"Valentin Katayev. A White Sail Gleams (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

"Ugh, what nonsense!" Petya read in Father's embarrassed face. "For
shame!"
Meanwhile, in the general excitement, the driver had lost the thong of
his whip; this always happened on long journeys. He was now walking along
the road and poking with the whip-handle among the grey, dust-coated
wormwood.
At last he found the thong. He tied it to the handle and pulled the
knot with his teeth.
"Damn their souls!" he exclaimed as he came up to the coach. "All they
do is ride up and down the roads and scare people."
"What do they want?" Father asked.
"God only knows. Hunting after somebody, no doubt. Day before yesterday
somebody set fire to landlord Balabanov's farm, about thirty versts from
here. They say it was a runaway sailor from the Potemkin did it. And now
they're looking for that runaway sailor high and low. They say he's taken to
cover somewhere in the steppe hereabouts. What a business! Well, time to get
going."
With these words he climbed to his high box and took up the reins. The
coach moved on.
The morning was as fine as ever, but now everybody's mood was spoiled.
In this wonderful world of the deep-blue sky with its wild droves of
white-maned clouds, this world of lilac shadows running in waves from mound
to mound over the steppe grasses, in which a horse's skull or a bullock's
horns might be sighted at any moment, a world created, it would seem, for
the sole purpose of man's joy and happiness- in this world, obviously, not
all was well.
Such were the thoughts of Father, the driver, and Petya.
Pavlik, however, was occupied with thoughts of his own.
His attentive brown eyes were fixed on a point beyond the window, and
his round, cream-coloured little forehead, with the neat bang sticking out
from under his hat, was knitted.
"Daddy," he said suddenly, without taking his eyes from the window.
"Daddy, what's the Tsar?"
"What's the Tsar? I don't follow you."
"Well, what is he?"
"Hm. . . . A man."
"No, not that. I know he's a man. Don't you see? I mean not a man, but
what is he? Understand?"
"No, I can't say that I do."
"I mean, what is he?"
"Ye Gods! What is he? Well, the crowned sovereign, if you like."
"Crowned? What with?"
Father gave Pavlik a severe look. "Wha-a-t?"
"If he's crowned, then what with? Don't you see? What with?"
"Stop talking nonsense!" Father said. He turned away angrily.

4

THE WATERING