: The writer goes to the cottage to write a story that did not work out for him in Moscow. The owners of the cottage inspire the writer to tell the story of the power of the Russian language.
The writer Muravyov composed a story about work for one of the Moscow magazines, but nothing came of it. It seemed to Muravyov that the story did not work out because of the hectic Moscow life - phone calls, guests and meetings. He decided to go to the cottage of his friends in a village near Moscow, and stay there until he finished the story.
Already at the station, his heart suddenly thumped, a hunch appeared that there would be luck in the work. In this excited state, Muravyov got off the train to the cottage platform in the pine forest. The road to the cottage went down to the log bridge through the ravine. Muravyov went down to the stream, began to beat off pieces of ice with a stick, then looked back. A girl in a blue ski suit stood on the bridge and looked attentively at Muravyov. She unfastened her skis and shouted to Muravyov that it was better to break the ice with ski poles with iron tips.
The girl ran to the stream and handed Muravyova a ski pole. They broke the ice together and were silent. Finally, Muravyov said that perhaps enough. On the way, he talked with a girl. It turned out that she lives with her father in the same country house where Muravyov was going.He called himself, the girl said that her name is Zhenya, and she and her father are waiting for the writer for the second day. She added that she would not interfere, she had the last day of vacation tomorrow, and she was leaving for her institute in Moscow. And dad, a nerd and a terrible talker, promised not to pester the writer with conversations.
That same evening, Muravyov sat down at the table and began to write down the story of the old botanist about how plants winter in the snow, and the very first, right on the snow, bloom cold, still pale, snowdrop flowers.
The best examples of prose are full of genuine poetry and picturesqueness. The story of the old nerd is an example of this. Cognition is the tuber from which the eternal flowers of imagination grow.
Muravyov wrote about the wealth and power of the Russian language, about the great masters of the word, about the fact that the whole world must be let through the crystal of the writer's mind and imagination. He was in a hurry not to stop the running of thoughts and words. Muravyov wrote until the morning. In the last lines, he quoted Gorky saying that you can’t write in a vacuum, you need to imagine that nice person to whom you are telling all the best that has accumulated in your heart and soul.
In the afternoon he escorted Zhenya to the station, and then went to the stream to pierce the ice.
