Konstantin Gelrgievich Paustovsky

"Tale of Life"

One spring I was sitting in the Mariinsky Park and reading Stevenson's Treasure Island. Sister Galya sat nearby and also read. Her summer hat with green ribbons lay on the bench. The wind stirred the ribbons, Galya was short-sighted, very trusting, and it was almost impossible to get her out of a good-natured state.

It had rained in the morning, but now the clear spring sky shone above us. Only belated drops of rain fell from the lilacs.

A girl with bows in her hair stopped in front of us and started jumping over the rope. She made it difficult for me to read. I shook the lilac. A little rain fell noisily on the girl and on Galya. The girl stuck her tongue out at me and ran away, while Galya shook the raindrops off the book and continued to read.

And at that moment I saw a man who poisoned me for a long time with dreams of my unrealizable future.

A tall midshipman with a tanned, calm face walked lightly along the alley. A straight black broadsword hung from his lacquered belt. Black ribbons with bronze anchors fluttered in the quiet wind. He was all in black. Only the bright gold of the stripes set off his strict form.

In overland Kiev, where we hardly saw sailors, it was a stranger from the distant legendary world of winged ships, the Pallada frigate, from the world of all oceans, seas, all port cities, all winds and all the charms that were associated with the picturesque work of seafarers . An old broadsword with a black hilt seemed to have appeared in the Mariinsky Park from the pages of Stevenson.

The midshipman passed by, crunching on the sand. I got up and followed him. Due to myopia, Galya did not notice my disappearance.

All my dream of the sea was embodied in this man. I often imagined the seas, foggy and golden from the evening calm, distant voyages, when the whole world is replaced, like a fast kaleidoscope, behind the glass of the porthole. My God, if someone would have guessed to give me at least a piece of petrified rust, beaten off from an old anchor! I would keep it like a treasure.

The midshipman looked back. On the black ribbon of his peakless cap, I read the mysterious word: "Azimuth." Later I learned that this was the name of the training ship of the Baltic Fleet.

I followed him along Elizavetinskaya Street, then along Institutskaya and Nikolaevskaya. The midshipman saluted the infantry officers gracefully and casually. I was ashamed in front of him for these baggy Kyiv warriors.

Several times the midshipman looked back, but at the corner of Meringovskaya he stopped and called me.

“Boy,” he asked mockingly, “why were you trailing me in tow?”

I blushed and didn't answer.

“Everything is clear: he dreams of being a sailor,” the midshipman guessed, speaking for some reason about me in the third person.

Let's get to Khreshchatyk.

We went side by side. I was afraid to raise my eyes and saw only the midshipman's strong boots polished to an incredible shine.

On Khreshchatyk, the midshipman went with me to the Semadeni coffee shop, ordered two servings of pistachio ice cream and two glasses of water. We were served ice cream on a small three-legged marble table. It was very cold and covered with figures: stock exchange dealers gathered at Semadeni and counted their profits and losses on the tables.

We ate ice cream in silence. The midshipman took from his wallet a photograph of a magnificent corvette with sailing equipment and a wide pipe and handed it to me.

- Take it as a memento. This is my ship. I rode it to Liverpool.

He shook my hand firmly and left. I sat for a while longer, until the sweaty neighbors in the boater began to look back at me. Then I awkwardly got out and ran to the Mariinsky Park. The bench was empty. Galya left. I guessed that the midshipman took pity on me, and for the first time I learned that pity leaves a bitter residue in the soul.

After this meeting, the desire to become a sailor tormented me for many years. I rushed to the sea. The first time I saw him briefly was in Novorossiysk, where I went for a few days with my father. But that wasn't enough.

For hours I sat over the atlas, examined the coasts of the oceans, looked for unknown seaside towns, capes, islands, estuaries.

I came up with a difficult game. I made a long list of steamships with sonorous names: polar Star”, “Walter Scott”, “Khingan”, “Sirius”. This list is growing every day. I was the owner of the largest fleet in the world.

Of course, I was sitting in my shipping office, in the smoke of cigars, among colorful posters and timetables. Wide windows overlooked, of course, the embankment. The yellow masts of steamships stuck out near the windows, and good-natured elms rustled behind the walls. The steamer's smoke flew freely through the windows, mingling with the smell of rotten brine and new, cheerful matting.

I came up with a list of amazing voyages for my steamboats. There was not the most forgotten corner of the earth, wherever they went. They even visited the island of Tristan da Cunha.

I rented boats from one voyage and sent them to another. I followed the navigation of my ships and knew unmistakably where the Admiral Istomin was today and where the Flying Dutchman was: the Istomin was loading bananas in Singapore, and the Flying Dutchman was unloading flour on the Faroe Islands.

In order to manage such a vast shipping enterprise, I needed a lot of knowledge. I read guidebooks, ship handbooks and everything that had even a remote connection with the sea.

That was the first time I heard the word “meningitis” from my mother.

“He will go God knows where with his games,” my mother once said. “I hope it all ends with meningitis.”

I have heard that meningitis is a disease of boys who have learned to read too early. So I just chuckled at my mother's fears.

It all ended with the fact that the parents decided to go with the whole family for the summer to the sea.

Now I guess that my mother hoped to cure me of my excessive passion for the sea with this trip. She thought that I would be disappointed, as I always do, at a direct encounter with what I so passionately sought in my dreams. And she was right, but only partly.

One day, my mother solemnly announced that the other day we were leaving for the Black Sea for the whole summer, to the small town of Gelendzhik, near Novorossiysk.

Couldn't have chosen best place than Gelendzhik, in order to disappoint me in my passion for the sea and the south.

Gelendzhik was then a very dusty and hot town without any vegetation. All the greenery for many kilometers around was destroyed by the cruel Novorossiysk winds - the Nord-Osts. Only thorny bushes of the tree and stunted acacia with yellow dry flowers grew in the front gardens. From high mountains sultry. At the end of the bay, a cement plant smoked.

But the Gelendzhik bay was very good. In its clear and warm water, large jellyfish swam like pink and blue flowers. Spotted flounders and goby-eyed gobies lay on the sandy bottom. The surf washed ashore with red algae, rotten balber floats from fishing nets, and pieces of dark green bottles rolled by the waves.

The sea after Gelendzhik has not lost its charm for me. It only became simpler and therefore more beautiful than in my fancy dreams.

In Gelendzhik, I became friends with an elderly boatman, Anastas. He was a Greek, originally from the city of Volo. He had a new sailboat, white with a red keel and grating washed to gray.

Anastas rode summer residents on a boat. He was famous for his dexterity and composure, and my mother sometimes let me go alone with Anastas.

Once Anastas came out of the bay with me into the open sea. I will never forget the horror and delight that I experienced when the sail, inflated, heeled the boat so low that the water rushed at the level of the side. Noisy huge shafts rolled towards them, translucent with greenery and dousing their faces with salty dust.

I grabbed the shrouds, I wanted to go back to the shore, but Anastas, clamping the pipe between his teeth, purred something, and then asked:

— How much did your mom give for these dudes? Hey good dudes!

He nodded at my soft Caucasian shoes - dudes. My legs were trembling. I didn't answer. Anastas yawned and said:

- Nothing! Small shower, warm shower. You will dine with gusto. No need to ask - eat for mom and dad!

He turned the boat casually and confidently. She scooped up water, and we rushed into the bay, diving and jumping out on the crests of the waves. They left from under the stern with a menacing noise. My heart sank and died.

Suddenly Anastas began to sing. I stopped shaking and listened to this song in bewilderment:

From Batum to Sukhum - Ai-wai-wai!

From Sukhum to Batum - Ai-wai-wai!

A boy was running, dragging a box - Ai-wai-wai!

The boy fell, broke the box - Ai-wai-wai!

To this song, we lowered the sail and with acceleration quickly approached the pier, where the pale mother was waiting. Anastas picked me up, put me on the pier and said:

— Now you have it salty, madam. Already has a habit to the sea.

Once my father hired a ruler, and we drove from Gelendzhik to the Mikhailovsky Pass.

At first, the gravel road went along the slope of bare and dusty mountains. We passed bridges over ravines where there was not a drop of water. On the mountains all day, clinging to the peaks, the same clouds of gray dry cotton wool lay.

I was thirsty. The red-haired Cossack driver turned around and told me to wait until the pass - there I would get drunk and tasty. cold water. But I didn't trust the driver. The dryness of the mountains and the lack of water frightened me. I longingly looked at the dark and fresh strip of the sea. You couldn't drink from it, but at least you could swim in its cool water.

The road rose higher and higher. Suddenly, a breath of freshness hit our face.

- The most pass! - said the driver, stopped the horses, got down and put iron brakes under the wheels.

From the crest of the mountain we saw huge and dense forests. They waved over the mountains to the horizon. In some places, red granite cliffs protruded from the greenery, and in the distance I saw a peak burning with ice and snow.

"Nord-Ost doesn't reach here," said the driver. - It's heaven!

The line began to descend. Immediately a thick shadow covered us. In the impenetrable thicket of trees we heard the murmur of water, the whistle of birds and the rustle of leaves stirred by the midday wind.

The lower we descended, the denser the forest became and the shadier the Road. A clear stream was already running along its side. He washed multi-colored stones, touched purple flowers with his jet and made them bow and tremble, but he could not tear them off the rocky ground and take them down into the gorge with him.

Mom took water from the stream in a mug and gave me a drink. The water was so cold that the mug was immediately covered with sweat.

“It smells like ozone,” said the father.

I took a deep breath. I did not know what it smelled like around, but it seemed to me that I was heaped with a pile of branches moistened with fragrant rain.

Creepers clung to our heads. And here and there, on the slopes of the road, some shaggy flower poked out from under the stone and looked with curiosity at our line and at the gray horses, who lifted their heads and performed solemnly, as in a parade, so as not to break loose and roll the line.

- There's a lizard! Mom said. Where?

- Over there. Do you see the hazel? And to the left is a red stone in the grass. See above. Do you see the yellow halo? This is an azalea. A little to the right of the azaleas, on a fallen beech, near the very root. There, you see, such a shaggy red root in the dry earth and some tiny blue flowers? So next to him.

I saw a lizard. But while I found it, I made a wonderful journey through hazel, redstone, azalea flower and fallen beech.

“So this is what it is, the Caucasus!” I thought.

- It's heaven! repeated the driver, turning off the highway into a grassy narrow clearing in the woods. - Now let's unharness the horses, we'll swim.

We drove into such a thicket and the branches hit us so hard in the face that we had to stop the horses, get off the line and continue on foot. The line moved slowly behind us.

We came to a clearing in a green gorge. Like white islands, crowds of tall dandelions stood in the lush grass. Under thick beeches we saw an old empty barn. He stood on the bank of a noisy mountain stream. She tightly poured transparent water over the stones, hissed and dragged away many air bubbles along with the water.

While the driver was unharnessing and walking with my father for brushwood for the fire, we washed ourselves in the river. Our faces burned with heat after washing.

We wanted to immediately go up the river, but my mother spread a tablecloth on the grass, took out provisions and said that until we had eaten, she would not let us go anywhere.

I ate ham sandwiches and cold rice porridge with raisins, choking, but it turned out that I was in no hurry - the stubborn copper kettle did not want to boil on the fire. It must be because the water from the river was completely icy.

Then the kettle boiled so unexpectedly and violently that it flooded the fire. We drank strong tea and began to rush father to go to the forest. The driver said that we must be on our guard, because there are many wild boars in the forest. He explained to us that if we see small holes dug in the ground, then these are the places where the boars sleep at night.

Mom was agitated - she could not go with us, she was short of breath - but the cab driver calmed her, noting that the boar had to be teased on purpose so that he would rush at the man.

We went up the river. We made our way through the thicket, stopping every minute and calling each other to show the granite pools carved by the river - trout swept through them with blue sparks - huge green beetles with long whiskers, foamy grumbling waterfalls, horsetails taller than our height, thickets of forest anemones and clearings with peonies.

Borya came across a small dusty pit that looked like a baby bath. We walked carefully around it. Obviously, this was the place where the wild boar spent the night.

The father went ahead. He started calling us. We made our way to it through the buckthorn, bypassing the huge mossy boulders.

Father was standing near a strange building, overgrown with blackberries. Four smoothly hewn gigantic stones were covered, like a roof, by the fifth hewn stone. It turned out to be a stone house. There was a hole punched in one of the side stones, but so small that even I could not fit through it. There were several such stone buildings around.

“These are dolmens,” said the father. - Ancient burial grounds of the Scythians. Or maybe they are not burial grounds at all. Until now, scientists cannot find out who, for what and how built these dolmens.

I was sure that dolmens are the dwellings of long-extinct dwarf people. But I did not tell my father about this, since Borya was with us: he would have ridiculed me.

We returned to Gelendzhik completely burned by the sun, drunk from fatigue and forest air. I fell asleep and through my sleep I felt a breath of heat over me, and heard the distant murmur of the sea.

Since then, in my imagination, I have become the owner of another magnificent country - the Caucasus. The passion for Lermontov, abreks, Shamil began. Mom was worried again.

Now, in adulthood, I gratefully recall my childhood hobbies. They taught me a lot.

But I was not at all like the noisy and carried away boys choking with saliva from excitement, who give no rest to anyone. On the contrary, I was very shy and with my hobbies I did not pester anyone.

I sat in the Mariinsky Park and calmly read Stevenson's Treasure Island. In the morning there was a sad rain, but the clear sky of spring shone. Large and belated drops of rain fell from the lilacs. I shook the lilac and a little rain began to fall. At that moment I saw a man who poisoned even me for a long time with dreams of my unrealizable future.

A tall young sailor with a tanned and calm face was walking along the road. A straight black broadsword hung from his lacquered belt. Black ribbons with bronze anchors fluttered in the quiet wind. The midshipman passed by, crunching on the sand. I followed him. I often imagined the seas, foggy and golden from the evening calm, long voyages, when the whole world is replaced behind the windows of the porthole. The midshipman looked back. “Azimuth” was written on the black ribbon of the peakless cap. For hours I sat over atlases, looked at the coasts of the oceans for a long time, searched for coastal headlands, river mouths.

Once I went with my parents to the Black Sea for the whole summer. The town where we arrived was small and was located near Novorossiysk. The town was very dusty and hot, and all the greenery was destroyed by the winds. Thorny bushes and stunted acacia with yellow dry flowers grew in front gardens. From the high mountains it was hot. At the end of the bay, a cement plant smoked. The bay was good. Large jellyfish swam in clear and warm water, and spotted flounders and bug-eyed gobies lay on the sandy bottom. The surf threw red algae ashore, as well as run-in pieces of bottles.

In Gelendzhik, I became friends with a boatman who was Greek and originally from the Volom mountains. He had a white sailing boat with a red calm and a half-washed deck. He rode summer residents on his boat, having become famous for his dexterity, so that my mother let me go with him to the open sea.

We also went to the Mikhailovsky Pass. The gravel road ran along the slope of bare mountains, and we passed bridges over ravines where there was no water and it was thirsty. From the crest of the mountain, one could see huge and dense forests that stretched in waves along the mountains to the horizon. The murmur of water, the whistle of birds, and the rustle of grass, agitated by the midday wind, were heard in the thicket. The forest began to thicken, and the stream ran along the roadside, washing away the pebbles. After drinking water from the stream, we moved on.

We went out into the field. Crowds of tall dandelions stood in the tall grass, and under the beeches we saw an empty barn that stood on the bank of a noisy river, where it hissed and drew clear water with many bubbles. We washed in the river, and our faces immediately lit up with heat. We made the pass. Mom got food. Having refreshed ourselves and drunk hot tea, we began to hurry our father to go to the forest. Our path ran up the river. Stopping often, they called each other to show the granite pools carved by the river, in which trout flashed sparks.

Father stood near a strange stone structure, overgrown with grass. A hole was punched in one of the side stones. There were some buildings around. My father said that these were the ancient burial grounds of the Scythians.

On a warm spring day, my sister Galya and I sat in the Mariinsky Park and read. Next to us on the bench lay Gali's hat with green ribbons, which were gently stirred by the wind. The sister was very nearsighted and very gullible. She always had a calm, good-natured state, from which it was almost impossible to get her out of.

Is the morning rain over? and the sky above us shone with purity. Only belated drops gently rolled down from the lilac bush.

A little girl with bows stopped in front of us and started jumping rope. This prevented me from reading, and I decided to shake the lilac a little. Droplets of rain splashed on the girl and fell on Galya. The girl showed her tongue offendedly and ran away, and Galya simply shook the droplets off the book and continued to read. At that moment, I saw a man who for a long time planted in my head unrealizable thoughts about my extraordinary future.

A tall sailor was walking along the path of the park, his face was calm and tanned. Black ribbons with anchors fluttered in the wind. He was dressed in all black, the strictness of the form was set off only by stripes burning with gold.

Kyiv is a land city, so it was almost impossible to see sailors here. The stranger walked like a hero from another world, where the frigate Pallada is rocking on the waves, the world of oceans, leeks and ports, all the adventures and fascinating journeys that are associated with the life of navigators. It was as if the hero of Stevenson's book, which I was reading at that moment, appeared in the Mariinsky Park.

A stately midshipman, crunching the sand, walked past our bench. I couldn't resist and followed. Galya, due to her short-sightedness, did not immediately notice that I had disappeared.

Now for me this man was the embodiment of milestones of boyish dreams about travel and sea battles. I often imagined myself looking at the sea from the deck of a ship and seeing misty shores or a wave golden from the sunset; went on a long voyage and watched the world change behind the window glass, as if someone were rotating a kaleidoscope. I loved the sea so passionately that if someone gave me a piece of an old rusty anchor, it would be more expensive than any jewel.

When the sailor looked back, I read on his peakless cap incomprehensible word"Azimuth". Later I learned that it was the name of a training ship of the Baltic Fleet.

I followed him down one street, then down another, and watched the graceful midshipman salute the infantry officers he met. I even felt embarrassed for these baggy warriors. Glancing back once again, the sailor stopped at the corner of Maringovskaya Street, called me and asked me mockingly: “Boy, why are you always trailing me in tow?” I was embarrassed and did not answer him.
-_Well, of course, he probably dreams of becoming a sailor, - the midshipman concluded, speaking of me for some reason in the third person.

I can’t, I have myopia, - I answered in a voice hoarse with excitement.

The sailor put his hand on my shoulder and said: "Let's go to Khreshchatyk." And we walked side by side. I was afraid to raise my eyes, so in front of me were only mirror-polished sea boots.

On Khreshchatyk, we went to the Semanidi coffee house, where the midshipman ordered water and pistachio ice cream for us. All this was served on a three-legged marble table, cold and covered with numbers. In this coffee shop, stock exchange traders gathered, who calculated their profits and losses right on the tables.

We ate ice cream and were silent. Then the sailor opened his wallet and took out a photograph, which showed a majestic corvette with magnificent sails and a wide pipe. Handing me a photograph, he said: “Keep it as a keepsake. This is my ship. We used it to go to Liverpool." Then he shook my hand firmly, like a man, and left.

I decided to sit a little longer, but the neighbors in the boater began to look around suspiciously, and I awkwardly got out and immediately headed for the Mariinsky Park. Of course, Galya had already left, and I realized that the sailor simply took pity on me. At that moment, for the first time, I felt what a bitter residue pity leaves in my soul.

This meeting for many years directed all my thoughts in one direction - I was torn to the sea. The first time I saw an endless blue expanse when I went with my father to Novorossiysk. But this was not enough for me. In order to better understand the sea, I spent hours looking at the ocean coasts in the atlas, looking for unknown seaside places, islands, capes.

I had my own interesting and difficult game. I made a list of ships that I gave beautiful sonorous names: "Walter Scott", "Sirius", "Polar Star". And every day more and more ships were added to this list. I owned a fleet that no other in the world could match.

Of course, as the owner, I imagined myself sitting in the main office of the ship, surrounded by cigar smoke and colorful posters with timetables. Of course, the view from the windows of the office was on the embankment, and near the large windows one could see the yellow masts of ships and good-natured elms. Steamship smoke merrily flew in through the windows, mingling with the smells of the port.

For my ships, I invented the most amazing and unusual trips to the corners of the earth. Ships even visited the island of Tristan da Cunho. I myself distributed flights, could rent one steamer and replace it with another, clearly tracked where my ships were, and could accurately indicate the current location of the Admiral Istomin or the Flying Dutchman. Istomin is busy loading bananas in Singapore, while Dutch has already unloaded flour in the Faroe Islands.

Such a large undertaking required competent leadership, so I decided to get enough knowledge and almost memorized the guidebooks, read the ship's manuals and any literature that even remotely related to the sea.

Then for the first time in my life I heard the word "meningitis". Mom said: "These games can bring him to meningitis." But according to my information, meningitis was a disease of boys who began to read too early. Therefore, I accepted my mother's words with a smile.

And so my parents gathered with the whole family to go to the sea. Now I understand that my mother wanted this trip to cool my passion for maritime theme. She decided that, confronted directly with the object of my passionate dreams, I was bound to be disappointed. And it turned out that she thought correctly, but only partly.

The day came when my mother solemnly announced the upcoming trip to the Black Sea in Gelendzhik, a small town near Novorossiysk. It was impossible to find a better place to be disappointed in the sea and the south.

Gelendzhik was at that time a dusty and hot town, in which there was absolutely no vegetation. The greenery for many kilometers around could not withstand the fierce Novorossiysk winds. They were sustained only by stunted acacias with dry flowers and a thorny hold-tree, which, of all plants, could be found in front gardens. Complementing the picture of the mountains, from which the heat was drawn and the cement plant smoking at the end of the bay.

But in the bay of Gelendzhik there were many charms. Clean and warm water, in which jellyfish similar to exotic flowers of blue and pink hues swam. Through the transparent waves one could see the sandy bottom with bug-eyed gobies and spotted flounders lying on it. During the surf, red algae, net floats and green fragments of bottles with smooth, wave-rolled edges were thrown ashore.

No, after Gelendzhik, the sea has not lost its attractiveness for me at all. But now it has become simpler and closer, and therefore even more beautiful than I imagined it in my colorful dreams.

During my vacation, I became friends with the boatman Anastas, an elderly Greek from Volo. He earned money by riding summer residents on his boat and was famous among the population of Gelendzhik for his composure, strength and dexterity.

His sailboat was new, with a bright red keel and grating washed white. Mom sometimes allowed me to go to sea alone with Anastas.

Once we went out on a boat to the open sea. I then experienced for the first time a feeling of horror and insane delight at the same time, when the sail, inflated under the wind, tilted the boat so that the water almost overwhelmed the side. I felt how huge waves rolled towards me and drops of salt water splashed on my face.

Frightened, I grabbed the shrouds with my hands and felt a keen desire to return to the shore. But Anastas only purred something, holding the pipe between his teeth. Then, as if nothing had happened, he asked: “How much did your mother pay for these dudes, are they too good?”. And he nodded his head in the direction of my new Caucasian shoes - dudes. I felt my legs tremble and could not answer. Anastas, on the other hand, yawned and calmly said: “Very nice little warm shower. Now you will dine with appetite and you don’t have to persuade - “for mom”, “for dad”.

He confidently and slightly carelessly turned the boat, which, having scooped up water a little, rushed back to the bay. We flew, jumping out and again diving into the crests of the waves, which ran away from under the stern with a menacing noise. Each time I felt my heart sink and fall. Suddenly Anastas started singing. My trembling stopped, and I listened with interest as a boy ran from Sukhum to Batum and dragged a box. To this song, we, having lowered the sail, moored to the shore, where the pale mother was waiting.

Lifting me up and placing me on the pier, Anastas said: “Now you have it, madam, salty and acquired the habit of the sea.”

One day, my father decided to hire a ruler and drive from Gedendzhik to the Mikhailovsky Pass. The road went along the slope of the mountains, dusty and almost bare. We passed bridges and ravines, and on the tops of the mountains lay the same clouds, as if made of dry cotton wool.

I was very thirsty. But the driver, a red-haired Cossack, said that one must be patient until the pass, where there is plenty of clean and tasty water. I didn’t really believe it, and the dry mountains with the lack of water caused painful feelings. I looked longingly at the darkening strip of the sea in the distance. Of course, it was impossible to drink sea water, but you can swim, feeling cool and fresh. As the road rose higher, we felt a breath of breeze.

Here is the pass! - the driver announced joyfully and, stopping the horses, strengthened the iron brakes under the wheels of the wagon.

From the height of the mountain we had a wonderful view of the huge dense forests that stretched to the very horizon. Sometimes red cliffs appeared from the green waves, and in the distance the peak burned with ice and snow.

Here the trees are not threatened by the wind, so here is paradise, - said the driver.

We began to descend and felt a thick shadow cover us. In the thicket of the forest, one could hear the murmur of water, the discordant singing of birds, and the rustle of leaves touched by a light wind.

Descending lower and lower, we watched as the forest became thicker and the road more and more shady. A clear stream ran along its edge. With his water, he washed pebbles of different colors, touched, running, lilac flowers, which trembled and bowed to the ground, but he could not completely tear them off and take them with him.

Mom filled a mug with water from a stream and gave it to me to drink. The water was so cold that the mug immediately covered with droplets of moisture.

I took a deep breath. My father said it smelled like ozone, but I couldn't tell what the smell was. It seemed to me that I was under a whole heap of fragrant green branches moistened with rain.

I felt a vine clinging to my head. On the way, here and there, some bright flower appeared and from under the stone looked with curiosity at us and the horses, who paced decorously, as if in a parade, so as not to shake the line.

Mom showed me a lizard. She was hiding behind a red stone, near which grew a yellow azalea and a red hairy root stuck out. I saw her, but while I was looking for her, I made a journey with many amazing discoveries through hazel, flowers, roots and trees and thought: “This is what it is, the real Caucasus.”

This is paradise, - as if the cabman continued my thoughts and turned off the highway into a clearing in the forest. - I'll unharness the horses, then we'll swim.

We got into a dense thicket. The branches of the trees hit us so hard in the face that we had to walk, and the ruler slowly moved behind us.

Finally, a clearing opened up in front of us, located in a green gorge. Tall dandelions stood in the green grass like white islands. On the bank of the mountain gochushka, under thick beeches, stood an old barn.

The driver unharnessed the horses, then, together with his father, went for brushwood. We have decided to wash in the river. The water was cold and our faces felt like they were on fire after washing.

We wanted to immediately go up the river, but my mother said that she would not let us go anywhere until we had a bite to eat. She spread a tablecloth on the grass and took out food.

I was in a hurry and, choking, swallowed sandwiches and cooled porridge with raisins. But it turned out that he tried so hard in vain - the copper kettle stubbornly did not want to boil on the fire. Probably, the icy water from the mountain stream was to blame. And when it did boil, it was so violently and unexpectedly that the fire was flooded. When we had drunk tea, we began to hurry my father to go to the forest. The driver warned that one should be very careful in the forest, because one could meet wild boars. And if we notice small holes dug in the ground, we should know that these are places where wild boars sleep at night.

Mom could not go with us because of shortness of breath and was very worried. But the driver reassured her, saying that the boar rushes at a person only if he is specially teased.

And we set off to travel up the river. There were so many wonderful things around that, stopping every minute, we called out to each other and showed granite pools carved by the river, huge forest beetles, horsetails taller than human height, seething foamy waterfalls and flowering meadows.

We also saw a small dusty hole dug in the ground. This, probably, was the place of the boar's overnight stay. Father came forward and called us. Having made our way to it through the buckthorn, bypassing huge boulders, we saw a mysterious structure overgrown with blackberry bushes. It was a well-hewn gigantic stones, four of which stood as supports, and the fifth lay on top. It all looked like a stone house. We saw a small hole in one of the stones, even I could not climb through it. There were several other similar stone houses around.

These buildings are the ancient burial grounds of the Scythians, called dolmens, - said the father. - Although until now, scientists are not completely sure that these are actually burial grounds, because it is still not possible to find out who and why built such dolmens.

I was sure that long-extinct dwarf people lived in such structures. But I did not tell anyone about this, fearing that they would laugh at me.

We came back to Gelendzhik completely burned out by the sun, insanely tired and drunker from forest smells. When I fell asleep, through my sleep I heard the sound of the sea.

Our trip gave me an impetus to a new hobby. Now it was the Caucasus. I became in my dreams not only the owner of many ships, but also a wonderful country - the Caucasus. Now I was interested in Lermontov, Shamil, abreks and everything connected with this country.

Mom, of course, again worried about me, but I am grateful for my childhood hobbies. They gave me a lot for life, they taught me a lot. But I was not at all such a noisy boy who gives no rest to anyone with his dreams. I, on the contrary, was very quiet and shy, not considering it necessary to bother anyone with my hobbies.

Please note that this is only summary literary work"Tale of Life". This summary omits many important points and quotations.

Read in 15 minutes

One spring I was sitting in the Mariinsky Park and reading Stevenson's Treasure Island. Sister Galya sat nearby and also read. Her summer hat with green ribbons lay on the bench. The wind stirred the ribbons, Galya was short-sighted, very trusting, and it was almost impossible to get her out of a good-natured state.

It had rained in the morning, but now the clear spring sky shone above us. Only belated drops of rain fell from the lilacs.

A girl with bows in her hair stopped in front of us and started jumping over the rope. She made it difficult for me to read. I shook the lilac. A little rain fell noisily on the girl and on Galya. The girl stuck her tongue out at me and ran away, while Galya shook the raindrops off the book and continued to read.

And at that moment I saw a man who poisoned me for a long time with dreams of my unrealizable future.

A tall midshipman with a tanned, calm face walked lightly along the alley. A straight black broadsword hung from his lacquered belt. Black ribbons with bronze anchors fluttered in the quiet wind. He was all in black. Only the bright gold of the stripes set off his strict form.

In overland Kiev, where we hardly saw sailors, it was a stranger from the distant legendary world of winged ships, the Pallada frigate, from the world of all oceans, seas, all port cities, all winds and all the charms that were associated with the picturesque work of seafarers . An old broadsword with a black hilt seemed to have appeared in the Mariinsky Park from the pages of Stevenson.

The midshipman passed by, crunching on the sand. I got up and followed him. Due to myopia, Galya did not notice my disappearance.

All my dream of the sea was embodied in this man. I often imagined the seas, foggy and golden from the evening calm, distant voyages, when the whole world is replaced, like a fast kaleidoscope, behind the glass of the porthole. My God, if someone would have guessed to give me at least a piece of petrified rust, beaten off from an old anchor! I would keep it like a treasure.

The midshipman looked back. On the black ribbon of his peakless cap, I read the mysterious word: "Azimuth." Later I learned that this was the name of the training ship of the Baltic Fleet.

I followed him along Elizavetinskaya Street, then along Institutskaya and Nikolaevskaya. The midshipman saluted the infantry officers gracefully and casually. I was ashamed in front of him for these baggy Kyiv warriors.

Several times the midshipman looked back, but at the corner of Meringovskaya he stopped and called me.

Boy, he asked mockingly, why were you trailing me in tow?

I blushed and didn't answer.

Everything is clear: he dreams of being a sailor, - the midshipman guessed, speaking for some reason about me in the third person.

Let's get to Khreshchatyk.

We went side by side. I was afraid to raise my eyes and saw only the midshipman's strong boots polished to an incredible shine.

On Khreshchatyk, the midshipman went with me to the Semadeni coffee shop, ordered two servings of pistachio ice cream and two glasses of water. We were served ice cream on a small three-legged marble table. It was very cold and covered with figures: stock exchange dealers gathered at Semadeni and counted their profits and losses on the tables.

We ate ice cream in silence. The midshipman took from his wallet a photograph of a magnificent corvette with sailing equipment and a wide pipe and handed it to me.

Take it as a memento. This is my ship. I rode it to Liverpool.

He shook my hand firmly and left. I sat for a while longer, until the sweaty neighbors in the boater began to look back at me. Then I awkwardly got out and ran to the Mariinsky Park. The bench was empty. Galya left. I guessed that the midshipman took pity on me, and for the first time I learned that pity leaves a bitter residue in the soul.

After this meeting, the desire to become a sailor tormented me for many years. I rushed to the sea. The first time I saw him briefly was in Novorossiysk, where I went for a few days with my father. But that wasn't enough.

For hours I sat over the atlas, examined the coasts of the oceans, looked for unknown seaside towns, capes, islands, estuaries.

I came up with a difficult game. I made a long list of steamships with sonorous names: the Polar Star, the Walter Scott, the Khingan, the Sirius. This list is growing every day. I was the owner of the largest fleet in the world.

Of course, I was sitting in my shipping office, in the smoke of cigars, among colorful posters and timetables. Wide windows overlooked, of course, the embankment. The yellow masts of steamships stuck out near the windows, and good-natured elms rustled behind the walls. The steamer's smoke flew freely through the windows, mingling with the smell of rotten brine and new, cheerful matting.

I came up with a list of amazing voyages for my steamboats. There was not the most forgotten corner of the earth, wherever they went. They even visited the island of Tristan da Cunha.

I rented boats from one voyage and sent them to another. I followed the navigation of my ships and knew unmistakably where the Admiral Istomin was today and where the Flying Dutchman was: the Istomin was loading bananas in Singapore, and the Flying Dutchman was unloading flour on the Faroe Islands.

In order to manage such a vast shipping enterprise, I needed a lot of knowledge. I read guidebooks, ship handbooks and everything that had even a remote connection with the sea.

That was the first time I heard the word “meningitis” from my mother.

He will go to god knows what with his games, - my mother once said. - As if all this did not end with meningitis.

I heard that meningitis is a disease of boys who have learned to read too early. So I just chuckled at my mother's fears.

It all ended with the fact that the parents decided to go with the whole family for the summer to the sea.

Now I guess that my mother hoped to cure me of my excessive passion for the sea with this trip. She thought that I would be disappointed, as I always do, at a direct encounter with what I so passionately sought in my dreams. And she was right, but only partly.

One day, my mother solemnly announced that the other day we were leaving for the Black Sea for the whole summer, to the small town of Gelendzhik, near Novorossiysk.

Perhaps it was impossible to choose a better place than Gelendzhik in order to disappoint me in my passion for the sea and the south.

Gelendzhik was then a very dusty and hot town without any vegetation. All the greenery for many kilometers around was destroyed by the cruel Novorossiysk winds - the Nord-Osts. Only thorny bushes of the tree and stunted acacia with yellow dry flowers grew in the front gardens. From the high mountains it was hot. At the end of the bay, a cement plant smoked.

But the Gelendzhik bay was very good. In its clear and warm water, large jellyfish swam like pink and blue flowers. Spotted flounders and goby-eyed gobies lay on the sandy bottom. The surf washed ashore with red algae, rotten balber floats from fishing nets, and pieces of dark green bottles rolled by the waves.

The sea after Gelendzhik has not lost its charm for me. It only became simpler and therefore more beautiful than in my fancy dreams.

In Gelendzhik, I became friends with an elderly boatman, Anastas. He was a Greek, originally from the city of Volo. He had a new sailboat, white with a red keel and grating washed to gray.

Anastas rode summer residents on a boat. He was famous for his dexterity and composure, and my mother sometimes let me go alone with Anastas.

Once Anastas came out of the bay with me into the open sea. I will never forget the horror and delight that I experienced when the sail, inflated, heeled the boat so low that the water rushed at the level of the side. Noisy huge shafts rolled towards them, translucent with greenery and dousing their faces with salty dust.

I grabbed the shrouds, I wanted to go back to the shore, but Anastas, clamping the pipe between his teeth, purred something, and then asked:

How much did your mom pay for these dudes? Hey good dudes!

He nodded at my soft Caucasian shoes - dudes. My legs were trembling. I didn't answer. Anastas yawned and said:

Nothing! Small shower, warm shower. You will dine with gusto. No need to ask - eat for mom and dad!

He turned the boat casually and confidently. She scooped up water, and we rushed into the bay, diving and jumping out on the crests of the waves. They left from under the stern with a menacing noise. My heart sank and died.

Suddenly Anastas began to sing. I stopped shaking and listened to this song in bewilderment:

From Batum to Sukhum - Ai-wai-wai!

From Sukhum to Batum - Ai-wai-wai!

A boy was running, dragging a box - Ai-wai-wai!

The boy fell, broke the box - Ai-wai-wai!

To this song, we lowered the sail and with acceleration quickly approached the pier, where the pale mother was waiting. Anastas picked me up, put me on the pier and said:

Now you have it salty, madam. Already has a habit to the sea.

Once my father hired a ruler, and we drove from Gelendzhik to the Mikhailovsky Pass.

At first, the gravel road went along the slope of bare and dusty mountains. We passed bridges over ravines where there was not a drop of water. On the mountains all day, clinging to the peaks, the same clouds of gray dry cotton wool lay.

I was thirsty. The red-haired Cossack driver turned around and told me to wait until the pass - there I would drink tasty and cold water. But I didn't trust the driver. The dryness of the mountains and the lack of water frightened me. I longingly looked at the dark and fresh strip of the sea. You couldn't drink from it, but at least you could swim in its cool water.

The road rose higher and higher. Suddenly, a breath of freshness hit our face.

The most pass! - said the driver, stopped the horses, got down and put iron brakes under the wheels.

From the crest of the mountain we saw huge and dense forests. They waved over the mountains to the horizon. In some places, red granite cliffs protruded from the greenery, and in the distance I saw a peak burning with ice and snow.

Nord-Ost does not reach here, - said the driver. - It's heaven!

The line began to descend. Immediately a thick shadow covered us. In the impenetrable thicket of trees we heard the murmur of water, the whistle of birds and the rustle of leaves stirred by the midday wind.

The lower we descended, the denser the forest became and the shadier the Road. A clear stream was already running along its side. He washed multi-colored stones, touched purple flowers with his jet and made them bow and tremble, but he could not tear them off the rocky ground and take them down into the gorge with him.

Mom took water from the stream in a mug and gave me a drink. The water was so cold that the mug was immediately covered with sweat.

It smells like ozone, - said the father.

I took a deep breath. I did not know what it smelled like around, but it seemed to me that I was heaped with a pile of branches moistened with fragrant rain.

Creepers clung to our heads. And here and there, on the slopes of the road, some shaggy flower poked out from under the stone and looked with curiosity at our line and at the gray horses, who lifted their heads and performed solemnly, as in a parade, so as not to break loose and roll the line.

There the lizard! Mom said. Where?

Over there. Do you see the hazel? And to the left is a red stone in the grass. See above. Do you see the yellow halo? This is an azalea. A little to the right of the azaleas, on a fallen beech, near the very root. There, you see such a shaggy red root in dry earth and some tiny blue flowers? So next to him.

I saw a lizard. But while I found it, I made a wonderful journey through hazel, redstone, azalea flower and fallen beech.

“So this is what it is, the Caucasus!” I thought.

Here is paradise! repeated the driver, turning off the highway into a grassy narrow clearing in the forest. - Now let's unharness the horses, we'll swim.

We drove into such a thicket and the branches hit us so hard in the face that we had to stop the horses, get off the line and continue on foot. The line moved slowly behind us.

We came to a clearing in a green gorge. Like white islands, crowds of tall dandelions stood in the lush grass. Under thick beeches we saw an old empty barn. He stood on the bank of a noisy mountain stream. She tightly poured transparent water over the stones, hissed and dragged away many air bubbles along with the water.

While the driver was unharnessing and walking with my father for brushwood for the fire, we washed ourselves in the river. Our faces burned with heat after washing.

We wanted to immediately go up the river, but my mother spread a tablecloth on the grass, took out provisions and said that until we had eaten, she would not let us go anywhere.

I ate ham sandwiches and cold rice porridge with raisins, choking, but it turned out that I was in no hurry - the stubborn copper kettle did not want to boil on the fire. It must be because the water from the river was completely icy.

Then the kettle boiled so unexpectedly and violently that it flooded the fire. We drank strong tea and began to rush father to go to the forest. The driver said that we must be on our guard, because there are many wild boars in the forest. He explained to us that if we see small holes dug in the ground, then these are the places where the boars sleep at night.

Mom was agitated - she could not go with us, she had shortness of breath - but the driver reassured her, noting that the boar had to be teased on purpose so that he would rush at the man.

We went up the river. We made our way through the thicket, stopping every minute and calling each other to show the granite pools carved by the river - trout swept in them with blue sparks - huge green beetles with long whiskers, foamy grumbling waterfalls, horsetails taller than our height, thickets of forest anemones and clearings with peonies.

Borya came across a small dusty pit that looked like a baby bath. We walked carefully around it. Obviously, this was the place where the wild boar spent the night.

The father went ahead. He started calling us. We made our way to it through the buckthorn, bypassing the huge mossy boulders.

Father was standing near a strange building, overgrown with blackberries. Four smoothly hewn gigantic stones were covered, like a roof, by the fifth hewn stone. It turned out to be a stone house. There was a hole punched in one of the side stones, but so small that even I could not fit through it. There were several such stone buildings around.

These are dolmens, - said the father. - Ancient burial grounds of the Scythians. Or maybe they are not burial grounds at all. Until now, scientists cannot find out who, for what and how built these dolmens.

I was sure that dolmens are the dwellings of long-extinct dwarf people. But I did not tell my father about this, since Borya was with us: he would have ridiculed me.

We returned to Gelendzhik completely burned by the sun, drunk from fatigue and forest air. I fell asleep and through my sleep I felt a breath of heat over me, and heard the distant murmur of the sea.

Since then, in my imagination, I have become the owner of another magnificent country - the Caucasus. The passion for Lermontov, abreks, Shamil began. Mom was worried again.

Now, in adulthood, I gratefully recall my childhood hobbies. They taught me a lot.

But I was not at all like the noisy and carried away boys choking with saliva from excitement, who give no rest to anyone. On the contrary, I was very shy and with my hobbies I did not pester anyone.

Tale of life

One spring I was sitting in the Mariinsky Park and reading Stevenson's Treasure Island. Sister Galya sat nearby and also read. Her summer hat with green ribbons lay on the bench. The wind stirred the ribbons, Galya was short-sighted, very trusting, and it was almost impossible to get her out of a good-natured state.

It had rained in the morning, but now the clear spring sky shone above us. Only belated drops of rain fell from the lilacs.

A girl with bows in her hair stopped in front of us and started jumping over the rope.

And at that moment I saw a man who poisoned me for a long time with dreams of my unrealizable future.

A tall midshipman with a tanned, calm face walked lightly along the alley. A straight black broadsword hung from his lacquered belt. Black ribbons with bronze anchors fluttered in the gentle wind. He was all in black. Only the bright gold of the stripes set off his strict form.

In land Kiev, where we hardly saw sailors, it was a stranger from the distant legendary world of winged ships, the frigate "Pallada", from the world of all oceans, seas, all port cities, all winds and all the charms that were associated with the picturesque work of navigators . An old broadsword with a black hilt seemed to have appeared in the Mariinsky Park from the pages of Stevenson.

The midshipman passed by, crunching on the sand. I got up and followed him. Due to myopia, Galya did not notice my disappearance.

All my dream about my....

But, on the other hand, the writer's ability to talk about himself is limited. He is bound by many difficulties, first of all - the awkwardness to evaluate his own books.

Therefore, I will express only some considerations regarding my work and briefly give my biography. There is no point in describing it in detail. My entire life from early childhood to the early thirties is described in six books of the autobiographical Tale of Life, which is included in this collection. I continue to work on the "Tale of Life" even now.

I was born in Moscow on May 31, 1892 in Granatny lane, in the family of a railway statistician.

My father comes from Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, who moved after the defeat of the Sich on the banks of the Ros River, near the White Church. My grandfather lived there - a former Nikolaev soldier - and a Turkish grandmother.

Despite the profession of a statistician, which requires a sober view of things, my father was an incorrigible dreamer and a Protestant. Because of these qualities, he did not stay long in one place. After Moscow, he served in Vilna, Pskov, and finally settled, more or less firmly, in Kyiv.

My mother - the daughter of an employee at a sugar factory - was a domineering and stern woman.

Our family was large and diverse, prone to art. The family sang a lot, played the piano, argued, reverently loved the theater.

I studied at the 1st Kyiv classical gymnasium.

When I was in the sixth grade, our family broke up. From then on, I had to earn my living and teaching myself. I was interrupted by rather hard work - the so-called tutoring.

In the last class of the gymnasium, I wrote my first story and published it in the Kiev literary magazine Ogni. It was, as far as I remember, in 1911.

After graduating from the gymnasium, I spent two years at Kiev University, and then transferred to Moscow University and moved to Moscow.

At the beginning of the World War I worked as a counselor and conductor on the Moscow tram, then as an orderly on the rear and field hospital trains.

In the autumn of 1915, I transferred from the train to a field medical detachment and went with him a long retreat from Lublin in Poland to the town of Nesvizh in Belarus.

In the detachment, from a piece of newspaper that came across to me, I learned that both my brothers were killed on different fronts on the same day. I returned to my mother - she lived in Moscow at that time, but could not sit still for a long time and again began his wandering life: he left for Yekaterinoslav and worked there for steel plant Bryansk society, then moved to Yuzovka to the Novorossiysk plant, and from there to Taganrog to the Nev-Vilde boiler plant. In the autumn of 1916, he left the boiler plant for a fishing artel on the Sea of ​​Azov.

In my free time, I began writing my first novel in Taganrog - The Romantics.

Then he moved to Moscow, where she found me February Revolution and started working as a journalist.

My development as a person and a writer took place under Soviet power and determined my entire future life path.

In Moscow I experienced October revolution, witnessed many events of 1917-1919, heard Lenin several times and lived a busy life of newspaper editorial offices.

But soon I was "turned". I went to my mother (she again moved to Ukraine), survived several coups in Kyiv, left Kyiv for Odessa. There I first got into the environment of young writers - Ilf, Babel, Bagritsky, Shengeli, Lev Slavin.

But the “muse of distant wanderings” haunted me, and after spending two years in Odessa, I moved to Sukhum, then to Batum and Tiflis. From Tiflis I traveled to Armenia and even ended up in Northern Persia.

In 1923 he returned to Moscow, where he worked for several years as the editor of ROSTA. At that time, I had already begun to print.

My first "real" book was a collection of short stories "Oncoming Ships" (1928).

In the summer of 1932 I started working on the book "Kara-Bugaz". The history of writing "Kara-Bugaz" and some other books is described in some detail in the story "Golden Rose". Therefore, I will not dwell on this here.

After the publication of Kara-Bugaz, I left the service, and since then writing has become my only, all-consuming, sometimes painful, but always favorite job.

I still traveled a lot, even more than before. During the years of my writing life, I was on the Kola Peninsula, lived in Meshchera, traveled the Caucasus and Ukraine, the Volga, Kama, Don, Dnieper, Oka and Desna, Lake Ladoga and Onega, was in Central Asia, in the Crimea, in Altai, in Siberia , in our wonderful northwest - in Pskov, Novgorod, Vitebsk, in Pushkin's Mikhailovsky.

During the Great Patriotic War I worked as a war correspondent for southern front and also traveled to many places. After the end of the war, I again traveled a lot. During the 50s and early 60s I visited Czechoslovakia, lived in Bulgaria in the absolutely fabulous fishing towns of Nessebar (Messemeria) and Sozopol, traveled Poland from Krakow to Gdansk, sailed around Europe, visited Istanbul, Athens, Rotterdam, Stockholm, in Italy (Rome, Turin, Milan, Naples, the Italian Alps), saw France, in particular Provence, England, where he was in Oxford and Shakespeare's Stratford. In 1965, because of my persistent asthma, I lived for quite a long time on the island of Capri - a huge rock, completely overgrown with fragrant herbs, resinous Mediterranean pine - pine and waterfalls (or rather, flower falls) of scarlet tropical bougainvillea - on Capri, immersed in a warm and transparent water of the Mediterranean.

The impressions from these numerous trips, from meetings with the most diverse and - in each individual case - interesting people in their own way, formed the basis of many of my stories and travel essays (“Picturesque Bulgaria”, “Amphora”, “Third Meeting”, “Crowd on Embankment”, “Italian Encounters”, “Fleeting Paris”, “Channel Lights”, etc.), which the reader will also find in this Collected Works.

I have written a lot in my life, but the feeling that I still have a lot to do and that a writer learns to deeply comprehend certain aspects and phenomena of life and talk about them only in adulthood does not leave me.

In my youth, I experienced a fascination with the exotic.

The desire for the extraordinary has haunted me since childhood.

In the boring apartment in Kyiv, where I spent this childhood, the wind of the extraordinary constantly roared around me. I evoked it with the power of my own boyish imagination.

This wind brought the smell of yew forests, the foam of the Atlantic surf, the peals of a tropical thunderstorm, the ringing of an aeolian harp.

But the colorful world of the exotic existed only in my imagination. I have never seen dark yew forests (with the exception of a few yew trees in the Nikitsky Botanical Gardens) Atlantic Ocean, nor the tropics and never heard the aeolian harp. I didn't even know what she looked like. Much later, from the notes of the traveler Miklouho-Maclay, I learned about this. Maclay built an aeolian harp from bamboo trunks near his hut in New Guinea. The wind howled fiercely in the hollow bamboo trunks, frightening off the superstitious natives, and they did not interfere with Maclay's work.

Geography was my favorite science in the gymnasium. She dispassionately confirmed that there are extraordinary countries on earth. I knew that our then meager and unsettled life would not give me the opportunity to see them. My dream was clearly unrealizable. But she didn't die from it.