Expression "like an elephant in china shop» firmly entered into use. What does this expression mean and in what cases can it be used so as not to get into a mess.
Linguists note that the roots of the words "elephant" and "lean against" are of a related origin. Apparently the elephant is named so out of love to sleep, leaning against something.
Values
Usually, the "elephant in the china shop" is used to metaphorically design and describe the image of an extremely clumsy and awkward person who has everything falling out of his hands.
In addition, this is the name given to people who often speak irrelevantly, outside the topic of discussion, breaking the course of the discussion, demonstrating incompetence.
An interesting interpretation of idiom was found in the fable of our contemporary Aglaya Dateshidze "Dear respected elephant ...". Aglaya's work is devoted to the issues of self-realization and the search for a vocation. The sound of the phrase takes on a slightly different meaning, which boils down to the fact that there is no “big elephant”, there is a “small shop”. The work instantly became popular among bloggers and trainers of classes in personal growth. Here the idiom is used as a synonym for big ship great voyage” and in the meaning of retraining.
The origin of phraseology
Linguists have been arguing about the origin of this phrase for more than a decade.
There is an opinion that the expression appeared in our language by chance, through an incorrect and incomplete translation. The point is that in colloquial German there is a similar absurd expression that has a similar meaning.
There is a similar idiom in English language. It sounds like “Bull in a china shop”, which means “bull in a china shop”. For the first time this idiom, according to sources, is mentioned in the work of Mariat Jacob in 1834. The exact origin of the phrase is unknown.
In Russian works, phraseologism is first encountered in the poem "On Elephants and Porcelain" by Nikolai Agnivtsev in early XIX century.
Synonyms
- bearish
- clumsy
- unhurried
- calf
- seal
- bag
- goof
- penny
- awkward
- lob
Usage examples
- The enemy troops behaved like a bull in a china shop.
- Realtors and agents worked like an elephant in a china shop.
— I felt like the owner of a china shop waiting for the visit of an elephant.
- Peter at the meeting was like an elephant in a china shop.
“The process optimization expert who arrived at the site, assessing the dire state of the business and feeling the complete indifference of the authorities to changes, felt like a bull in a china shop.
Depending on the context, the expression takes various meanings and allows you to enrich speech and make it interesting and figurative.
Shuttle. About a big clumsy person who finds himself in a cramped environment among fragile, brittle objects ... Dictionary of many expressions
Exist., m., use. comp. often Morphology: (no) whom? elephant, to whom? elephant, (see) whom? elephant, who? elephant, about whom? about the elephant; pl. Who? elephants, (no) whom? elephants, who? elephants, (see) whom? elephants, who? elephants, about whom? about elephants 1. They call an elephant ... ... Dictionary Dmitrieva
A; m. 1. Large herbivorous mammal with a long trunk and two tusks (lives in tropical Africa and Asia). African s. Indian s. 2. Fam. About a tall, fat, clumsy man. Can a bicycle withstand such an elephant! On such an elephant ... encyclopedic Dictionary
elephant- A/; m. see also. elephant, elephant, elephant 1) Large herbivorous mammal with a long trunk and two tusks (lives in tropical Africa and Asia) African elephant. Indian elephant. 2) … Dictionary of many expressions
ELEPHANT, a, husband. 1. Large proboscis mammal with two large tusks tropical countries. African s. Indian s. You don’t even notice an elephant (trans.: don’t notice the main thing; colloquial joke.). S. in a china shop (about a big and clumsy man, ... ... Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov
See rude, awkward ... Dictionary of Russian synonyms and expressions similar in meaning. under. ed. N. Abramova, M .: Russian dictionaries, 1999. clumsy ... Synonym dictionary
Cm … Synonym dictionary
The television series MythBusters tests urban legends, rumors, and other creations of popular culture. A kind request to all who make changes to this article. Before editing, review the specific issue for which you ... ... Wikipedia
Pocket, kitty, purse, kotoma (knapsack), kalita, sack, knapsack, scrip (bag), sack. Wed… Synonym dictionary
The television series MythBusters tests urban legends, rumors, and other creations of popular culture. What follows is a list of some of the myths tested on the show and the results of those experiments. In the fifth season, the telecasts were ... Wikipedia
Books
- Elephant in the museum, Zartaiskaya Irina Vadimovna. In one small and little-known museum, an announcement appeared: `A caretaker is required for the sculpture hall`. This story could become the most common if the caretaker didn’t get a job ... an elephant, ...
Hello dear reader #1 and dear reader #2.
I distinguish you very a simple sign: one of you is already hysterical from the epic with cryptopaging, and the second does not even understand what it is about.
What is cryptopaging
If you are reader number 2, and you don’t understand what “cryptopaging” is, then catch the main theses of this glorious phenomenon:
Cryptopaging is a suspicious very small transaction (up to 0.00001 BTC) that got into a large (and not only) wallet. As a rule, it is found in flocks of 5-25 pieces at different addresses.
A pattern was found that after these small movements, a manipulative, often against the trend, impulse movement of the BTC/USD quote occurs. And this pump/dump drags along the rest of the crypto market with its promising blockchain projects.
Analyzing message chains and wallets, many curious connections were found: between Roger Ver and cold wallets of top exchanges, the first bitcoin miners, the Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX, Silk Road, Uri Levin, Mavrodi (lol), etc.
The bitcoin blockchain is not only a P2P payment system, but also a communication system - you can send text messages and even program code (scripts) - along with a transaction, the size of which does not matter.
If you want more details, lulz and more, then catch a list of articles on the topic of cryptopaging and the fuck around it all: one, two, three, four, five, six
Dare. May the strength of the spirit, the lightness of the mind and the four-leaf luck be with you.
Well, if you are already familiar with cryptopaging, then I will tell you this.
This article is partly about cryptopaging, but it should go separately from the rest of our materials, since in its significance, it is tantamount to cryptopaging, as such.
But first things first.
How often has it happened in your life that you went to understand something so deeply that you stopped seeing the obvious things? Or, has it ever happened to you that when changing the tools for analyzing (or examining) something, you literally began to see clearly, and began to reproach yourself for wasting time earlier?
That's pretty much how I feel right now.
I would like to start this material with a microscope. Yes, yes: the microscope, as well as the elephant, fit very well into my story.
As written in this article, healthy human eye able to distinguish between objects separated from each other at a distance of at least 0.08 mm.
Engineers did not stand still, and one day the smartest of them came up with an optical microscope, which made it possible to study objects with a resolution of 0.2 microns. And so we learned to look at cells and bacteria.
Well, then the corresponding technological era came, and electron microscopes were invented with a resolution of up to 0.01 nm. And with their appearance, we have learned to see the molecules.
And to us this entertaining historical reference is also relevant. Because in our investigations we have come to a point from which you cannot see either the globally large (elephant) or the smallest small (molecule).
Existential dead end, fuck.
And all this happened because we chose the wrong analysis tool. Rather, the selected tools no longer meet our requirements.
Chapter 1
Have you ever wondered how a quote is built? What is the mechanism for its calculation and transformation into a visual graph?
I, at the dawn of the first materials about cryptopaging, did not think about this topic. And in the end I hit a dead end, and realized that I need to reconsider both my ideas, as well as my toolkit.
Look, the charts on these trading views of yours are formed according to the principle of collecting OHLCV information (Open, High, Low, Close, Volume) from crypto exchanges.
This is not the only way to generate a quote chart.
The chart can also be formed on the basis of Tick-information, that is, on the basis of a tape of transactions with the results of each individual transaction in the glass for every fraction of a second (Tick), for the entire time the exchange has existed.
A quote built on the basis of a Tick-date allows you to look into the very depths of the formation of price fluctuations - using such a chart, you can build a cluster structure of a candle, pull out a delta and do many other things that are still incomprehensible to you (further, ofk, I will explain everything).
Tick-date, as it turned out, is a very expensive commodity. For example, there are resources that are ready to sell such a date from one crypto exchange for 1,499 euros, and from the entire crypto market for 9,999 euros.
Another difficulty is the fact that you need special software to work with a chart based on Tick-date.
With the help of our almighty collective mind (thanks, Tasha), we managed to identify only a few softwares that work with Tick-date. I decided not to download any kind of executable-programs-from-forums, and first of all try a demo of paid software for analyzing quotes on Tick-date from TigerTrade.
The platform costs about 50 bucks a month, and if you are one of those who leave about 0.005-0.008 bitcoins to the crypto market over the same period, because you set only TR, and not stops, or vice versa (hello binance), then you should seriously consider over finding third-party solutions for their crypto trading.
We will talk about some features of the Tick-date analysis below, but if you are interested in what the software attracted my attention, then here is a brief extract about the TigerTrade platform for you by my authorship. I am publishing a separate material so as not to overload the already large text of this article.
So, we armed ourselves with the tools, and now we move on.
Chapter 2
First, let's deal with some theoretical concepts.
As I wrote above, a candlestick quote chart can be drawn with OHLCV data at hand (Open, High, Low, Close, Volume), or using fucking more information that is parsed as a result of constant analysis of the trading glass and completed transactions (Tick- data).
As a result, a candle built on the basis of Tick data is globally identical to an OHLCV candle, but can be dissected into components - the so-called. clusters.
OHLCV candles. BTC/USDT, Hourly, Binance, TigerTrade (hereinafter "TT").
Cluster candles (Bid x Ask). BTC/USDT, hourly, Binance (TT). The last 5 hourly candles from the chart in the picture above, 3x is an increase.
cluster candles close-up(Bid x Ask). BTC/USDT, hourly, Binance (TT). 10x - magnification.
A cluster is a cell in which information is grouped based on the results of all trading ticks at the corresponding price (more details about clusters can be found here).
A cluster candle, in its body and shadows, consists of vertically aligned clusters.
Given the amount of Tick-date that can be compiled different ways, there is an overkill of types of clusters (clusters by volume, by delta, by interest, etc.).
The figure below shows the "Bid x Ask" cluster, we will talk about it further.
Cluster in person
Bid x Ask cluster is built according to the X x Y principle.
In the example above, the value of 12 x 26 in the hourly candle means that at the price corresponding to the cluster (6521 USD on Binance - author's note), 12 bitcoins were traded at the Bid price for 1 hour, and 26 bitcoins were traded at the Ask price .
From the second lecture of the maroon berets course, we remember that the quote chart displays the results of market purchases from sell limit orders and market sales - buy limit orders.
In turn, the Bid price is the price of the sell limit limit closest to the spread, and the ask price is the price of the buy limit limit closest to the spread:
BTC/USDT. Cup. Binance.
In the glass above:
Price-Bid = 6 517.98 USDT;
Price-Ask = 6 512.04 USDT;
The spread is an empty zone with no orders between 6,512.04 and 6,517.98 USDT.
A cluster on an hourly candle with a value of 12 x 26 means that transactions were made for 38 bitcoins (12 + 26) per hour, of which 12 bitcoins were sold by limit orders at the Bid price and 26 bitcoins were bought by limit orders at the Ask price.
If you don't understand, stop, smoke, and read again.
And if you understand everything, then the difference between 26 and 12 is called delta.
A positive delta means there were more buyers than sellers, while a negative delta means the opposite. We will return to the Delta.
Chapter 3. Molecules and microscopes.
The reader may well have a question, why the fuck did he read all these clusters, bidas and other necronomicon.
But let's leave the bidas alone for now and talk about our favorite cryptopaging.
I decided to put the last received cryptopager signals on a cluster chart in order to look for patterns in everything.
And it turned out, as usual, a very curious picture.
One of the “fresh” examples: the table below shows a cryptopaging that happened on the night of July 1-2, 2018.
If you look at the candlestick chart immediately after crypto-paging, then it gives a hint of manipulation, but does not give an exact understanding of what really happened:
All the areas of purchases and sales from the above chart would remain incomprehensible to us if we didn’t have a microscope (cluster chart) at hand. And if the candlestick chart is opened in a cluster form, then this is how the whole picture is revealed:
See the text on the graph, and at the bottom of the explanation:
Buckets after a downward momentum - a bearish candle with "buckets" at the bottom, as indicated by a large number of purchasing Bid x Ask clusters. The quote was falling, it was bought off at the bottom.
The blue column is the date the cryptopaging was received.
Zone 1 - a narrow buy zone is created immediately after the blue bar, as evidenced by Bid-Ask clusters and a positive delta in the histogram below the chart (there are more buyers than sellers). Purchasing range 6 325 - 6 348.
Zone 2 - after zone 1, the quote is drained without trading volumes from 6,348 to 6,290, and the second zone of accumulation of buying clusters opens in the range of 6,290 - 6,312.
Cluster chart: BTC/USDT, hourly, Binance (TT)
After purchases in Zone 2, the quote grows from 6,312 to 6,345 (07:00 Moscow time-5).
Extra zone purchases before to-the-moon - a zone of additional accumulation of purchasing clusters in the upper half of Zone 1. The range of purchases is 63 37 - 6 349.
Cluster chart: BTC/USDT, hourly, Binance (TT)
This to-the-moon candle itself passed almost without volumes.
The candle reached approximately 6,666 USDT. I have already said that you cannot compare the values of crypto-paging transactions with the price of an asset, however, it is quite clear that 0.00000666 BTC compares to 6,666 BTC/USDT.
After the pump, a Sell Zone appeared with clusters of sellers in the range of 6,585 - 6,660.
The entire pump was on a negative delta (see the histogram under the corresponding candles), which indicates that whale positions were unloaded on this pump - they sold more than they bought.
Curious is the fact that buying cluster zones began to appear after cryptopaging, and not before. Previously, clusters for purchases and sales alternate quite chaotically, but here, "as if they had agreed."
Personally, I understand everything here. Manipulation. Most likely like this:
0.00000666 BTC signal passed.
Went shopping in three zones.
Pump passed.
Sales went.
Let's look at one more example. This time we will talk about cryptopaging from June 24, 2018, namely:
In this example, the pump mechanism was different.
Candlestick chart:
BTC/USDT, 30-minute, Binance, Tradingview.
And again, a rather murky picture on OHLCV charts is revealed in all its glory in Bid-Ask clusters:
After receiving a crypto-paging of 0.00000545 BTC, the quote went down with big sales to the price of 5,750. And it was on the lows, but not lower than 5,750, for about an hour. At the same time, the delta showed a surge in purchases, which resulted in a pump-candle at 16:30, June 24, 2018 (MSK-5).
Similar downward pressure by limit orders to sell existed on the candlestick from 15:00 (Moscow time-5). That is, before the signal. And the delta on that candle is negative.
It is also interesting that on the pump-candle from 16:00 (MSK-5) there were big purchases at the level of 5,880, and the next candle from 16:30 (MSK-5) could not even let its tail fall below 5,880.
Cluster Chart: BTC/USDT 30-minute Binance (TT)
Pump-candle from 16:30 (MSK-5) took the quote from 5,880 to 6,250. Pump was driven by aggressive buying, which had a strong impact on the delta.
The next candle (17:00, MSK-5) extinguished the entire accumulated positive delta literally “to zero”.
After zeroing the delta, the Buy Zone 1 passes, and then the sale and the second zeroing of the delta. Then there is Zone 2 of purchases, followed by a sale, which led to a decrease, but not zeroing of the delta. Both buy/sell zones were in the range of 6,145 - 6,180.
You can see that the way the maniples behave on different signals is different. In the second case:
A signal of 0.00000545 BTC passed.
The price was squeezed by the limiters "to the floor", after the limiters were removed.
From the “floor”, the quote turned into a pump with two candles, and in the body of the first candle there was a zone of large purchases in the market (for 108 bits), which became the basis for the second candle.
The second and main pump-candle went all the way from 5,875 to 6,140 without big trades, the trades themselves with volumes began in the range above 6,140.
The second pump candle merged from 6,255 to 6,130, while all bitcoins bought on the main pump candle were sold, filigree zeroing out the positive delta.
After the correction, there was a flat in the range of 6,145 - 6,180 with buy and sell zones, calculated in such a way that the delta would reset to zero again.
To clarify: the growth of the delta from zero to X means that X bitcoins were bought more than sold. And when the delta resets from X to 0, it means that all the excess purchases were sold out (but at a higher price).
Well, how's your schedule?
In this whole story, it is important to understand that information about clusters and delta cannot be obtained in a generally accepted way, since usually charts are built as a result of the analysis of the OHLCV date (and not the Tick date, as I wrote above), so information about clusters is not available to most of us !
It is also important to understand that from the Decadence on June 10th (when we fell off a very important uptrend) until today, not all pumps and dumps were manipulative in nature. In any case, cryptopaging is not known to us from all of these impulses.
Some impulses were based on bad news about hacks, closed crypto exchanges in Suriname and other infohuits that you and I have long been accustomed to (or not?).
Chapter 4
I don’t remember where, but once I read or looked for a very suitable answer to the question “Is there a God?”.
The answer went something like this:
“Imagine ants crawling on a bicycle. What is the probability that the ants will understand what they are crawling on? What it is? What is it used for? That's right, none. Ants will never be able to understand a bicycle, because a bicycle is too complicated for an ants to understand the world. So in our case, God is too global and complex for our understanding of the phenomenon.
The same phenomenon, in my opinion, is big crypto money.
Poking around in small transactions, it is very easy to lose sight of the global picture of what is happening. Rather, the global picture is too incomprehensible and complex, but some of its fragments that allow us to unravel the tangle further, as usual, lie under our noses.
If you have been with me for a long time, then in the first part of crypto-paging, I wondered why the “June decadence” happened when on June 10 we fell out of a very important uptrend, which I called the “miner line”, and flew into hell.
Then I meant this graph:
BTC/USD, Daily, Coinbase
I didn’t realize yet that I came across crypto-paging, and all I could find was the patterns between the movements of big bitcoins and quote fluctuations.
And now, let's measure the quote chart from June 10 to today, and reflect on this chart the most massive distributions of crypto-paging signals:
BTC/USD, 4-hour, Bitfinex.
The since-10th-of-June gap happened when we dropped from 7650 to 5800 and are now hovering in the range between 5800 and 6700. There have only been three apparent crypto-paging mailings in that time.
Obvious, because the well-known tg-bot wrote about them (https://t.me/botomex), and many were aware.
But we cannot say for sure how many mailings were sent during this period. We stupidly do not know all their mailing wallets. For example, I did not take wallets with eights into account.
But there was a lot of news.
Let's put the main "news" for this period on the same chart:
BTC/USD, 4-hour, Bitfinex.
The legend of the chart is expressed in the presence of two types of news, which I have separated by the color of the label.
The first group is "orange" news, on which we fell from the "line of miners" (7650) to the range of 5800-6700.
The second group is "blue" news, on which we continued to hang out in the range of 5800-6700 for almost a month.
The graph does not take into account the news about Coinbase Custody and the Binance hack. You can impose them on the quote yourself as an optional task.
To save time, I briefly outlined the news on the chart, and you will find more fully and with proofs in a separate sub-article. Click here and read the super-important news in full detail.
You may well ask the question, why the fuck am I stuffing you with a chart with crypto-paging and news, they say, and it’s so clear that the market is being manipulated. Well you're pissed off to prove it to me!
And you will be right, but not everywhere.
Look, interesting feature that crypto-paging and news keep the quote inside the range of 5800-6700 (in the chart above, this zone is highlighted in yellow).
As soon as the quote reaches highs, then all sorts of fucked up things immediately appear on the cryptocurrency market: either a 51% attack, or crypto nightmares in India, etc. Under the guise of such news, manipuli turn the quote down.
And downstairs they talk about Coinbase Custody and turn upstairs. And so to hell.
But it is not important. What is important is what is below, what I called a sleeping elephant in a china shop.
Remember, I told you that you need to remember about the delta. And a few more times he talked about the positive (more buying) and negative (more selling) delta?
In addition to the “delta”, which is calculated based on the results of clusters of individual candles, there is also such a thing as “cumulative delta”. The cumulative delta is the sum of all positive deltas minus all negative ones.
The cumulative delta is calculated for the specified period, as well as for all candles loaded into the chart.
And now, if you are ready, then catch the cumulative delta for the period from June 10 to July 4, 2018 (see the indicator below the chart):
Cluster chart: BTC/USDT, 30-minute, Binance (TT). Cumulative delta for all loaded candles.
The indicator below the chart shows that for the period under review (June 10 - July 4), on binance, the positive cumulative delta increased from 19,185 BTC to 87,060 BTC. That is, for the period from June 10 to July 4, the cumulative delta increased by 67,875 BTC.
This means that from June 10 to July 4, 67,875 BTC more were bought and put aside than sold. And all this happened without affecting the quote, which instead of growth (more purchases than sales) dangles in a comfortable range of 5800-6700 for someone.
Whales are jamming! And it can be seen on the cluster chart! And on Binance they do it stupidly to the point of dibilism.
If you look at the cumulative volume on OKEx, then the picture is slightly different:
Cluster chart: BTC/USDT, 30-minute, OKEx (TT). Cumulative delta for all loaded candles.
In the period from June 10 to June 24, there was a small flat unloading, but from June 24 to July 4, there is a pronounced buying of the cue ball, while it hangs in the range of 5800-6700.
And if you look at the delta from the stratosphere (Bitfinex weekly chart), then the picture is diametrically opposite:
Cluster chart: BTC/USDT, Week, Bitfinex (TT).
Since July 2017, more bitcoin has been sold on Bitfinex than bought. At the beginning of sales (the fall of the delta below zero in July 2017), the cue ball cost about 2,000 cu. It is likely that now, hamster grooming has reached its climax, and we will go up a little to "grow hair."
Globally - the cue ball has been on sale for a whole year.
Locally, the cue ball is bought because we were at 5,800 and now bounced up.
Everything is relatively “quiet” on the crypto market: the elephant is sleeping and the dishes are intact.
But what these big sales and purchases are for, and what July 2017 has to do with it, I don’t know.
And I don’t know how many dishes will be broken when this elephant wakes up ...
Epilogue. Hidden item The Algorithm.
In this rather extensive work, we managed to look under the microscope into the manipulative movement of the market, and at the level of clusters to see exactly how this manipulation occurs.
And yet, we managed to look at the quote from the stratosphere (using the delta), having seen the global picture:
Since July 2017, bitcoin has been sold more than bought. Which suggests that the entire pump and dump of BTC/USD at the end of 2017 is artificial, in order to shave people who have flown in on the hype.
In the period from June 10 to July 4, there is a purchase of bitcoins, which is stupidly pale on Binance and more realistic on other exchanges (showed on the example of OKex). There is an opinion that there are a large number of guys with OTC on binance, which is why there is such a fierce delta.
And there is also an opinion that crypto-exchanges are a total offshore where non-existent bitcoins are traded and so on. I am silent about the impulse fluctuations of the quote, which hint at momentum-ignition algorithms, but this is still from a series of arguments. And I’m also silent about wash-trades, spoofs, handrails and the rest…
This is not the first time I have threatened crypto exchanges with my investigation. Given that I now have a microscope in the form of Tick-data, I think that I am already ready and can run into Binance and co.
But what conclusions can we come to in this article?
Local output. It is the hidden rule of The Algorithm from the 6th article about cryptopaging.
After countless hours of market manipulation analysis, I only got the real answer when I saw the clusters.
The hidden rule sounds like this: crypto-paging is underway, look at the clusters, you see the prerequisites for growth - get up in the direction of the impulse. Aerobatics there will be control of alts under such manipulative impulses.
And yes, don't thank me for all this. I now, one might say, the Grail drove you. Do not forget about the cluster analysis platform that I liked to read.
Global output. And he's extremely sad. Cue balls have been sold by whales since July 2017 (already a year), and the first sales began when the cue ball cost 2000. Therefore, any price above 2000 is profitable for these sellers.
The bubble with a campaign to 20k was inflated against the backdrop of sales! There were more sales! After falling into the abyss - more sales anyway!
Considering that locally the whales are again on the "buy", we should expect the next growth to a certain 34th "triangle" in a row, and again a drain.
And so until the shit (or up to 2k) will rock the boat.
Or maybe something will happen that will again change the paradigm of the crypto market. Satoshi Nakamoto's appearance on stage, for example.
Most importantly, keep a close eye on the sleeping elephant! And don't get hit when he wakes up!
Once, a hundred new boxes were brought from the factory into the cramped room of the Sysert Porcelain store¹. The saleswoman unpacked one by one, unhurriedly took out the goods, and dictated to herself, writing down the names in a thick barn book: “Candlestick on a stand, 1 piece, with gilding. Gzhel-style saucers, 10 pieces, service, - her mumbling began to lull everyone around, when suddenly: Elephant porcelain, 1 piece, souvenir.
What confusion began on the shelves!
“Mi-mi-mi,” the porcelain mice squealed in horror. - What will happen now? An elephant in a china shop!”
“How are we going to live with such a crowd? - porcelain dogs yelped in despair. “What if he’s as tall as Mount Everest?”
However, Farf's elephant turned out to be much smaller than the mountain. The porcelain factory produced all toys of approximately the same size. Exactly such that it could fit on the glass shelf of the sideboard.
“Fi, it seems to be a dwarf elephant,” the porcelain ballerinas giggled and whispered among themselves.
The elephant noticed that the young ladies were paying attention to him, and politely greeted him: “Good afternoon! You laugh so hard. Do you tell each other something funny?
"Fi-fi, rude elephants do not understand girlish secrets", the ballerinas whispered.
Nobody wanted to be friends with an elephant. Everyone looked at him with suspicion and thought something unkind. True, the saucers could not think or speak, but they still stared at the newcomer like bulging multicolored eyes.
Only a porcelain angel with a book did not pay attention to what was happening. He seemed to be engrossed in reading.
“Angel, at least intercede,” the elephant trumpeted to him. “You are literate, you know that the Lord created all animals good.”
“So it is,” said the angel with dignity. If he had glasses on his nose, he would definitely adjust them with his fingertip. - That's how it is, but still an elephant in a china shop - it's somehow unusual. Unconventional I would say. And it's not safe."
“What if you break our porcelain theater?” - suggested one of the ballerinas.
Indeed, on the next shelf is located whole street porcelain buildings: churches with crosses, palaces, huts and even porcelain wells. All of them had inconspicuous lids on top. The price tag said that these were vessels for storing holy water.
“What can happen? - the elephant was surprised. - I am porcelain and porcelain theater. Maybe I'd like to see a porcelain ballet. Or pray in a porcelain temple.”
But as soon as he moved his foot ... Or maybe he didn’t move, it just seemed to everyone. All the porcelain inhabitants exhaled in chorus: “No-o-o!”
The elephant had to stay put. Farf tried to look at the cover of the book the angel was reading.
“Listen, angel, a book with a cross. Psalter perhaps? - asked the elephant.
The angel was silent. He didn't mind, at least he probably agreed.
“Read Psalm 103 aloud to me,” Farf asked. - Where it is said about birds, animals and cedars, how they glorify the Lord.
The angel was still silent.
“Your pages don’t turn!” - guessed the elephant and stretched his trunk to try to look through.
"Hey! - the angel was offended. "I always read only one page, that's how it's supposed to be."
“I thought…” the elephant justified himself.
“You think too much! Are you the smartest? It has to be easier. Where it’s simple, there are a hundred angels.”
The porcelain angel knew what he was talking about. Behind the showcase cardboard boxes 99 of his brothers were kept - from the same factory batch.
So it went day after day. There were two or more of all the toys in the window, and only the elephant remained alone, unlike anyone else. For this, no one wanted to be friends with him.
And for some reason, buyers, although they paid attention to an unusual item, were in no hurry to purchase it. They were more interested in saucers, cups and jugs, in extreme cases, mice and dogs.
Of course, if you give a child a mouse, he will carry it around the carpet and say “mi-mi-mi!” But if a child is handed an elephant? What sounds will the unfortunate person make? buzz?
“You must do good, elephant,” an angel once turned to Farf. - Benefit people.
"I will be glad!" - readily declared the elephant.
“You see, people appreciate useful items! the angel explained to him. “For example, if you had a round hole in your trunk…”
"Hole in the trunk? For what?"
"Do not interrupt! If you had a suitable hole in your trunk, you could insert a candle there and set fire to it.
"You want me to puff fire?" Farf was surprised.
“I don’t want anything, I’m just explaining to you how to benefit humanity. Further. If you had a cap on your back…”
“I have a colorful blanket on my back!”
“And if instead of it there was a lid with a handle, it could be lifted up and filled with lamp oil.”
“Is there really no better use for elephants than pouring oil into them?”
“I know,” the ballerina interrupted. “People really love it when elephants in the circus on a bicycle show numbers!”
White Farf almost blushed. Since childhood, he was embarrassed to admit to girls that he did not know how to ride a bicycle.
"Let me give you a ride! he suggested. “And read Kipling aloud.”
But the ballerina knew nothing about Kipling, because no ballets were staged based on his works. Therefore, Farf only heard “fi-fi-fi” in response.
One day the floor of the china shop shook.
“Slo-he! Quiet! Don `t move!" - all the porcelain inhabitants said in unison.
Only Farf was not to blame for anything. A whole delegation of black people entered the shop. They were all in black cassocks, with black hoods on their heads. And their faces were black.
“Oh, we rarely have blacks! - the saleswoman exclaimed, and was immediately frightened that she said impolitely: - Would you like to buy a little white mouse, father? Or a dog?
The negro archimandrite was carefully examining the shop window.
"Tembo! Mfalme wa revenge! he nodded to his assistant.
"Ngombe nzuri," he agreed.
“Suck the cane that elephant?” - the archimandrite switched from Swahili to Greek, for such is the language Orthodox Church in Africa.
“Oh, do you want to buy an elephant? - guessed the saleswoman. - Wrap you up?
Elephant packed in gift box, and he went, where he was supposed to, to the Black Continent.
And in Russia there was a rainy summer. The occupants of the china shop watched for days on end as the drops crawled over window glass. They would be glad if drops fell on them, because over time, both the shelves of the showcase and they themselves began to become covered with dust.
All porcelain conversations were repeated many times. And even the angel was tired of looking at the same page of an unturned book.
“It's the rainy season in Kenya now,” the ballerina sighed. “Some are lucky… with business trips abroad.”
“Once he went abroad, it means he owns foreign languages- guessed one of the dogs. Was he a spy?
But no one supported her. Though a spy, but still a friend, it's boring without him.
Oh, if porcelain elephants could write porcelain letters, and if there was a china shop Mailbox to receive postcards!
¹The enterprise belongs to the Yekaterinburg Metropolitanate. -Ed.
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