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

the May sunshine.
Gavrik confidently led his friend through the darkness to a door, and
the boys entered a deep-vaulted room. The walls were twelve feet thick, so
that the two little windows barely let in any light, although they 'directly
faced the sea opposite Quarantine Bay and the white lighthouse with its
circling sea-gulls that stood out so clearly against the choppy blue-green
water.
A sailor wearing the red shoulder-straps of the coastguard service sat
at a large sewing-machine, working the iron treadle with his bare feet as he
hemmed a woollen signal flag. A heap of signal flags lay in a corner.
The sailor stopped sewing when he saw Gavrik. A smile broke over his
pock-marked face, but then he noticed the strange boy standing behind Gavrik
and raised his bushy eyebrows inquiringly.
"It's all right. This is the fellow who's teaching me Latin," Gavrik
said, and Petya realized that the sailor knew all about his friend.
"What's new?" the sailor asked.
"Nothing special," Gavrik answered. "I've come about something else
this time. I was wondering whether you could make a regulation sailor's
blouse for this fellow."
"I haven't got the right material."
"He's got it. Petya, show him the cloth."
Petya handed over the package. The sailor unrolled the soft, fine,
strong navy-blue wool.
"That's the real stuff!" Gavrik said with a touch of pride.
"How much did you pay for it?" the sailor asked.
Petya told him the price and he felt sure the meaning look that the
sailor gave Gavrik was disapproving.
"Don't go thinking things," Gavrik said. "His old man's just a teacher.
They're not well off. They're even hard up for money at times. It so happens
that he needs a regulation blouse."
Gavrik amazed Petya as he explained why he needed the blouse. He had
all the details of the projected journey at his fingertips. Petya caught
several significant glances passing between Gavrik and the sailor.
Perhaps he would not have paid any attention to this, were it not for
the fact that something similar had taken place when he was giving Gavrik a
Latin lesson in Near Mills. Motya had been present during the lesson, and
since Motya regarded Petya as some kind of superior being, an object of
devoted and secret worship, he began to boast for her benefit. His
imagination ran away with him as he described the forthcoming journey. When
he got as far as the splendours of Switzerland Terenty exchanged glances
with Gavrik and then with his guest, Sinichkin, a thin, consumptive worker
wearing top boots and a black cotton shirt beneath a threadbare jacket.
When Terenty looked sat him, Sinichkin shook his head and muttered,
"No, he's no longer there," or something to that effect. Suddenly, he looked
Petya straight in the eye and asked him solemnly:
"Will you be going to France, too? Will you visit Paris?"
And when Petya answered that if their money held out they would
certainly go there, Sinichkin looked at Terenty significantly again, but
they did not ask Petya any more questions.
Petya felt that his forthcoming trip abroad had evoked in Gavrik and