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

number of ports. They discovered this in Constantinople-the first of the
long stops, but the trip to Constantinople was pleasant, brief, and
comfortable.
Petya was captivated by the wonders of life on board ship. Everything,
every detail of its ultra-modern, technical efficiency, combined with the
romantic flavour of the old sailing ships, fascinated him. The steady, even
throbbing of the powerful engines merged with the fresh, lively sound of the
waves as they surged past the iron sides in an unending stream. The strong
wind, full of the smell of the open sea, whistled through the shrouds; it
billowed out the canvas sleeves of the ventilator casings, bringing forth
hot and cold draughts from the engine-room and the hold.
There was a mingling of all the smells: the warm', soothing smell of
the polished mahogany tables in the lounges and the smell of painted
bulkheads; the aromas of the restaurant and the smell of hot steel,
lubricating oil and dry steam; the resinous-woody smell of the mats and the
fresh smell of pine-water sprayed in the distant white-tiled rooms with hot
and cold running water. There were the heavy swaying copper candle-holders
with glass-covered candles, and the elegant, frosted globes of the electric
lights; the steel gang-ways, the grates of the engine-room and the double
oaken stairway with the polished carved banisters and graceful balusters
leading to the saloon.
Petya explored every nook and cranny of the ship the very first day. He
peeped into mysterious cubby-holes and into the depths of the coal bunkers,
where dim electric lights burned day and night, trembling in their wire
casings like trapped mice.
The practically upright ladders below decks with their slippery steel
rungs led the boy to grimier and less pleasant regions. Black oily water
oozed underfoot, and he became queasy from the deafening booming and
crashing of the engines, the continuous motion of the propeller shaft as it
revolved in its oily bed, and the heavy air of the hold. Engineers,
greasers, and stokers lived and worked in the depths of the ship. Every now
and then the iron door of the stokehole flew open and Petya felt a blast of
intense heat. Then he saw the stokers moving swiftly against the background
of the flaming inferno, using their long crow-bars en the caked red-hot
coal. Petya saw their black, sweat-drenched faces bathed in the crimson
light and was terrified at the thought of remaining in such an appalling
place even for five minutes.
He hurried away, slipping on the steel floor mats, holding on to greasy
steel handrails, and running up and down ladders in his eagerness to get
away from that forbidding world. But it was not so easy. Stunned by the din
and jangle of engines throbbing somewhere close, Petya found himself in
places such as he had never dreamed existed.
He knew there were deck passengers as well as first-and second-class
ones, but he discovered that there was another category, the so-called
"steerage" passengers, who were not even allowed on the lowest deck, the
place usually reserved for cattle. They occupied wooden bunks in the depths
of one of the half-filled holds.
Petya saw heaps of dirty oriental rags on which several Turkish
families were sitting and lying, prostrated by the rolling and pitching of
the ship, the stale air, the semi-darkness, and the noise of the engines.