SMALL CASE FROM PERSONAL LIFE
A funny story happened to me on transport this fall. I went to Moscow. From Rostov. Here comes the mail-passenger train at 6.45 pm.
I'm on this train.
The people are not so ugly a lot. Even in extreme cases, you can sit down.
Please hurry up. I sit down.
And business, I speak, by the evening. Not that dark, but dark. Generally twilight. And they still don't fire. Save wires.
So, I look at the surrounding passengers and see - the company has crept up quite glorious. All of them, I see, are nice, not inflated people. Please remember them.
One such without a hat, long-maned subject, but not pop. Such an intellectual in general in a black jacket.
Next to him - in Russian boots and a uniform cap. Such mustache. Just not an engineer. Maybe he's a zookeeper or an agronomist. Only, you see, a very sympathetic soul person. He holds a penknife with his handles and with this knife cuts antonov apple into pieces and feeds his other neighbor - the armless one. This one next to him, I see an armless citizen riding. Such a young proletarian guy. Without both hands. Probably disabled. It's very pitiful to look at.
But he eats with such gusto. And since he has no hands, he cuts him into slices and feeds him into his mouth on the tip of a knife.
Such, I see, a humane picture. A story worthy of Rembrandt.
And opposite them sits a middle-aged, gray-haired man in a black cap. And all he, this man, grins.
Maybe they had some funny conversation before me. Only, you see, this passenger still cannot cool down and laughs all the time: "hee" and "hee".
And I was very intrigued not by this gray-haired one, but by the one who was armless.
And I look at him with civic sorrow, and I am very tempted to ask how he got so stupid and why he lost his limbs. But it's embarrassing to ask.
I think I'll get used to the passengers, I'll talk and then I'll ask.
He began to ask extraneous questions to the mustachioed subject, as more responsive, but he answers gloomily and reluctantly.
Only suddenly the first, intelligent man with long hair gets involved in a conversation with me.
He turned to me for some reason, and we struck up a conversation on different lungs topics: where are you going, how much is cabbage and do you have a housing crisis today.
He says:
We do not have a housing crisis. Moreover, we live in our homestead, in the estate.
And what, - I say, - do you have a room or a doghouse there?
No, - he says, - why the room. Take it higher. I have nine rooms, not counting, of course, the people's rooms, sheds, latrines, and so on.
I speak:
Maybe you're lying? Well, I say, you were not evicted during the revolution, or is it a state farm?
No, he says, this is mine. family estate, mansion. Yes, you, he says, come to me. I sometimes arrange evenings. Fountains splash around me. Symphony orchestras waltzes are played every minute.
What are you, - I say, - I'm sorry, will you be a tenant, or are you a private person?
Yes, he says, I am a private person. By the way, I'm a landowner.
That is, - I say, - how do you, if you please, understand? Are you a former landowner? That is, I say, the proletarian revolution swept away your category. I, I say, I'm sorry, I did not understand something in this matter. We have, I say, social revolution, socialism, what kind of landlords can we have?
But, he says, they can. Here, he says, I am a landowner. I, he says, managed to survive through your entire revolution, and, he says, I spit on everyone, I live like a god. And I don't care about your, you think, social revolutions.
I look at him in amazement and do not really understand what's what.
He says:
Yes, come and see. Well, if you want, let's go to my place now. Very, he says, you will meet a luxurious aristocratic life. Let's go. See.
"What, - I think, - for the devil. To go, or something, to see how he survived through the proletarian revolution? Or is he lying"
Moreover, I see - a gray-haired man laughs. Everyone laughs: "hehe" and "hehe".
I just wanted to point out to him inappropriate laughter, and the mustachioed one, who had cut the apple before, put the penknife on the table, ate the leftovers and said to me rather loudly:
Yes, stop talking to him. It's mental. Don't you see it?
Then I looked at the whole honest company and I see - my fathers! Why, it's really crazy that they go with a watchman. And who is long-haired - abnormal. And who laughs all the time. And armless too. He's just wearing a straitjacket - his arms are twisted. And you can’t immediately make out what he is with his hands. In a word, crazy people go. And this mustachioed their watchman. He transports them.
I look at them with concern and get nervous - I still think, damn it, they will strangle them, since they are mental and are not responsible for their actions.
Only suddenly I see - one crazy, with a black beard, my neighbor, looked at his with a sly eye on a penknife and suddenly carefully takes it in his hand.
Then my heart skipped a beat and the frost on the skin passed. In one second, I jumped up, fell on the bearded man and began to take away the knife from him.
And he desperately resists me. And he tries to bite me with his frenzied teeth.
Only suddenly the mustachioed watchman pulls me back.
Why are you, - he says, - piled on them, as you, right, are not ashamed. This is their knife. This is not a psychic passenger. These three - yes, my mental. And this passenger just rides, just like you don't. We borrowed a knife from them - they asked. This is their knife. How shameless you are!
whom I crushed says:
I give them a knife, they are attacking me. They choke on the throat. Thank you thank you. What strange behavior on their part. Yes, maybe it's also mental. Then if you're a watchman, you better look after him. Avon, lashes out - strangles by the throat.
Watchman says:
Or maybe he's psychic too. The dog will take it apart. Only he is not from my party. Why would I look after him in vain. There is nothing for me to point out. I know mine.
I say to the strangled:
I'm sorry, I thought you were crazy too.
You, he says, thought. Indian roosters think ... Almost strangled by the throat, you bastard. Don't you see, perhaps, their crazy look and mine are natural.
No, I say, I don't see it. On the contrary, I say, you also have some kind of haze in your eyes, and your beard grows with a poke, like a crazy one.
One psychic - this same landowner - says:
And you pull his beard - so he will stop talking abnormalities.
The bearded one wanted to scream, but then we arrived at the Igren station, and our psychics with their guide came out. And they came out in pretty good order. The armless one just had to be pushed a little.
And then the conductor told us that at this Igren station there is a house for the mentally ill, where such mental patients are sometimes taken. And how else to carry them? Not in a dog kennel. There is nothing to be offended.
Yes, I'm actually not offended. But the one I crushed, he was really offended. He looked at me gloomily for a long time and followed my every movement with fear. And then, not expecting anything good from me, he moved with things to another department.
Please. I have nothing against it.
And when he left and I was left alone, I felt funny and funny from everything that happened to me. And this little case seemed to me a surprisingly funny incident, based on a not entirely successful transportation of psychics.
And I laughed and fell asleep. And got up in the morning good mood. So sometimes failure turns into success.
Now, Dear friends, read out last story, which contains everything amazing and everything at once - money, love, deceit, failure and a big event - and all these objects are taken in their amazing refraction. - And it doesn't happen that often. Here is the story.
Once I was walking along the street and suddenly I noticed that women were not looking at me.
It used to be that you would go out into the street earlier, like a candebober, as they say, and they look at you, send aerial glances, sympathetic smiles, chuckles and antics.
And then suddenly I see - nothing like that!
This, I think, is a pity! Still, I think a woman plays some role in her personal life.
One bourgeois economist, or, it seems, a chemist, expressed the original idea that not only personal life, but everything we do, we do for women. And, therefore, the struggle, fame, wealth, honors, the exchange of an apartment and the purchase of a coat, and so on and so forth - all this is done for the sake of a woman.
Well, he, of course, intercepted it, the dog, lied to the amusement of the bourgeoisie, but as for his personal life, I completely agree with this.
I agree that a woman plays some role in personal life.
Still, it used to go to the cinema, it’s not so insulting to look bad picture. Well, there, you shake the handle, you say various stupid words - it all brightens up modern Art and poverty of personal life.
So, what is my state of health when one day I see that women do not look at me!
What the hell do you think? Why don't women look at me? Why did it happen? What do they need?
So I come home and quickly look in the mirror. There, I see, a shabby muzzle looms. And dim eyes. And the paint does not play on the cheeks.
“Yeah, now I understand! I say to myself. - We need to strengthen the diet. We must fill our faded shell with blood.
And here I am in a hurry to buy different products.
I buy butter and sausage. I buy cocoa and so on.
All this I eat, drink and eat right non-stop. And in a short time I return to myself an unheard-of fresh, untired look.
And in this form I flit through the streets. However, I notice that the ladies still do not look at me.
“Yeah,” I say to myself, “maybe I have developed a crappy walk? Maybe I'm missing gymnastic exercises, hanging on the rings, jumping? Maybe I lack the large muscles that ladies tend to admire?
I then buy a hanging trapeze. I buy rings and weights and some special fluff.
I'm spinning like a son of a bitch on all these rings and machines. I twirl in the morning ryuhu. I chop wood for my neighbors for free.
I'm finally signing up sports Club. I ride boats and boats. I swim until November. At the same time, I almost drown once. I foolishly dive in a deep place, but without reaching the bottom, I start blowing bubbles, not knowing how to swim decently.
I kill half a year for all this rigmarole. I put my life in danger. I bust my head twice in a fall off a trapeze.
I courageously endure all this and one fine day, tanned and strengthened like a spring, I go out into the street to meet a forgotten female approving smile.
But I can't find that smile again.
Then I start sleeping with the window open. Fresh air infiltrates my lungs. The color starts to play on my cheeks. My muzzle turns pink and red. And for some reason it even takes on a lilac hue.
With my purple muzzle, I go to the theater one day. And in the theater, like crazy, spinning around female composition, causing criticism and rude hints from men and even pushing and shoving in the chest. And as a result I see two or three miserable smiles, which do not suit me much.
In the same place, in the theater, I go up to a large mirror and admire my strengthened figure and chest, which now gives seventy-five centimeters with a spring.
I bend my arms and straighten my waist and spread my legs this way and that way.
And I am sincerely surprised at that fastidiousness, that figure on the part of women who either rage with fat, or their dog knows what they need.
I admire it large mirror and suddenly I notice that I am not dressed well. I'll tell you straight - poorly and even ugly dressed. Short pants with bubbles at the knees make me horrified and even shudder.
But I am literally dumbfounded when I look at my lower limbs, the description of which does not belong in fiction.
“Ah, now I understand! I say to myself. "That's what crushes my personal life - I don't dress well."
And, depressed, on crooked legs, I return home, giving myself the word to change clothes.
And now, in a hurry, I am building a new wardrobe for myself. I am sewing a new jacket in the latest fashion from a purple curtain. And I buy myself Oxford trousers made of two riding breeches.
I walk around in this suit hot-air balloon, upset by such a fashion.
I buy myself a coat on the market with such broad shoulders, which do not exist on our planet at all.
And on a day off, one day in such an outfit I go out to Tverskoy Boulevard.
I go out to Tverskoy Boulevard and perform like a trained camel. I walk to and fro, swivel my shoulders and do my feet.
The women look sideways at me with a mixture of surprise and fear.
Men - those look less askance. Their remarks are heard, rude and uncultured remarks of people who do not understand the whole situation.
Here and there I hear phrases:
- Evo, what a scarecrow! Look how the scoundrel dressed up! How, - they say, - is he not ashamed? He wrapped himself three kilometers of matter.
They shower me with ridicule and laugh at me.
I walk, as if through a system, along the boulevard, vaguely hoping for something.
And suddenly, at the monument to Pushkin, I notice a decently dressed lady who looks at me with infinite tenderness and even slyness.
I smile back and three times, playing with my feet, go around the monument to Pushkin. Then I sit down on the bench opposite.
A decently dressed lady, with the remnants of a faded beauty, stares at me intently. Her eyes lovingly slide over my decent figure and over the face, on which everything good is written.
I tilt my head, shrug my shoulders and mentally admire the slender philosophical system bourgeois economist about the value of women.
I wink at Pushkin: they say, here, they say, it has begun, Alexander Sergeevich.
I again turn to the lady, who now, I see, literally follows my every movement with unblinking eyes.
Then for some reason I start to get scared of those unblinking eyes. I myself am not happy with the success of this creature. And I already want to leave. And I already want to go around the monument in order to take a tram and go wherever my eyes look, somewhere on the outskirts, where there is no such unblinking public.
But suddenly this decent lady comes up to me and says:
- Excuse me, dear ... It's very, - he says, - it's strange for me to talk about it, but this is exactly the coat that was stolen from my husband. Do not refuse the courtesy to show the lining.
“Well, yes, of course,” I think, “it’s inconvenient for her to start acquaintance with the bay-floundering.”
I open my coat and at the same time I make the maximum chest with a buckle.
Looking around the lining, the lady raises a heart-rending screech and screams. Well, yes, of course, it's her coat! The stolen coat that this scoundrel, that is, I, is now wearing on my shoulders.
Her moaning hurts my ears. I'm ready to sink into the ground in my new trousers and my coat.
We go to the police, where they draw up a protocol. They ask me questions and I answer them truthfully.
And when, by the way, they ask me how old I am, I name a number and suddenly I shudder at this almost three-digit number.
“Oh, that’s why they don’t look at me! I say to myself. - I'm just getting old. And I wanted to blame the shortcomings of my personal life on the wardrobe.
I hand over the stolen coat I bought at the market, and lightly, with a troubled heart, I go out into the street.
"Well, okay, I'll get by! I say to myself. - My personal life will be labor. I will work. I will benefit people. Not only light in the window, that woman.
I begin to mock the words of a bourgeois scientist.
“This is nonsense! I say to myself. - These are idle inventions! Typical Western nonsense!”
I want. I spit right and left. And I turn my face away from the passing women.
But here's what's interesting - this little incident happened to me about two years ago.
And although in these two years I seemed to have aged even more, nevertheless this summer I met one person, and she, imagine, was very carried away by me. And, most importantly, a funny detail: this summer I dressed, as if on purpose, extremely poorly. He went in the devil knows what pants and holey sports shoes.
And yet, this did not affect love. And I am happy and satisfied through this, and even we will soon marry for mutual love.
And I hope that what you read in the next story will not happen to us.
Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko, Blue book, Stories of love
I stop once at the cinema and wait for one lady.
Here, I must say, we liked one person. Such a rather interesting childless girl. Servant.
Well, of course, love. Meetings. Different words like that. And even composing poems on a topic that has nothing to do with construction, something like this: "A bird is jumping on a branch, the sun is shining in the sky ... Accept, my dear, my hello ... And something like that, I don’t remember, - ta-ta-ta-ta... it hurts..."
Love in this sense always has a negative impact on the outlook of individual citizens. Sometimes whining and various humane feelings are noticed. There is some kind of pity for people and fish and a desire to help them. And the heart becomes somehow sensitive. Which is completely redundant these days.
So, one day I stand in the cinema with my sensitive heart and wait for my lady.
And she, since she is an employee and does not value her place too much, she likes to be late. On service something, of course for this strictly. Well, here she knows for two delays she will be fired. So she wins back on personal grounds and on humane feelings.
So, I stand like a fool in a movie and wait.
So - the queue at the checkout is flowing. So - the door is open to the street, come in. Yes, I'm standing. And somehow I stand so energetically, cheerfully. Hunting to sing, have fun, play the fool. Hunting someone to push, play a trick or grab the nose. In the soul, singing is heard, and the heart is torn with happiness.
And suddenly I see - standing around front door a poorly dressed old woman. She has such a tattered water proof, a shabby muff, old-fashioned slippers with holes.
And this old woman stands modestly at the door and looks with pitiful eyes at those who come in, waiting to see if they will serve.
Others in her place usually stand impudently, deliberately singing in thin voices or muttering some French words, while this one stands modestly and even somehow bashfully.
Humane feelings fill my heart. I take out my purse, rummage in it for a while, take out a ruble and from pure heart, with a slight bow, I serve the old woman.
And from the fullness of feelings, tears, like diamonds, shine in his eyes.
The old woman looked at the ruble and said:
- What's this?
- Here, - I say, - accept, mother, from the unknown.
And suddenly I see - her cheeks flushed from deep excitement.
- It's strange, - he says, - I don't seem to ask. Why are you pushing me a ruble? .. Maybe I'm expecting a daughter - I'm going to go to the cinema with her. It is very, he says, a shame to see such facts.
I speak:
- I'm sorry ... How can it be ... I don't understand myself ... Sorry ... I say. Straight confused. You don't know who needs what. And who is behind what. No joke, so many people...
But the old woman raises her voice to a full screech.
- What is it, - he says, - do not go to the cinema - they insult the person! How, he says, will your hands not wither to make such gestures? Yes, I'd rather wait for my daughter and go to another movie with her than I'll sit with you and breathe contaminated air.
I grab her hands, apologize and ask for forgiveness. And I quickly step aside, otherwise, I think, what good, they will notice the police, and I'm waiting for the lady.
My lady is coming soon. And I stand dull and pale, and even somewhat stunned, and I am ashamed to look around so as not to see my offended old woman.
So I take a ticket and follow my lady with small steps.
Suddenly someone comes up behind me and grabs my elbow.
I want to turn around to leave, but suddenly I see an old woman in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “wasn’t it you who gave me a ruble just now?”
I mumble something incoherent, and she continues:
- I don’t remember here, someone gave me a ruble just now ... It seems you. If you, then okay, give. Here the daughter did not calculate, and the second places are more expensive than we thought. And in the third places I will not see anything because of the weakness of the eyes. Just leave right now. I'm sorry, she says she reminded me.
I take out my purse, but my lady lets in the following words:
- Absolutely, he says, there is nothing to throw money at. For that matter, I'd rather have a narzan in the buffet.
I speak:
- You will get Narzan, don't whine. But I have to give a ruble. You never know what are the monetary hitches. We must, I say, be comradely.
No, I still gave the old woman a ruble, and we began to look at the picture in disheveled feelings.
To the music, the lady sawed me, saying that in two weeks of our acquaintance I could not buy her cologne, but, by the way, I throw dust in my eyes and distribute rubles right and left.
In the end they began to show a funny comedy, and we, forgetting about everything, laughed merrily.
And this old woman was sitting with her daughter not far from us and also sometimes grunted merrily.
And I was very glad that I gave her this cultural pleasure. And even if she asked me for two rubles, I would also give her without batting an eyelid.
But, in general, this is a minor fact, and as for large matters related to money, we, for example, know the following case.
Here is an amusing novella that lovers of the Mysterious will have some pleasure in reading.
Small incident from personal life
N.D.Balabai
The distance is boundless, the heights are under heaven, and the heat ... and the heat is utter. We've had a terrible heat wave this summer. 43 degrees in the shade! Warm, however.
And I had to buy milk in the market in a plastic bottle in such a heat.
In fact, we buy milk at the dacha from our thrush lady Lida. Lida is a nurse in the past, she is very hardworking and exceptionally clean. Therefore, the milk that we bought from her, everyone drank without fear. By the way, Lida is very jealous of the quality of her products and cleanliness. She speaks very funny in South Ukrainian surzhik, and always says to me quite seriously
- Don’t buy from Natashka, she buys from me herself, then diluted with water, she sells it. Pipe!
- You don’t have to wash the bottles, I wash everything and roast it in the sun.
-Today I bathed my Lasunya, (a cow), so I have such a garnish, such a clean one. Don't give milk to anyone, krim mene.
-Try yak milk, yak with sugar, and cream?! A!
And I always obediently bought milk only from her, and now I managed it. Well, there is a hole in the old woman, as the classics rightly noted. Got a little hot.
I drank coffee with this milk from the market and began to slowly end: chills, fever, diarrhea, headache, vomit. Full set. It's just that levomycetin and furozalidon did not help, I got under a dropper, fortunately my husband was the chief medical officer, and his best friend is a gastroenterologist.
I lie and lament over my unfortunate fate, good people on the beach, on the river, on yachts, in dachas, and you, with a needle in your hand, are all in the ward, like a tired leg.
Call. Lida.
-Olga Petrovna, leave milk for you.
- Hello, Lidochka, dear ... No, we will not come to the dacha today.
-What is it?
-And I, Lida, am such a fool that I can’t even find words. I bought milk at the market, and now I'm on a drip. Poisoned.
-What are you? Whoa! Well, what did you take in the market? Chi with gluzdu zihala? (crazy)
-Probably, but the hostess, Lida, assured me that milk is “morning”.
-That's like it's morning. They have it for 5 days in the morning, they pour antibiotics there. I told you (I told you)
What are you, Linda? Can't be!
-From you are already intelligentsia, yet already naive. Straight, like a child ..
Lida's intelligentsia is a dirty word. (This is for reference.)
-Listen, there tsikh hazyayek have such chemistry, sho and that one, like him ...
-Mendeleev.
- Oh, right. Mendeleev did not dream. Add pepsin, antibiotics, smectite. And grind sour cream with chalk and palm oil. And it's tasty, because it's a flavor enhancer. It’s like in a laboratory there - to cheat like that, you don’t know, you carry it to the company.
Linda, right?
-Tyu! Shaw I will lie. I told you to buy milk from me, but you were carried to that market. There's a pipe there. From hear: in Fedorovka, Galka had a leukemia cow, the toad pressed to inoculate, she was greedy; so first the husband died, and then she herself, 2 little ones left. And she traded in milk for the whole hour.
I got cold. Oh Lord, Queen of Heaven!
- And in Central, cows have brucellosis, so there are 3 families who are crazy.
- Linda, maybe you won't continue. You already convinced me.
- I'll tell you - contagious cows with leukemia rich. Khazyaev save pennies, and people die.
- Linda, Linda, I understand. I swear, we will only buy milk from you.
- Good, good. Get well soon, Olga Petrovna. You cey, drink tea with lemon, mineral water, rigedron.
Somehow I immediately remembered the golden time for music lovers, when the country of the Soviets buried its general secretaries - in the morning funeral symphonies, requiems, Tchaikovsky with his "Pathetica", the best conductors: Mravinsky, Rozhdestvensky, Kondrashin. Ballets are a celebration of art. Yes. So it sounds in the ears - Kirie eleison, Lord have mercy! Then, already, I thought about the will - leukemia, this is not a joke to you.
And I got sick of dozing, and it is not readable. That's it! Recently, our Kulibins crashed into a water pipe at night, and if it weren’t for the counters, no one would have known. Homegrown Mendeleevs from a half-liter jar of cream with the help of simple chemical operations, such as mixing and shaking, get 3 liters of a suspension called "Oh, sour cream is so tasty in mene" of an exclusively marketable appearance. The same Mendeleevs brew moonshine with chicken manure for a quick catch-up, and sell it right at the kiosks, but I, really, naive, all the time was surprised at what polite and smiling women sell mineral water in the kiosk. And why wouldn’t they smile, he knocked over a glass and a drink stands nearby. Har-rra-sho! You never know. My colleague once said: “Ukrainians are like vipers - they are crushed, impoverished, but they still survive. And eat one alone!
Definitely, I concluded when I hobbled home - to buy milk only from Lida and be sure, as the doctor said, to boil. Sour cream is the most expensive only in supermarkets, checking the date and year!
Which is what I recommend to everyone. Be healthy everyone! Olga Golub. 09/03/12.
Once I was walking along the street and suddenly I noticed that women were not looking at me.
It used to be - before you go out into the street with a sort of, as they say, candebober, and they look at you, send aerial glances, sympathetic smiles, chuckles and antics.
And then suddenly I see - nothing like that!
This, I think, is a pity! Still, I think "a woman plays some role in her personal life.
One bourgeois economist, or, it seems, a chemist, expressed the original idea that not only personal life, but everything we do, we do for women. And, therefore, the struggle, fame, wealth, honors, the exchange of an apartment and the purchase of a coat, and so on and so forth - all this is done for the sake of a woman.
Well, he, of course, intercepted it, the dog, lied to the amusement of the bourgeoisie, but as for his personal life, I completely agree with this.
I agree that a woman plays some role in personal life.
Still, it used to happen that you go to the cinema, it’s not so insulting to look at a bad picture. Well, there, you shake the pen, you say various stupid words - all this brightens up contemporary art and the poverty of your personal life.
So, what is my state of health when one day I see that women do not look at me!
What the hell do you think? Why don't women look at me? Why did it happen? What do they need?
So I come home and quickly look in the mirror, There, I see, a shabby muzzle looms. And dim eyes. And the paint does not play on the cheeks.
"Aha, now it's clear! - I say to myself. - We need to strengthen the nutrition. We need to fill our faded shell with blood."
And here I am in a hurry to buy different products.
I buy butter and sausage. I buy cocoa and so on.
All this I eat, drink and eat right non-stop. And in a short time I return to myself an unheard-of fresh, untired look.
And in this form I flit through the streets. However, I notice that the ladies still do not look at me.
“Aha,” I say to myself, “maybe I have developed a crappy gait? Maybe I don’t have enough gymnastic exercises, hanging on the jump rings? Maybe I lack the large muscles that ladies tend to admire?”
I then buy a hanging trapeze. I buy rings and weights and some special fluff.
I'm spinning like a son of a bitch on all these rings and machines. I twirl in the morning ryuhu. I chop wood for my neighbors for free.
I'm finally signing up for a sports club. I ride boats and boats. I swim until November. At the same time, I almost drown once. I foolishly dive in a deep place, but without reaching the bottom, I start blowing bubbles, not knowing how to swim decently.
I kill half a year for all this rigmarole. I put my life in danger. I bust my head twice in a fall off a trapeze.
I courageously endure all this and one fine day, tanned and strengthened like a spring, I go out into the street to meet a forgotten female approving smile.
But I can't find that smile again.
Then I start sleeping with the window open. Fresh air enters my lungs. The color starts to play on my cheeks. My muzzle turns pink and red. And for some reason it even takes on a lilac hue.
With my purple muzzle, I go to the theater one day. And in the theater, like crazy, I spin around the female cast, causing criticism and rude hints from the men and even pushing and shoving in the chest.
And as a result I see two or three miserable smiles, which do not suit me much.
In the same place, in the theater, I go up to a large mirror and admire my strengthened figure and chest, which now gives seventy-five centimeters with a spring.
I bend my arms, and straighten my waist, and spread my legs this way, that way.
And I am sincerely surprised at that fastidiousness, that figurativeness on the part of women who either rage with fat, or their dog knows what they need.
I admire this large mirror and suddenly notice that I am not dressed well. I'll tell you straight - poorly and even ugly dressed. Short pants with bubbles at the knees make me horrified and even shudder.
But I am literally dumbfounded when I look at my lower limbs, the description of which does not belong in fiction.
"Ah, now I understand! - I say to myself. - That's what crushes my personal life - I don't dress well."
And, depressed, on crooked legs, I return home, giving myself the word to change clothes.
And now, in a hurry, I am building a new wardrobe for myself. I am sewing a new jacket in the latest fashion from a purple curtain. And I buy myself Oxford trousers, made of two riding breeches.
I walk in this suit, as if in a balloon, upset by such a fashion.
I buy myself a coat on the market with such broad shoulders, which do not exist on our planet at all.
And on a day off, one day in such an outfit I go out to Tverskoy Boulevard.
I go out to Tverskoy Boulevard and perform like a trained camel. I walk back and forth, rotate my shoulders and do it on my feet.
The women look sideways at me with a mixture of surprise and fear.
Men - those look less askance. Their remarks are heard, rude and uncultured remarks of people who do not understand the whole situation.
Here and there I hear phrases:
Evo, what a scarecrow! Look how the scoundrel dressed up! How, - they say, - is he not ashamed? He wrapped himself three kilometers of matter.
They shower me with ridicule and laugh at me.
I walk, as if through a system, along the boulevard, vaguely hoping for something.
And suddenly, at the monument to Pushkin, I notice a decently dressed lady who looks at me with infinite tenderness and even slyness.
I smile back and three times, playing with my feet, go around the monument to Pushkin. Then I sit down on the bench opposite.
A well-dressed lady with a remnant of faded beauty looks at me intently. Her eyes lovingly slide over my decent figure and over the face, on which everything good is written.
I tilt my head, shrug my shoulders and mentally admire the harmonious philosophical system of a bourgeois economist on the value of women.
I wink at Pushkin: they say, here, they say, it has begun, Alexander Sergeevich.
I again turn to the lady, who now, I see, literally follows my every movement with unblinking eyes.
Then for some reason I start to get scared of those unblinking eyes. I myself am not happy with the success of this creature. And I already want to leave. And I already want to go around the monument in order to take a tram and go wherever my eyes look, somewhere on the outskirts, where there is no such unblinking public.
But suddenly this decent lady comes up to me and says:
Sorry, dear ... It’s very, he says, it’s strange for me to talk about it, but that’s exactly the kind of coat that was stolen from my husband. Do not refuse the courtesy to show the lining.
"Well, yes, of course, - I think, - it's inconvenient for her to start acquaintance with the bay-floundering."
I open my coat and at the same time I make the maximum chest with a buckle.
Looking around the lining, the lady raises a heart-rending screech and screams. Well, yes, of course, it's her coat! The stolen coat that this scoundrel, that is, I, is now wearing on my shoulders.
Her moaning hurts my ears. I'm ready to sink into the ground in my new trousers and my coat.
We go to the police, where they draw up a protocol. They ask me questions and I answer them truthfully.
And when, by the way, they ask me how old I am, I name a number and suddenly I shudder at this almost three-digit number.
"Ah, that's why they don't look at me!" I say to myself.
I hand over the stolen coat I bought at the market, and lightly, with a troubled heart, I go out into the street.
"Well, I'll manage! - I say to myself. - My personal life will be work. I will work. I will bring people benefits. Not only the light in the window, that woman."
I begin to mock the words of a bourgeois scientist.
"This is nonsense! - I say to myself. - This is idle fiction! Typical Western nonsense!"
I want. I spit right and left. And I turn my face away from the passing women.
But here's what's interesting - this little incident happened to me about two years ago.
And although in these two years I seemed to have aged even more, nevertheless, this summer I met one person, and she, imagine, was very carried away by me. And, most importantly, a funny detail: this summer I dressed, as if on purpose, extremely poorly. He went in the devil knows what pants and holey sports shoes.
And yet, this did not affect love. And I am happy and satisfied through this, and even we will soon marry for mutual love.
And I hope that what you read in the next story will not happen to us.
