"Евгения Фрейзер. The House by the Dvina (Дом на Двине, Мемуары) (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

I was awakened suddenly by a great urgency. Everything was in darkness,
relieved only by a small glimmering light. My three companions were sound
asleep. I had to find the toilet room immediately, but had no idea where
it might be. It had never occurred to anyone to show me where to go or
explain anything.
To waken Petya or any of his companions was out of the question.
From a tender age I had been completely independent over private
matters. I had been fully dressed when I fell asleep but someone had
removed my shoes and covered me with a blanket. I climbed slowly down,
carefully gripping the edge of the lower bunk with my feet so as not to
waken Petya. I succeeded in reaching the door, but Petya, even in his
sleep, must have been attuned to his responsibilities. He sat up
immediately. ‘Where are you going?" he called out irritably and then, not
waiting for an answer, dragged open the door and pushed me in front of him
to the toilet room at the end of the passage.
"In you get," he said, impatiently stretching and yawning, his flaxen
hair standing on end and his eyes heavy with sleep. I hurried in, too
relieved and thankful to think about anything. It was then
I

found myself in a terrible predicament. In my time, a child wore a
white cotton bodice buttoned down the centre of the back. The underpants
fastened to the bodice. I mastered the side buttons with comparative ease
and expediently ignored the centre back button.
The day of the journey, my mother had helped to dress me. She securely
fastened all buttons. I now stood, frantic with anxiety, twisting and
turning the centre back button with mounting desperation. The simple
remedy of tearing the button off never entered my young head.
In the end, I was forced to come out and in great mortification explain
my difficulty. "Turn round!" Petya ordered abruptly, and as I did so, he
lifted my dress, undid the offending button, gave my bare bottom a playful
slap and pushed me back into the lavatory. The intense relief was only
equalled by my outraged dignity, and the shameful humiliation of that
experience remained with me for a long time. When I came out I displayed
no gratitude, but hurried past him, clambered back on to my bunk, and lay
there with my face turned to the wall.
Gradually the pale winter daylight filtered through the frostladen
windows. The attendant arrived bringing tea and "kalachi", the round
glossy rolls with a hole in the centre renowned all over Russia.
People were awakening. There were sounds of laughing and talking.
Another day had begun. Little by little the sun rose, flooding the
carriage with a warm glow. I stood in the corridor, my face close to the
window. By peering through a small corner of the window untouched by
frost, it was possible to watch the winter landscape swiftly rushing past
and vanishing for ever more. The everlasting telegraph poles, the stations
appearing for a fleeting moment, the neat square stacks of logs piled high
on a siding, and always the forest. The endless rows of birches, their
curly heads silvered by the frost, snow-laden pines standing close
together deep in their winter sleep. The high banks dazzling white against
a wall of green and black. There was little sign of life. Only a bird,