"Yuri Olesha. The three fat men (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

THE BALLOON MAN'S STRANGE ADVENTURES

The next day work was in full swing in Court Square. The carpenters
were building ten scaffolds. A dozen armed Guards were overseeing the work.
The carpenters did not seem happy about their job.
"We don't want to build scaffolds for workers and miners!" they said.
"They are our brothers!"
"They were ready to die to free all the working people!"
"Silence!" the head Guard roared in a voice so terribly loud that the
planks stacked against the wall toppled over. "Silence! Or I'll have you all
whipped!"
Since early morning crowds had been pouring into Court Square.
A strong wind was raising up clouds of dust, swinging the shop signs on
their hinges, blowing hats off and rolling them under the wheels of
carriages.
In one place the wind did something very unusual: it carried off the
man who sold balloons!
"Hooray! Hooray!" the children cheered, watching him fly through the
air.
They clapped their hands because it was such fun to watch him, and
because they were happy to see him in such a fix. The children had always
envied the balloon man. Envy is a bad thing, but they couldn't help it. The
red, blue and yellow balloons were magnificent. Each child wished he had
one. The balloon man had a huge bunch of them, but miracles don't usually
happen. Never, not even once, did he give the most obedient boy or the
neatest girl a single balloon: neither a red one, nor a blue one, nor a
yellow one.
Now he had been punished for being so mean. He was flying over the
town, hanging on to the strings of his balloons for dear-life. They looked
like a bunch of magic grapes flying high up in the blue sky.
"Help!" the balloon man yelled, though he had no hope of help coming,
and kicked wildly.
He had on a pair of straw slippers that were too big for him.
Everything was all right as long as his feet were on the ground. To keep his
slippers from falling off, he used to drag his feet along like a very lazy
person. But now, when he was up in the air, he couldn't very well drag his
feet on nothing.
"What the devil!" he muttered.
The wind tossed the bunch of balloons this way and that.
One slipper finally fell off.
"Look! It's a peanut! A peanut!" the children cried from below.
And the falling slipper really did look like a peanut.
A dancing master was passing by just then. He was very elegant. He was
tall, with thin legs and a small head and looked like a violin or a
grasshopper.
His delicate ears, used to the sad sounds of a flute and the soft words
spoken by dancers, could not stand the loud, happy shrieks of the children.
"Stop shouting!" he said angrily. "You should never shout so loud! If
you want to express your joy, use beautiful, melodious words such as...."