A man rides on wood, Ivan Afrikanovich Drynov. He got drunk with the tractor driver Mishka Petrov and now he is talking with the gelding Parmyon. The goods for the store are being brought from the general store, and I drove drunk to the wrong village, which means that only home is in the morning ... It's a usual thing. And at night, on the road, Ivan Afrikanovich catches up with the same Bear. Still drank. And then Ivan Afrikanovich decides to get Mishka his second cousin, forty-year-old Nyushka-livestock specialist. True, she has a thorn, but if you look from the left side, you can’t see it ... Nyushka drives her friends away, and they have to spend the night in a bathhouse.

And just at that time, the ninth, Ivan, will be born to Ivan Afrikanovich Katerina's wife. And Katerina, although she was forbidden by the paramedic, was strictly-strict, after giving birth she was immediately at work, seriously ill. And Katerina recalls how, on Peter's day, Ivan wandered with a brisk little woman from their village, Dashka Putanka, and then, when Katerina forgave him, he joyfully exchanged the Bible he had inherited from his grandfather for “accordion” - to amuse his wife. And now Dasha does not want to care for the calves, so Katerina has to work for her (otherwise you can’t feed her family). Exhausted by work and illness, Katerina suddenly faints. She is taken to the hospital. Hypertension, stroke. And only after more than two weeks she returns home.

And Ivan Afrikanovich also recalls the accordion: he did not even have time to learn how to play the bass, as she was selected for the arrears.

It's time for haymaking. Ivan Afrikanovich in the forest, secretly, mows seven miles from the village at night. If you do not mow the three stacks, there is nothing to feed the cow: ten percent of the hay mowed on the collective farm is enough for at most a month. One night, Ivan Afrikanovich takes his young son Grishka with him, and then he foolishly tells the district commissioner that he and his father went to mow in the woods at night. They threaten Ivan Afrikanovich with a court: after all, he is a deputy of the village council, and then the same commissioner demands that he “tell” who else mows in the woods at night, write a list ... For this, he promises to “not socialize” Drynov’s personal stacks. Ivan Afrikanovich agrees with the neighboring chairman and, together with Katerina, goes to the forest on someone else’s territory to mow at night.

At this time, Mitka Polyakov, Katerina’s brother, comes to their village from Murmansk without a penny of money. Not a week passed, when he watered the whole village, the authorities barked, Mishka grabbed Dasha Putanka, and he provided a cow with hay. And everything seems to be like. Dashka Putanka watering Mishka with a love potion, and then vomits it for a long time, and a day later, according to Mitkin’s instigation, they go to the village council and sign. Soon, Dashka rips off from Mishka’s tractor a reproduction of Rubens’s painting “The Union of Land and Water” (there is a naked woman, generally reputed to be spilled by Nyushka) and burns the “picture” in the stove out of jealousy. In response, the bear nearly dumps with a tractor Dasha washing in the bathhouse, together with the bathhouse, directly into the river. As a result, the tractor was damaged, and illegally mowed hay was found in the attic of the bathhouse. At the same time, they begin to search for hay from everyone in the village, and it turns to Ivan Afrikanovich. The usual thing.

Mitka is called to the police, to the district (for complicity in the damage to the tractor and for hay), but by mistake they give fifteen days not to him, but to another Polyakov, also from Sosnovka (there are half of the Polyakov village). A bear, on his fifteen days, departs right in his village, on the job, drinking in the evenings with a sergeant assigned to him.

After Ivan Afrikanovich was taken away all hay secretly mowed, Mitka convinces him to abandon the village and go to the Arctic to earn money. Drinov does not want to leave his native places, but if you listen to Mitka, then there is no other way out ... And Ivan Afrikanovich decides. The chairman does not want to give him a certificate, according to which he can obtain a passport, but Drinov, in desperation, threatens him with a poker, and the chairman suddenly sniffs: “Though everyone will run away ...”

Now Ivan Afrikanovich is a free Cossack. He says goodbye to Katerina and suddenly all shrinks from pain, pity and love for her. And, without saying anything, repels her, as if from the coast into a whirlpool.

And Katerina, after his departure, has to mow one. There, during a mowing, and its second blow catches up. Barely alive, they bring her home. And it’s impossible to go to the hospital in this state - he will die, they will not be taken.

And Ivan Afrikanovich returns to his native village. I ran into. And he tells a slightly familiar guy from a distant gulf village how he went with Mitka, but he sold the onions and didn’t have time to jump on the train in time, and he still had all the tickets. They landed Ivan Afrikanovich and demanded that he go back to the village within three hours, and they would send a fine to the collective farm, but they didn’t say how to go, if not for nothing. And suddenly - the train came and Mitka cried from it. So Ivan Afrikanovich prayed: "I don’t need anything, let me go home only." They sold the onions, bought a return ticket, and finally Drynov drove home.

And the guy, in response to the story, reports the news: in the village of Ivan Afrikanovich, the woman died, a lot of children remained. The guy leaves, and Drynov suddenly falls onto the road, holds his head in his hands and rolls into a roadside ditch. Thumping his fist into a meadow, gnawing at the ground ...

Rogulya, a cow of Ivan Afrikanovich, recalls his life, as if surprised at her, shaggy sun, warmth. She was always indifferent to herself, and her timeless immense contemplation was very rarely violated. The mother of Katerina Evstolya comes, cries over her mistress and tells all the children to hug Rogula, to say goodbye. Drynov asks Mishka to slaughter a cow; he himself cannot. They promise to take meat to the dining room. Ivan Afrikanovich picks the Rogulin offal, and tears drip on his bloody fingers.

Ivan Afrikanovich’s children, Mitka and Vaska, are sent to a shelter,

Antoshka - at the school. Mitka writes that they send Katyushka to him in Murmansk, only it is painfully small. Grishka and Marusya remain, and two babies. And it’s hard: Eustole is old, her hands have become thin. She recalls how Katerina before her death, already without memory, called her husband: "Ivan, windy, oh, Ivan, how windy!"

After the death of his wife, Ivan Afrikanovich does not want to live. Walking overgrown, scary yes smokes bitter Selpovsky tobacco. And Nyushka takes care of his children.

Ivan Afrikanovich goes to the forest (looking for an aspen for a new boat) and suddenly sees Katerina’s scarf on a branch. Swallowing tears, inhales the bitter, dear smell of her hair ... We have to go. Go. Gradually, he realizes that he has lost his way. And without bread in the forest kayuk. He thinks a lot about death, becomes weaker and weaker, and only on the third day, when he is already crawling on the wheels, he suddenly hears a tractor hum. And Mishka, who saved his friend, at first thinks that Ivan Afrikanovich is drunk, but he doesn’t understand anything. The usual thing.

... Two days later, on the fortieth day after Katerina’s death, Ivan Afrikanovich, sitting on his wife’s grave, tells her about the children, says that it’s bad for him without her, that he will go to her. And asks to wait ... "My dear, my bright ... he brought you mountain ash ..."

He is trembling all over. Grief plows him on the earth, which has become cold, not overgrown with grass. And no one sees this.