"Valentin Katayev. The Cottage in the Steppe (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

matriculated, made him blush with shame. Things were aggravated by an
ominous change in the attitude of the teachers and some of his class-mates.
In short, the New Year could not have begun worse. Petya was most
unhappy and was amazed to see that Auntie, far from being upset or
down-hearted, gave the impression of everything being fine. There was a look
of determination in her eye which implied that she was going to save the
family at all costs.
Her plan was as follows: she would serve tasty, nourishing, and
inexpensive home-cooked meals to working intellectuals, which, to her mind,
would yield enough to keep the family in food. In order to add to the income
Auntie decided to move into the dining-room, move the cook into the kitchen,
and let the two rooms, thus vacated, with board.
Father winced painfully at the mere thought of his home being turned
into an "eating-house," but as there was no other way out, he gave in and
said:
"Do whatever you think best."
That was Auntie's green light. "To let" notices that could be read
clearly from the street were pasted on the windows of the two rooms. On the
gate-post they nailed a little board that said: "Dinners served." It had
been done artistically in oils by Petya and depicted a steaming tureen with
the inscription mentioning single working intellectuals. Auntie believed
that this would impart a social, political, and even an opposition note to
their commercial undertaking. She began to buy new kitchen utensils and put
in a stock of the best and freshest foods; she had a new calico dress and
snow-white apron made for Dunyasha and spent most of her time studying the
Molokhovets Cookery Book, that bible of every well-to-do home. She copied
the most useful recipes into a special notebook and made up tasty and
nourishing menus.
Never before had the Bachei family eaten so well-or, rather, feasted
so. After a month's time they had all put on weight, including Vasily
Petrovich, a fact that seemed strangely at variance with his status of a man
persecuted by the government.
All would have gone well, perhaps even brilliantly, had it not been for
the lack of customers. One might have thought that all the professional
people had agreed never to dine again.
True, the first few days brought some customers. Two well-dressed
bearded gentlemen with sunken cheeks and a fanatical glitter in their eyes
called, discovered that there were no vegetarian dishes on the menu, and
stamped out without bothering to say good-bye.
Then a saucy orderly in a peakless cap, serving in the Modlinsky
Regiment, came in at the back door and asked for two portions of
cabbage-soup for his officer. Auntie explained that there was no
cabbage-soup on the menu, but that there was soupe printaniere. That, said
the soldier, was quite all right with him, provided there was plenty of
bread to go with it, as his gentleman had lost all his money at cards and
was sitting in his quarters with a bad cold and nothing hot in his stomach
for nearly two days. Auntie gave him two portions of soupe printaniere and
plenty of bread on credit, and the orderly doubled down the stairs on his
short, thick legs in worn-down boots, leaving the heavy odour of an infantry
barracks in the kitchen. Two days later he appeared again; this time he