"Lev Kassil. The black book and Schwambrania (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора Since the handbook contained a vocabulary as well as a short section of
sailing directions, Jack soon became a regular linguist, as he learned to speak German, English, French and Italian. Speaking for Jack, I would read the vocabulary aloud, line after line. The result was most satisfying. "Thunder, lightning, waterspout, typhoon!" Jack, the Sailor's Companion would say. "Donner, blitz, wasserhose! How do you do, sir or madame, good morning, bonjour. Do you speak any other language? Yes, I speak German and French. Good morning, evening. Goodbye, guten Morgen, Abend, adieu. I have come by boat, ship, on foot, on horseback; par mer, a pied, a cheval.... Man overboard. Un uomo in mare. What is the charge for saving him? Wie viel ist der bergelon?" Sometimes Jack's imagination ran away with him, and I would blush for shame at his whopping lies. "The pilot grounded us," Jack, the Sailor's Companion would say angrily on page 103, but would then confess in several languages (page 104): "I purposely ran aground to save the cargo." We began our day in Pokrovsk with an arrival whistle while still in our beds. This meant we had returned from a night spent in Schwambrania. Annushka would watch the morning ritual patiently. "Slow speed! Cast down the mooring rope!" Oska commanded after he had sounded his fog horn. We cast off our blankets. "Stop! Let down the gangplank!" We swung our legs over the side of our beds. "Good morning!" A QUIET HAVEN Our house was just another big boat. It had dropped anchor in the quiet harbour of Pokrovsk. Papa's consulting room was the bridge. No second class passengers, meaning us, were allowed there. The parlour was the first class deck house. The dining room was the mess. The terrace was the promenade deck. Annushka's room and the kitchen were the third class deck, the hold and the engine room. Second class passengers were not allowed in there, either. That was really a shame, because if there was ever any smoke in the house it came from there. There smokestack was not a make-believe one, but a real one, and real flames roared in the furnace. Annushka, the stoker and the engineer, used real tools: a poker and scoop. The deck house bell rang insistently. The samovar whistled, signalling our departure. As the water in it bubbled over Annushka snatched it up and carried it off to the mess, holding it as far away from her body as possible. That was how babies were carried off when they had wet their diapers. We were summoned up on deck and had to leave the engine room. We always left the kitchen unwillingly, because this was the main porthole of our house, a window to the outside world, so to speak. The kind of people we had been told once and for all were not the kind we were to |
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