"Alexander Green - Crimson Sails" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Alexander)

money from the shop or had some new toys to deliver. This did not happen
often, although Liss was only four miles from Kaperna, but the road lay
through the forest, and there is much in a forest that can frighten a child
beside the actual physical danger which, it is true, one would hardly find
in such close proximity to a town, but should still keep in mind. That was
why Longren would let her go to town alone only on fine days, in the
morning, when the woods along the road were filled with showers of
sunshine, flowers and stillness, so that Assol's impressionability was not
threatened by any phantoms conjured up by her imagination.



One day, in the middle of such a journey to town, the child sat down by
the roadside to have a bun she had brought along for her lunch. As she
munched on the bun she picked up each toy in turn; two or three were
new to her: Longren had made them during the night. One of the new toys
was a miniature racing yacht; the little white craft had crimson sails made
of scraps of silk which Longren used to cover the cabin walls in toys
intended for wealthy customers. Here, however, having completed the
yacht, he had not found any suitable cloth for the sails and had used what
had come to hand -- some scraps of crimson silk. Assol was delighted. The
flaming, cheerful colour burned so brightly in her hand she fancied she
was holding fire. A stream straddled by a little bridge of nailed poles
crossed the road; to the right and left the stream flowed off into the
forest.
"If I put it in the water for just a little while it won't get wet," Assol was
thinking, "and then I can wipe it dry." She went off downstream into the
forest a ways, and carefully placed the boat that had caught her fancy into
the stream at the water's edge; the clear water immediately reflected the
crimson of the sails; the light streaming through the cloth lay as a
shimmering pink glow upon the white stones of the bottom. "Where'd you
come from, Captain?" Assol inquired in a most serious voice of an
imaginary character and, answering her own question, replied, "I've come
from.... from ... from China."
"And what have you brought?"
"That's something I shan't tell you."
"Oh, so you won't, Captain? Well then, back into the basket you go."
Just as the captain was about to repent and say he had only been teasing,
and would gladly show her an elephant, the mild backlash of a wave that
had washed against the bank turned the yacht's bow into the stream and,
like a real vessel, it left the bank at full speed and sailed off with the
current. The scale of her surroundings changed instantly: the stream now
seemed like a great river to the child, and the yacht a large, distant vessel
towards which, nearly falling into the water, she stretched forth her hands
in dumb terror. "The captain got frightened," she decided and ran after
the disappearing toy, hoping that it would be washed up on the bank
farther on. As she hastened along, dragging the light but cumbersome
basket, Assol kept repeating, "Goodness! How could it have happened?
What an accident...." Trying not to lose sight of the beautiful triangle of
the sails that was drifting off so gracefully, she stumbled, fell, and ran on