Very briefly, a young serf meets the mythical Mistress of the Copper Mountain, thanks to her he gets his freedom, but does not find happiness and peace. At the end, the hero is found dead under strange circumstances.
One day two workers went to the distant mowing to look at the grass. Both of them mined malachite in the mountain. The older worker was “completely ruined”, and the younger one, Stepan, “had already begun to have a green cast in his eyes.”
As soon as the workers got to the mowing, they were starved to death in the hot sun. They lay down on the grass and fell asleep. Suddenly Stepan woke up, “exactly who pushed him in the side.” He sees a girl sitting on a stone with her back to him, and her black braid is not dangling like other girls’, but seems to be stuck to her back. She is a good-looking girl, small in stature and as lively as mercury.
Stepan wanted to talk to the girl, but suddenly noticed that her dress was made of rare silk malachite. The guy realized that in front of him was the Mistress of the Copper Mountain herself, and he became timid.
From the old people, you see, he heard that this Mistress - a malachite woman - loves to play tricks on people.
As soon as Stepan thought so, the Mistress looked around, grinned and called to talk. The guy was scared, but didn’t show it - “even though she’s a secret force, she’s still a girl,” it’s a shame for a guy to be shy in front of a girl.
Stepan came up, and the Mistress asked him not to be scared. The guy got angry: he works in grief, should he be afraid of the Mistress? Malachite liked his courage, and she gave Stepan an assignment. He must tell his clerk that he, the “stuffy goat,” gets out of the mine and doesn’t break her iron cap. If the clerk disobeys, then the Mistress will lower all the copper so that you won’t find it.
Having said this, the Mistress jumped up and ran across the stone like a green lizard with a human head. Stepan became numb, and the lizard turned around and shouted that she would marry him if he fulfilled her order. The guy spat in the heat of the moment - “so that I marry a lizard” - the Mistress heard, burst out laughing and disappeared behind the hill.
Stepan thought. It’s not easy to say this to the clerk, and it’s scary not to say it, because the Mistress can punish you, plant a decoy instead of good ore, and you don’t want to show yourself off as a braggart in front of the girl.
The next morning, Stepan approached the clerk and conveyed to him the words of the Mistress. The clerk got angry and ordered the guy to be chained in the face, fed empty oatmeal and flogged mercilessly. The mine supervisor assigned Stepan the worst face - “it’s wet here, and there’s no good ore.” And he ordered to obtain a completely incongruous amount of pure malachite.
It is known what time it was, the fortress. They made fun of the person in every possible way.
Stepan began to swing the pickaxe. He looks - the work is going well, the finest malachite is pouring out from under the pickaxe, and the face has become dry. The guy thought that it was the Mistress who was helping him. Then Malachite herself appeared and praised Stepan for his courage. The lizards came running, removed the guy’s shackles, and the Mistress took him to look at the dowry. Stepan saw all the riches of the Ural Mountains.
Then the Mistress brought him to her richest chamber with walls made of malachite and asked if he was ready to marry her. Stepan hesitated and admitted that he had a fiancée. The guy thought that Malachite would be angry, but she seemed happy.
Well done, he says, Stepanushko. I praised you for being a clerk, and for this I will praise you twice as much. You didn’t get enough of my wealth, you didn’t exchange your Nastenka for a stone girl.
The Mistress gave Stepanova's bride a large malachite box with rich women's clothing, promised to rescue him from the clerk and arrange a comfortable life, and in the end she ordered him not to think about her anymore.
The lizards came running, the table was set, Stepan was fed deliciously. The Mistress says goodbye to the guy, and tears start to fall and freeze like grains in her hand. Malachite collected a full handful of these grains and gave them to Stepan “for living” - big money they are standing.
The stones are cold, but the hand, listen, is hot, as if it were alive, and is shaking a little.
The guy returned to the mine, and there the Mistress’s servants had already mined a double amount of malachite. The warden was surprised, he transferred Stepan to another face, and he had work going on there too. The warden decided that Stepan evil spirits I sold my soul and reported everything to the clerk. He didn’t show that he was scared, but he stopped breaking the Mistress’s iron hat.
The clerk ordered Stepan to be unchained and promised freedom if he found “a malachite block worth a hundred pounds.” Stepan found such a block, but did not get his free one. They reported the discovery to the master. He came “from, hear me, Sam-Petersburg” and again promised Stepan his freedom if he found such malachite stones that they would make “pillars no less than five fathoms long.” The guy did not believe the master’s “honest noble word” and forced him to sign the freedom certificate in advance for both himself and his bride.
Stepan soon found suitable stones.
What does he need if he knew the whole inside of the mountain and the Mistress herself helped him.
Pillars cut from this malachite were placed in the main church of St. Petersburg. Since then, the malachite has disappeared from the mine - apparently the Mistress was angry that her church was decorated with malachite.
Stepan received his freedom, got married, set up a house and farm, but happiness never came to him. Stepan walked around looking gloomy, and his health had become worse - he was melting before our eyes. He got himself a shotgun and started going hunting, all to the place where he first met the Mistress. I didn’t carry out her last order - I couldn’t forget.
One day Stepan did not return from hunting. We went to look and found him dead, and nearby we noticed a green lizard - sitting over the dead man and crying. When they brought Stepan home, they noticed green grains in his fist. A knowledgeable person looked and said that it was a copper emerald, a rare and expensive stone. They began to take it out of Stepanova’s handful, but it took it and crumbled into dust.
Then they realized that these pebbles were the tears of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain. Stepan didn’t sell them, he kept them as souvenirs. Here she is, Malachite, “for the bad to meet her is sorrow, and for the good there is little joy.”
Two of our factory workers went to look at the grass.
And their mowing was far away. Somewhere behind Severushka.
It was a holiday day, and it was hot - passion. Parun (hot day after rain - Ed.) is clean. And both of them were timid in grief, at Gumeshki, that is. Malachite ore was mined, as well as blue tit. Well, when a kinglet with a coil came in, there was a thread that would fit.
He was a single young guy, unmarried, and his eyes began to turn green. The other one is older. This one is completely shattered (disabled - Ed.). There is green in the eyes, and the cheeks seem to have turned green. And that man kept coughing (constantly - Ed.).
It's good in the forest. The birds sing and rejoice, the earth soars, the spirit is light. Listen, they were exhausted. We reached the Krasnogorsk mine. Iron ore was mined there back then. So our guys lay down on the grass under the rowan tree and immediately fell asleep. Only suddenly the young man, exactly who had pushed him in the side, woke up. He looks, and in front of him, on a pile of ore near a large stone, a woman is sitting. Her back is to the guy, and you can see from her braid that she’s a girl. The braid is gray-black and doesn’t dangle like our girls’, but sticks straight to the back. At the end of the tape are either red or green. They shine through and ring subtly, like sheet copper.
The guy marvels at the scythe, and then he notices further. The girl is small in stature, good-looking and such a cool wheel - she won’t sit still. He will lean forward, look exactly under his feet, then lean back again, bend to one side, to the other. He jumps to his feet, waves his arms, then bends down again. In a word, artut-girl (movable - Ed.). You can hear him babbling something, but in what way he speaks it is unknown, and with whom he speaks is not visible. Just a laugh. It's fun, she can tell.
The guy was about to say a word, when suddenly he was hit on the back of the head.
“My mother, but it’s the Mistress herself! It’s her clothes. How did I not notice right away? She averted her eyes with her scythe.”
And the clothes are truly such that you won’t find anything else in the world. Made of silk, hear me, malachite dress. There is such a variety. It’s a stone, but it’s like silk to the eye, even if you stroke it with your hand.
“Here,” the guy thinks, “that’s trouble! How can I get away with it before I notice.” From the old people, you see, he heard that this Mistress - a malachite woman - loves to play tricks on people.
Just when she thought something like that, she looked back. He looks at the guy cheerfully, bares his teeth and says jokingly:
What are you doing, Stepan Petrovich? girlish beauty Are you staring at nothing? After all, they take money for a look. Come closer. Let's talk a little.
The guy was scared, of course, but he didn’t show it. Attached. Even though she is a secret force, she is still a girl. Well, he’s a guy, which means he’s ashamed to be shy in front of a girl.
“I have no time,” he says, “to talk.” Without that we slept and went to look at the grass. She chuckles and then says:
He will play a tune for you. Go, I say, there’s something to do.
Well, the guy sees that there is nothing to do. I went to her, and she loomed with her hand, go around the ore on the other side. He walked around and saw that there were countless lizards here. And everything, listen, is different. Some, for example, are green, others are blue, which fade into blue, or like clay or sand with gold specks. Some, like glass or mica, shine, while others, like faded grass, and some are again decorated with patterns.
The girl laughs.
“Don’t part,” he says, “my army, Stepan Petrovich.” You are so big and heavy, but they are small for me.
And she clapped her palms together, the lizards ran away, and gave way.
So the guy came closer, stopped, and she clapped her hands again and said, all laughing:
Now you have nowhere to step. If you crush my servant, there will be trouble.
He looked at his feet, and there wasn’t much ground there. All the lizards huddled together in one place, and the floor became patterned under their feet. Stepan looks - fathers, this is copper ore! All sorts and well polished. And there is mica, and blende, and all sorts of glitter that look like malachite.
Well, now you recognize me, Stepanushko? - asks the malachite girl, and she bursts into laughter. Then, a little later, he says:
Don't be scared. I won't do anything bad to you.
The guy felt sad (offended - Ed.) that the girl was mocking him and even saying such words. He became very angry and even shouted:
Who should I be afraid of, if I am timid in grief!
“Okay,” the malachite girl answers. “That’s exactly what I need, someone who’s not afraid of anyone.” Tomorrow, as you descend the mountain, your factory clerk will be here, you tell him, but make sure you don’t forget the words:
“The owner of Copper Mountain, they say, ordered you, the stuffy goat, to get out of the Krasnogorsk mine. If you still break this iron cap of mine, then I’ll send you all the copper in Gumeshki there, so there’s no way to get it.” She said this and squinted:
Do you understand, Stepanushko? In grief, you say, you are timid, you are not afraid of anyone? So tell the clerk as I ordered, but now go and don’t say anything to the one who is with you. He is a frightened man, why bother him and involve him in this matter. And so she told the blue tit to help him a little.
And she clapped her hands again, and all the lizards ran away.
She also jumped to her feet, grabbed a stone with her hand, jumped up and, like a lizard, also ran along the stone. Instead of arms and legs, its paws were green, its tail stuck out, there was a black stripe halfway down its spine, and its head was human. She ran to the top, looked back and said:
Don’t forget, Stepanushko, as I said. She allegedly told you, the stuffy goat, to get out of Krasnogorka. If you do it my way, I’ll marry you!
The guy even spat in the heat of the moment:
Ugh, what a piece of trash! So that I marry a lizard.
And she sees him spitting and laughs.
Okay,” he shouts, “we’ll talk later.” Maybe you'll think about it?
And immediately over the hill, only a green tail flashed.
The guy was left alone. The mine is quiet. You can only hear someone else snoring behind a pile of ore. Woke him up. They went to their mowing, looked at the grass, returned home in the evening, and Stepan had on his mind: what should he do? To say such words to the clerk is no small matter, but he was also, and it’s true, stuffy - there was some kind of rot in his gut, they say. Not to say, it’s also scary. She is the Mistress. What kind of ore can he throw into the blende? Then do your homework. And worse than that, it’s a shame to show yourself off as a braggart in front of a girl.
I thought and thought and laughed:
I was not, I will do as she ordered. The next morning, as people gathered around the trigger drum, the factory clerk came up. Everyone, of course, took off their hats, remained silent, and Stepan came up and said:
I saw the Mistress of the Copper Mountain last night, and she ordered me to tell you. She tells you, the stuffy goat, to get out of Krasnogorka. If you spoil this iron cap for her, she will dump all the copper on Gumeshki there, so that no one can get it.
The clerk even began to shake his mustache.
What are you? Drunk or crazy? What kind of mistress? Who are you saying these words to? Yes, I will rot you in grief!
“Your will,” says Stepan, “and that’s the only way I was told.”
“Flog him,” the clerk shouts, “and take him down the mountain and chain him in the face!” And so as not to die, give him dog oatmeal and ask for lessons without any concessions. Just a little - tear mercilessly.
Well, of course, they flogged the guy and went up the hill. The mine overseer, also not the last dog, took him to the slaughter - it couldn’t be worse. It’s wet here, and there’s no good ore, I should have given up long ago. Here they chained Stepan to a long chain, so that he could work. It is known what time it was - the fortress (serfdom - Ed.). They made fun of the man in every possible way. The warden also says:
Cool off here for a bit. And the lesson will cost you so much pure malachite, - and assigned it completely incongruously.
Nothing to do. As soon as the warden left, Stepan began to wave the hammer (a tool for beating ore - Ed.), but the guy was still agile. He looks, it’s okay. This is how malachite falls, no matter who throws it with their hands. And the water left somewhere from the face. It became dry.
“Here,” he thinks, “that’s good. Apparently, the Mistress remembered about me.”
I was just thinking, and suddenly there was a light. He looks, and the Mistress is here, in front of him.
Well done, he says, Stepan Petrovich. You can attribute it to honor. Not afraid of the stuffy goat. Well told him. Let's go, apparently, to look at my dowry. I also don’t go back on my word.
And she frowned, it just didn’t feel good for her. She clapped her hands, the lizards came running, the chain was removed from Stepan, and the Mistress gave them the order:
Break the lesson here in half. And so that the selection of malachite is of the silk variety. - Then he says to Stepan: - Well, groom, let's go look at my dowry.
And so let's go. She is in front, Stepan is behind her. Where she goes - everything is open to her. How large the rooms became underground, but their walls were different. Either all green, or yellow with gold specks. Which again have copper flowers. There are also blue ones and azure ones. In a word, it is decorated, which cannot be said. And the dress on her - on the Mistress - changes. One minute it shines like glass, then suddenly it fades, or else it sparkles like a diamond scree, or turns reddish like copper, then again it shimmers like green silk. They're going, they're coming, she stopped.
And Stepan sees a huge room, and in it there are beds, tables, stools - all made of king copper. The walls are malachite with diamond, and the ceiling is dark red under blackening, and on it there are copper flowers.
“Let’s sit,” he says, “here, and we’ll talk.” They sat down on stools, and the malachite girl asked:
Have you seen my dowry?
“I saw it,” says Stepan.
Well, how about marriage now? But Stepan doesn’t know how to answer. Listen, he had a fiancée. Good girl, one orphan. Well, of course, compared to malachite, how can she compare in beauty! A simple person, an ordinary person. Stepan hesitated and hesitated and said:
Your dowry is fit for a king, but I am a working man, a simple one.
“You,” he says, “are a dear friend, don’t wobble.” Tell me straight, are you marrying me or not? - And she herself completely frowned.
Well, Stepan answered directly:
I can’t, because another one was promised.
He said so and thinks: he’s on fire now. And she seemed happy.
Well done, he says, Stepanushko. I praised you for being a clerk, and for this I will praise you twice as much. You didn’t get enough of my wealth, you didn’t exchange your Nastenka for a stone girl. - And the guy’s fiancee’s name was Nastya. “Here,” he says, “is a gift for your bride,” and hands over a large malachite box.
And there, listen, every woman’s device. Earrings, rings and other things that not even everyone has rich bride It happens.
“How,” asks the guy, “will I get up to the top with this place?”
Don't be sad about it. Everything will be arranged, and I will free you from the clerk, and you will live comfortably with your young wife, but here’s my story for you - don’t think about me later. This will be my third test for you. Now let's eat a little.
She clapped her hands again, the lizards came running - the table was set full. She fed him good cabbage soup, fish pie, lamb, porridge and other things that are required according to the Russian rite. Then he says:
Well, goodbye, Stepan Petrovich, don’t think about me. - And there are tears right there. She offered this hand, and the tears drip-drop and freeze on her hand like grains. Just a handful. - Here you go, take it for a living. People give a lot of money for these stones. You will be rich,” and he gives it to him.
The stones are cold, but the hand, listen, is hot, as if it were alive, and shakes a little.
Stepan accepted the stones, bowed low and asked:
Where should I go? - And he himself also became gloomy. She pointed with her finger, and a passage opened in front of him, like an adit, and it was light in it, like during the day. Stepan walked along this adit - again he saw enough of all the land riches and came just to his slaughter. He arrived, the adit closed, and everything became as before. The lizard came running, put a chain on his leg, and the box with gifts suddenly became small, Stepan hid it in his bosom. Soon the mine overseer approached. He got along with a laugh, but he sees that Stepan has a lot of tricks on top of the lesson, and the malachite is a selection, a variety of varieties. “What,” he thinks, “is this thing? Where is it from?” He climbed into the face, looked at everything and said:
In this face, anyone will break as much as they like. - And he took Stepan to another face, and put his nephew in this one.
The next day, Stepan began to work, and the malachite just flew off, and even the wren with a coil began to fall, and with his nephew, pray tell, there is nothing good, everything is just a shell (waste rock. - Ed.) and a decoy. coming. It was then that the warden took notice of the matter. He ran to the clerk. Anyway.
Not otherwise, he says, Stepan sold his soul to evil spirits.
The clerk says to this:
It’s his business to whom he sold his soul, but we need to get our own benefit. Promise him that we will release him into the wild, just let him find a malachite block worth a hundred pounds.
The clerk nevertheless ordered Stepan to be unchained and gave the following order - to stop work on Krasnogorka.
Who, he says, knows him? Maybe this fool was talking out of his mind then. And the ore and copper went there, but the cast iron was damaged.
The warden announced to Stepan what was required of him, and he replied:
Who would refuse freedom? I’ll try, but if I find it, that’s my happiness.
Stepan soon found them such a block. They dragged her upstairs. They’re proud, that’s what we are, but they didn’t give Stepan any freedom.
They wrote to the master about the block, and he came from, hey, Sam-Petersburg. He found out how it happened and calls Stepan over.
That’s what,” he says, “I give you my noble word to set you free if you find me such malachite stones that, that means, I can cut out pillars from them that are at least five fathoms long.”
Stepan answers:
I've already been spun around. I am not a scientist. First, write freely, then I will try, and we’ll see what comes out.
The master, of course, screamed, stamped his feet, and Stepan said one thing:
I almost forgot - register my bride’s freedom too, but what kind of order is this - I myself will be free, and my wife will be in the fortress.
The master sees that the guy is not soft. I wrote him a document.
“Here,” he says, “just try to look.”
And Stepan is all his:
This is how he will look for happiness.
Of course, Stepan found it. What does he need if he knew the whole inside of the mountain and the Mistress herself helped him. They cut out the pillars they needed from this malachite, dragged them upstairs, and the master sent them to the butt of the most important church in Sam-Petersburg. And the block that Stepan first found is still in our city, they say. How rare it is to take care of it.
From that time on, Stepan was released, and after that all the wealth in Gumeshki disappeared. There are a lot of blue tits coming, but more of them are snags. It became unheard of about the king with a coil and a rumor, and the malachite left, the water began to fill up (overcome. (Ed.)) So from that time on, the Gumeshki began to decline, and then they were completely flooded. They said that it was the Mistress who was burning for the pillars - the fact that they were placed in the church. And she has no use for it at all.
Stepan also had no happiness in his life. He got married, started a family, furnished the house, everything was as it should be. He should have lived smoothly and been happy, but he became gloomy and deteriorated in health (weakened. (Ed.). So he melted before our eyes.
The sick man came up with the idea of getting a shotgun and got into the habit of hunting. And yet, hey, he goes to the Krasnogorsk mine, but doesn’t bring the spoils home. In the autumn he left and that was the end. Now he’s gone, now he’s gone... Where did he go? They shot it down, of course, people, let's look for it. And hey, hey, he’s lying dead in a mine near a high stone, he’s smiling evenly, and his little gun is lying right there on the side, unfired. The people who were the first to come running said that they saw a green lizard near the dead man, and such a big one, the likes of which had never been seen in our area. It’s as if she’s sitting over a dead man, with her head raised, and her tears just falling. As people ran closer, she was on the stone, and that was all they saw. And when they brought the dead man home and began to wash him, they looked: he had one hand tightly clasped, and green grains were barely visible from it. Just a handful. Then one person who knew happened, looked at the grains from the side and said:
Why, this is a copper emerald! A rare stone, dear. There is a whole wealth left for you, Nastasya. Where did he get these stones from?
Nastasya - his wife - explains that the deceased never spoke about any such stones. I gave her the box when I was still a fiance. A large box, malachite. There is a lot of goodness in her, but there are no such stones. I haven't seen it.
They began to take those stones out of Stepan’s dead hand, and they crumbled into dust. They never found out at that time where Stepan got them from. Then we dug around Krasnogorka. Well, ore and ore, brown with a copper sheen. Then someone found out that it was Stepan who had the tears of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain. He didn’t sell them to anyone, hey, he kept them secretly from his own people, and he died with them. A?
This means what a Mistress of the Copper Mountain she is! For the bad to meet her is grief, and for the good there is little joy.
The tale was first published together with two others. - “About the Great Snake” and “Dear Name” - in the collection “Pre-revolutionary folklore in the Urals”, Sverdlovsk regional publishing house, 1936. These tales are closest to the Ural miner folklore. Geographically, they are connected with the ancient Sysertsky mining district, “which,” pointed out P. Bazhov, “included five factories: Sysertsky or Sysert - the main plant of the district, Polevskoy (aka Polevaya or Poleva) - the oldest plant in the district, Seversky (Severna ), Verkhniy (Verkh-Sysertsky), Ilyinsky (Nizhve-Sysertsky).. Near the Polevsky plant there was also the most famous copper deposit of the fortress era of the Urals - the Gumeshki mine, otherwise Copper Mountain, or simply the Mountain With these Gumeshki, which for a century were terrible. underground hard labor for more than one generation of workers is associated with most of the tales of the Polevsky region" (P. Bazhov, Preface to the tales published in the magazine "October", 5-6, 1939, p. 158).
P. Bazhov heard stories about the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, about the Great Snake, about the mysterious Gumeshki mine both in his own family and among the factory elders. These were experienced workers who had dedicated their entire lives to the mining industry. In old age, when they had already become worn out, they were transferred from the mines and copper smelting furnaces to easier work (as watchmen, foresters, etc.). They were the tellers of legends about old factories, about the life of miners. The image of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain or Malachite in mining folklore has various options: Mountain womb, Stone girl, Golden woman, Azovka girl, Mountain spirit, Mountain elder, Mountain master - (see P.L. Ermakov, Memoirs of a miner, Sverdlgiz, 1947; L. Potapov. Cult of the mountains in Altai, magazine "Soviet Ethnography" ", e 2, 1946: "Songs and tales of miners", folklore of miners of the Shakhty region, Rostov regional book publishing house, 1940; N. Dyrenkova, Shore folklore, M-L. 1940 A. Misyurev, Legends and were, folklore of old miners of the Southern and Western Siberia; -Novosibirsk, 1940) - All these folk characters are guardians of the riches of the mountain subsoil. P. Bazhov’s image of Malachite is much more complex. The writer embodied in it the beauty of nature, inspiring a person to creative pursuits.
The image of the Malachite Girl from the tales of P. Bazhov has widely entered Soviet art. It is recreated on stage, in painting and sculpture. "Images of Bazhov's tales - in the wall paintings of the Palace of Pioneers in Sverdlovsk, the House of Pioneers in Serov, in works of handicraft art, in toys for children" (Vl. Biryukov, Singer of the Urals, newspaper "Red Kurgan", February 1, 1951 T.). Bazhov's tales were recreated by Paleshan artists.
“In the large white-stone Palace of Pioneers in Sverdlovsk there are whole labyrinths of rooms, and there is a lot of interesting stuff in them. But the guys enter one of the rooms with a joyful feeling of expectation of something special, a little mysterious and beautiful. This is the room of Bazhov’s tales. On the high spacious wall she scattered her long braids girl - Zalotoy Volos. Nearby is a green-eyed beauty in a heavy malachite dress of the Copper Mountain Mistress. A mischievous red-haired girl, Ognevushka-Jumping, is dancing on the wall. This is how the room of the master from Palekh was painted" ("Pionerskaya Pravda" March 10, 1950)
The tale of “The Mistress of the Copper Mountain” marked the beginning of a whole group of works united by the image of Malachite. This group, in addition to the indicated tale, includes nine more works, including; "Clerk's soles" (1936), Sochnevy pebbles" (1937), "Malachite box" (1938), "Stone flower" (1938), "Mining master" (1939), "Two lizards" (1939), "Fragile twig "(1940), "The Grass West" (1940), "Tayutka's Mirror" (1941).
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P.P. Bazhov
Mistress of Copper Mountain
Two of our factory workers went to look at the grass once.
And their mowing was far away. Somewhere behind Severushka.
It was a holiday day, and it was hot - passion. Parun is clean. And both of them were timid in grief, at Gumeshki, that is. Malachite ore was mined, as well as blue tit. Well, when a kinglet with a coil came in, there was a thread that would fit.
He was a single young guy, unmarried, and his eyes began to turn green. The other one is older. This one is completely ruined. There is green in the eyes, and the cheeks seem to have turned green. And the man kept coughing.
It's good in the forest. The birds sing and rejoice, the earth soars, the spirit is light. Listen, they were exhausted. We reached the Krasnogorsk mine. Iron ore was mined there back then. So our guys lay down on the grass under the rowan tree and immediately fell asleep. Only suddenly the young man, exactly who had pushed him in the side, woke up. He looks, and in front of him, on a pile of ore near a large stone, a woman is sitting. Her back is to the guy, and you can see from her braid that she’s a girl. The braid is gray-black and doesn’t dangle like our girls’, but sticks straight to the back. At the end of the tape are either red or green. They shine through and ring subtly, like sheet copper.
The guy marvels at the scythe, and then he notices further. The girl is small in stature, good-looking and such a cool wheel - she won’t sit still. He will lean forward, look exactly under his feet, then lean back again, bend to one side, to the other. He jumps to his feet, waves his arms, then bends down again. In a word, artut girl. You can hear him babbling something, but in what way he speaks it is unknown, and with whom he speaks is not visible. Just a laugh. Apparently she's having fun.
The guy was about to say a word, when suddenly he was hit on the back of the head.
“My mother, but it’s the Mistress herself! It’s her clothes. How did I not notice right away? She averted her eyes with her scythe.”
And the clothes are truly such that you won’t find anything else in the world. Made of silk, hear me, malachite dress. There is such a variety. It’s a stone, but it’s like silk to the eye, even if you stroke it with your hand.
“Here,” the guy thinks, “that’s trouble! How can I get away with it before I notice.” From the old people, you see, he heard that this Mistress - a malachite woman - loves to play tricks on people.
Just when she thought something like that, she looked back. He looks at the guy cheerfully, bares his teeth and says jokingly:
What, Stepan Petrovich, are you staring at the girl’s beauty for nothing? After all, they take money for a look. Come closer. Let's talk a little.
The guy was scared, of course, but he didn’t show it. Attached. Even though she is a secret force, she is still a girl. Well, he’s a guy, which means he’s ashamed to be shy in front of a girl.
“I have no time,” he says, “to talk.” Without that we slept and went to look at the grass. She chuckles and then says:
He will play a tune for you. Go, I say, there’s something to do.
Well, the guy sees that there is nothing to do. I went to her, and she loomed with her hand, go around the ore on the other side. He walked around and saw that there were countless lizards here. And everything, listen, is different. Some, for example, are green, others are blue, which fade into blue, or like clay or sand with gold specks. Some, like glass or mica, shine, while others, like faded grass, and some are again decorated with patterns.
The girl laughs.
“Don’t part,” he says, “my army, Stepan Petrovich.” You are so big and heavy, but they are small for me.
And she clapped her palms together, the lizards ran away, and gave way.
So the guy came closer, stopped, and she clapped her hands again and said, all laughing:
Now you have nowhere to step. If you crush my servant, there will be trouble.
He looked at his feet, and there wasn’t much ground there. All the lizards huddled together in one place, and the floor became patterned under their feet. Stepan looks - fathers, this is copper ore! All sorts and well polished. And there is mica, and blende, and all sorts of sparkles that look like malachite.
Well, now you recognize me, Stepanushko? - asks the malachite girl, and she bursts into laughter.
Then, a little later, he says:
Don't be scared. I won't do anything bad to you.
The guy felt miserable that the girl was mocking him and even saying such words. He became very angry and even shouted:
Who should I be afraid of, if I am timid in grief!
“Okay,” the malachite girl answers. “That’s exactly what I need, someone who’s not afraid of anyone.” Tomorrow, as you descend the mountain, your factory clerk will be here, you tell him, but make sure you don’t forget the words:
“The owner of Copper Mountain, they say, ordered you, the stuffy goat, to get out of the Krasnogorsk mine. If you still break this iron cap of mine, then I’ll send you all the copper in Gumeshki there, so there’s no way to get it.”
She said this and squinted:
Do you understand, Stepanushko? In grief, you say, you are timid, you are not afraid of anyone? So tell the clerk as I told you, and now go and don’t say anything to the one who is with you. He is a frightened man, why bother him and involve him in this matter. And so she told the blue tit to help him a little.
And she clapped her hands again, and all the lizards ran away.
She also jumped to her feet, grabbed a stone with her hand, jumped up and, like a lizard, also ran along the stone. Instead of arms and legs, its paws were green, its tail stuck out, there was a black stripe halfway down its spine, and its head was human. She ran to the top, looked back and said:
Don’t forget, Stepanushko, as I said. She told you, you stuffy goat, to get out of Krasnogorka. If you do it my way, I’ll marry you!
The guy even spat in the heat of the moment:
Ugh, what a piece of trash! So that I marry a lizard.
And she sees him spitting and laughs.
Okay,” he shouts, “we’ll talk later.” Maybe you'll think about it?
And immediately over the hill, only a green tail flashed.
The guy was left alone. The mine is quiet. You can only hear someone else snoring behind a pile of ore. Woke him up. They went to their mowing, looked at the grass, returned home in the evening, and Stepan had on his mind: what should he do? To say such words to the clerk is no small matter, but he was also, and it’s true, stuffy - there was some kind of rot in his gut, they say. Not to say, it’s also scary. She is the Mistress. What kind of ore can he throw into the blende? Then do your homework. And worse than that, it’s a shame to show yourself off as a braggart in front of a girl.
I thought and thought and laughed:
I was not, I will do as she ordered.
The next morning, as people gathered around the trigger drum, the factory clerk came up. Everyone, of course, took off their hats, remained silent, and Stepan came up and said:
I saw the Mistress of the Copper Mountain last night, and she ordered me to tell you. She tells you, the stuffy goat, to get out of Krasnogorka. If you argue with her about this iron cap, she will dump all the copper on Gumeshki there, so that no one can get it.
The clerk even began to shake his mustache.
What are you? Drunk or crazy? What kind of mistress? Who are you saying these words to? Yes, I will rot you in grief!
“Your will,” says Stepan, “and that’s the only way I was told.”
“Flog him,” the clerk shouts, “and take him down the mountain and chain him in the face!” And so as not to die, give him dog oatmeal and ask for lessons without any concessions. Just a little - tear mercilessly.
Well, of course, they flogged the guy and went up the hill. The mine overseer, also not the last dog, took him to the slaughter - it couldn’t be worse. It’s wet here, and there’s no good ore, I should have given up long ago. Here they chained Stepan to a long chain, so that he could work. It is known what time it was - the fortress. They made fun of the person in every possible way. The warden also says:
Cool off here for a bit. And the lesson will cost you so much pure malachite, - and assigned it completely incongruously.
Nothing to do. As soon as the warden left, Stepan began waving his stick, but the guy was still agile. He looks, it’s okay. This is how malachite falls, no matter who throws it with their hands. And the water left somewhere from the face. It became dry.
“Here,” he thinks, “that’s good. Apparently, the Mistress remembered about me.”
I was just thinking, and suddenly there was a light. He looks, and the Mistress is here, in front of him.
Well done, he says, Stepan Petrovich. You can attribute it to honor. Not afraid of the stuffy goat. Well told him. Let's go, apparently, to look at my dowry. I also don’t go back on my word.
And she frowned, it just didn’t feel good for her. She clapped her hands, the lizards came running, the chain was removed from Stepan, and the Mistress gave them the order:
Break the lesson here in half. And so that the selection of malachite is of the silk variety.
Then he says to Stepan: “Well, groom, let’s go look at my dowry.”
And so let's go. She is in front, Stepan is behind her. Where she goes - everything is open to her. How large the rooms became underground, but their walls were different. Either all green, or yellow with gold specks. Which again have copper flowers. There are also blue ones and azure ones. In a word, it is decorated, which cannot be said. And the dress on her - on the Mistress - changes. One minute it shines like glass, then suddenly it fades, or else it sparkles like a diamond scree, or turns reddish like copper, then again it shimmers like green silk. They're going, they're coming, she stopped.
And Stepan sees a huge room, and in it there are beds, tables, stools - everything is made of king copper. The walls are malachite with diamond, and the ceiling is dark red under blackening, and there are copper flowers on it.
“Let’s sit,” he says, “here, and we’ll talk.”
They sat down on stools, and the malachite girl asked:
Have you seen my dowry?
“I saw it,” says Stepan.
Well, how about marriage now?
But Stepan doesn’t know how to answer. Listen, he had a fiancée. A good girl, an orphan alone. Well, of course, compared to malachite, how can she compare in beauty! A simple person, an ordinary person. Stepan hesitated and hesitated, and then said:
Your dowry is fit for a king, but I am a working man, a simple one.
“You,” he says, “are a dear friend, don’t wobble.” Tell me straight, are you marrying me or not? - And she herself completely frowned.
Well, Stepan answered directly:
I can’t, because another one was promised.
He said so and thinks: he’s on fire now. And she seemed happy.
“Younger,” he says, “Stepanushko.” I praised you for being a clerk, and for this I will praise you twice as much. You didn’t get enough of my wealth, you didn’t exchange your Nastenka for a stone girl. - And the guy’s fiancee’s name was Nastya. “Here,” he says, “is a gift for your bride,” and hands over a large malachite box.
And there, listen, every woman’s device. Earrings, rings and other things that not even every rich bride has.
“How,” asks the guy, “will I get up to the top with this place?”
Don't be sad about it. Everything will be arranged, and I will free you from the clerk, and you will live comfortably with your young wife, but here’s my story for you - don’t think about me later. This will be my third test for you. Now let's eat a little.
She clapped her hands again, the lizards came running - the table was set full. She fed him good cabbage soup, fish pie, lamb, porridge and other things that are required according to the Russian rite. Then he says:
Well, goodbye, Stepan Petrovich, don’t think about me. - And there are tears right there. She put her hand up, and the tears drip-drop and freeze on her hand like grains. Just a handful. - Here you go, take it for a living. People give a lot of money for these stones. You will be rich,” and he gives it to him.
The stones are cold, but the hand, listen, is hot, as if it were alive, and shakes a little.
Stepan accepted the stones, bowed low and asked:
Where should I go? - And he himself also became gloomy. She pointed with her finger, and a passage opened in front of him, like an adit, and it was light in it, like during the day. Stepan walked along this adit - again he saw enough of all the land riches and came just to his slaughter. He arrived, the adit closed, and everything became as before. The lizard came running, put a chain on his leg, and the box with gifts suddenly became small, Stepan hid it in his bosom. Soon the mine overseer approached. He got along with a laugh, but he sees that Stepan has a lot of tricks on top of the lesson, and the malachite is a selection, a variety of varieties. “What do you think this thing is? Where is it from?” He climbed into the face, looked at everything and said:
In this face, anyone will break as much as they like. - And he took Stepan to another face, and put his nephew in this one.
The next day, Stepan began to work, and the malachite just flew off, and even the wren began to fall with a coil, and with that nephew, pray tell, there is nothing good, everything is just a shambles and a snag. It was then that the warden took notice of the matter. He ran to the clerk. Anyway.
Not otherwise, he says, Stepan sold his soul to evil spirits.
The clerk says to this:
It’s his business to whom he sold his soul, but we need to get our own benefit. Promise him that we will release him into the wild, just let him find a malachite block worth a hundred pounds.
The clerk nevertheless ordered Stepan to be unchained and gave the following order - to stop work on Krasnogorka.
Who, he says, knows him? Maybe this fool was talking out of his mind then. And the ore and copper went there, but the cast iron was damaged.
The warden announced to Stepan what was required of him, and he replied:
Who would refuse freedom? I’ll try, but if I find it, that’s my happiness.
Stepan soon found them such a block. They dragged her upstairs. They’re proud, that’s what we are, but they didn’t give Stepan any freedom.
They wrote to the master about the block, and he came from, hey, Sam-Petersburg. He found out how it happened and calls Stepan over.
That’s what,” he says, “I give you my noble word to set you free if you find me such malachite stones that, that means, I can cut out pillars from them that are at least five fathoms long.”
Stepan answers:
I've already been spun around. I am not a scientist. First, write freely, then I will try, and we’ll see what comes out.
The master, of course, screamed, stamped his feet, and Stepan said one thing:
I almost forgot - register my bride’s freedom too, but what kind of order is this - I myself will be free, and my wife will be in the fortress.
The master sees that the guy is not soft. I wrote him a document.
“Here,” he says, “just try, look.”
And Stepan is all his:
This is how he will look for happiness.
Of course, Stepan found it. What does he need if he knew the whole inside of the mountain and the Mistress herself helped him. They cut out the pillars they needed from this malachite, dragged them upstairs, and the master sent them to the butt of the most important church in Sam-Petersburg. And the block that Stepan first found is still in our city, they say. How rare it is to take care of it.
From that time on, Stepan was released, and after that all the wealth in Gumeshki disappeared. There are a lot of blue tits coming, but more of them are snags. It became unheard of to hear about the bead with a coil, and the malachite left, and water began to be added. So from that time on, Gumeshki began to decline, and then it was completely flooded. They said that it was the Mistress who was on fire for the pillars that were placed in the church. And she doesn’t need it at all.
Stepan also had no happiness in his life. He got married, started a family, furnished the house, everything was as it should be. He should have lived smoothly and been happy, but he became gloomy and deteriorated in health. So it melted before our eyes.
The sick man came up with the idea of getting a shotgun and got into the habit of hunting. And yet, hey, he goes to the Krasnogorsk mine, but doesn’t bring the spoils home. In the autumn he left and that was the end. Now he’s gone, now he’s gone... Where did he go? They shot it down, of course, people, let's look for it. And hey, hey, he’s lying dead in a mine near a high stone, he’s smiling evenly, and his little gun is lying right there on the side, unfired. The people who were the first to come running said that they saw a green lizard near the dead man, and such a big one, the likes of which had never been seen in our area. It’s as if she’s sitting over a dead man, with her head raised, and her tears just falling. As people ran closer, she was on the stone, and that was all they saw. And when they brought the dead man home and began to wash him, they looked: he had one hand tightly clasped, and green grains were barely visible from it. Just a handful. Then one person who knew happened, looked at the grains from the side and said:
Why, this is a copper emerald! A rare stone, dear. There is a whole wealth left for you, Nastasya. Where did he get these stones from?
Nastasya - his wife - explains that the deceased never spoke about any such stones. I gave her the box when I was still a fiance. A large box, malachite. There is a lot of goodness in her, but there are no such stones. I haven't seen it.
They began to take those stones out of Stepan’s dead hand, and they crumbled into dust. They never found out at that time where Stepan got them from. Then we dug around Krasnogorka. Well, ore and ore, brown with a copper sheen. Then someone found out that it was Stepan who had the tears of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain. He didn’t sell them to anyone, hey, he kept them secretly from his own people, and he died with them. A?
This means what a Mistress of the Copper Mountain she is!
For the bad to meet her is grief, and for the good there is little joy.
Two of our factory workers went to look at the grass. And their mowing was far away. Somewhere behind Severushka.
It was a holiday day, and it was hot - passion. Parun is clean. And both of them were timid in grief, at Gumeshki that is. Malachite ore was mined, as well as blue tit. Well, when a kinglet with a coil came in, there was a thread that would fit.
He was a single young guy, unmarried, and his eyes began to turn green. The other one is older. This one is completely ruined. There is green in the eyes, and the cheeks seem to have turned green. And the man kept coughing.
It's good in the forest. The birds sing and rejoice, the earth soars, the spirit is light. Listen, they were exhausted. We reached the Krasnogorsk mine. Iron ore was mined there back then. So our guys lay down on the grass under the rowan tree and immediately fell asleep. Only suddenly the young man, just as someone pushed him in the side, woke up. He looks, and in front of him, on a pile of ore near a large stone, a woman is sitting. Her back is to the guy, and you can see from her braid that she’s a girl. 
The braid is gray-black and doesn’t dangle like our girls’, but sticks straight to the back. At the end of the tape are either red or green. They shine through and ring subtly, like sheet copper. The guy marvels at the scythe, and then he notices further. The girl is small in stature, good-looking and such a cool wheel - she won’t sit still. He will lean forward, look exactly under his feet, then lean back again, bend to one side, to the other. He jumps to his feet, waves his arms, then bends down again. In a word, artut girl. You can hear him babbling something, but in what way he speaks it is unknown, and with whom he speaks is not visible. Just a laugh. Apparently she's having fun.
The guy was about to say a word, when suddenly he was hit on the back of the head.
My mother, but this is the Mistress herself! Her clothes are something. How did I not notice it right away? She averted her eyes with her oblique.
And the clothes are truly such that you won’t find anything else in the world. Made of silk, hear me, malachite dress. There is such a variety. It’s a stone, but it’s like silk to the eye, even if you stroke it with your hand.
“Here,” the guy thinks, “trouble! As soon as I could get away with it before I noticed.” From the old people, you see, he heard that this Mistress - a malachite woman - loves to play tricks on people.
Just when she thought something like that, she looked back. He looks at the guy cheerfully, bares his teeth and says jokingly:
What, Stepan Petrovich, are you staring at the girl’s beauty for nothing? They take money for a look. Come closer. Let's talk a little.
The guy was scared, of course, but he didn’t show it. Attached. Even though she is a secret force, she is still a girl. Well, he’s a guy, which means he’s ashamed to be shy in front of a girl.
“I have no time,” he says, “to talk.” Without that we slept and went to look at the grass.
She chuckles and then says:
He will play a tune for you. Go, I say, there’s something to do.
Well, the guy sees that there is nothing to do. I went to her, and she loomed with her hand, go around the ore on the other side. He walked around and saw that there were countless lizards here. And everyone, listen, is different. Some, for example, are green, others are blue, which fade into blue, or like clay or sand with gold specks. Some, like glass or mica, shine, while others, like faded grass, and some are again decorated with patterns.
The girl laughs.
“Don’t part,” he says, “my army, Stepan Petrovich.” You are so big and heavy, but they are small for me. - And she clapped her palms, the lizards ran away, they gave way.
So the guy came closer, stopped, and she clapped her hands again and said, all laughing:
Now you have nowhere to step. If you crush my servant, there will be trouble.
He looked at his feet, and there wasn’t much ground there. All the lizards huddled together in one place, and the floor became patterned under their feet. Stepan looks - fathers, this is copper ore! All sorts and well polished. And there is mica, and blende, and all sorts of glitter that resemble malachite.
Well, now you recognize me, Stepanushko? - asks the malachite girl, and she bursts into laughter.
Then, a little later, he says:
Don't be scared. I won't do anything bad to you.
The guy felt miserable that the girl was mocking him and even saying such words. He became very angry and even shouted:
Who should I be afraid of, if I am timid in grief!
“Okay,” the malachite girl answers. “That’s exactly what I need, someone who’s not afraid of anyone.” Tomorrow, as you descend the mountain, your factory clerk will be here, you tell him, yes, look, don’t forget the words:
“The owner of the Copper Mountain ordered you, the stuffy goat, to get out of the Krasnogorsk mine. If you still break this iron cap of mine, I’ll dump all the copper in Gumeshki there for you, so there’s no way to get it.”
She said this and squinted:
Do you understand, Stepanushko? In grief, you say, you are timid, you are not afraid of anyone? So tell the clerk as I told you, and now go and don’t say anything to the one who is with you. He is a frightened man, why bother him and involve him in this matter. And so she told the blue tit to help him a little.
And she clapped her hands again, and all the lizards ran away. She also jumped to her feet, grabbed a stone with her hand, jumped up and, like a lizard, also ran along the stone. Instead of arms and legs, its paws were green, its tail stuck out, there was a black stripe halfway down its spine, and its head was human. She ran to the top, looked back and said:
Don’t forget, Stepanushko, as I said. She allegedly told you, the stuffy goat, to get out of Krasnogorka. If you do it my way, I’ll marry you!
The guy even spat in the heat of the moment:
Ugh, what a piece of trash! So that I marry a lizard.
And she sees him spitting and laughs.
Okay,” he shouts, “we’ll talk later.” Maybe you'll think about it?
And immediately over the hill, only a green tail flashed.
The guy was left alone. The mine is quiet. You can only hear someone else snoring behind a pile of ore. Woke him up. They went to their mowing, looked at the grass, returned home in the evening, and Stepan had one thing on his mind: what should he do? To say such words to the clerk is no small matter, but he was also, and it’s true, stuffy - there was some kind of rot in his gut, they say. Not to say, it’s also scary. She is the Mistress. What kind of ore can he throw into the blende? Then do your homework. And worse than that, it’s a shame to show yourself off as a braggart in front of a girl.
I thought and thought and laughed:
I was not, I will do as she ordered.
The next morning, as people gathered around the trigger drum, the factory clerk came up. Everyone, of course, took off their hats, remained silent, and Stepan came up and said:
I saw the Mistress of the Copper Mountain last night, and she ordered me to tell you. She tells you, you stuffy goat, to get out of Krasnogorka. If you spoil this iron cap for her, she will dump all the copper on Gumeshki there, so that no one can get it.
The clerk even began to shake his mustache.
What are you? Drunk or crazy? What Mistress? Who are you saying these words to? Yes, I will rot you in grief!
“Your will,” says Stepan, “and that’s the only way I was told.”
“Flog him,” the clerk shouts, “and take him down the mountain and chain him in the face!” And so as not to die, give him dog oatmeal and ask for lessons without any concessions. Just a little - tear mercilessly!
Well, of course, they flogged the guy and went up the hill. The mine overseer, also not the last dog, took him to the slaughter - it couldn’t be worse. It’s wet here, and there’s no good ore, I should have given up long ago. Here they chained Stepan to a long chain, so that he could work. It is known what time it was - the fortress. They made fun of the person in every possible way. 
The warden also says:
Cool off here for a bit. And the lesson will cost you so much pure malachite, - and assigned it completely incongruously.
Nothing to do. As soon as the warden left, Stepan began waving his stick, but the guy was still agile. He looks - okay. This is how malachite falls, no matter who throws it with their hands. And the water left somewhere from the face. It became dry.
“Here,” he thinks, “that’s good. Apparently the Mistress remembered me.”
I was just thinking, and suddenly there was a light. He looks, and the Mistress is here, in front of him.
Well done, he says, Stepan Petrovich. You can attribute it to honor. I was not afraid of the stuffy goat. Well told him. Let's go, apparently, to look at my dowry. I also don’t go back on my word.
And she frowned, it just didn’t feel good for her. She clapped her hands, the lizards came running, the chain was removed from Stepan, and the Mistress gave them the order:
Break the lesson here in half. And so that there is malachite for selection, of the silk variety. - Then he says to Stepan: - Well, groom, let's go look at my dowry.
And so, let's go. She is in front, Stepan is behind her. Where she goes - everything is open to her. How large the rooms became underground, but their walls were different. Either all green, or yellow with gold specks. Which again have copper flowers. There are also blue ones and azure ones. In a word, it is decorated, which cannot be said. And the dress on her - on the Mistress - changes. One minute it shines like glass, then suddenly it fades, and then it sparkles like a diamond scree or turns reddish like copper, then again it shimmers like green silk. They're going, they're coming, she stopped.
And Stepan sees a huge room, and in it there are beds, tables, stools - all made of king copper. The walls are malachite with diamond, and the ceiling is dark red under blackening, and on it there are copper flowers.
“Let’s sit,” he says, “here, and we’ll talk.”
They sat down on stools, and the malachite girl asked:
Have you seen my dowry?
“I saw it,” says Stepan.
Well, how about marriage now?
But Stepan doesn’t know how to answer. Listen, he had a fiancée. A good girl, an orphan alone. Well, of course, compared to malachite, how can she compare in beauty? A simple person, an ordinary person. Stepan hesitated and hesitated, and then said:
Your dowry is fit for a king, but I am a working man, a simple one.
“You,” he says, “are a dear friend, don’t wobble.” Tell me straight, are you marrying me or not? - And she herself completely frowned.
Well, Stepan answered directly:
I can’t, because another one was promised.
He said so and thinks: he’s on fire now. And she seemed happy.
Well done, he says, Stepanushko. I praised you for being a clerk, and for this I will praise you twice as much. You didn’t get enough of my wealth, you didn’t exchange your Nastenka for a stone girl. - And the guy’s fiancee’s name was probably Nastya. “Here,” he says, “is a gift for your bride,” and hands over a large malachite box. And there, listen, every woman’s device. Earrings, rings and other things that not even every rich bride has.
“How,” asks the guy, “will I get up to the top with this place?”
Don't be sad about it. Everything will be arranged, and I will free you from the clerk, and you will live comfortably with your young wife, but here’s my story for you - don’t think about me later. This will be my third test for you. Now let's eat a little.
She clapped her hands again, the lizards came running - the table was set full. She fed him good cabbage soup, fish pie, lamb, porridge and other things that are required according to the Russian rite. Then he says:
Well, goodbye, Stepan Petrovich, don’t think about me. - And there are tears right there. She put her hand up, and the tears drip-drop and freeze on her hand like grains. Just a handful. - Here you go, take it for a living. People give a lot of money for these stones. You will be rich. - And gives it to him.
The stones are cold, but the hand, listen, is hot, as if it were alive, and shakes a little.
Stepan accepted the stones, bowed low and asked:
Where should I go? - And he himself also became gloomy. She pointed with her finger, and a passage opened in front of him, like an adit, and it was light in it, like during the day. Stepan walked along this adit - again he saw enough of all the land riches and came just to his slaughter. He arrived, the adit closed, and everything became as before. The lizard came running, put a chain on his leg, and the box with gifts suddenly became small, Stepan hid it in his bosom. Soon the mine overseer approached. He got along with a laugh, but he sees that Stepan has a lot of tricks on top of the lesson, and the malachite is a selection, a variety of varieties. “What,” he thinks, “is this thing? Where does it come from?" He climbed into the face, looked at everything and said:
In this face, anyone will break as much as they like. - And he took Stepan to another face, and put his nephew in this one.
The next day, Stepan began to work, and the malachite just flew off, and even the wren began to fall with a coil, and with his nephew, pray tell, there is nothing good, everything is just a shambles and a snag. It was then that the warden took notice of the matter. He ran to the clerk. Anyway.
Not otherwise, he says, Stepan sold his soul to evil spirits.
The clerk says to this:
It’s his business, to whom he sold his soul, but he’ll take advantage of us 
It's necessary. Promise him that we will release him into the wild, just let him find a malachite block worth a hundred pounds.
The clerk still ordered Stepan to be unchained and gave the following order - to stop work on Krasnogorka.
Who, he says, knows him? Maybe this fool was talking out of his mind then. And the ore and copper went there, but the cast iron was damaged.
The warden announced to Stepan what was required of him, and he replied:
Who would refuse freedom? I’ll try, but if I find it, that’s my happiness.
Stepan soon found them such a block. They dragged her upstairs. They are proud - that’s what we are, but they didn’t give Stepan any freedom. They wrote to the master about the block, and he came from, hey, Sam-Petersburg. He found out how it happened and calls Stepan over.
That’s what,” he says, “I give you my noble word to set you free if you find me such malachite stones that I can cut out pillars from them no less than five fathoms across the valley.”
Stepan answers:
I've already been spun around. I am not a scientist. First, write freely, then I will try, and we’ll see what comes out.
The master, of course, screamed, stamped his feet, and Stepan said one thing:
I almost forgot - register my bride’s freedom too, but what kind of order is this - I myself will be free, and my wife will be in the fortress.
The master sees that the guy is not soft. I wrote him a document.
“Here,” he says, “just try to look.”
And Stepan is all his:
This is how he will look for happiness.
Of course, Stepan found it. What does he need if he knew the whole inside of the mountain and the Mistress herself helped him. They cut out the pillars they needed from this malachite, dragged them upstairs, and the master sent them to the butt of the most important church in Sam-Petersburg. And the block that Stepan first found is still in our city, they say. How rare it is to take care of it.
From that time on, Stepan was released, and after that all the wealth in Gumeshki disappeared. There are a lot of blue tits coming, but more of them are snags. It became unheard of to hear about the bead with a coil, and the malachite left, and water began to be added. So from that time on, Gumeshki began to decline, and then they were completely flooded. They said that it was the Mistress who was burning for the pillars, hear that they were placed in the church. And she doesn’t need it at all.
Stepan also had no happiness in his life. He got married, started a family, furnished the house, everything was as it should be. He should have lived smoothly and been happy, but he became gloomy and deteriorated in health. So it melted before our eyes.
The sick man came up with the idea of getting a shotgun and got into the habit of hunting. And yet, hey, he goes to the Krasnogorsk mine, but doesn’t bring the spoils home. In the autumn he left and that was the end. Now he’s gone, now he’s gone... Where did he go? They shot it down, of course, people, let's look for it. And hey, hey, he’s lying dead in a mine near a high stone, he’s smiling evenly, and his little gun is lying right there on the side, unfired. The people who were the first to come running said that they saw a green lizard near the dead man, and such a big one, the likes of which had never been seen in our area. 
It’s as if she’s sitting over a dead man, with her head raised, and her tears just falling. As people ran closer, she was on the stone, and that was all they saw. And when they brought the dead man home and began to wash him, they looked: he had one hand tightly clasped, and green grains were barely visible from it. Just a handful. Then one person who knew happened, looked at the grains from the side and said:
Why, this is a copper emerald! A rare stone, dear. There is a whole wealth left for you, Nastasya. Where did he get these stones from?
Nastasya - his wife - explains that the deceased never spoke about any such stones. I gave her the box when I was still a fiance. A large box, malachite. There is a lot of goodness in her, but there are no such stones. I haven't seen it.
They began to take those stones out of Stepan’s dead hand, and they crumbled into dust. They never found out at that time where Stepan got them from. Then we dug around Krasnogorka. Well, ore and ore, brown, with a copper sheen. Then someone found out that it was Stepan who had the tears of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain. He didn’t sell them to anyone, hey, he kept them secretly from his own people, and he died with them. A?
This means what a Mistress of the Copper Mountain she is!
For the bad to meet her is grief, and for the good there is little joy.
Two of our factory workers went to look at the grass. And their mowing was far away. Somewhere behind Severushka.
It was a holiday day, and it was hot - passion. Parun is clean. And both of them were timid in grief, at Gumeshki that is. Malachite ore was mined, as well as blue tit. Well, when a kinglet with a coil came in, there was a thread that would fit.
He was a single young guy, unmarried, and his eyes began to turn green. The other one is older. This one is completely ruined. There is green in the eyes, and the cheeks seem to have turned green. And the man kept coughing.
It's good in the forest. The birds sing and rejoice, the earth soars, the spirit is light. Listen, they were exhausted. We reached the Krasnogorsk mine. Iron ore was mined there back then. So our guys lay down on the grass under the rowan tree and immediately fell asleep. Only suddenly the young man—someone pushed him in the side—woke up. He looks, and in front of him, on a pile of ore near a large stone, a woman is sitting. Her back is to the guy, and you can see from her braid that she’s a girl. The braid is gray-black and doesn’t dangle like our girls’, but sticks straight to the back. At the end of the tape are either red or green. They shine through and ring subtly, like sheet copper. The guy marvels at the scythe, and then he notices further. The girl is small in stature, good-looking and such a cool wheel - she won’t sit still. He will lean forward, look exactly under his feet, then lean back again, bend to one side, to the other. He jumps to his feet, waves his arms, then bends down again. In a word, artut girl. You can hear him babbling something, but in what way he speaks it is unknown, and with whom he speaks is not visible. Just a laugh. Apparently she's having fun.
The guy was about to say a word, when suddenly he was hit on the back of the head.
- My mother, but this is the Mistress herself! Her clothes are something. How did I not notice it right away? She averted her eyes with her oblique.
And the clothes are truly such that you won’t find anything else in the world. Made of silk, hear me, malachite dress. There is such a variety. It’s a stone, but it’s like silk to the eye, even if you stroke it with your hand.
“Here,” the guy thinks, “trouble! As soon as I could get away with it before I noticed.” From the old people, you see, he heard that this Mistress - a malachite girl - loves to play tricks on people.
Just when she thought something like that, she looked back. He looks at the guy cheerfully, bares his teeth and says jokingly:
“What, Stepan Petrovich, are you staring at the girl’s beauty for nothing?” They take money for a look. Come closer. Let's talk a little.
The guy was scared, of course, but he didn’t show it. Attached. Even though she is a secret force, she is still a girl. Well, he’s a guy, which means he’s ashamed to be shy in front of a girl.
“I have no time,” he says, “to talk.” Without that we slept and went to look at the grass.
She chuckles and then says:
- I'll play a tune for you. Go, I say, there’s something to do.
Well, the guy sees that there is nothing to do. I went to her, and she loomed with her hand, go around the ore on the other side. He walked around and saw that there were countless lizards here. And everyone, listen, is different. Some, for example, are green, others are blue, which fade into blue, or like clay or sand with gold specks. Some, like glass or mica, shine, while others, like faded grass, and some are again decorated with patterns.
The girl laughs.
“Don’t part,” he says, “my army, Stepan Petrovich.” You are so big and heavy, but they are small for me. “And she clapped her hands together, and the lizards ran away and gave way.”
So the guy came closer, stopped, and she clapped her hands again and said, all laughing:
“Now you have nowhere to step.” If you crush my servant, there will be trouble.
He looked at his feet, and there wasn’t much ground there. All the lizards huddled together in one place, and the floor became patterned under our feet. Stepan looks - fathers, this is copper ore! All sorts and well polished. And there is mica, and blende, and all sorts of glitter that resemble malachite.
- Well, now you recognize me, Stepanushko? - asks the malachite girl, and she bursts into laughter.
Then, a little later, he says:
- Don't be scared. I won't do anything bad to you.
The guy felt miserable that the girl was mocking him and even saying such words. He became very angry and even shouted:
- Who should I be afraid of, if I am timid in grief!
“Okay,” answers the malachite girl. “That’s just the kind of guy I need, someone who’s not afraid of anyone.” Tomorrow, as you descend the mountain, your factory clerk will be here, you tell him, yes, look, don’t forget the words:
“The owner of Copper Mountain, they say, ordered you, the stuffy goat, to get out of the Krasnogorsk mine. If you still break this iron cap of mine, I’ll dump all the copper in Gumeshki there for you, so there’s no way to get it.”
She said this and squinted:
– Do you understand, Stepanushko? In grief, you say, you are timid, you are not afraid of anyone? So tell the clerk as I told you, and now go and don’t say anything to the one who is with you. He is a frightened man, why bother him and involve him in this matter. And so she told the blue tit to help him a little.
And she clapped her hands again, and all the lizards ran away. She also jumped to her feet, grabbed a stone with her hand, jumped up and, like a lizard, also ran along the stone. Instead of arms and legs, its paws were green, its tail stuck out, there was a black stripe halfway down its spine, and its head was human. She ran to the top, looked back and said:
– Don’t forget, Stepanushko, as I said. She told you, the stuffy goat, to get out of Krasnogorka. If you do it my way, I’ll marry you!
The guy even spat in the heat of the moment:
- Ugh, what trash! So that I marry a lizard.
And she sees him spitting and laughs.
“Okay,” he shouts, “we’ll talk later.” Maybe you'll think about it?
And immediately over the hill, only a green tail flashed.
The guy was left alone. The mine is quiet. You can only hear someone else snoring behind a pile of ore. Woke him up. They went to their mowing, looked at the grass, returned home in the evening, and Stepan had one thing on his mind: what should he do? To say such words to the clerk is no small matter, but he was also, and it’s true, stuffy—there was some kind of rot in his gut, they say. Not to say, it’s also scary. She is the Mistress. What kind of ore can he throw into the blende? Then do your homework. And worse than that, it’s a shame to show yourself off as a braggart in front of a girl.
I thought and thought and laughed:
“I wasn’t, I’ll do as she ordered.”
The next morning, as people gathered around the trigger drum, the factory clerk came up. Everyone, of course, took off their hats, remained silent, and Stepan came up and said:
“I saw the Mistress of the Copper Mountain last night, and she ordered me to tell you. She tells you, you stuffy goat, to get out of Krasnogorka. If you spoil this iron cap for her, she will dump all the copper on Gumeshki there, so that no one can get it.
The clerk even began to shake his mustache.
- What are you doing? Drunk or crazy? What Mistress? Who are you saying these words to? Yes, I will rot you in grief!
“Your will,” says Stepan, “and that’s the only way I was told.”
“Whip him,” the clerk shouts, “and take him down the mountain and chain him in the face!” And so as not to die, give him dog oatmeal and ask for lessons without any concessions. Just a little - tear mercilessly!
Well, of course, they flogged the guy and went up the hill. The mine overseer, also not the last dog, took him to the slaughter - it couldn’t be worse. It’s wet here, and there’s no good ore, I should have given up long ago. Here they chained Stepan to a long chain, so that he could work. It is known what time it was - the fortress. They made fun of the person in every possible way. The warden also says:
- Cool off here for a bit. And the lesson will cost you so much pure malachite - and he assigned it completely inappropriately.
Nothing to do. As soon as the warden left, Stepan began waving his stick, but the guy was still agile. He looks - okay. This is how malachite falls, no matter who throws it with their hands. And the water left somewhere from the face. It became dry.
“That’s good,” he thinks. Apparently the Mistress remembered me.”
I was just thinking, and suddenly there was a light. He looks, and the Mistress is here, in front of him.
“Well done,” says Stepan Petrovich. You can attribute it to honor. I wasn’t afraid of the stuffy goat. Well told him. Let's go, apparently, to look at my dowry. I also don’t go back on my word.
And she frowned, it just didn’t feel good for her. She clapped her hands, the lizards came running, the chain was removed from Stepan, and the Mistress gave them the order:
– Break the lesson here in half. And so that there is malachite for selection, of the silk variety. “Then he says to Stepan: “Well, groom, let’s go look at my dowry.”
And so, let's go. She is in front, Stepan is behind her. Where she goes, everything is open to her. How large the rooms became underground, but their walls were different. Either all green, or yellow with gold specks. Which again have copper flowers. There are also blue ones and azure ones. In a word, it is decorated, which cannot be said. And the dress on her – on the Mistress – changes. One minute it shines like glass, then suddenly it fades, and then it sparkles like a diamond scree or turns reddish like copper, then again it shimmers like green silk. They're going, they're coming, she stopped.
And Stepan sees a huge room, and in it there are beds, tables, stools - all made of king copper. The walls are malachite with diamond, and the ceiling is dark red under blackening, and on it there are copper flowers.
“Let’s sit,” he says, “here, and talk.”
They sat down on stools, and the malachite girl asked:
-Have you seen my dowry?
“I saw it,” says Stepan.
- Well, how about marriage now?
But Stepan doesn’t know how to answer. Listen, he had a fiancée. A good girl, an orphan alone. Well, of course, compared to malachite, how can she compare in beauty? A simple person, an ordinary person. Stepan hesitated and hesitated, and then said:
“Your dowry is fit for a king, but I am a working man, a simple one.”
“You,” he says, “are a dear friend, don’t wobble.” Tell me straight, are you marrying me or not? – And she herself completely frowned.
Well, Stepan answered directly:
- I can’t, because another one was promised.
He said so and thinks: he’s on fire now. And she seemed happy.
“Well done,” says Stepanushko. I praised you for being a clerk, and for this I will praise you twice as much. You didn’t get enough of my wealth, you didn’t exchange your Nastenka for a stone girl. – And the guy’s fiancee’s name was probably Nastya. “Here,” he says, “is a gift for your bride,” and hands over a large malachite box. And there, listen, every woman’s device. Earrings, rings and other things that not even every rich bride has.
“How,” asks the guy, “will I get up to the top with this place?”
- Don't be sad about it. Everything will be arranged, and I will free you from the clerk, and you will live comfortably with your young wife, but here’s my story for you - don’t think about me later. This will be my third test for you. Now let's eat a little.
She clapped her hands again, the lizards came running - the table was set full. She fed him good cabbage soup, fish pie, lamb, porridge and other things that are required according to the Russian rite. Then he says:
- Well, goodbye, Stepan Petrovich, don’t think about me. - And there are tears right there. She put her hand up, and the tears drip-drop and freeze on her hand like grains. Just a handful. - Here you go, take it for a living. People give a lot of money for these stones. You will be rich. - And gives it to him.
The stones are cold, but the hand, listen, is hot, as if it were alive, and shakes a little.
Stepan accepted the stones, bowed low and asked:
-Where should I go? - And he himself also became gloomy. She pointed with her finger, and a passage opened in front of him, like an adit, and it was light in it, like during the day. Stepan walked along this adit - again he saw enough of all the land riches and came just to his slaughter. He arrived, the adit closed, and everything became as before. The lizard came running, put a chain on his leg, and the box with gifts suddenly became small, Stepan hid it in his bosom. Soon the mine overseer approached. He wanted to laugh, but he sees that Stepan has a lot of tricks on top of the lesson, and malachite is a selection, a variety of varieties. “What,” he thinks, “is this thing? Where does it come from?" He climbed into the face, looked at everything and said:
- In this face, anyone will break as much as they like. - And he took Stepan to another pit, and put his nephew in this one.
The next day, Stepan began to work, and the malachite kept flying off, and even the wren began to fall with a coil, and with his nephew, tell me, there is nothing good, everything is just a shambles and a snag. It was then that the warden took notice of the matter. He ran to the clerk. Anyway.
“No other way,” he says, “Stepan sold his soul to evil spirits.”
The clerk says to this:
“It’s his business to whom he sold his soul, but we need to get our own benefit.” Promise him that we will release him into the wild, just let him find a malachite block worth a hundred pounds.
The clerk still ordered Stepan to be unchained and gave the following order: to stop work on Krasnogorka.
“Who,” he says, “knows him?” Maybe this fool was talking out of his mind then. And the ore and copper went there, but the cast iron was damaged.
The warden announced to Stepan what was required of him, and he replied:
-Who would refuse freedom? I’ll try, but if I find it, that’s my happiness.
Stepan soon found them such a block. They dragged her upstairs. They are proud - that’s what we are, but they didn’t give Stepan any freedom. They wrote to the master about the block, and he came from, hey, Sam-Petersburg. He found out how it happened and calls Stepan over.
“That’s what,” he says, “I give you my noble word to set you free if you find me such malachite stones that I can cut out pillars from them no less than five fathoms across the valley.”
Stepan answers:
“I’ve already been spun around.” I am not a scientist. First, write freely, then I will try, and we’ll see what comes out.
The master, of course, screamed, stamped his feet, and Stepan said one thing:
- I almost forgot - register my bride’s freedom too, but what kind of order is this - I myself will be free, and my wife will be in the fortress.
The master sees that the guy is not soft. I wrote him a document.
“Here,” he says, “just try to look.”
And Stepan is all his:
- It’s like looking for happiness.
Of course, Stepan found it. What does he need if he knew the whole inside of the mountain and the Mistress herself helped him. They cut out the pillars they needed from this malachite, dragged them upstairs, and the master sent them to the butt of the most important church in Sam-Petersburg. And the block that Stepan first found is still in our city, they say. How rare it is to take care of it.
From that time on, Stepan was released, and after that all the wealth in Gumeshki disappeared. There are a lot of blue tits coming, but more of them are snags. It became unheard of to hear about the bead with a coil, and the malachite left, and water began to be added. So from that time on, Gumeshki began to decline, and then they were completely flooded. They said that it was the Mistress who was burning for the pillars, hear that they were placed in the church. And she doesn’t need it at all.
Stepan also had no happiness in his life. He got married, started a family, furnished the house, everything was as it should be. He should have lived smoothly and been happy, but he became gloomy and deteriorated in health. So it melted before our eyes.
The sick man came up with the idea of getting a shotgun and got into the habit of hunting. And yet, hey, he goes to the Krasnogorsk mine, but doesn’t bring the spoils home. In the autumn he left and that was the end. Now he’s gone, now he’s gone... Where did he go? They shot it down, of course, people, let's look for it. And hey, hey, he’s lying dead in a mine near a high stone, he’s smiling evenly, and his little gun is lying right there on the side, unfired. The people who were the first to come running said that they saw a green lizard near the dead man, and such a big one, the likes of which had never been seen in our area. It’s as if she’s sitting over a dead man, with her head raised, and her tears just falling. As people ran closer, she was on the stone, and that was all they saw. And when they brought the dead man home and began to wash him, they looked: he had one hand tightly clasped, and green grains were barely visible from it. Just a handful. Then one person who knew happened, looked at the grains from the side and said:
- But it’s a copper emerald! A rare stone, dear. There is a whole wealth left for you, Nastasya. Where did he get these stones from?
Nastasya, his wife, explains that the deceased never spoke about any such stones. I gave her the box when I was still a fiance. A large box, malachite. There is a lot of goodness in her, but there are no such stones. I haven't seen it.
They began to take those stones out of Stepan’s dead hand, and they crumbled into dust. They never found out at that time where Stepan got them from. Then we dug around Krasnogorka. Well, ore and ore, brown, with a copper sheen. Then someone found out that it was Stepan who had the tears of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain. He didn’t sell them to anyone, hey, he kept them secretly from his own people, and he died with them. A?
This means what a Mistress of the Copper Mountain she is!
For the bad to meet her, it is grief, and for the good, there is little joy.
