Shackles - S. Skitalec

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sat at a table. There arrived the grandfather and Yafim, the father Vukola told something. Friends did not listen to what was told below: they above, under the ceiling, had talk.

      After Yafim’s marriage the wall about polaty was pasted over with paper on which fancy patterns from the proceeding rain were formed. Yellowish spots merged in the opinion of Vukol in the imagined picture: as though astride horses Tatars, in sharp caps, in striped dressing gowns, fly at full speed with curve sabers in hands.

      – You see? – he asked Monastery, showing on a wall. – This horses, and on them – Tatars with sabers.

      – I see nothing! – the Laurels answered.

      – And I see! yes you look longer – and you will see! There are horses, here Tatars, here sabers!

      But the Laurels so saw nothing. He only partly trusted the nephew, from his assurances considered a lot of things lies. Their conversation often resembled Don Quixote’s conversation with his armourbearer.

      – To lie – not to be tired, would be to listen to whom! – mistrustfully the little peasant laughed.

      The voice of Elizar who told at cheerful attention of listeners too did not stop.

      – Lomonosov was from simple fishermen, and reached that the tsar accepted it… There was Kulibin, the mechanic self-educated person, and that there was still Englishman Fulton… Was much such people for whom great brains worked, and more and more poverty left them…

      – And at us too such is, the miller Chelyak – was heard the grandfather’s voice. – Sly fellow! The fan to build! On a leg to connect you with it!

      – I know Chelyak, interpreted with him… both of us lack one: sciences! The bird to feathers, and the person the doctrine is red! But – to study never late. Also I will achieve the!

      – And you remember – Vukol said – we have a picture “The Bay of Naples Has a Family of Fishermen”? I look every day – I will not see enough! The sea is drawn there, children bathe, and ashore the fisherman’s daughter is beautiful before, just as in the fairy tale…

      – Nourishingly, it is visible, live! by the sea! – efficiently noticed Laurels. – Smooth! And it is good to bathe also at us, on Print! Let’s go morning! children we will collect to play an arable land!

      – Better in robbers! – Vukol objected and began to tell about robbers.

      They vividly went down on a bar. Ondrevna put them linen and showed the door for a door. On backs the spark shone. The bath was similar to a dugout with a small window. Undressing in a cold waiting room, continued a talk. To drive away fear, laughed. The grandfather with Yafim came to a waiting room soon.

      Having returned to a log hut, also did not notice how fell asleep.

      * * *

      Woke up late in the morning: the sun shone, hens outside cackled. The Russian furnace burned, in a closet of the woman cooked festive foods. From the yard the grandfather entered.

      – Children wake – he told – behind a grass in zaymishche I go!

      At these words Monasteries jumped and began to shake the nephew for a shoulder:

      – Behind a grass! behind a grass!

      Wiping eyes, ran out through an outer entrance hall on a porch – to wash: the clay washstand hung there on a string in the summer, the pure towel, but not a dirty rag as was before, to Ondrevniny orders hung in the same place.

      Outside there was Chalka harnessed in the cart. In the cart the braid and the axe lay.

      – Well, sit down, swindlers! – good-natured the grandfather told, dissolving gate.

      It jumped in the cart, and Chalka, winding the head, zatrusit to the alley to descent in a lugovina where shone постепок and the wood moved under wind. It was from a distance heard as in the Rooky Mane rooks shouted, flickered a black grid over nests in branches of sprawling oaks.

      The bridge, as always, was in deep dirt. For pedestrians the thick tree was thrown through a stream. Hardly got out to the abrupt coast as immediately came to be under the green arch of the wood stretching the wide branches over their heads. Chalka ran a slow, complacent lynx, footfall of his not grounded hoofs softly was given in the wood.

      Through branches silver of the Print lake flashed, boundaries of oaks white cups of lilies of the valley, juicy stolbunets, bushes of a dogrose and unknown bright red berries flashed.

      – Their wolves eat – explained Laurels to the nephew – on the Spiked glade strawberry is, and in the fall – торон, blackberry… Water, a grass теперя on Spiked high, dense sold!.

      About half an hour went on the soft dampish forest road. Somewhere in the depth of the wood the cuckoo cuckooed. Morning was solar, warm, given to drink by freshness of the juicy, shady thicket rustling with infinite thoughtful and tender noise.

      The grandfather was silent, occasionally patting Chalka vozhzhy what Chalka answered with friendly nods.

      At last, left the Spiked glade. It was the wide flat valley in the depth of which there were giants the black poplars publishing the equal, dense, triumphing rumble.

      – And what behind them? – the nephew asked the uncle.

      – For sokoryam – Proran… for Proran – Vzmor! Hvorostnik grows there, high yes long… at-at, Proran – he angry yes bystry, deep – a bottom is not present!.

      The grandfather suspended a horse and moved down after the journey in a high juicy grass. Then got down and, having whetted a scythe whetstone, waved it. It as if effortlessly, for fun, slightly moved a braid, slightly наклонясь forward, and the grass and a nikla, and laid down ranks, bared the cut earth.

      The grandfather mowed, and children armfuls dragged a grass to the cart. At last, the old man lifted a big bundle and put it in the cart. Chalka tastefully chewed a grass – juicy, damp from morning dew. Having loaded the cart, the grandfather placed children on grass top, told:

      – Trample down!

      They cheerfully trampled down with pleasure smelling grass and joyfully laughed. Then mudflows. From a bright green mowed grass their uncovered heads – one fair-haired, another blond, and two pairs of laughing eyes were seen. To sit now it was soft. The grandfather jumped on a cart nakleska, pulled reins, and Chalka, winding the head, with a grass bunch in teeth, willingly drove the cart back on the former road. The crude grass lay densely. It was heavy to Chalke to trot, but he, probably, tried.

      The zealous country horse was not young any more, but never waited for a whip, carried шагисто, ran a dispute, and in dark nights did not go astray, having remarkable memory on roads. It was the old friend and the grandfather’s companion. Even now, when Chalki’s strengths became any more not those that before, he still in the old manner strove to trot with a heavy cart. But was tired soon and only wound the head as if wanted to tell: “Eh, old age!”

      It was pleasant to come back home, lying on a soft, damp, fragrant grass. On an edge the grandfather stopped Chalka, got down, took out the axe and cut down a young curly birch, having thrust its komly under a grass “for a Trinity”.

      – It is our, hrestyansky, the wood – explained Laurels to the nephew – there was a wish – cut down, nothing for it will be, and before the wood was lordly… the barin died long ago, the wood to us departed! And behind a village fence the merchant bought Dubrov near the village where the mansion remained, together with the earth…

      – Here and there is not enough earth! – the grandfather interfered – swindlers! That there was the barin an earth, and now – a kuptsova!. Than you will live if you will grow up?.

      Children

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