honestly fulfilling his duty.
Hence the behavior of Biryuk. He behaves independently and does not fool. For example, having met a "gentleman" captured by a thunderstorm in a forest, he not so much suggests that he decides that he should wait out the bad weather in his hut:
âI will probably take you to my hut,â he said abruptly.
And then he reports about his wife "with a cruel smile" that she died - that is, she escaped, leaving him and his daughter and child (and itâs not easy to know, she lived with this man!).
He has his own principles. And here is one of them: "No one should steal." And he also has an understanding of people, and he cannot help but see how hard the fate of the peasant slaughter is, which they see only one way out of hopelessness - to steal.
But the mighty forester is not inclined to sentiments and, as follows from the narrative, does his own principles, letting go of the thief, only this time - which means that he is stubborn, but his soul is still not completely callous.
The image of a man
In the scene of catching a thief, he shouts "plaintively, like a hare." And it looks like a poor man, sorry: soaked, dressed in tatters, with a disheveled beard. And then, in the hut, the author examines it better: the person who has gone out to night fishing has an unpleasant, drunk and shriveled face, a running look, overhanging yellowed eyebrows, and he himself is thin and ugly.
But all this becomes unimportant when a man falls into despair and shouts, blushing his face, at Biryuk: "Asian, bloodsucker, murderer, beast!". He screams that the forester, who has seen everything at his troubled work, is amazed. Now the thief, who understands that the last hope for luck has left him, is becoming fierce and strong himself - is there any point in being afraid of punishment and beatings, when starvation may await him and his family?
So in the story of Turgenev described two such different representatives of the same people.
We gave a brief summary of the story "Biryuk" from the collection "Notes of the Hunter" by I. S. Turgenev.