"Lazar Lagin. The Old Genie Hottabych (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

lying on the floor. It was Grandma's famous chandelier. Very long ago,
before the Revolution, his deceased grandfather had converted it from a
hanging oil lamp. Grandma would not part with it for anything in the world,
because it was a treasured memory of Grandfather. Since it was not elegant
enough to be hung in the dining room, they decided to hang it in Volka's
room. That is why a huge iron hook had been screwed into the ceiling.
Volka rubbed his sore knee, locked the door, took his penknife from his
pocket and, trembling from excitement, scraped the seal off the bottle.
The room immediately filled with choking black smoke, while a noiseless
explosion of great force threw him up to the ceiling, where he remained
suspended from the hook by the seat of his pants.

THE OLD GENIE


While Volka was swaying back and forth on the hook, trying to
understand what had happened, the smoke began to clear. Suddenly, he
realized there was someone else in the room besides himself. It was a
skinny, sunburnt old man with a beard down to his waist and dressed in an
elegant turban, a white coat of fine wool richly embroidered in silver and
gold, gleaming white silk puffed trousers and petal pink morocco slippers
with upturned toes.
"Hachoo!" the old man sneezed loudly and prostrated himself. "I greet
you, 0 Wonderful and Wise Youth!"
Volka shut his eyes tight and then opened them again. No, he was not
seeing things. The amazing old man was still there. Kneeling and rubbing his
hands, he stared at the furnishings of Volka's room with lively, shrewd
eyes, as if it were all goodness-knows what sort of a miracle.
"Where did you come from?" Volka inquired cautiously, swaying back and
forth under the ceiling like a pendulum. "Are you... from an amateur
troupe?"
"Oh, no, my young lord," the old man replied grandly, though he
remained in the same uncomfortable pose and continued to sneeze. "I am not
from the strange country of Anamateur Troupe you mentioned. I come from this
most horrible vessel."
With these words he scrambled to his feet and began jumping on the
vessel, from which a wisp of smoke was still curling upward, until there was
nothing left but a small pile of clay chips. Then, with a sound like
tinkling crystalware, he yanked a hair from his beard and tore it in two.
The bits of clay flared up with a weird green flame until soon there was not
a trace of them left on the floor.
Still, Volka was dubious. You must agree, it's not easy to accept the
fact that a live person can crawl out of a vessel no bigger than a decanter.
"Well, I don't know..." Volka stammered. "The vessel was so small, and
you're so big compared to it."
"You don't believe me, 0 despicable one?!" the old man shouted angrily,
but immediately calmed down; once again he fell to his knees, hitting the
floor with his forehead so strongly that the water shook in the aquarium and
the sleepy fish began to dart back and forth anxiously. "Forgive me, my
young saviour, but I am not used to having my words doubted. Know ye, most