"Lev Kassil. The black book and Schwambrania (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автораhours on end, from one corner to another, like tiny waves in a bathtub
splashing first against one side and then another. The girls from the outlying farms walked down the middle of the street. They seemed to be sailing along unhurriedly, swaying slightly as they walked, like the floating watermelon rinds hitting the Volga piers. The dry, staccato sound of roasted sunflower seeds being cracked floated above the crowd. The sidewalks were black from discarded sunflower shells. The roasted seeds were known locally as "Pokrovsk conversation". Standing on the sidelines were young fellows wearing rubber galoshes over their boots. They would flick away a garland of empty seed shells stuck to their lip with a magnificent movement of a pinky. A young man would address a girl with true politesse: "Mind if I latch on? How's about telling us your name? What is it? Marusya? Katya?" "Go on! Doesn't he think he's something!" the girl would scoff. "Oh, well, what the heck, you might as well walk along." All evening long the babbling, sunflower seed-cracking crowd of country boys and girls would stomp up and down in front of our windows. We would sit on the windowsill in the dark parlour, looking out at the darkening street. As busy Breshka Street floated by us, invisible palaces and castles rose on the windowsill and palm fonds waved, and cannonade we two alone could hear resounded all around us. The destructive shrapnel of our imagination tore through the night. We were firing upon Breshka Street from our windowsill, which was Schwambrania. We could hear the whistles of the river boats on the Volga. They came to us from the darkness of the night like streamers bridging the distance. were low and rumbling like a piano's bass string. A boat was attached to the other end of each streamer, lost in the dampness of the great river. We knew the entire ledger of these boat calls by heart, and could read the whistles and blasts like the lines of a book. Here was a velvety, majestic, high-rising and slowly descending "arrival" whistle of the Rus. A hoarse-voiced tug pulling a heavy barge scolded a rowboat. Two short, polite blasts followed. That was the Samolyot and the Kavkaz-Mercury approaching each other. We even knew that the Samolyot was heading upstream to Nizhny Novgorod, while the Kavkaz-Mercury was heading downstream to Astrakhan, since the Mercury, obeying the rules of river etiquette, was the first to say hello. JACK, THE SAILOR'S COMPANION Our world was a bay jam-packed with boats. Life was an endless journey, and each given day was a new voyage. It was quite natural, therefore, that every Schwambranian was a sailor. Each and every one had a boat tied up in his back yard. Jack, the Sailor's Companion, was far and away the most highly respected of all Schwambranians. This great statesman came into being because of a small handbook entitled: The Sailor's Pocket Companion and Dictionary of Most-Used Phrases. We bought this dog-eared treasure at the market second-hand for five kopeks and endowed our new hero, Jack, the Sailor's Companion, with all the wisdom between its covers. |
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