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

edition of Tolstoi's works were scattered about the desk.
"Daddy, what are you writing?" "Go to sleep, sonny," Vasily Petrovich
said. He walked over to the bed, kissed Petya, and made the sign of the
cross over him.
The boy turned his pillow, laid his head on the cool side and fell
asleep again.
Before he dozed off he heard the rapid scratching of a pen, the faint
clinking of the little icon at the head of his bed, saw his father's dark
head next to the green lamp-shade, the warm grow of the candle flame in the
corner beneath the big icon, and the dry palm branch that cast a mysterious
shadow on the wallpaper, as always bringing to mind the branch of Palestine,
the poor sons of Solim, and the wonderful soothing music of Lermontov's
poem:


Peace and silence all around,
On the earth and in the sky....


Next morning, while Vasily Petrovich was busy washing, combing his
hair, and fastening a black tie to a starched collar, Petya had a chance to
see what his father had been writing during the night.
An ancient home-made exercise-book sewn together with coarse thread lay
on the desk. Petya recognized it immediately. Its usual place was in
Father's dresser, next to the other family relics: the yellowed wedding
candles, a spray of orange blossom, his dead mother's white kid gloves and
little bead bag, her tiny mother-of-pearl opera-glasses, some dried leaves
of a wild pear tree that grew on Lermontov's grave, and a collection of odds
and ends which, in Petya's view, were just junk, but to Vasily Petrovich
very precious.
Petya had leafed through the exercise-book once before. Half of it was
taken up with la speech Vasily Petrovich had written on the hundredth
anniversary of Pushkin's birth; there had not been anything in the other
half. The boy now saw that a new speech filled up this yellowed half of the
book. It was written in the same fine hand, and its subject was Tolstoi's
death. This is how it began:
"A great Russian writer is dead. Our literary sun has set."
Vasily Petrovich put on a pair of new cuffs and his best hollow-gold
cufflinks, carefully folded the exercise-book in two and put it in his
side-pocket. Petya watched his father drink a quick glass of tea and then
proceed to the hall where he put on his heavy coat with the frayed velvet
collar. The boy noticed that his fingers were trembling and his pince-nez
was shaking on his nose. For some reason, Petya suddenly felt terribly sorry
for his father. He went over to him and brushed against his coat-sleeve, as
he used to do when he was a very small boy.
"Never mind, we'll show them yet!" Father said and patted his son's
back.
"I still advise you against it," Auntie said solemnly as she looked
into the hall.
"You're wrong," Vasily Petrovich replied in a soft tremulous voice. He