Scarlet Sails - Green A.S.

Nina Nikolaevna Green
offers and dedicates
Author PBG, November 23, 1922

I
Prediction

Longren, a sailor of the Orion, a strong three-hundred-ton brig on which he served for ten years and to which he was more attached than another son to his own mother, had to finally leave this service. It happened like this. On one of his rare returns home, he did not see, as always from afar, his wife Mary on the threshold of the house, throwing up her hands and then running towards him until she lost her breath. Instead, an excited neighbor stood by the crib - a new item in Longren's small house. “I followed her for three months, old man,” she said, “look at your daughter.” Dead, Longren bent down and saw an eight-month-old creature intently looking at his long beard, then he sat down, looked down and began to twirl his mustache. The mustache was wet, as if from rain. - When did Mary die? - he asked. The woman told a sad story, interrupting the story with touching gurgles to the girl and assurances that Mary was in heaven. When Longren found out the details, heaven seemed to him a little brighter than a woodshed, and he thought that the fire of a simple lamp - if all three of them were now together - would be an irreplaceable consolation for a woman who had gone to an unknown country. Three months ago, the young mother’s economic affairs were very bad. Of the money left by Longren, a good half was spent on treatment after a difficult birth and on caring for the health of the newborn; finally, the loss of a small but necessary amount for life forced Mary to ask Menners for a loan of money. Menners ran a tavern and a shop and was considered a wealthy man. Mary went to see him at six o'clock in the evening. At about seven the narrator met her on the road to Liss. Mary, tearful and upset, said that she was going to the city to lay wedding ring. She added that Menners agreed to give money, but demanded love for it. Mary achieved nothing. “We don’t even have a crumb of food in our house,” she told her neighbor. “I’ll go into town, and the girl and I will get by somehow until my husband returns.” The weather was cold and windy that evening; The narrator tried in vain to persuade the young woman not to go to Liss at nightfall. “You’ll get wet, Mary, it’s drizzling, and the wind, no matter what, will bring downpour.” Back and forth from the seaside village to the city was at least three hours of quick walking, but Mary did not listen to the narrator’s advice. “It’s enough for me to prick your eyes,” she said, “and there is almost not a single family where I would not borrow bread, tea or flour. I’ll pawn the ring and it’s over.” She went, returned, and the next day fell ill with fever and delirium; bad weather and evening drizzle struck her with two-sided pneumonia, as the city doctor said, called by the kind-hearted narrator. A week later, there was an empty space on Longren’s double bed, and a neighbor moved into his house to nurse and feed the girl. It was not difficult for her, a lonely widow. Besides,” she added, “it’s boring without such a fool.” Longren went to the city, took payment, said goodbye to his comrades and began to raise little Assol. Until the girl learned to walk firmly, the widow lived with the sailor, replacing the orphan’s mother, but as soon as Assol stopped falling, lifting her leg over the threshold, Longren decisively announced that now he himself would do everything for the girl, and, thanking the widow for her active sympathy, lived the lonely life of a widower, focusing all his thoughts, hopes, love and memories on a small creature. Ten years of wandering life left very little money in his hands. He started working. Soon his toys appeared in city stores - skillfully made small models of boats, cutters, single- and double-decker sailing ships, cruisers, steamships - in a word, everything that he knew intimately, which, due to the nature of the work, partly replaced for him the roar of port life and painting work swimming. In this way, Longren obtained enough to live within the limits of moderate economy. Unsociable by nature, after the death of his wife, he became even more withdrawn and unsociable. On holidays, he was sometimes seen in a tavern, but he never sat down, but hastily drank a glass of vodka at the counter and left, briefly throwing around: “yes”, “no”, “hello”, “goodbye”, “little by little” - at all the calls and nods from the neighbors. He could not stand guests, quietly sending them away not by force, but with such hints and fictitious circumstances that the visitor had no choice but to invent a reason not to allow him to sit longer. He himself did not visit anyone either; Thus, a cold alienation lay between him and his fellow countrymen, and if Longren’s work—toys—had been less independent from the affairs of the village, he would have had to more clearly experience the consequences of such a relationship. He purchased goods and food supplies in the city - Menners could not even boast of the box of matches that Longren bought from him. He also did all the housework himself and patiently went through the difficult art of raising a girl, which is unusual for a man. Assol was already five years old, and her father began to smile softer and softer, looking at her nervous, kind face, when, sitting on his lap, she worked on the secret of a buttoned vest or amusingly hummed sailor songs - wild rhymes. When narrated in a child's voice and not always with the letter "r", these songs gave the impression of a dancing bear decorated with a blue ribbon. At this time, an event occurred, the shadow of which, falling on the father, covered the daughter as well. It was spring, early and harsh, like winter, but of a different kind. For three weeks, a sharp coastal north fell to the cold earth. Fishing boats pulled ashore formed a long row of dark keels on the white sand, reminiscent of the ridges of huge fish. No one dared to fish in such weather. On the only street of the village it was rare to see a person who had left the house; the cold whirlwind rushing from the coastal hills into the emptiness of the horizon made the “open air” a severe torture. All the chimneys of Kaperna smoked from morning to evening, spreading smoke over the steep roofs. But these days of the Nord lured Longren out of his small warm house more often than the sun, which in clear weather covered the sea and Kaperna with blankets of airy gold. Longren went out onto a bridge built along long rows of piles, where, at the very end of this plank pier, he smoked a pipe blown by the wind for a long time, watching how the bottom exposed near the shore smoked with gray foam, barely keeping up with the waves, the thundering run of which towards the black, stormy horizon filled the space with herds of fantastic maned creatures, rushing in unbridled ferocious despair towards distant consolation. Moans and noises, the howling gunfire of huge upsurges of water and, it seemed, a visible stream of wind striping the surroundings - so strong was its smooth run - gave Longren's exhausted soul that dullness, stunnedness, which, reducing grief to vague sadness, is equal in effect to deep sleep . On one of these days, Menners’s twelve-year-old son, Khin, noticing that his father’s boat was hitting the piles under the bridge, breaking the sides, went and told his father about it. The storm began recently; Menners forgot to take the boat out onto the sand. He immediately went to the water, where he saw Longren standing at the end of the pier, with his back to it, smoking. There was no one else on the shore except the two of them. Menners walked along the bridge to the middle, descended into the madly splashing water and untied the sheet; standing in the boat, he began to make his way to the shore, grabbing the piles with his hands. He did not take the oars, and at that moment, when, staggering, he missed to grab the next pile, swipe the wind threw the bow of the boat away from the bridge towards the ocean. Now, even with the entire length of his body, Menners could not reach the nearest pile. The wind and waves, rocking, carried the boat into the disastrous expanse. Realizing the situation, Menners wanted to throw himself into the water to swim to the shore, but his decision was late, since the boat was already spinning not far from the end of the pier, where the considerable depth of the water and the fury of the waves promised certain death. Between Longren and Menners, carried away into the stormy distance, there was no more than ten fathoms of still saving distance, since on the walkway at Longren’s hand hung a bundle of rope with a load woven into one end. This rope hung in case of a pier in stormy weather and was thrown from the bridge. - Longren! - shouted the mortally frightened Menners. - Why have you become like a stump? You see, I'm being carried away; leave the pier! Longren was silent, calmly looking at Menners, who was rushing about in the boat, only his pipe began to smoke more strongly, and he, after hesitating, took it out of his mouth in order to better see what was happening. - Longren! - Menners cried, - you can hear me, I’m dying, save me! But Longren did not say a single word to him; he did not seem to hear the desperate scream. Until the boat carried so far that Menners’ words and cries could barely reach him, he did not even shift from foot to foot. Menners sobbed in horror, begged the sailor to run to the fishermen, call for help, promised money, threatened and cursed, but Longren only came closer to the very edge of the pier so as not to immediately lose sight of the throwing and jumping boats. “Longren,” came to him muffledly, as if from the roof, sitting inside the house, “save me!” Then, taking a deep breath and taking a deep breath so that not a single word would be lost in the wind, Longren shouted: “She asked you the same thing!” Think about this while you are still alive, Menners, and don’t forget! Then the screams stopped, and Longren went home. Assol woke up and saw her father sitting in front of a dying lamp, deep in thought. Hearing the girl's voice calling him, he went up to her, kissed her deeply and covered her with a tangled blanket. “Sleep, honey,” he said, “the morning is still far away.” - What are you doing? “I made a black toy, Assol, sleep!” The next day, all the residents of Kaperna could talk about was the missing Menners, and on the sixth day they brought him himself, dying and angry. His story quickly spread around the surrounding villages. Until the evening wore Menners; broken by shocks on the sides and bottom of the boat, during a terrible struggle with the ferocity of the waves, which, tirelessly, threatened to throw the maddened shopkeeper into the sea, he was picked up by the steamer Lucretia, heading to Kasset. A cold and shock of horror ended Menners' days. He lived a little less than forty-eight hours, calling upon Longren all the disasters possible on earth and in the imagination. Menners' story of how the sailor watched his death, refusing help, eloquent all the more so since the dying man was breathing with difficulty and groaning, amazed the residents of Kaperna. Not to mention the fact that very few of them were able to remember an insult even more severe than that suffered by Longren, and to grieve as much as he grieved for Mary for the rest of his life - they were disgusted, incomprehensible, and amazed that Longren was silent. Silently, until his last words sent after Menners, Longren stood; stood motionless, sternly and quietly, like a judge, showing deep contempt for Menners - there was more than hatred in his silence, and everyone felt it. If he had shouted, expressing his gloating with gestures or fussiness, or in some other way his triumph at the sight of Menners’ despair, the fishermen would have understood him, but he acted differently from what they did - he acted impressively, incomprehensibly, and thereby placed himself above others, in a word, did something that cannot be forgiven. No one else bowed to him, extended their hands, or cast a recognizing, greeting glance. He remained completely aloof from village affairs; The boys, seeing him, shouted after him: “Longren drowned Menners!” He didn't pay any attention to it. It also seemed that he did not notice that in the tavern or on the shore, among the boats, the fishermen fell silent in his presence, moving away as if from the plague. The case of Menners cemented the previously incomplete alienation. Having become complete, it caused lasting mutual hatred, the shadow of which fell on Assol. The girl grew up without friends. Two to three dozen children of her age who lived in Kaperna, soaked like a sponge with water, a rough family principle, the basis of which was the unshakable authority of the mother and father, overbearing, like all children in the world, once and for all crossed out little Assol from the sphere of their patronage and attention. This happened, of course, gradually, through suggestion and shouting from adults, it acquired the character of a terrible prohibition, and then, reinforced by gossip and rumors, it grew in children’s minds with fear of the sailor’s house. In addition, Longren's secluded lifestyle has now freed the hysterical language of gossip; They used to say about the sailor that he had killed someone somewhere, which is why, they say, he is no longer hired to serve on ships, and he himself is gloomy and unsociable, because “he is tormented by remorse of a criminal conscience.” While playing, the children chased Assol if she approached them, threw dirt and teased her that her father ate human flesh and was now making counterfeit money. One after another, her naive attempts to get closer ended in bitter crying, bruises, scratches and other manifestations public opinion ; She finally stopped being offended, but still sometimes asked her father: “Tell me, why don’t they like us?” “Eh, Assol,” said Longren, “do they know how to love? You have to be able to love, but they can’t do that.” - “What is it like to be able to?” - "And like this!" He took the girl in his arms and deeply kissed her sad eyes, which were squinting with tender pleasure. Assol’s favorite pastime was in the evenings or on holidays, when her father, having put aside jars of paste, tools and unfinished work, sat down, taking off his apron, to rest, with a pipe in his teeth, to climb onto his lap and, spinning in the careful ring of his father’s hand, touch various parts of toys, asking about their purpose. Thus began a kind of fantastic lecture about life and people - a lecture in which, thanks to Longren’s previous way of life, accidents, chance in general, outlandish, amazing and extraordinary events were given the main place. Longren, telling the girl the names of rigging, sails, and marine items, gradually became carried away, moving from explanations to various episodes in which either a windlass, or a steering wheel, or a mast or some type of boat, etc. played a role, and then From these individual illustrations he moved on to broad pictures of sea wanderings, weaving superstition into reality, and reality into the images of his imagination. Here also appeared tiger cat, the messenger of a shipwreck, and a talking flying fish, disobeying whose orders meant going off course, and Flying Dutchman with his frantic crew; omens, ghosts, mermaids, pirates - in a word, all the fables that while away a sailor's leisure time in calm or in his favorite tavern. Longren also talked about the shipwrecked, about people who had gone wild and had forgotten how to speak, about mysterious treasures, convict riots and much more, which the girl listened to more attentively than perhaps she listened to Columbus’s story about the new continent for the first time. “Well, say more,” Assol asked when Longren, lost in thought, fell silent, and fell asleep on his chest with a head full of wonderful dreams. It also gave her great, always materially significant pleasure, to see the clerk of a city toy shop who willingly bought Longren’s work. To appease the father and bargain for excess, the clerk took with him a couple of apples, a sweet pie, and a handful of nuts for the girl. Longren usually asked for the real price out of dislike for bargaining, and the clerk would reduce it. “Oh, you,” said Longren, “I spent a week working on this bot. — The boat was five vershoks. - Look at the strength, what about the draft, what about the kindness? This boat can withstand fifteen people in any weather.” The end result was that the quiet fuss of the girl, purring over her apple, deprived Longren of his stamina and desire to argue; he gave in, and the clerk, having filled the basket with excellent, durable toys, left, chuckling in his mustache. Longren did all the housework himself: he chopped wood, carried water, lit the stove, cooked, washed, ironed clothes and, besides all this, managed to work for money. When Assol was eight years old, her father taught her to read and write. He began to occasionally take her with him to the city, and then send her even alone if there was a need to intercept money in a store or carry goods. This did not happen often, although Liss lay only four miles from Kaperna, but the road to it went through the forest, and in the forest there is a lot that can frighten children, in addition to physical danger, which, it is true, is difficult to encounter at such a close distance from the city, but still... It doesn't hurt to keep this in mind. Therefore only in good days, in the morning, when the thicket surrounding the road was full of sunny showers, flowers and silence, so that Assol’s impressionability was not threatened by phantoms of the imagination, Longren let her go into the city. One day, in the middle of such a journey to the city, the girl sat down by the road to eat a piece of pie that had been placed in a basket for breakfast. While snacking, she sorted through the toys; two or three of them turned out to be new to her: Longren made them at night. One such novelty was a miniature racing yacht; This white boat carried scarlet sails made from scraps of silk, used by Longren for lining steamship cabins - toys for a rich buyer. Here, apparently, having made a yacht, he did not find suitable material on the sails, using what was available - scraps of scarlet silk. Assol was delighted. The fiery, cheerful color burned so brightly in her hand, as if she were holding fire. The road was crossed by a stream with a pole bridge across it; the stream to the right and left went into the forest. “If I put her in the water for a little swim,” Assol thought, “she won’t get wet, I’ll dry her later.” Moving into the forest behind the bridge, following the flow of the stream, the girl carefully launched the ship that had captivated her into the water near the shore; the sails immediately sparkled with a scarlet reflection in the clear water; the light, penetrating the matter, lay as a trembling pink radiation on the white stones of the bottom. - “Where did you come from, captain? - Assol asked the imaginary face importantly and, answering herself, said: “I came... I came... I came from China.” - What did you bring? - I won’t tell you what I brought. - Oh, you are so, captain! Well, then I’ll put you back in the basket.” The captain was just getting ready to humbly answer that he was joking and that he was ready to show the elephant, when suddenly the quiet retreat of the coastal stream turned the yacht with its bow towards the middle of the stream, and, like a real one, leaving the shore at full speed, it floated smoothly down. The scale of what was visible instantly changed: the stream seemed to the girl like a huge river, and the yacht seemed like a distant, large ship, to which, almost falling into the water, frightened and dumbfounded, she stretched out her hands. “The captain was scared,” she thought and ran after the floating toy, hoping that it would wash ashore somewhere. Hastily dragging the not heavy but annoying basket, Assol repeated: “Oh, Lord! After all, if something happened...” She tried not to lose sight of the beautiful, smoothly running triangle of sails, stumbled, fell and ran again. Assol has never been so deep in the forest as she is now. She, absorbed in the impatient desire to catch the toy, did not look around; Near the shore, where she was fussing, there were quite a few obstacles that occupied her attention. Mossy trunks fallen trees, pits, tall ferns, rose hips, jasmine and hazel trees interfered with her at every step; overcoming them, she gradually lost strength, stopping more and more often to rest or wipe the sticky cobwebs off her face. When sedge and reed thickets stretched out in wider places, Assol completely lost sight of the scarlet sparkle of the sails, but, running around a bend in the current, she again saw them, sedately and steadily running away. Once she looked around, and the forest mass with its diversity, passing from smoky pillars of light in the foliage to the dark crevices of the dense twilight, deeply struck the girl. Shocked for a moment, she remembered again about the toy and, letting out a deep “f-fu-u-u” several times, ran with all her might. In such an unsuccessful and alarming pursuit, about an hour passed, when with surprise, but also with relief, Assol saw that the trees ahead freely parted, letting in the blue flood of the sea, clouds and the edge of a yellow sandy cliff, onto which she ran out, almost falling from fatigue. Here was the mouth of the stream; having spread not widely and shallowly, so that the flowing blue of the stones could be seen, it disappeared into the oncoming sea wave. From a low cliff, pitted with roots, Assol saw that by the stream, on a large flat stone, with his back to her, a man was sitting, holding a runaway yacht in his hands, and was carefully examining it with the curiosity of an elephant who had caught a butterfly. Partially reassured by the fact that the toy was intact, Assol slid down the cliff and, coming close to the stranger, looked at him with a searching gaze, waiting for him to raise his head. But the unknown man was so immersed in the contemplation of the forest surprise that the girl managed to examine him from head to toe, establishing that she had never seen people like this stranger. But in front of her was none other than Aigle, traveling on foot, a famous collector of songs, legends, tales and fairy tales. Gray curls fell in folds from under his straw hat; a gray blouse tucked into blue trousers and high boots gave him the appearance of a hunter; a white collar, a tie, a belt, studded with silver badges, a cane and a bag with a brand new nickel lock - showed a city dweller. His face, if one can call a face his nose, lips and eyes, looking out from a rapidly growing radiant beard and lush, fiercely raised mustache, would seem sluggishly transparent, if not for his eyes, gray as sand and shining like pure steel, with a bold look and strong. “Now give it to me,” the girl said timidly. - You've already played. How did you catch her? Egle raised his head, dropping the yacht, as Assol’s excited voice suddenly sounded. The old man looked at her for a minute, smiling and slowly letting his beard fall into a large, stringy handful. The cotton dress, washed many times, barely covered the girl’s thin, tanned legs to the knees. Its dark Thick hair, gathered in a lace scarf, strayed, touching the shoulders. Every feature of Assol was expressively light and pure, like the flight of a swallow. Dark eyes, tinged with a sad question, seemed somewhat older than the face; his irregular, soft oval was covered with that kind of lovely tan that is inherent in healthy white skin. The half-opened small mouth sparkled with a gentle smile. “I swear by the Grimms, Aesop and Andersen,” said Egle, looking first at the girl, then at the yacht. - This is something special. Listen up, plant! Is this your thing? “Yes, I ran after her all along the stream; I thought I was going to die. Was she here? - At my very feet. The shipwreck is the reason why I, as a shore pirate, can give you this prize. The yacht, abandoned by the crew, was thrown onto the sand by a three-inch shaft - between my left heel and the tip of the stick. - He tapped his cane. -What's your name, baby? “Assol,” said the girl, hiding the toy given by Egl in the basket. “Okay,” the old man continued his incomprehensible speech, without taking his eyes off, in the depths of which a smile of a friendly disposition gleamed. “Actually, I shouldn’t have asked your name.” It’s good that it’s so strange, so monotonous, musical, like the whistle of an arrow or the noise of a sea shell; What would I do if you were called one of those euphonious, but unbearably familiar names that are alien to the Beautiful Unknown? Moreover, I don’t want to know who you are, who your parents are and how you live. Why break the spell? Sitting on this rock, I was engaged in a comparative study of Finnish and Japanese stories... when suddenly a stream splashed out this yacht, and then you appeared... Just as you are. I, my dear, am a poet at heart, although I have never composed anything myself. What's in your basket? “Boats,” said Assol, shaking her basket, “then a steamer and three more of these houses with flags.” Soldiers live there. - Great. You were sent to sell. On the way, you started playing. You let the yacht sail, but it ran away - right? -Have you seen it? — Assol asked doubtfully, trying to remember if she had told this herself. - Did someone tell you? Or did you guess right?- I knew it. - What about it? Assol was embarrassed; Her tension at these words of Egle crossed the border of fear. The deserted seashore, the silence, the tedious adventure with the yacht, the incomprehensible speech of the old man with sparkling eyes, the majesty of his beard and hair began to seem to the girl as a mixture of the supernatural and reality. Now if Egle made a grimace or screamed something, the girl would rush away, crying and exhausted from fear. But Egle, noticing how wide her eyes opened, made a sharp volte-face. “You have nothing to fear from me,” he said seriously. “On the contrary, I want to talk to you to my heart’s content.” “It was only then that he realized what was so closely marked by his impression in the girl’s face. “An involuntary expectation of a beautiful, blissful fate,” he decided. - Oh, why wasn’t I born a writer? What a glorious story." “Come on,” Egle continued, trying to round out the original position (the penchant for myth-making, a consequence of constant work, was stronger than the fear of planting the seeds of a major dream on unknown soil), “come on, Assol, listen to me carefully.” I was in the village where you must be coming from; in a word, in Kaperna. I love fairy tales and songs, and I sat in that village all day, trying to hear something no one had heard. But you don't tell fairy tales. You don't sing songs. And if they tell and sing, then, you know, these stories about cunning men and soldiers, with the eternal praise of cheating, these dirty, like unwashed feet, rough, like a rumbling stomach, short quatrains with a terrible motive... Stop, I’m lost. I'll speak again. After thinking, he continued like this: “I don’t know how many years will pass, but in Kaperna one fairy tale will bloom, memorable for a long time.” You will be big, Assol. One morning, in the distant sea, a scarlet sail will sparkle under the sun. The shining bulk of the scarlet sails of the white ship will move, cutting through the waves, straight towards you. This wonderful ship will sail quietly, without shouts or shots; a lot of people will gather on the shore, wondering and gasping; and you will stand there. The ship will approach majestically to the very shore to the sounds of beautiful music; elegant, in carpets, in gold and flowers, a fast boat will sail from him. - “Why did you come? Who are you looking for?" - people on the shore will ask. Then you will see a brave handsome prince; he will stand and stretch out his hands to you. - “Hello, Assol! - he will say. “Far, far from here, I saw you in a dream and came to take you to my kingdom forever.” You will live there with me in the deep pink valley. You will have everything you want; We will live with you so friendly and cheerfully that your soul will never know tears and sadness.” He will put you on a boat, bring you to the ship, and you will leave forever to a brilliant country where the sun rises and where the stars will descend from the sky to congratulate you on your arrival. - It's all for me? — the girl asked quietly. Her serious eyes, cheerful, shone with confidence. A dangerous wizard, of course, would not talk like that; she came closer. - Maybe he has already arrived... that ship? “Not so soon,” Egle objected, “first, as I said, you will grow up.” Then... What can I say? - it will be, and it’s over. What would you do then? - I? “She looked into the basket, but apparently did not find anything there worthy of serving as a significant reward. “I would love him,” she said hastily, and added not quite firmly: “if he doesn’t fight.” “No, he won’t fight,” said the wizard, winking mysteriously, “he won’t, I guarantee it.” Go, girl, and don’t forget what I told you between two sips of aromatic vodka and thinking about the songs of convicts. Go. May there be peace to your furry head! Longren was working in his small garden, digging up potato bushes. Raising his head, he saw Assol running headlong towards him with a joyful and impatient face. “Well, here...” she said, trying to control her breathing, and grabbed her father’s apron with both hands. - Listen to what I’ll tell you... On the shore, far away, there’s a wizard sitting... She started with the wizard and his interesting prediction. The fever of her thoughts prevented her from conveying the incident smoothly. Next came a description of the wizard’s appearance and, in reverse order, the pursuit of the lost yacht. Longren listened to the girl without interrupting, without smiling, and when she finished, his imagination quickly depicted an unknown old man with aromatic vodka in one hand and a toy in the other. He turned away, but, remembering that on great occasions in a child’s life it is proper for a person to be serious and surprised, he solemnly nodded his head, saying: - So-so; according to all signs, there is no one else to be but a wizard. I would like to look at him... But when you go again, don’t turn aside; It's not difficult to get lost in the forest. Throwing away the shovel, he sat down by the low brush fence and sat the girl on his lap. Terribly tired, she tried to add some more details, but the heat, excitement and weakness made her sleepy. Her eyes were stuck together, her head fell on her father’s hard shoulder, a moment - and she would have been carried away into the land of dreams, when suddenly, troubled by a sudden doubt, Assol sat up straight, with eyes closed and, resting her fists on Longren’s vest, she said loudly: - Do you think the magic ship will come for me or not? “He will come,” the sailor calmly answered, “since they told you this, then everything is correct.” “When he grows up, he’ll forget,” he thought, “but for now... it’s not worth taking such a toy away from you. After all, you will have to see a lot in the future not of scarlet, but of dirty and predatory sails; from a distance - smart and white, up close - torn and arrogant. A passing man joked with my girl. Well?! Good joke! Nothing - just a joke! Look how tired you were - half a day in the forest, in the thicket. And about the scarlet sails, think like me: you will have scarlet sails.” Assol was sleeping. Longren, taking out his pipe with his free hand, lit a cigarette, and the wind carried the smoke through the fence into the bush growing on the outside of the garden. A young beggar sat by a bush, with his back to the fence, chewing a pie. The conversation between father and daughter put him in a cheerful mood, and the smell of good tobacco put him in a prey mood. “Give the poor man a smoke, master,” he said through the bars. “My tobacco versus yours is not tobacco, but, one might say, poison.” “I would give it,” Longren answered in a low voice, “but I have tobacco in that pocket.” You see, I don’t want to wake up my daughter. - What a problem! He wakes up, falls asleep again, and a passerby just smokes. “Well,” Longren objected, “you’re not without tobacco after all, but the child is tired.” Come back later if you want. The beggar spat contemptuously, lifted the bag onto a stick and quipped: - Princess, of course. You drove these overseas ships into her head! Oh, you eccentric, eccentric, and also the owner! “Listen,” Longren whispered, “I’ll probably wake her up, but only to soap up your huge neck.” Go away! Half an hour later the beggar was sitting in a tavern at a table with a dozen fishermen. Behind them, now tugging at their husbands’ sleeves, now lifting a glass of vodka over their shoulders—for themselves, of course—sat tall women with thick eyebrows and hands round like cobblestones. The beggar, seething with resentment, narrated: - And he didn’t give me tobacco. “You,” he says, “will be one year of age, and then,” he says, “a special red ship... Behind you.” Since your destiny is to marry the prince. And that,” he says, “believe the wizard.” But I say: “Wake up, wake up, they say, get some tobacco.” Well, he ran after me halfway. - Who? What? What is he talking about? - curious voices of women were heard. The fishermen, barely turning their heads, explained with a grin: “Longren and his daughter have gone wild, or maybe they’ve lost their minds; Here's a man talking. They had a sorcerer, so you have to understand. They are waiting - aunts, you shouldn’t miss it! - an overseas prince, and even under red sails! Three days later, returning from the city shop, Assol heard for the first time: - Hey, gallows! Assol! Look here! Red sails are sailing! The girl, shuddering, involuntarily looked from under her hand at the flood of the sea. Then she turned towards the exclamations; there, twenty paces from her, stood a group of guys; they grimaced, sticking out their tongues. Sighing, the girl ran home.

It was spring, early and harsh, like winter, but of a different kind. For three weeks, a sharp coastal north fell to the cold earth. Fishing boats pulled ashore formed a long row of dark keels on the white sand, reminiscent of the ridges of huge fish. Nobody dared
go fishing in this weather. On the only street of the village it was rare to see a person who had left the house; the cold whirlwind rushing from the coastal hills into the emptiness of the horizon made the “open air” a severe torture. All the chimneys of Kaperna smoked from morning to evening, spreading smoke over the steep roofs.
But these days of the Nord lured Longren out of his small warm house more often than the sun, which in clear weather covered the sea and Kaperna with blankets of airy gold.
Longren went out onto a bridge built along long rows of piles, where, at the very end of this plank pier, he smoked a pipe blown by the wind for a long time, watching how the bottom exposed near the shore smoked with gray foam, barely keeping up with the waves, the thundering run of which towards the black, stormy horizon filled the space with herds of fantastic maned creatures,
rushing in unbridled ferocious despair towards distant consolation. Moans and noises, the howling gunfire of huge upsurges of water and, it seemed, a visible stream of wind striping the surroundings - so strong was its smooth run - gave Longren's tormented soul that dullness, stunnedness, which, reducing grief to vague sadness, is equal to the action deep sleep.
untied the sheet; standing in the boat, he began to make his way to the shore, grabbing the piles with his hands. He did not take the oars, and at that moment, when, staggering, he missed to grab the next pile, a strong blow of the wind threw the bow of the boat from the bridge towards the ocean. Now, even with the entire length of his body, Menners could not reach the nearest pile.
The wind and waves, rocking, carried the boat into the disastrous expanse. Realizing the situation, Menners wanted to throw himself into the water to swim to the shore, but his decision was late, since the boat was already spinning not far from the end of the pier, where the considerable depth of the water and the fury of the waves promised certain death.
Between Longren and Menners, carried away into the stormy distance, there was no more than ten fathoms of still saving distance, since on the walkway at Longren’s hand hung a bundle of rope with a load woven into one end. This rope hung in case of a pier in stormy weather and was thrown from the bridge.
- Longren! - shouted the mortally frightened Menners. - Why have you become like a stump? You see, I'm being carried away; leave the pier!
Longren was silent, calmly looking at Menners, who was rushing about in the boat, only his pipe began to smoke more strongly, and he, after hesitating, took it out of his mouth in order to better see what was happening.
- Longren! - Menners cried. - You can hear me, I’m dying, save me!
But Longren did not say a single word to him; he did not seem to hear the desperate scream. Until the boat carried so far that Menners’ words and cries could barely reach him, he did not even shift from foot to foot. Menners sobbed in horror, begged the sailor to run to the fishermen, call for help, promised money, threatened and cursed, but Longren only came closer to the very edge of the pier so as not to immediately lose sight of the throwing and jumping boats. "Longren,"
came to him muffledly, as if from the roof - sitting inside the house - save! " Then, taking a deep breath and taking a deep breath so that not a single word would be lost in the wind, Longren shouted: - She asked you the same thing! Think about it , while you're still alive, Menners, and don't forget!
Then the screams stopped, and Longren went home. Assol woke up and saw that her father was sitting in front of a dying lamp, deep in thought.
Hearing the girl's voice calling him, he went up to her, kissed her deeply and covered her with a tangled blanket.
The next day, all the residents of Kaperna could talk about was the missing Menners, and on the sixth day they brought him himself, dying and angry. His story quickly spread around the surrounding villages. Until the evening wore Menners; broken by shocks on the sides and bottom of the boat, during a terrible struggle with the ferocity of the waves, which, tirelessly, threatened to throw the maddened shopkeeper into the sea, he was picked up by the steamer Lucretia, heading to Kasset. A cold and shock of horror ended Menners' days. He lived a little less than forty-eight hours, calling upon Longren all the disasters possible on earth and in the imagination. Menners' story of how the sailor watched his death, refusing help, eloquent all the more so since the dying man was breathing with difficulty and groaning, amazed the residents of Kaperna. Not to mention the fact that few of them were able to remember an insult even more serious than the one suffered
Longren, and to grieve as much as he grieved for Mary for the rest of his life—they were disgusted, incomprehensible, and amazed that Longren was silent. Silently, until his last words sent after Menners, Longren stood; stood motionless, sternly and quietly, like a judge, showing deep contempt for Menners - there was more than hatred in his silence, and everyone felt it. If he had shouted, expressing his gloating with gestures or fussiness, or in some other way his triumph at the sight of Menners’ despair, the fishermen would have understood him, but he acted differently from what they acted - he acted impressively, incomprehensibly, and thereby placed himself above others, in a word, did something that cannot be forgiven. No one else bowed to him, extended their hands, or cast a recognizing, greeting glance.

The girl grew up without friends. Two or three dozen children of her age who lived in Kaperna, soaked like a sponge with water, a rough family principle, the basis of which was the unshakable authority of mother and father, re-inherent, like all children in the world, once and for all erased little Assol from the sphere of their patronage and attention. This happened, of course, gradually, through suggestion and shouting from adults, it acquired the character of a terrible prohibition, and then, reinforced by gossip and rumors, it grew in children’s minds with fear of the sailor’s house.
In addition, Longren's secluded lifestyle has now freed the hysterical language of gossip; They used to say about the sailor that he had killed someone somewhere, which is why, they say, he is no longer hired to serve on ships, and he himself is gloomy and unsociable, because “he is tormented by remorse of a criminal conscience.” While playing, the children chased Assol if she approached them, threw dirt and teased her that her father ate human flesh and was now making counterfeit money. One by one,
her naive attempts at rapprochement ended in bitter crying, bruises, scratches and other manifestations of public opinion; She finally stopped being offended, but still sometimes asked her father: “Tell me, why don’t they like us?” “Eh, Assol,” said Longren, “do they know how to love?
You have to be able to love, but they can’t do that.” — “How can they do that?” — “But like this!” He took the girl in his arms and firmly kissed her sad eyes, which were squinting with tender pleasure.
Assol's favorite pastime was in the evenings or on holidays, when her father, having put aside the jars of paste, tools and unfinished work, sat down, taking off his apron, to rest, with a pipe in his teeth - climb onto his lap and, spinning in the careful ring of his father's hand , touch various parts of toys, asking about their purpose. Thus began a kind of fantastic lecture about life and people - a lecture in which, thanks to
Longren's previous way of life, accidents, chance in general - outlandish, amazing and extraordinary events were given the main place. Longren, telling the girl the names of rigging, sails, and marine items, gradually became carried away, moving from explanations to various episodes in which either a windlass, or a steering wheel, or a mast or some type of boat, etc. played a role, and then From these individual illustrations he moved on to broad pictures of sea wanderings, weaving superstition into reality, and reality into the images of his imagination. Here appeared a tiger cat, the messenger of a shipwreck, and a talking flying fish, disobeying whose orders meant going off course, and the Flying Dutchman with his frantic crew; omens, ghosts, mermaids, pirates - in a word, all the fables that while away a sailor's leisure time in calm or in his favorite tavern. Longren also talked about the shipwrecked, about people who had gone wild and had forgotten how to speak, about mysterious treasures, convict riots and much more, which the girl listened to more attentively than perhaps she listened to Columbus’s story about the new continent for the first time. “Well, say more,” Assol asked when Longren, lost in thought, fell silent, and fell asleep on his chest with a head full of wonderful dreams.
It also gave her great, always materially significant pleasure, to see the clerk of a city toy shop who willingly bought Longren’s work. To appease the father and bargain for excess, the clerk took with him a couple of apples, a sweet pie, and a handful of nuts for the girl.
Longren usually asked for the real price out of dislike for bargaining, and the clerk would reduce it. - “Oh, you,” said Longren, “yes, I’ve been sitting on this for a week
I washed, ironed clothes and, besides all this, managed to work for money. When Assol was eight years old, her father taught her to read and write. He began to occasionally take her with him to the city, and then send her even alone if there was a need to intercept money in a store or carry goods. This did not happen often, although Lise lay only four miles from Kaperna, but the road to it went through the forest, and in the forest many things can frighten children, besides the physical
a danger that, admittedly, is difficult to encounter at such a close distance from the city, but still does not hurt to keep in mind.
Therefore, only on good days, in the morning, when the thicket surrounding the road is full of sunny showers, flowers and silence, so that Assol’s impressionability was not threatened by phantoms of the imagination, Longren let her go into the city.
One day, in the middle of such a journey to the city, the girl sat down by the road to eat a piece of pie that had been placed in a basket for breakfast. While snacking, she sorted through the toys; two or three of them turned out to be new to her: Longren made them at night. One such novelty was a miniature racing yacht; the white boat raised scarlet sails made from scraps of silk used by Longren to cover steamship cabins—toys for a wealthy buyer. Here,
Oh, you are so good, captain! Well, then I’ll put you back in the basket.” The captain had just prepared to humbly answer that he was joking and that he was ready to show the elephant, when suddenly the quiet retreat of the coastal stream turned the yacht with its bow towards the middle of the stream, and, like a real one, leaving the shore at full speed, she swam smoothly down. The scale of what was visible instantly changed: the stream seemed to the girl like a huge river, and the yacht seemed like a distant, large ship, towards which, almost falling into the water, frightened and dumbfounded, she stretched out her hands, “The captain was scared,” she thought. She ran after the floating toy, hoping that it would wash up somewhere on the shore. Hastily dragging the light, but getting in the way, basket, Assol repeated: “Oh, my God! After all, if it happened..." - She tried not to lose sight of the beautiful, smoothly running triangle of sails, stumbled, fell and ran again.

Assol has never been so deep in the forest as she is now. She, absorbed in the impatient desire to catch the toy, did not look around; Near the shore, where she was fussing, there were quite a few obstacles that occupied her attention. Mossy trunks of fallen trees, holes, tall ferns, rose hips, jasmine and hazel trees interfered with her at every step; Overcoming them, she gradually lost strength, stopping more and more often to rest or wipe the sticky cobwebs off her face. When sedge and reed thickets stretched out in wider places, Assol completely lost sight of the scarlet sparkle of the sails, but, running around a bend in the current, she again saw them, sedately and steadily running away. Once she looked around, and the forest mass with its diversity, passing from smoky pillars of light in the foliage to the dark crevices of the dense twilight, deeply struck the girl. Shocked for a moment, she remembered again about the toy and, letting out a deep “f-f-f-u-uu” several times, ran as fast as she could.
In such an unsuccessful and alarming pursuit, about an hour passed, when with surprise, but also with relief, Assol saw that the trees ahead freely parted, letting in the blue flood of the sea, clouds and the edge of a yellow sandy cliff, onto which she ran out, almost falling from fatigue. Here was the mouth of the stream; Having spread not wide and shallow, so that the flowing blue of the stones could be seen, it disappeared into the oncoming sea wave. From a low cliff, pitted with roots, Assol saw that by the stream, on a large flat stone, with his back to her, a man was sitting, holding a runaway yacht in his hands, and was carefully examining it with the curiosity of an elephant who had caught a butterfly. Partially reassured by the fact that the toy was intact, Assol slid down the cliff and, coming close to the stranger, looked at him with a searching gaze, waiting for him to raise his head.
But the unknown man was so immersed in the contemplation of the forest surprise that the girl managed to examine him from head to toe, establishing that she had never seen people like this stranger.
But in front of her was none other than Aigle, traveling on foot, a famous collector of songs, legends, tales and fairy tales. Gray curls fell in folds from under his straw hat; a gray blouse tucked into blue trousers and high boots gave him the appearance of a hunter; a white collar, a tie, a belt, studded with silver badges, a cane and a bag with a brand new nickel lock - showed that he was a city dweller. His face, if one can call his nose, lips and eyes, looking out from a rapidly growing radiant beard and lush, fiercely raised mustache, a face, would seem sluggishly transparent, if not for his eyes, gray as sand and shining like pure steel, with a look brave and strong.
“Now give it to me,” the girl said timidly.
“I swear by the Grimms, Aesop and Andersen,” said Egle, looking first at the girl and then at the yacht. - This is something special. Listen up, plant!
Is this your thing?
“Yes, I ran after her all along the stream; I thought I was going to die. Was she here?
- At my very feet. The shipwreck is the reason why I, as a shore pirate, can give you this prize. The yacht, abandoned by the crew, was thrown onto the sand by a three-inch shaft - between my left heel and the tip of the stick. - He tapped his cane. -What's your name, baby?
“Assol,” said the girl, hiding the toy given by Egl in the basket.
“Okay,” the old man continued his incomprehensible speech, without taking his eyes off, in the depths of which a smile of a friendly disposition gleamed. “Actually, I didn’t need to ask your name.” It’s good that it’s so strange, so monotonous, musical, like the whistle of an arrow or the noise of a sea shell: what would I do if you were called one of those euphonious, but unbearably familiar names that are alien to the Beautiful Unknown? Moreover, I don’t want to know who you are, who your parents are and how you live. Why break the spell? Sitting on this rock, I was engaged in a comparative study of Finnish and Japanese stories... when suddenly a stream splashed out this yacht, and then you appeared... Just as you are. I, my dear, am a poet at heart - although I have never composed anything myself.
What's in your basket?
“Boats,” said Assol, shaking her basket, “then a steamer and three more of these houses with flags.”
Soldiers live there.
-- Great. You were sent to sell. On the way, you started playing. You let the yacht sail, but it ran away - right?
-Have you seen it? - Assol asked doubtfully, trying to remember if she had told this herself. - Did someone tell you? Or did you guess right?
- I knew it. - What about it?
“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said seriously. “On the contrary, I want to talk to you to my heart’s content.”
- It was only then that he realized what was so closely marked by his impression in the girl’s face. “An involuntary expectation of a beautiful, blissful fate,” he decided. “Oh, why wasn’t I born a writer? What a glorious plot.”
“Come on,” Egle continued, trying to round out the original position (the penchant for myth-making, a consequence of constant work, was stronger than the fear of planting the seeds of a major dream on unknown soil), “come on, Assol, listen to me.” attentively. I was in that village - where you must be coming from, in a word, in Kaperna. I love fairy tales and songs, and I sat in that village all day, trying to hear something no one had heard. But
You don't tell fairy tales. You don't sing songs.
-- It's all for me? - the girl asked quietly. Her serious eyes, cheerful, shone with confidence. A dangerous wizard, of course, would not talk like that; she came closer. - Maybe he has already arrived... that ship?
“Not so soon,” objected Egle, “first, as I said, you will grow up.” Then... What can I say? - it will be, and it will be over. What would you do then?
-- I? - She looked into the basket, but apparently did not find anything there worthy of serving as a significant reward. “I would love him,” she said hastily, and added not quite firmly: “if he doesn’t fight.”
“No, he won’t fight,” said the wizard, winking mysteriously, “he won’t, I guarantee it.” Go, girl, and don’t forget what I told you between two sips of aromatic vodka and thinking about the songs of convicts. Go. May there be peace to your furry head!
Longren was working in his small garden, digging up potato bushes.
Raising his head, he saw Assol running headlong towards him with a joyful and impatient face.
“Well, here...” she said, trying to control her breathing, and grabbed her father’s apron with both hands. - Listen to what I’ll tell you... On the shore, far away, there is a wizard sitting... She started with the wizard and his interesting prediction. The fever of her thoughts prevented her from conveying the incident smoothly. Next came a description of the wizard's appearance and - in reverse order - the pursuit of the lost yacht.
Longren listened to the girl without interrupting, without smiling, and when she finished, his imagination quickly depicted an unknown old man with aromatic vodka in one hand and a toy in the other. He turned away, but, remembering that on great occasions in a child’s life it is proper for a person to be serious and surprised, he solemnly nodded his head, saying: “So, so; according to all signs, there is no one else to be but a wizard. I would like to look at him... But when you go again, don’t turn aside;
It's not difficult to get lost in the forest.
“It will come,” the sailor answered calmly, “since they told you this, then everything is correct.”
“He’ll grow up and forget,” he thought, “but for now... there’s no point in taking such a toy away from you. In the future, you’ll have to see a lot of not scarlet, but dirty and predatory sails: from a distance - elegant and white, up close - - torn and arrogant. A passing man joked with my girl?!
Nothing - just a joke! Look how tired you were - half a day in the forest, in the thicket. And about the scarlet sails, think like me: you will have scarlet sails."
Assol was sleeping. Longren, taking out his pipe with his free hand, lit a cigarette, and the wind carried the smoke through the fence and into the bush growing on the outside of the garden. A young beggar sat by a bush, with his back to the fence, chewing a pie. The conversation between father and daughter put him in a cheerful mood, and the smell of good tobacco put him in a prey mood. “Give the poor man a smoke, master,” he said through the bars. “My tobacco versus yours is not tobacco, but, one might say, poison.”
“I would give it,” Longren answered in a low voice, “but I have tobacco in that pocket.” You see, I don’t want to wake up my daughter.
- What a problem! He wakes up, falls asleep again, and a passerby just smokes.
“Well,” Longren objected, “you’re not without tobacco after all, but the child is tired.” Come back later if you want.
The beggar spat contemptuously, lifted the bag onto a stick and explained: “Princess, of course.” You drove these overseas ships into her head! Oh, you eccentric, eccentric, and also the owner!
“Listen,” Longren whispered, “I’ll probably wake her up, but only so I can soap up your huge neck.” Go away!
Half an hour later the beggar was sitting in a tavern at a table with a dozen fishermen. Behind them, now tugging at their husbands' sleeves, now lifting a glass of vodka over their shoulders - for themselves, of course - sat tall women with arched eyebrows and hands as round as cobblestones. The beggar, seething with resentment, said: “And he didn’t give me tobacco.” - “You,” he says, “will be one year of age, and then,” he says, “a special red ship... For you. Since your fate is to marry a prince. And to him,” he says, “ believe the wizard." But I say: “Wake up, wake up, they say, get some tobacco.” Well, he ran after me halfway.
-- Who? What? What is he talking about? - curious voices of women were heard.
The fishermen, barely turning their heads, explained with a grin: “Longren and his daughter have gone wild, or maybe they’ve lost their minds; Here's a man talking. They had a sorcerer, so you have to understand. They are waiting - aunts, you shouldn’t miss it! - an overseas prince, and under red sails at that!
Three days later, returning from the city shop, Assol heard for the first time: “Hey, gallows!” Assol! Look here!
Red sails are sailing!

The girl, shuddering, involuntarily looked from under her hand at the flood of the sea. Then she turned towards the exclamations; there, twenty paces from her, stood a group of guys; they grimaced, sticking out their tongues. Sighing, the girl ran home.

Based on the works of classics. Mikhail Lermontov and Alexander Green.

Their granddaughter, Dasha, is often brought to my neighbors at the dacha. She is only three years old yet.

And everything and everyone around immediately becomes somehow lighter. And our life, as summer residents, is more joyful. We immediately forget about the beds. And even about weeds. We forget about them - first of all!

We old people are no longer very surprised by all sorts of bugs, spiders, bees, dragonflies, and birds. And she’s interested in everything! And she shares her joy with us. She rejoices at the steamboats - the whole Volga is at our fingertips. She is especially interested when two oncoming ships meet. And when they greet each other with beeps. The only pity is that she is not yet happy about the dawn. When the sun rises, because of the Volga! Dashenka will sleep for a long time!

Dashenka’s grandfather, next to our plots, from above, planted trees and grew a birch grove. “Grandfather, let’s go pick mushrooms,” invites Dashenka. “What other mushrooms, it’s too early, there will be some in the fall,” grumbles the grandfather, smiling in his heart. “And dunki, dunki - mushrooms, they have already grown!” - the granddaughter convinces the grandfather. Dunki can actually already be found. Why not a mushroom!

“...Everything was quiet in heaven and on earth, as in the heart of a person at the moment of morning prayer; only occasionally a cool wind blew in from the east, lifting the horses' manes covered with frost. We set off; with difficulty five thin nags dragged our carts along the winding road to Mount Gud; we walked behind, putting stones under the wheels when the horses were exhausted; it seemed that the road led to the sky, because as far as the eye could see, it kept rising and finally disappeared into the cloud, which had been resting on the top of Mount Gud since the evening, like a kite awaiting prey; the snow crunched under our feet; the air became so thin that it was painful to breathe; blood constantly rushed into my head, but with all that some kind of joyful feeling spread through all my veins, and I felt somehow happy that I was so high above the world: a childish feeling, I don’t argue, but, AWAY AWAY FROM SOCIETY CONDITIONS AND APPROACHING BY NATURE, WE INVOLUTIONALLY BECOME CHILDREN; EVERYTHING THAT IS ACQUIRED FALLS FROM THE SOUL, AND IT BECOMES AGAIN THE SAME IT WAS NEVER, AND, SURELY, WILL BE AGAIN EVER. Anyone who has happened, like me, to wander through the desert mountains and peer for a long, long time at their bizarre images, and greedily swallow the life-giving air spilled in their gorges, will, of course, understand my desire to convey, tell, and draw these magical pictures. Finally, we climbed Mount Gud, stopped and looked back: a gray cloud hung on it, and its cold breath threatened a nearby storm; but in the east everything was so clear and golden that we, that is, the staff captain and I, completely forgot about it... Yes, and the staff captain: in the hearts of simple people the feeling of the beauty and grandeur of nature is stronger, a hundred times more vivid, than in us, enthusiastic storytellers in words and on paper...”

I have no doubt that Dashenka’s life will be happy, I want to believe in it! And be sure to wish her something extraordinary in life.

I want her fate to be similar...like ASSOL's. This is Alexander Green, " Scarlet Sails»:

Longren, a sailor of the Orion, a strong three-hundred-ton brig on which he
served for ten years and to whom he was more attached than another son to
his own mother, had to finally leave the service.

It happened like this. On one of his rare returns home, he
I saw, as always, from afar, on the threshold of the house, my wife Mary, splashing
hands, and then running towards him until he loses his breath. Instead, at the nursery
crib, (a new item in Longren’s small house) stood
excited neighbor.

“For three months I followed her, your Mary, old man. But she didn’t save her. They were very hungry, and there was no firewood, Mary caught a cold,” said the neighbor, “But... look at your daughter.”

Dead, Longren bent down and saw an eight-month-old creature,
looking intently at his long beard, then sat down, looked down and began
twist the mustache The mustache was wet, as if from rain.

“When did Mary die?” - he asked.

The woman told a sad story, interrupting the story with touching
gurgling at the girl and assuring her that Mary was in heaven.

Longren went to the city, took payment, said goodbye to his comrades and began
raise little Assol. Until the girl learned to walk firmly, the widow
lived with a sailor, replacing the orphan's mother. But as soon as Assol stopped
fall, lifting his leg over the threshold, Longren decisively announced that now he
will do everything for the girl himself, and, thanking the widow for her active
sympathy, lived the lonely life of a widower, concentrating all his thoughts, hopes,
love and memories on a small creature.

Ten years of wandering life left very little in his hands
money. He started working.

Soon his toys appeared in city stores, skillfully made small models of boats, cutters, single- and double-decker sailing ships, cruisers, steamships - in a word, everything that he knew intimately, which, due to the nature of the work, partly replaced for him the roar of port life and painting work swimming. In this way, Longren obtained enough to live within the limits of moderate economy.

Assol grew up, she was already five years old, and her father began to smile softer and softer,
looking at her nervous, kind little face, when, sitting on his lap, she
worked on the secret of a buttoned vest or hummed sailor songs funny
the songs are wild revivals. In the program in a child's voice and not with letters everywhere
"r" these songs gave the impression of a dancing bear, decorated
blue ribbon.

When Assol was eight years old, her father taught her to read and write. He became
occasionally take it with you to the city, and then send even one if there was
the need to intercept money in a store or carry goods. This didn't happen
often, although Lise (the neighboring town) lay only four miles from Kaperna, the road to it went through the forest, and in the forest much can frighten children, in addition to physical danger, which, it is true, is difficult to encounter at such a close distance from the city, but still -it doesn’t hurt to keep this in mind. Therefore, only on good days, in the morning, when the thicket surrounding the road is full of sunny showers, flowers and silence, so that Assol’s impressionability was not threatened by phantoms of the imagination, Longren let her go into the city.

One day, in the middle of such a journey to the city, the girl sat down at
way to eat a piece of pie placed in the breakfast basket. Snacking
she sorted through the toys; two or three of them turned out to be new to her: Longren
made them at night. One such novelty was a miniature racing yacht; white
the little boat raised scarlet sails made from scraps of silk used
Longren for pasting the steamship cabins of toys of a wealthy buyer. Here,
apparently, having made a yacht, he did not find a suitable material for the sail, using
what it was - scraps of scarlet silk. Assol was delighted. Fiery
the cheerful color burned so brightly in her hand, as if she were holding fire. Way to go
crossed a stream with a pole bridge across it; stream on the right
and on the left went into the forest. If I take her out to the water for a little swim, I thought
Assol, she won’t get wet, I’ll wipe her off later. Having gone into the forest behind the bridge,
along the stream, the girl carefully launched it into the water near the shore
the ship that captivated her; the sails immediately sparkled with a scarlet reflection in the transparent
water: light, penetrating matter, lay trembling pink radiation on white
rocks of the bottom. "Where did you come from, captain?" - Assol asked the imaginary face importantly and, answering herself, said: “I came, I came from China.”

“What did you bring?”

“I won’t tell you what I brought.”

“Oh, so you are, captain! Well, then I'll put you back in the basket."

The captain was just getting ready to humbly answer that he was joking and that he was ready to show the elephant, when suddenly the quiet retreat of the coastal stream turned the yacht with its bow towards the middle of the stream, and, like a real one, leaving the shore at full speed, it floated smoothly down. The scale of what was visible instantly changed: the stream seemed to the girl like a huge river, and the yacht seemed like a distant, large ship, to which, almost falling into the water, frightened and dumbfounded, she stretched out her hands.

“The captain was scared,” she thought and ran after the floating toy, hoping that it would wash ashore somewhere. Hastily dragging the not heavy but getting in the way basket, Assol repeated: “Oh, my God! After all, if something happened...”

She tried not to lose sight of the beautiful, smoothly running triangle of sails, stumbled, fell and ran again.

“Now give it to me,” the girl said timidly. “You've already played. You
How did you catch her?

Egle raised his head, dropping the yacht, - this is how Assol’s excited voice suddenly sounded. The old man looked at her for a minute, smiling and slowly letting his beard fall into a large, stringy handful.

The cotton dress, washed many times, barely covered the girl’s thin, tanned legs to the knees. Her dark thick hair, pulled back into a lace scarf, tangled, touching her shoulders. Every feature of Assol was expressively light and pure, like the flight of a swallow. Dark eyes, tinged with a sad question, seemed somewhat older than the face; his irregular, soft oval was covered with that kind of lovely tan that is inherent in healthy white skin. The half-opened small mouth sparkled with a gentle smile.

“I swear by the Grimms, Aesop and Andersen,” said Egle, looking first at the girl and then at the yacht. “This is something special. Listen up, plant! Is this your thing?

“Yes, I ran after her all over the stream; I thought I was going to die. She was
here?"

“At my very feet. The shipwreck is the reason why I, as a shore pirate, can give you this prize. The yacht, abandoned by the crew, was thrown onto the sand by a three-inch shaft between my left heel and the tip of the stick,” he tapped his cane.

"What's your name, baby?"

“Assol,” said the girl, hiding the toy given by Egl in the basket.

“Okay,” the old man continued his incomprehensible speech, without taking his eyes off, in the depths of which a smile of a friendly disposition gleamed. "To me,
Actually, I shouldn't have asked your name. It's good that it's so strange
so monotonously, musically, like the whistle of an arrow or the sound of a seashell: so that
I began to do, would you be called one of those euphonious, but unbearably familiar names that are alien to the Beautiful Unknown? Moreover, I don’t want
know who you are, who your parents are and how you live. Why break the spell? Sitting on this stone, I was engaged in a comparative study of Finnish
and Japanese stories... when suddenly a stream splashed out this yacht, and then a
you... Such as you are. I, my dear, am a poet at heart, although I have never composed anything myself.
What's in your basket?"

“Boats,” said Assol, shaking her basket, then the steamer
and three more such houses with flags. Soldiers live there.

"Great! You were sent to sell. On the way, you started playing. You
I let the yacht sail, but it ran away - right?”

“Have you seen it?” - Assol asked doubtfully, trying to remember,
didn't she tell it herself? “Did someone tell you? Or did you guess right?

“I knew it. But what about it? Because I am the most important wizard.

Assol was embarrassed: her tension at these words of Egle crossed the border of fear. The deserted seashore, the silence, the tedious adventure with the yacht, the incomprehensible speech of the old man with sparkling eyes, the majesty of his beard and hair began to seem to the girl as a mixture of the supernatural and reality. Now if Egle made a grimace or screamed something, the girl would rush away, crying and exhausted from fear. But Egle, noticing how wide her eyes opened, made a sharp volte-face.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said seriously. “On the contrary, I want to have a private conversation with you.”

It was only then that he realized what in the girl’s face had so closely marked his impression. “An involuntary expectation of a beautiful, blissful fate,” he decided. “Oh, why wasn’t I born a writer? What a glorious plot.”

“Come on,” Egle continued, trying to round out the original position (the tendency towards myth-making - a consequence of constant work - was stronger,
than the fear of planting the seeds of a big dream on unknown soil), come on,
Assol, listen to me carefully. I was in that village - where are you from, I guess?
you are going, in a word, to Kaperna. I love fairy tales and songs, and I sat in
in that village all day, trying to hear something no one had heard. But
You don't tell fairy tales. You don't sing songs. And if they tell
sing, then, you know, these stories about cunning men and soldiers, with eternal
in praise of fraud, these dirty as unwashed feet, rough as
rumbling in the stomach, short quatrains with a terrible motive. Stop, I
got lost. I will speak again." After thinking, he continued like this:

“...I don’t know how many years will pass, but in Kaperna one fairy tale will bloom, memorable for a long time. You will be big, Assol (you will be big, Dashenka!)

One morning in the sea distance under the sun it will sparkle
scarlet sail The shining bulk of the scarlet sails of the white ship will move, cutting
waves, straight to you. This wonderful ship will sail quietly, without shouts and
shots; A lot of people will gather on the shore, wondering and gasping. And you will
stand there.

The ship will approach majestically to the very shore to the sounds of
wonderful music. Dressed up in carpets, gold and flowers, she will float away from him
fast boat. “Why did you come? Who are you looking for?" - people will ask
shore. Then you will see a brave handsome prince; he will stand and
stretch out my arms to you. "Hello, Assol!" - he will say.
“Far, far away from here, I saw you in a dream and came to take you away
forever to your kingdom. You will live there with me in the pink deep
valley. You will have everything you want; we will live with you
so friendly and cheerful that your soul will never know tears and sadness." He
will put you on a boat, bring you to the ship, and you will leave forever
a brilliant country where the sun rises and where the stars descend from the sky,
to congratulate you on your arrival.

“Is this all for me?” the girl asked quietly.

Her serious eyes, cheerful, shone with confidence. A dangerous wizard, of course, would not talk like that; she came closer.

“Perhaps he has already arrived... that ship?”

“Not so soon,” Egle objected, “First, as I said, you will grow up. Then... what can I say?... it will be, and it will be over. What would you do then
did you do it?"

“Me?” She looked into the basket, but apparently didn’t find anything there.
worthy to serve as a significant reward. “I would love him,” hastily
she said, and not quite firmly added: “If he doesn’t fight!”

“No, he won’t fight!” said the wizard, winking mysteriously.
“It won’t, I guarantee it. Go girl and don't forget what you said
for you, between two sips of aromatic vodka and thinking about songs
convicts. “Go, may there be peace to your furry head!...”

I believe the time will come and Dashenka will meet her Prince. This is how our life works. girl life. Same. You just need to live correctly and try. And don't make mistakes. In love. Not just that.

And sometimes it happens that I remember my guilt. How could I and did not become a prince?

We arrived at the plant as young specialists and started working. We left our girlfriends in the student city, we didn’t “make” new ones. One day, my friend, or rather his wife, who works at a school, organized a two-day trip to the forest. And they invited high school girls. We didn't have any love thoughts. What love with schoolgirls! But they slept, two couples spent the night in one tent. Boys on the edges, girls in the middle. I don’t remember whether I touched the lovely hands of my neighbor Zinochka at night. He probably touched it, gently! Otherwise, how could I arrange several harmless dates for her in the following days!

But at school, the girls who went on a hike with us were “persecuted” - they went into the forest with the grown-up kids, with an overnight stay. And I decided not to let Zinochka down. And he stopped our dates.

Zinochka was very worried; her prince did not come on a date. Is that possible?

At our last chance meeting, she complained: “I learned all my lessons, but you didn’t come!” Well, what can I say!

In old age, next to the memories of my loves in my youth, one of the first places of my joy I remember is Zinochka, or rather, this is “I learned all my lessons!” What could be more beautiful than this spontaneity and girlish purity!

Except, of course, Assol. Every feature of Assol was expressively light and pure, like the flight of a swallow.

Sorry, reader, that I immodestly remembered the greats - LERMONTOV AND GREEN.

Scarlet Sails - Green A.S.

I Prediction

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Prediction