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

melted, the earth is black, a watery blueness breaks through the clouds over
the bare branches of the orchards, a fresh breeze sweeps the first dust
along the dry pavements, and the incessant tolling of the Lenten bells booms
over the city like a great bass string. The bakeries sold pastry "skylarks"
with charred raisin eyes, and swarms of rooks circled over Cathedral Square,
over the huge corner house, over Libman's Cafe, and over the double-headed
eagle above Gayevsky's, the chemist's, their spring din and clamour drowning
out the sounds of the city.
It was a day Petya would long remember. It was the day he became a
tutor and, for the first time in his life, was to be paid for a Latin lesson
he gave to another boy. This other boy was Gavrik.
A few days before, on his way home from school, Petya was walking along
slowly, lost in unhappy thoughts and visualizing the day in the near future
when he would be expelled from the gymnasium for arrears of fees.
Suddenly, someone crashed into him from behind and punched his satchel
so hard that his pencil-box shook and clattered. Petya stumbled and nearly
fell; he turned, ready to charge his unseen enemy, and saw Gavrik, his feet
planted apart and a grin on his face.
"Hi, Petya! Where've you been all this time?"
"It's you, you tramp! You're a fine chap, hitting one of your own!"
"Go on! I socked the satchel, not you."
"What if I had fallen?"
"I'd have caught you."
"How are things?"
"Not too bad. Earning a living."
Gavrik lived in Near Mills and Petya rarely saw him nowadays, but their
childhood friendship was as strong as ever. Whenever they would meet and ask
each other the usual "How are things?" Petya would shrug his shoulders and
answer, "Still at school," while Gavrik would furrow his small round
forehead and say, "Earning la living." Each time they met, Petya would hear
the latest story, which inevitably ended the same way: either the current
employer had gone bankrupt or he had cheated Gavrik out of his pay. Such was
the case with the owner of the bathing beach between Sredny Fontan and
Arcadia who had employed Gavrik for the season to unlock the bathing-boxes,
take charge of hiring the striped bathing-suits, and keep an eye on the
bathers' clothes. The beach owner disappeared at the end of the season
without paying him a kopek, all he had had in the end were his tips. It was
the same with the Greek who had hired a gang of dockers and who had brazenly
cheated the men out of more than half their wages. It was the same again
when he had worked as bill-poster, and on many of the other jobs which he
had taken in the hope of being at least a little help to Terenty's family
and at the same time earning a bit for himself.
It was much more fun, although just as unprofitable in the long run, to
work in the "Bioscope Realite" cinema on Richelieu Street, near the
Alexandrovsky police-station In those days the cinema, that famous invention
of the Lumiere brothers, was no longer a novelty, but, none the less, the
magic of "moving pictures" continued to amaze the world. Cinemas mushroomed
up all over the city, -and they became known as "illusions."
An "illusion" signified a multi-coloured electric-light bill-board,
sometimes even with moving letters, and the bravura thunder of the pianola,