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

trousers, long lisle stockings, button-shoes, and a broad-brimmed straw hat.
Shivering from the cold, he walked slowly round the farm, saying
good-bye to the places where he had spent such a wonderful summer.
All summer long Petya had run about practically naked. He was now as
brown as an Indian and could walk barefoot over burrs and thorns. He had
gone swimming three times a day. At the beach he used to smear himself from
head to foot with the red marine clay and then scratch out designs on his
chest. That made him really look like a Red Indian, especially when he stuck
into his hair the blue feathers of those marvellously beautiful birds-real
fairy-tale birds-which built their nests in the bluff. And now, after all
that wealth and freedom, to have to walk about in a tight woollen sailor
blouse, in prickly stockings, in shoes that pinched, and in a big straw hat
with an elastic that rubbed against his ears and pressed into his neck!
Petya lifted his hat and pushed it back so that it dangled on his
shoulders like a basket.
Two fat ducks waddled past, quacking busily. They threw a look of scorn
at this foppish boy, as though he were a stranger, and then dived under the
fence one after the other.
Whether they had deliberately snubbed him or simply failed to recognise
him, Petya could not be sure, yet all of a sudden he felt so sad and
heavy-hearted that he wanted to cry.
Straight to his heart cut the feeling that he was a complete stranger
in this cold and deserted world of early morning. Even the pit in the corner
of the garden-the deep, wonderful pit where it was such thrilling fun to
bake potatoes in a camp-fire-even that seemed unbelievably strange,
unfamiliar.
The sun was rising higher.
The farmyard and orchard still lay in the shade, but the bright, cold,
early rays were already gilding the pink, yellow, and blue pumpkins set out
on the reed roof of the clay hut where the watchman lived.
The sleepy-eyed cook, in a homespun chequered skirt and a blouse of
unbleached linen embroidered in black and red cross-stitch, with an iron
comb in her dishevelled hair, was knocking yesterday's dead coals out of the
samovar, against the doorstep.
Petya stood in front of the cook watching the string of beads jump up
and down on her old, wrinkled neck.
"Going away?" she asked indifferently.
"Yes," the boy replied. His voice shook.
"Good luck to you."
She went over to the water-barrel, wrapped the hem of her chequered
skirt round her hand, and pulled out the spigot.
A thick stream of water arched out and struck the ground. Sparkling
round drops scattered, enveloping themselves in powdery grey dust.
The cook set the samovar under the stream. It moaned as the fresh,
heavy water poured into it. No, not a particle of sympathy from anybody!
There was the same unfriendly silence and the same air of desolation
everywhere-on the croquet square, in the meadow, in the arbour.
Yet how gay and merry it had been here such a short while ago! How many
pretty girls and naughty boys! How many pranks, scenes, games, fights,
quarrels, peacemakings, kisses, friendships!