Darrell is my family and the animals are talking about. Read the book "My family and other animals"

08.12.2021

Today in our review - a new edition of Gerald Durrell's autobiographical story "My Family and Other Animals", with atmospheric, verified to the smallest detail illustrations by Maria Mazirko. The drawings in the book are black and white, but this only adds to their realism.

“My Family and Other Animals” is a book about love for nature and how beautiful and diverse the living world is. And this book is also about a strong and friendly family, which is easy-going and not afraid of change. Why, this is a real guide to solving all problems. And a laudatory ode to English equanimity and sense of humor.

Well, really. Rainy summer, endless colds, not the best climate. The entire population of Great Britain suffers and suffers, and the Durrell family was outraged: why endure? After all, you can sell your house and leave where the sun always shines! To warm, blessed Greece!

Yes, of course, this requires that you have a house that can be sold, have money for travel, relocation, life abroad ... But besides money, you need a lot of optimism, determination and courage. And strong nerves not only to settle down in an unfamiliar country, where everyone speaks an incomprehensible language, but also to make friends there, and enjoy every day.

In the center of the story is the happy childhood of the boy Jerry. He has absolutely everything he needs to be happy. A kind and loving mother who does not forbid anything, two older brothers, one is a writer, the other is a hunter, and an older sister, from whom you can borrow jars of cream and plant different animals in them.

Jerry also has a dog named Roger and a lot, a lot of freedom. And a whole island to explore for days on end. Olive groves, vineyards, reed beds, lakes and marshes, fields and meadows.

In every line, the author's genuine love for the island of Corfu, one of the most beautiful places on earth, is felt. There are strawberry-pink houses, entwined with bougainvillea, there fireflies light their lanterns in the evenings, dolphins splash in the sea, and a man with bronzes walks along the roads and plays the flute ...

There you can live by the sea, dig in the garden, breathe in the scent of flowers and herbs, listen to the music of cicadas, swim in a boat, sunbathe, collect collections of seashells, go on picnics during the lily season.

Of course, this paradise is home to many different animals. Scorpios, for example. Spiders. Praying mantises. Earwigs. Maybe someone doesn't like all these comrades, but not Jerry. He is just crazy about all living things and tries to collect them all under the roof of his house, so he does not go out for a walk without a net.

Oh, what a lot of important things Jerry has! Feed the tame turtle strawberries. Throwing water snakes into the bathtub, much to the displeasure of the older brother. Watch the battle between the mantis and the gecko. Raise a couple of thieving and noisy magpies. Go for an evening walk with your own owl. Guard the nest of the earwig, waiting for the babies to hatch from the eggs.

It's no surprise that Jerry grew up to be a writer. And he created such amazing, funny and breathtaking memories of the unforgettable years spent on the island of Corfu.
Text and photo: Katya Medvedeva

Gerald Durrell

My family and other animals

Gerald durrell

MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS

This edition is published by arrangement with Curtis Brown UK and The Van Lear Agency.

Series "Big Romance"

The publication was prepared with the participation of the Azbuka publishing house.

Publishing House Inostranka®
* * *

Dedicated to my mother

But I have my own melancholy, composed of many elements, extracted from many objects, and in essence the result of reflections from my wanderings, plunging into which I experience the most humorous sadness.
William Shakespeare. How do you like it(Translated by T. Shchepkina-Kupernik)

Defender's Speech

On some days I managed to believe in a dozen impossibilities before breakfast!
The White Queen in "Alice in Wonderland" (Translated by N. Demurova)

This is a story about a five-year stay of my whole family on the Greek island of Corfu. It was conceived as a description of the local nature, with a nostalgic note, but I made a big mistake, introducing my loved ones on the very first pages. Once fixed on paper, they began to seize space and invite a variety of friends to share the chapters of this book with them. Only with great difficulty and all sorts of tricks did I manage to keep separate pages dedicated exclusively to animals.

I have tried to paint an accurate, without exaggeration, portrait of my family; they look the way I saw them. At the same time, in order to explain their somewhat eccentric behavior, I think it is necessary to clarify that in those days of their stay in Corfu, everyone was still quite young: the eldest, Larry, was twenty-three, Leslie was nineteen, Margot was eighteen, and I, the youngest , was an impressionable ten-year-old. It was difficult for us to judge the age of our mother for the simple reason that she never really remembered the date of her birth; so I’ll say simply: she was the mother of four children. She also insists that I be sure to clarify: she is a widow - because, as she very shrewdly noted, you never know what people can think about.

In order to condense events, observations, and simply pleasant pastime into a modest volume than Encyclopedia Britannica, spanning five years, I had to shorten, simplify and relocate the material, as a result of which little remained of the original sequence of events. And I also had to leave out a bunch of episodes and characters that I would love to describe.

I doubt this book would have been completed without the help and warm support of the following people. I mention this in order to have someone to blame. So my thanks:

Doctor Theodore Stephanides. With characteristic generosity, he allowed me to use the sketches for his unpublished work on Corfu, and threw me killer puns, some of which I used.

My family, who, unwittingly, supplied me with the necessary material and provided invaluable assistance in writing the book by fiercely arguing against everything, almost never agreeing with this or that fact, about which I consulted with them.

My wife, who delighted me with Homeric laughter while reading the manuscript, followed by the admission that it was she who was so amused by my spelling mistakes.

To my secretary Sophie, in charge of the inserted commas and the mercilessly deleted split infinitives.

I would like to express special recognition to my mother, to whom this book is dedicated. Like the kind, energetic, sensitive Noah, she led her ark with eccentric offspring along the stormy waves of life, showing the greatest dexterity and constantly faced with a possible riot on the ship, every now and then risking aground overspending and excesses, without any confidence that her navigational abilities will be approved by the team, but knowing full well that all the bumps will fall on her if something goes wrong. The fact that she passed this test can be considered a miracle, but she withstood it and, moreover, managed to keep her sanity. As my brother Larry rightly says, we can be proud of the way we raised our mother; she does us credit. She found a state of happy nirvana, when nothing can shock or surprise, which is proved by at least a recent example: on the weekend, when she was alone in the house, several cages with two pelicans, a bright red ibis, a vulture were unexpectedly delivered at once. a vulture and eight monkeys. At the sight of such a contingent, a weaker mortal would most likely flinch, but not my mother. On Monday morning, I found her in the garage chasing an angry pelican she was trying to feed with canned sardines.

- Dear, it's good that you came. She was already suffocating. - This pelican is somehow not very willing to communicate.

To my question, why did she decide that it is my wards, the answer was:

- Dear, who else could have sent me pelicans?

This shows how well she knew at least one family member.

Finally, I want to emphasize that all the jokes about the island and the islanders are not fictional. Life in Corfu is somewhat like a bright comic opera. The atmosphere and charm of this place, it seems to me, was reflected fairly accurately by our map issued by the British Admiralty; it showed the island and adjacent coastlines in detail. And below, in a box, a note:

Since buoys that mark shallow waters are often misplaced, sailors entering these waters should be vigilant.

Part one

It's a delight to be crazy

That only madmen know.
John Dryden. Spanish monk. II, 2

Migration

A prickly wind blew out July like a pitiful candle and drove the leaden August sky. A needle-like stinging drizzle was charged, which, in the gusts of wind, walked back and forth with a matte gray sheet. On the Bournemouth coastline, the beach booths turned their impassive wooden faces to the green-gray foamy scallop sea that rolled greedily over the concrete pier. The seagulls fell on the city and, on their strained wings, hovered over the rooftops with plaintive groans. This weather will be a test for anyone.

On a day like this, my family as a whole didn’t look too good, as the weather brought with it the usual array of diseases to which we were all susceptible. After I, lying on the floor, pasted labels on a collection of shells, I caught a cold, which instantly clogged, like cement, the entire nasal cavity, so that I had to breathe with a wheezing open mouth. My brother Leslie, huddled in a pitiful shadow by the burning fireplace, suffered from middle ear inflammation, and some kind of fluid was constantly oozing from his ears. My sister Margot had new pimples on her face, which already looked like a red veil. The mother developed a severe runny nose and an attack of rheumatism in addition. And only my older brother Larry was like a cucumber, except for the fact that he was annoyed by our ailments.

It all started with him. The others were too lethargic to think about anything other than their illnesses; Larry was conceived by Providence itself as such a mini-fireworks,

A WORD IN ITS JUSTIFICATION

So,
Sometimes, even before breakfast, I had time to believe the incredible six times.
White Queen.
Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass

In this book, I talked about the five years our family lived on the Greek island of Corfu. At first, the book was conceived simply as a story about the animal kingdom of the island, in which there would be a little sadness for the days gone by. However, I immediately made a serious mistake, letting my relatives into the first pages. Finding themselves on paper, they began to strengthen their positions and invited all kinds of friends with them to all chapters. Only at the cost of incredible efforts and great resourcefulness did I manage to defend here and there for several pages, which I could devote entirely to animals.
I tried to give here accurate portraits of my relatives, without embellishing anything, and they pass through the pages of the book as I saw them. But to explain the funniest thing in their behavior, I must immediately say that in those days when we lived in Corfu, everyone was still very young: Larry, the oldest, was twenty-three years old, Leslie was nineteen, Margot was eighteen, and me, the smallest was only ten years old. None of us ever had an accurate idea of my mother's age, for the simple reason that she never remembered her birthdays. I can only say that my mother was old enough to have four children. At her insistence, I also explain that she was a widow, otherwise, as my mother pointed out, people can think of all kinds of things.
So that all the events, observations and joys during these five years of my life could squeeze into a work that does not exceed the volume of the Britannica, I had to redraw, add, cut everything, so that in the end there was almost nothing left of the true duration of the events. I also had to discard many incidents and persons about which I would be happy to tell here.
Of course, this book could not have come into being without the support and help of some people. I am talking about this in order to share the responsibility for it equally among all. So, I express my gratitude:
Dr. Theodore Stephanides. With his characteristic generosity, he allowed me to use material from his unpublished work on the island of Corfu and provided me with many bad puns, of which I used some of the things.
To my family. After all, they still gave me the bulk of the material and helped a lot while the book was being written, desperately arguing about every case that I discussed with them, and occasionally agreeing with me.
My wife - for the fact that she gave me pleasure while reading the manuscript with her loud laughter. As she later explained, she was amused by my spelling.
Sophie, my secretary, who took it upon herself to separate the commas and mercilessly eradicated all illegal approvals.
I would like to express special gratitude to my mother, to whom this book is dedicated. Like an inspired, gentle and sensitive Noah, she skillfully guided her ship with awkward offspring across the stormy sea of life, always ready for rebellion, always surrounded by dangerous financial shoals, always without the confidence that the team would approve of her management, but in the constant consciousness of her full responsibility for any malfunction on the ship. It is simply incomprehensible how she endured this voyage, but she endured it and did not even really lose her mind at the same time. As my brother Larry rightly pointed out, we can be proud of the way we raised her; She does us all credit.

My Family and Other Beasts is “literally mesmerizing book” (Sunday Times) and “the most delightful idyll imaginable” (The New Yorker). With unchanging love, impeccable accuracy and inimitable humor, Darrell talks about the five-year stay of his family (including Larry's older brother, that is, Lawrence Durrell - the future author of the famous "Alexandria Quartet") on the Greek island of Corfu. And this novel itself, and its sequels, were sold around the world in multi-million copies, became reference books for several generations of readers, and in England they even entered the school curriculum. The Corfu Trilogy has been screened three times, most recently in 2016, when the British ITV released the first season of The Durrells, co-directed by Edward Hall (Downton Abbey, Agatha Christie's Miss Marple) ... The novel is published in a new (and for the first time in full) translation by Sergei Task, whose translations by Tom Wolfe and John Le Carré, Stephen King and Paul Auster, Ian McEwan, Richard Yates and Francis Scott Fitzgerald have already become classics.

A series: Big romance

* * *

The given introductory fragment of the book My Family and Other Beasts (Gerald Durrell, 1956) provided by our book partner - the company Liters.

Part one

It's a delight to be crazy

That only madmen know.

John Dryden. Spanish monk. II, 2

Migration

A prickly wind blew out July like a pitiful candle and drove the leaden August sky. A needle-like stinging drizzle was charged, which, in the gusts of wind, walked back and forth with a matte gray sheet. On the Bournemouth coastline, the beach booths turned their impassive wooden faces to the green-gray foamy scallop sea that rolled greedily over the concrete pier. The seagulls fell on the city and, on their strained wings, hovered over the rooftops with plaintive groans. This weather will be a test for anyone.

It all started with him. The others were too lethargic to think about anything other than their illnesses; Larry, on the other hand, was conceived by Providence itself as such a mini-fireworks, exploding with ideas in other people's heads, after which he quietly curled up like a cat and did not take any responsibility for the consequences. By evening, his irritability reached its peak. At some point, looking around the room thoughtfully, he chose his mother as the main culprit of all misfortunes.

- Why do we tolerate this vile climate? He asked unexpectedly and pointed to the window, twisted by streams of rain. - Just look! Better yet, look at us ... Margot looks like a plate of crimson oatmeal ... Leslie wanders around with cotton swabs sticking out of her ears like two antennas ... Jerry breathes as if he was born with a cleft palate ... And you? Every day you look more decrepit and depressed.

Mother looked up from a tome entitled Simple Recipes from Rajputana.

- Nothing like this! - she was indignant.

“Yes,” Larry insisted. “You’re beginning to look like an Irish laundress ... and your household could serve as illustrations for a medical encyclopedia.

Without coming up with a biting answer, Mom was content with a fierce look before burying herself in the book again.

“We need the sun,” Larry continued. - Les, do you agree with me? Forest? .. Forest ... Forest!

Leslie pulled a healthy wad of cotton wool out of his ear.

- What you said? - he asked.

- You see! - Larry turned triumphantly to his mother. - The conversation with him turned into a strategic operation. I ask you how you can live with this? One does not hear what is being said to him, and the words of the other cannot be made out. It's time to do something. I cannot write immortal prose in an atmosphere of darkness and eucalyptus.

“Yes, dear,” her mother replied vaguely.

“We all need the sun. - Larry again resolutely walked around the room. - We need a country where we can grow.

“Yes, dear, that would be good,” the mother agreed, listening to him half-heartedly.

“I received a letter from George this morning. He praises Corfu very much. Why don't we pack our bags and head to Greece?

- Very good, dear. If you want to, ”the mother said rashly. Usually with Larry, she was on the alert so that she would not be caught at her word later.

- When? - he immediately clarified, somewhat surprised by such responsiveness.

Realizing that she had made a tactical mistake, the mother carefully laid down Simple Recipes from Rajputana.

“It seems to me that it would be reasonable, dear, if you went by yourself and prepared the ground,” she found with an answer. - Then you will write to me that everything is arranged, and then we can all come.

Larry gave her a scathing look.

“You said the same thing when I offered to go to Spain,” he reminded her. “As a result, I spent two endless months in Seville waiting for your arrival, and all you did was write me lengthy letters with questions about drainage and drinking water, as if I were some city employee. No, if we are going to Greece, then all together.

- Set up? Lord, what are you talking about? Sell it.

- What are you, I can not. - She was shocked by his proposal.

- Why so?

- I just bought it.

- So sell it while it is still in good condition.

“Darling, don’t be silly,” she said firmly. - Excluded. It would be crazy.

We traveled light, taking only the most necessary things with us. When we opened our suitcases for inspection at customs, the contents clearly reflected the character and interests of each. So, Margot's luggage consisted of translucent robes, three books on weight loss and a whole battery of bottles with different elixirs for removing pimples. Leslie packed in a pair of blank sweaters and trousers, which were wrapped around two revolvers, a blow gun, My Own Gunsmith, and a leaking bottle of lubricating oil. Larry took with him two suitcases of books and a leather suitcase with clothes. Mom's luggage was cleverly divided between carry-ons and cooking and gardening tomes. I took only what was supposed to brighten up my tedious journey: four natural science aids, a butterfly net, a dog and a jam jar with caterpillars threatening to turn into pupae. So, fully armed, we left the dank shores of England.

Rainy and sad France, Switzerland like a Christmas card, abundant, noisy and fragrant Italy flashed through the window, leaving vague memories. A small boat departed from the Italian heel into the sunset sea, and while we slept in stuffy cabins, at some point in its movement along the lunar sea path, it crossed the invisible dividing line and entered the bright looking glass world of Greece. Apparently, this change gradually penetrated into our blood, because we all woke up with the first rays of the sun and poured out onto the upper deck.

The sea flexed its smooth blue muscles in the predawn haze, and the foamy trail with sparkling bubbles behind the stern looked like the creeping tail of a white peacock. The pale sky to the east, at the very horizon, was marked with a yellow spot. Ahead of us, a chocolate swab of sushi with a frothy frill protruded from the fog. This was Corfu, and we strained our eyes, trying to see the mountains, peaks, valleys, ravines and beaches, but everything was limited to general outlines. Suddenly, the sun came out from the horizon, and the sky sparkled with blue enamel, like the eye of a jay. For a moment, the myriad of sharply defined nautical curls flashed into a royal purple with green sparkles. The fog flew up in light ribbons, and our eyes opened up the whole island with mountains, as if sleeping under wrinkled brown blankets, and green olive groves hid in the folds. Beaches stretched along the curving coastline, snow-white like the tusks of an elephant, scattered here and there interspersed with golden, reddish and white rocks. We rounded the northern promontory, which was a smooth, rusty-red shoulder with huge caves carved into it. The dark waves, raising the foamy wake, little by little carried him towards the caves, and already there, in front of the open mouths, he disintegrated among the rocks with an eager hiss. And then the mountains gradually faded away, and a silvery-green iridescent haze of olives and separately protruding black cypresses, a kind of edifying index fingers on a blue background, appeared. The water in the bays, in the shallow waters, was azure, and even through the noise of the engines one could hear the shrill-victorious chorus of cicadas coming from the shore.

Unknown island

From the noisy, bustling customs, we made our way to the sun-drenched embankment. Around the city stretched out with ledges upward, with chaotically scattered variegated houses, whose open green shutters resembled the wings of moths - such an innumerable swarm. Behind us lay the bay, smooth as a plate, casting an unrealistically fiery blue.

Larry walked quickly with his head held high and his face so royal that no one paid attention to his sprout, but he was vigilant about the porters who dragged his suitcases. Leslie, a short, stout man with hidden belligerence in his eyes, hurried after him, and then Margot trotted with her yards of muslin and a battery of bottles of lotions. Mother, a kind of quiet, downtrodden missionary among the rebels, against her will dragged herself on a leash by the violent Roger to the nearest lamp post, where she stood in prostration while he freed himself from the excess of feelings that had accumulated during his time in the dog kennel. Larry chose two marvelously decrepit horse carriages. In one they loaded all the luggage, and in the second he sat down and looked at our company with displeasure.

- Well? - he asked. - And what are we waiting for?

“We're expecting our mother,” Leslie explained. - Roger found a lamppost.

- Oh my God! - Larry adopted an exemplary posture and shouted: - Mom, come on already! Can't the dog wait?

“I’m coming, dear,” her mother responded, somehow submissively and insincerely, since Roger did not express any desire to part with the lamppost.

“That dog’s all the trouble for that dog,” said Larry.

“Don't be so impatient,” said Margot. - This is his nature ... Moreover, in Naples, we waited you an hour.

“I had an upset stomach,” Larry told her coldly.

“He might have an upset stomach, too,” Margot announced triumphantly. - All are smeared with one world.

- You mean that we are of the same berry field.

“It doesn't matter what I wanted to say. You are worth each other.

At that moment, my mother, somewhat disheveled, came up, and we were faced with the task of how to put Roger in the carriage. The first time he encountered such a vehicle, he was suspicious of it. In the end, we had to manually, under desperate barking, shove it inside, then, panting, climb up and hold it tightly. The horse, frightened by all this fuss, set off at a trot, and at some point we all arranged a heap-mala on the floor, under which Roger was moaning loudly.

“Nice start,” Larry complained bitterly. “I expected that we would drive in like a king with his retinue, and what happened… We appear in the city like a troupe of medieval acrobats.

“Dear, don’t go on,” said the mother in a soothing tone and adjusted her hat on her head. “We'll be at the hotel soon.

With the clatter of hooves and the ringing of bells, our carriage drove into town while we, in horsehair seats, tried to pretend to be royalty, as Larry demanded. Roger, tightly gripped by Leslie, poked his head out and rolled his eyes as if he were on his last legs. Wheels thundered down a narrow street where four unkempt mongrels were basking in the sun. Roger tightened his grip, measured them with a glance, and burst into a uterine tirade. The mongrels immediately perked up and, with a loud bark, set off after the carriage. One could forget about the royal posture, since now two of them were holding the violent Roger, and the rest, leaning out of the carriage, brandished magazines and books with might and main, trying to chase away the pack that was chasing after us. But this only inflamed them even more, and with each turn their number only increased, so that when we drove onto the main street, two and a half dozen dogs were hovering around the wheels, falling into a uniform hysteria.

- Can anyone do anything? - Larry raised his voice to cover this bedlam. “This already looks like a scene from Uncle Tom's Cabin.

“I wish I could do it myself, than criticize others,” snapped Leslie, who fought with Roger.

Then Larry jumped to his feet, snatched the whip from the stunned driver and waved towards the pack, but missed, and even hit Leslie on the back of the neck. He turned purple and snapped at his brother:

- Quite, or what? ..

“By accident,” Larry replied lightly. - Lost practice. I haven't held a whip in my hands for a long time.

“Well, damn it, look more closely. Leslie was belligerent.

“Dear, calm down, he’s not on purpose,” her mother intervened.

Larry swung his whip again and this time knocked off her hat.

“You’re in more trouble than dogs,” Margot said.

“Be careful, dear,” said the mother, picking up her hat. “You can hurt someone. Well him, this whip.

But then the carriage stopped in front of the entrance with the sign "Swiss boarding house". The mongrels, sensing that now they will finally reckon with this effeminate black dog, driving around in the carriage, surrounded us with a dense, rapidly breathing wedge. The hotel door opened, and an old porter with sideburns came out and stared impassively at the street mess. Pacifying and transporting the heavy Roger to the hotel was not an easy task, and it took the whole family's efforts to cope with it. Larry had already forgotten about the royal bearing and even got a taste for it. Jumping down onto the pavement, he did a little whip dance, clearing the path of the dogs, along which Leslie, Margot, my mother and I carried the snarled Roger escaping. When we burst into the lobby, the porter slammed the door behind us and leaned back against it, wiggling his mustache. The manager who approached was looking at us warily and at the same time with curiosity. His mother stood in front of him with her hat slid to one side and with my can of caterpillars in her hand.

- Here you go! She smiled contentedly, as if it were the most ordinary visit. “We're the Darrells. Rooms have been booked for us, if I'm not mistaken?

“Very nice,” her mother beamed. - Then, perhaps, we will go to our room and have a little rest before lunch.

With truly royal grace, she led the whole family upstairs.

Later we went down to the spacious, gloomy dining room with dusty tubed palms and slanted figurines. We were served by the same porter with sideburns, who, in order to become the head waiter, only had to put on a tailcoat and a starched bib, which creaked like an army of crickets. The food was plentiful and tasty, and we pounced on it from hunger. When the coffee was served, Larry leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

“The food is tolerable,” he generously praised. - How do you, mother, is this place?

“The food is decent, anyway. - Mother refused to develop this topic.

- The attendants seem to be nothing, - continued Larry. - The manager personally moved my bed closer to the window.

“Personally, when I asked for the paper, I didn’t get any help from him,” said Leslie.

- Papers? - the mother was surprised. - Why do you need paper?

- To the toilet ... it's over.

- You didn't pay attention. There’s a full box next to the toilet, ”Margot announced publicly.

- Margot! - the mother exclaimed in horror.

- So what? Didn't you see her?

Larry chuckled loudly.

“Due to some problems with the city sewerage system,” he explained especially for his sister, “this box is intended for… uh… waste after you have dealt with natural needs.

Margot's face turned crimson and expressed both confusion and disgust.

“So this… this is… oh god! I must have contracted some kind of infection! - she howled and in tears ran out of the dining room.

- What unsanitary conditions, - the mother sternly. “It's just disgusting. Anyone can make a mistake, but really, after all, typhus does not become infected for a long time.

“If they had organized everything as it should, there would have been no mistakes,” Leslie returned to his earlier complaint.

- Even so, dear, but I do not think that this should be discussed now. Wouldn't it be better to find a separate house as soon as possible, before we all get infected.

In her room, half-naked Margo poured bottles of disinfectant on herself, and the mother of the beaten half a day periodically checked whether the symptoms of the diseases developing in her had already appeared, of which Margo had no doubts. Mom's peace of mind was shaken by the fact that the road that passed the "Swiss boarding house", as it turned out, led to the local cemetery. As we sat on the balcony, an endless funeral procession passed by us. The inhabitants of Corfu, obviously, believed that the brightest moment in mourning the deceased was the funeral, and therefore each subsequent procession was more magnificent than the previous one. The carriages, decorated with yards of scarlet and black crepe, were harnessed to horses, carrying so many plumes and blankets that it was amazing how they could still move. Six or seven carriages were carrying mourners, who could not restrain their deep sadness, and behind them, in a kind of hearse, rode the dead man in such a large and luxurious coffin that it looked more like a huge birthday cake. There were white coffins with purple, black and scarlet and navy blue vignettes; there were sparkling black coffins with sophisticated gold or silver trim and shiny copper handles. It overshadowed anything I've ever seen. So, I decided how to leave this world: with overdressed cavalry, mountains of flowers and a whole retinue of relatives struck with genuine sorrow. Leaning over the balcony railing, as if enchanted, I watched the floating coffins with my eyes.

The passage of the next procession to the sobbing of mourners and the gradually fading clatter of hooves only intensified the excitement of our mother.

- It's an epidemic! She finally exclaimed, glancing nervously into the street.

- Nonsense. Mother, don't push it, ”Larry waved him off carelessly.

- But, dear, they are so lot... this is unnatural.

“There is nothing unnatural about death. All people die.

- Yes, but if they die like flies, then something is wrong.

“Maybe they’re gathered in one place to bury everyone at the same time,” Leslie suggested, rather emotionlessly.

“Don't be silly,” said the mother. - Surely it has something to do with the sewerage system. There is something unhealthy about such decisions.

- Well, what are you, dear, it is not even necessary, - the mother said somewhat vaguely. “Maybe it's not contagious.

“What an epidemic it is, if not contagious,” Larry said logically.

“In short,” the mother refused to get involved in a medical discussion, “we have to find out everything. Larry, can you call the health service?

“There’s hardly a service like that,” said Larry. - And even if there is, I doubt that they will tell me the truth.

“It doesn't matter,” her mother said firmly. - Then we move out of here. We must find a home in the suburbs, and urgently.

Right in the morning we started looking for accommodation, accompanied by the hotel guide Mr. Beeler, a plump man with obsequious eyes and sweaty cheekbones. He left the hotel in a rather cheerful mood, clearly not knowing what awaited him. Anyone who has not been looking for housing with my mother cannot imagine the whole picture. We wandered around the island in a cloud of dust, and Mr. Beeler showed us one villa after another, in all a variety of sizes, colors and conditions, and my mother shook her head in response. When she was shown the tenth and last villa on his list, and once again came "no", poor Mr. Beeler sat down on the steps and wiped his face with a handkerchief.

“Madam Darrell,” he said after a moment's silence, “I showed you everything I knew, and nothing worked for you. Madam, what are your requirements? Why didn't these villas suit you?

His mother looked at him in surprise.

- Didn't you pay attention? She asked. “None of them had a bathroom.

Mr. Beeler's eyes widened.

- Madam, - he almost howled in frustration, - why do you need a bathroom? You have the sea!

We returned to the hotel in deathly silence.

The next morning, my mother decided that we would take a taxi and go in search of ourselves. She had no doubt that somewhere there was a villa with a bathroom. We didn’t share her confidence, so she was leading a somewhat heated group to the taxi stand on the main square, engaged in sorting things out. At the sight of innocent passengers, the taxi drivers poured out of their cars and swooped down on us like vultures, trying to shout down each other. The voices grew louder and louder, fire burned in their eyes, someone was grabbing an opponent, and everyone bared their teeth. And then they took hold of us and, it seems, were ready to tear us apart. Actually, it was the most innocent of possible quarrels, but we had not yet had time to get used to the Greek temperament, and it seemed that our life was in danger.

- Larry, do something already! - squeaked his mother, not without difficulty breaking free from the embrace of a hefty taxi driver.

“Tell them you're going to complain to the British Consul. - Larry had to shout over this noise.

- Darling, don't be silly. - The mother lost her breath. “Just tell them we don’t understand anything.

Margot, quietly boiling, wedged herself into the general mass.

“We are England,” she said to the violently gesturing taxi drivers. - We don't understand Greek.

“If that guy shoves me again, he’ll get it in the eye,” Leslie muttered, bloodshot.

- Well, well, dear. Mother was breathing heavily, still fighting off the driver, who was pushing her toward his car. “They don’t wish us bad things.

- Hey! Don't you need someone who speaks your language?

Turning our heads, we saw an old Dodge parked by the side of the road, and at the wheel - a tightly knocked down little man with fleshy arms and a tanned grinning face, in a cap famously bent to one side. He opened the door, let go out and waddled towards us. Then he stopped and with an even more ferocious grin scanned the hushed taxi drivers.

- They bother you? He asked his mother.

“No, no,” she said, not very convincingly. “It was just that it was difficult for us to understand what they were talking about.

“You don’t need someone who speaks your language,” the newcomer repeated. - People so-so ... sorry for the rude word ... my own mother is for sale. One minute, I'll put them back.

He unleashed such a stream of Greek eloquence on the drivers that he literally smeared them on the asphalt. Frustrated, angry, they gave up on everything, having saved in front of this unique one, and dispersed to their cars. After seeing them off with the last and, apparently, murderous tirade, he again turned to us.

- Where are you going? He asked almost belligerently.

- Can you show us the vacant villas? Larry asked.

- No problem. I'll take you anywhere. Just say.

“We need a villa with a bathroom,” her mother said firmly. - Do you know this one?

His black eyebrows tied together in a thought process, and he himself looked like a huge tanned gargoyle.

- Bathrooms? He asked. - Do you need bathrooms?

- Everything that we have seen so far was without a bathroom, - said the mother.

“I know the villa, where the baths are,” he assured her. “But I don’t know how big it is for you.

- Could you show it to us?

- No problem. Get in the cars.

We all sat in his spacious car, he shoved his powerful torso into the space behind the wheel and shifted into gear with a roar that made us flinch. We rushed along the crooked streets of the suburb, winding among the laden donkeys, carts, a handful of peasants, countless mongrels, and notifying everyone with a deafening horn. Taking advantage of the moment, our driver decided to keep the conversation going. Turning to us, every time he turned his massive head back, and then the car began to wander back and forth like a drunken swallow.

- Are you from England? I think so ... England can't live without a bathroom ... I have a bathroom ... My name is Spiro, Spiro Hakiaopoulos ... Everyone calls me Spiro American, because I lived in America ... Yes, eight years Chicago ... That's why I have such good English ... Go to make money there ... Eight years later he said: "Spiro, there is already money" - and I again to Greece ... brought this car ... the best one to our island ... no one should have such a car ... Every English tourist knows me ... come here and ask me ... then no one can deceive them ... I love the English ... the very good ... If I were not a Greek, I would be an Englishman, the gods see.

We rushed along the road, bleached with a thick layer of silky dust, which rose behind us in hot clouds, and along the road lined bristling pear trees, a kind of fence of green shields, ingeniously supporting each other, in the motley markings of red-cheeked fruits. We passed vineyards with stunted vines lined with emerald leaves, and olive groves with perforated trunks that made surprise faces for us from their shady shelters, and a sugarcane, striped like a zebra, waving huge leaves like green flags. Finally we roared over the hill, Spiro hit the brakes and stopped the car, raising clouds of dust.

- Come. He jabbed forward with a short, thick forefinger. - This villa has a bathroom as you request.

Mother, who rode all the way with her eyes closed, carefully opened her eyes and looked. Spiro pointed to a gentle slope, at the foot of which the sea shimmered. The hill itself and the surrounding valleys were covered with eiderdowns of olive groves, glistening like fish scales as soon as the breeze played with foliage. In the middle of the slope, guarded by tall, slender cypress trees, nestled a small strawberry-pink villa, like an exotic fruit in a greenhouse. The cypresses quietly swayed in the wind, as if they were diligently painting the already clear sky in even brighter colors for our arrival.

Strawberry Pink Villa

The square villa with rosy-cheeked dignity towered over a small garden. Faded from the sun to a creamy salad, the paint on the shutters is swollen and cracked here and there. In the garden, surrounded by a tall fuchsia hedge, the flower beds were arranged in an intricate geometric arrangement, lined with smooth white pebbles. White cobbled paths, no wider than a rake, twisted intricately between flower beds in the form of stars, crescent, triangles and circles, no more than a straw hat, and they were all overgrown with wild flowers. Smooth petals the size of a saucer flew from the roses — fiery red, pale moonlight, dull, not even withered; marigolds, like broods of shaggy suns, looked at the movements in the sky of their parent. From the low thickets of pansies, innocent velvet faces protruded, and violets sadly drooped under their leaves in the form of hearts. Bougainvillea, scattering her chic shoots with purple-red lantern flowers over the balcony, seemed to be hung there by someone in front of the carnival. In the dark hedge of fuchsias, countless buds, somewhat reminiscent of ballerinas, trembled, ready to open up. The warm air was saturated with the smell of wilting flowers and the quiet, soothing buzz of insects. As soon as we saw all this, we wanted to live here; the villa seemed to have been waiting for us for a long time. It felt like a new home.

Spiro, who so unexpectedly burst into our lives, took complete control over our affairs. It's better that way, he explained, since everyone knows him and he won't let anyone fool us.

“You don’t have to worry about anything, Mrs. Durrell,” he assured his mother with his usual grin. - Leave everything to me.

He took us to the shops, where he could spend a whole hour dogging with the seller, in order to knock out a discount on a couple of drachmas, that is, one penny. It's not about money, but in principle, he explained to us. An important factor was the fact that he, like any Greek, loved to bargain. None other than Spiro, upon learning that we had not received the money order from England, lent us the required amount and personally went to the bank, where he gave a blast to the clerk about poor work, and the fact that the poor man had nothing to do with it, he had nothing to do with it. stopped. Spiro paid our hotel bill and hired a car to transport all our belongings to the villa, and then he himself drove us there, filling the trunk with his own purchased groceries.

That he knew everyone on the island and everyone knew him, as we soon found out, was not mere bragging. Wherever he stopped, several voices shouted his name at once and beckoned him to sit down at a table in the shade of the trees and drink coffee. The policemen, peasants and priests, when he passed by, waved their hands at him and smiled; fishermen, grocers, and cafe owners took him like a brother. "Ah, Spiro!" - they blurred as if he was a naughty, but beloved child. They respected him for his belligerent directness, and above all they admired his typically Greek contempt, multiplied by fearlessness, in relation to any manifestation of bureaucratic bureaucracy. Upon arrival, two of our suitcases with linen were confiscated at customs under the amusing pretext that they were goods for sale. And when we moved to the pink villa, my mother told Spiro about the stuck luggage and asked him for advice.

- God's mother! He growled, red with anger. “Mrs. Darrell, why don’t you tell me sooner?” Customs is such a bandit. Tomorrow I'll take you and arrange something for them! They know me well. Let me give them the first number.

The next morning he took his mother to customs. We followed them, not wanting to miss this performance. Spiro burst into the room like an angry bear.

- Where to take things away from these people? He asked the fat customs officer.

- Is it about their baggage with the goods? - said the official in decent English.

- I'll talk about it!

“The luggage is here,” the official admitted cautiously.

“We’ll take him,” Spiro grinned. - Cook everything.

He left the hangar to find a porter, and when he returned, the customs officer, taking the keys from his mother, was just opening one of the suitcases. With an angry growl, Spiro ran up and slammed the lid, at the same time crushing the fingers of the unfortunate official.

- Why are you opening it, you bastard?

The customs officer, waving his bruised hand, protested: they say, checking the contents is his direct responsibility.

- Duty? - asked Spiro with inimitable contempt. - What is it? Are you obligated to attack innocent foreigners? Count them as smugglers? Is this your direct responsibility?

After a moment's hesitation, Spiro took a deep breath, grabbed two healthy suitcases and strode towards the exit. At the door, he turned for the finishing shot.

- I know you, Khristaki, as flaky, so you won't tell me about your duties. I will not forget how to fine you twelve thousand drachmas for a poacher. He has responsibilities, ha!

We were returning home with our luggage, intact, not passed inspection, like triumphants.

Once he took the reins into his own hands, he stuck to us like a burr. In a few hours he turned from a driver into our protector, and a week later he became our guide, wise advisor and friend. We considered Spiro to be a full member of the family and did not take any action, did not plan anything without his participation. He was always there, loud, grinning, arranged our affairs, explained how much to pay for what, did not take his eyes off us and informed his mother about everything that, in his opinion, she should know. A corpulent, dark-skinned and terrible-looking angel, he carefully looked after us, as if we were foolish children. He openly idolized our mother, and every time, wherever we were, he loudly sang Hosanna to her, which introduced her to extreme embarrassment.

“You must be careful,” he told us, putting on an intimidating face. - So that your mother does not worry.

“What's that for, Spiro?” - Larry feigned amazement. “She didn’t do anything good for us. Why should we care about her?

“Ah, Mr. Lorrie, you’re not joking,” Spiro was upset.

“But he’s right,” he supported Leslie’s older brother with a serious look. “She’s not such a good mother.

- Don't talk like that, don't talk! Growled Spiro. - God knows, if I had such a mother, I would kiss her feet every morning.

In a word, we occupied the villa, and each of them settled down in their own way and blended in with the environment. Margot, wearing a revealing swimsuit, sunbathed in an olive grove and gathered around her ardent admirers from local peasant children of pleasant appearance, who, as if by magic, appeared out of nowhere if a bee approached her or needed to move a chaise longue. The mother considered it necessary to note that, in her opinion, sunbathing in this form is somewhat unreasonably.

“Mother, don’t be so old-fashioned,” Margot said. “After all, we only die once.

This statement, as puzzling as it was undeniable, made the mother bite her tongue.

Three healthy peasant lads, drenched in sweat and puffing, carried Larry's trunks into the house for half an hour under his direct supervision. One huge chest had to be dragged through the window. After everything was finished, Larry expertly unpacked all day, and as a result his room, littered with books, became completely inaccessible. Having erected book bastions around the perimeter, he sat down at a typewriter and left the room absently, only to eat. On the second day, early in the morning, he jumped out in great irritation due to the fact that the peasant tied the donkey to our hedge and the animal with enviable consistency opened its mouth, emitting a long dreary roar.

“Isn't it funny, I ask you, that future generations will lose my work just because some idiot with calloused hands tied this stinking beast under my window?

“Dear,” her mother responded, “if he’s in the way, why don’t you take him away?”

“Dear mother, I don’t have time to chase donkeys through the olive groves. I threw a pamphlet on Theosophy at him - isn't that enough for you?

- The poor thing is tied. How can he free himself? Said Margot.

“There must be a law prohibiting tying these vile creatures near other people's houses. Will any of you take him away at last?

- Why on earth? Leslie was surprised. - He does not bother us.

“That’s the problem with this family,” Larry complained. - No mutual favors, no concern for your neighbor.

“You'd think you care about someone,” Margot said.

“Your fault,” Larry said sternly to his mother. “It’s you who raised us to be so selfish.

- No, how do you like it! - exclaimed the mother. - I AM brought them up like that!

- Someone had to have a hand to make complete egoists out of us.

In the end, my mother and I untied the donkey and took him down the slope.

In the meantime, Leslie unpacked his revolvers and made us all flinch by firing endless firing from the window on an old tin. After such a deafening morning, Larry rushed out of the room with the words that it is impossible to work when the house shudders to the ground every five minutes. Leslie, offended, objected that he needed practice. It looks more like a sepoy rebellion rather than practice, Larry cut him short. The mother, whose nervous system was also affected by this boom, advised Leslie to practice with an unloaded revolver. He explained for a long time why this was impossible. But in the end he reluctantly carried the tin away from the house; the shots were now muffled, but no less unexpected.

Mother's watchful eye did not let us out of sight, and in her free time she settled down in her own way. The house smelled of herbs and the pungent smells of onions and garlic, the kitchen began to play with various pots and pots, among which she scurried about in her glasses that had shifted to one side, muttering something to herself. On the table was a wobbly stack of cookbooks, which she occasionally looked into. Freed from her kitchen duties, she happily moved into the garden, where she enthusiastically weeded and planted, and less willingly cut and pruned.

The garden was of great interest to me, and Roger and I made some discoveries for ourselves. For example, Roger learned that sniffing a hornet is more expensive for himself, that it is enough to look at the local dog from behind the gate as it runs screechingly, and that a chicken that jumped out from behind a hedge and immediately ran away with a wild cluck is not prey less desirable than illegal.

This dollhouse garden was truly a wonderland, a flower paradise where hitherto unknown creatures roamed about. Among the thick silky petals of a blooming rose, tiny crab-like spiders coexisted, which ran sideways as soon as they were disturbed. Their transparent bodies with their color merged with their habitat: pink, ivory, blood red, oily yellow. Ladybugs scurried about the stem, inlaid with green midges, like freshly painted clockwork toys: pale pink with black spots, bright red with brown spots, orange with black and gray specks. Round and pretty, they hunted the pale green aphids, of which there were a great many. Carpenter bees, looking like shaggy electric blue bears, wrote zigzags among the flowers with a busy humming. An ordinary proboscis, all so sleek and graceful, hovered over the paths to and fro, with fussy concern, occasionally hovering and flickering to a gray blur with its wings, in order to suddenly burrow its long thin proboscis into a flower. Among the white cobblestones, large black ants, huddled in a flock, fussed and gesticulated around unexpected trophies: a dead caterpillar, a rose petal, or a dried blade of grass strewn with seeds. To accompany all this activity, from the olive grove behind the fuchsia hedges, the incessant polyphony of the cicadas was heard. If the hot daytime haze were able to make sounds, they would be just like the strange, akin to the ringing of bells, the voices of these insects.

At first I was so overwhelmed by the excess of life under our noses that I walked around the garden as if in a fog, noticing one creature, then another and constantly being distracted by the incomparable butterflies flying over the hedge. Over time, as I got used to the insects scurrying among the stamens and pistils, I learned to focus on details. I squatted for hours or lay on my stomach, spying on the privacy of tiny creatures, and Roger sat next to me resigned. So I discovered a lot of interesting things for myself.

I learned that the crab spider can change colors as well as a chameleon. Transplant such a spider from a bright red rose, where it appeared to be a coral bead, to a snow-white rose. If he wishes to stay there - which most often happens - then gradually he will begin to fade, as if this change caused him anemia, and after a couple of days you will see a white pearl among the same petals.

I discovered that under a hedge, in dry foliage, a completely different spider lives - an avid little hunter, in cunning and cruelty not inferior to a tiger. He walked around his property, his pupils gleaming in the sun, now and then stopping to rise on his shaggy paws and look around. Seeing a fly that decided to sunbathe, he froze for a moment, and then at a speed comparable only to the growth of a green leaf, he began to approach it, almost imperceptibly, but closer and closer, sometimes taking a pause, in order to glue a silky road on the next dry sheet life. Having got close enough, the hunter froze, quietly rubbing his paws, like a buyer at the sight of a good product, and suddenly, having made a jump, he embraced the dreamed victim in a shaggy embrace. If such a spider managed to take a fighting position, there was no case that he was left without prey.

But perhaps the most remarkable discovery I made in this colorful world of midgets, to which I gained access, was associated with the nest of an earwig. I have long dreamed of finding him, but my searches were not crowned with success for a long time. Therefore, when I came across it, my joy was extraordinary, as if I had unexpectedly received a wonderful gift. Pulling off a piece of bark, I found an incubator, a hole in the ground, clearly dug by the insect itself. An earwig nestled in this hole, covering several white testicles. She sat on them like a hen on eggs, and did not even move when a stream of light hit her. I could not count all the testicles, but it seems to me that there were not many of them, from which I concluded that she had not yet completed the laying. I carefully filled the hole with the bark.

From that moment on, I jealously guarded the nest. I built a stone bastion around it, and as an additional security measure, I wrote a warning in red ink and fixed it on a pole in the immediate vicinity: "ASTAROUS - NEST OF A CARE WATER - HATE PATISHA." It's funny that I wrote only two words related to biology without mistakes. About once an hour, I gave the earwig a ten-minute check. Not more often - for fear that she might escape from the nest. The number of laid eggs gradually increased, and the female seems to have become accustomed to the fact that the roof over her head is periodically removed. From the way she kindly moved her antennas back and forth, I even concluded that she already recognized me.

To my bitter disappointment, despite all my efforts and constant watch, the babies hatched at night. After all that I have done for her, I could postpone this matter until the morning so that I can become a witness. In short, in front of me was a brood of tiny, fragile-looking earwigs, as if carved from ivory. They cautiously teleped between the mother's legs, and the more adventurous even climbed onto her pincers. This sight warmed the heart. But the next day the nest was empty - my wonderful family scattered across the garden. Later I caught sight of one of that brood; of course, he managed to grow up, got stronger and turned brown, but I recognized him at once. He slept curled up in a thicket of rose petals, and when I disturbed him, he lifted his rear claws in displeasure. It would be nice to think that it was he who salutes me so, joyfully greets me, but, remaining honest with myself, I had to admit that this was nothing more than a warning to a potential enemy. However, I forgave him. After all, he was still quite small.

I met stout peasant girls who, twice a day, morning and evening, drove past our garden, sitting sideways on drooping donkeys with hanging ears. Vocal and colorful, like parrots, they chatted and laughed, rubbing under the olive trees. In the mornings they greeted me with a smile, and in the evenings they leaned over the hedges, carefully balancing on the back of their donkey, and with the same smile they handed me gifts - a bunch of amber grapes still warm from the sun, pitch-black dates from the there with pinkish flesh or a giant watermelon, inside like turning pink ice. Over time, I learned to understand them. What at first seemed like complete gibberish has turned into a set of recognizable sounds. At some point, they suddenly made sense, and gradually, with hesitation, I began to pronounce individual words myself, and then I began to link them into grammatically incorrect and confused sentences. Our neighbors were delighted with this, as if I was not just learning their language, but giving them graceful compliments. Leaning over the hedge, they strained their ears while I gave birth to a greeting or the simplest remark, and after a successful completion they blurred with pleasure, nodded approvingly and even clapped their hands. Little by little, I learned their names and family ties, learned which of them are married, and who only dreams of it, and other details. I found out where their houses were in the surrounding groves, and if Roger and I passed by, the whole family poured out to greet us with exclamations of joy, and they brought me a chair so that I could sit under the vine and eat some fruit with them.

Over time, the magic of the island covered us softly and tightly, like pollen. In every day there was such peace, such a feeling of stopped time, that I wanted one thing - that it would last forever. But now the black cover of the night fell, and for us a new day dawned, iridescent, shiny, like a baby being born, and just as unreal.

Type with pink beetles

In the morning, when I woke up, the shutters of my bedroom seemed transparent in gold stripes from the rising sun. The air was filled with the smell of charcoal from the kitchen stove, the crowing of a cock, the distant barking of dogs, and the uneven, melancholic chime of bells as the herd of goats were driven to pasture.

We had breakfast in the garden under the low tangerine trees. The sky, fresh and sparkling, not yet full of the fierce blue of midday, was the color of pure milky opal. The flowers hadn't really woken up yet, the shriveled roses were sprinkled with dew, the marigolds were in no hurry to open. We ate breakfast unhurriedly and mostly silently, since no one really wanted to talk at such an early hour. But by the end of the meal, under the influence of coffee, toast and boiled eggs, everyone began to come to life and tell each other about their plans and argue about the correctness of this or that decision. I did not take part in these discussions, because I knew perfectly well what I wanted to do and tried to get rid of the food as soon as possible.

- Why are you swallowing everything? - Larry grumbled, carefully picking the match in his mouth.

“Eat well, dear,” the mother said smoothly. - You have nowhere to rush.

There is no hurry when a black lump named Roger is waiting at the gate in full combat readiness, eagerly looking out for me with its brown eyes? There is no hurry when the first, still half asleep, cicadas were brought in under the olive trees? There is no hurry when an island awaits me, cool in the morning, bright as a star, open to knowledge? But I could hardly count on understanding from my family, so I began to chew more slowly, and after waiting for their attention to switch to someone else, I again pounced on the food.

Having finished my breakfast, I quietly slipped away from the table and walked unhurriedly to the wrought-iron gate, where Roger was waiting for me with a questioning look. We looked out through a crack overlooking an olive grove.

- Maybe we won't go? I urged Roger.

- No, - I said, - let's not today. It looks like it’s going to rain.

With a preoccupied look, I lifted my head to the clear, as if polished sky. Roger, pricked up his ears, also lifted his head and then looked at me pleadingly.

“You know,” I continued, “it’s clean now, and then it’s like Lebanon, so it’s quieter to sit in the garden with a book.”

Roger desperately put one paw on the gate and, looking at me, lifted the corner of his upper lip in a crooked, ingratiating grin, showing his white teeth, and his bottom fluttered in extreme excitement. It was his trump card: he knew that in front of his stupid smile, I could not resist. Stopping teasing him, I stuffed empty matchboxes into my pockets, took the net in my hand, the gate creaked open and, releasing us, closed again, and Roger flew into the grove like a bullet, barking deeply to greet the new day.

At the very beginning of my research, Roger was my constant companion. Together we made more and more distant forays, discovering quiet olive groves that needed to be explored and remembered, we made our way through thickets of myrtle, chosen by blackbirds, looked into narrow hollows, where cypresses cast mysterious shadows, like abandoned cloaks of ink colors. Roger was the perfect adventure companion - affectionate without obsession, brave without belligerence, intelligent and good-naturedly tolerant of my antics. As soon as I slipped and fell, climbing the dewy slope, he immediately jumped up with a snort similar to restrained laughter, quickly examined me and, sympathetically licking my face, shook himself, sneezed and encouraged with his crooked smile. Whenever I found something remarkable — an anthill, or a caterpillar on a leaf, or a spider dressing a fly in silk clothes — he would sit at a distance and wait until I satisfied my curiosity. If it seemed to him that the matter was too long, he got closer and at first yawned pitifully, and then sighed deeply and began to twist his tail. If the object was not of particular interest, we moved on, but if it was something important, requiring prolonged study, it was enough for me to frown, and Roger knew that it was for a long time. Then he lowered his ears, stopped twirling his tail, and hobbled into a nearby bush, stretched out in the shade and looked at me from there with the air of a martyr.

During our outings, we met many people in the vicinity. For example, with a strange idiot guy, he had a round, expressionless face, like a mushroom raincoat. He wore the same thing: a tattered shirt, frayed blue gray trousers tucked up to his knees, and on his head was an old brimless bowler hat. Seeing us, he invariably hurried towards us from the depths of the grove, in order to politely raise his ridiculous hat and wish us a good day in a melodious childish voice that is your flute. For ten minutes he stood, looking at us without any expression, and nodded if I let go of any remark. And then, politely raising his bowler hat again, he disappeared among the trees. I also remember the unusually fat and cheerful Agatha, who lived in a dilapidated house on the top of the hill. She always sat near the house, and in front of her was a spindle with sheep's wool, from which she twisted a coarse thread. Although she was well into her 70s, she had shiny resinous hair, braided in pigtails and tied around those sleek cow horns, a headdress popular with older peasant women. She sat in the sun, such a big black frog in a scarlet kerchief over cow's horns, the spool with wool rose and fell, spinning like a whirligig, fingers quickly pulled and unraveled the skeins, and a loud hoarse singing was heard from the wide open hanging mouth, showing broken yellowed teeth , in which she put all her energy.

It was from her, Agatha, that I learned the most beautiful and immediately memorable peasant songs. Sitting next to her on an old tin bucket, with a bunch of grapes or a pomegranate from her garden in handfuls, I sang with her, and now and then she interrupted our duet to correct my pronunciation. These were funny couplets about the Vanhelio River, flowing from the mountains and irrigating the land, thanks to which the fields yield crops and gardens bear fruit. We dragged on a love song called "Lies", coquettishly rolling our eyes. “I shouldn't have taught you to tell everyone around how much I love you. All this is a lie, one is a lie, ”we bawled, shaking our heads. And then, changing their tone, sadly but vividly they sang "Why are you leaving me?" Yielding to the mood, we dragged on the endless litany, and our voices trembled. When we got to the last heartbreaking verse, Agatha pressed her hands to her large breasts, her black pupils twitched with a sad drag, and her numerous chins began to tremble. And then the final and not very coordinated notes sounded, she wiped her eyes with the edge of her kerchief and turned to me:

- What are we fools with you. We sit in the sun and sing in two throats. And even about love! I am already too old, and you are still too young to waste your time on this. Let's have a drink of wine, what do you say?

I also really liked the old shepherd Yani, tall, stooped, with a hooked nose, like an eagle's beak, and an incredible mustache. The first time I saw him was on a hot day, when Roger and I spent an hour trying to extract a green lizard from a crack in a stone wall. In the end, having achieved nothing, sweating and tired, we took refuge under low cypress trees, which cast a pleasant shadow on the grass burnt out by the sun. And, lying there, I heard the lulling tinkling of bells, and soon a herd of goats marched past us; they stopped to stare at us with their empty yellow eyes, and, bleating with contempt, hobbled on. This light chime and the soft crunch of the grass, which they nibbled and chewed, completely lulled me, and when the shepherd appeared after them, I was already dozing. He stopped and looked at me with a piercing gaze from under bushy eyebrows, leaning heavily on a brown stick, which was once a branch of an olive tree, and firmly growing his heavy shoes into the heather carpet.

“Good day,” he said hoarsely. "Are you a foreigner ... little English lord?"

By that time, I had already managed to get used to the curious ideas of the local peasants that all Englishmen were lords, and therefore I admitted: yes, it is. Then he turned around and shouted at the goat, which sat down on its hind legs and began to gnaw a young olive tree, and then again turned to me:

“I'll tell you what, young lord. Lying under these trees is dangerous.

I raised my eyes to the cypress trees, which seemed to me quite harmless, and asked him what the danger was.

- Under them you can sit- he explained, - they cast a good shadow, cool as well water. But they can easily put you to sleep. And you can't sleep under a cypress, under any circumstances.

He paused and began to smooth his mustache until he waited for the question "Why?", And only then continued:

- Why? Why are you asking? Because you will wake up as a different person. While you sleep, the cypress tree shoots roots in your head and draws out your brains, and you wake up cuckoo, with your head as empty as a whistle.

I wondered if this only applies to cypress or other trees too.

- Not only. - The old man with a menacing look lifted his head up, as if checking to see if the trees were eavesdropping on him. “But it’s the cypress that steals our brains. So, young lord, you better not sleep here.

He threw another unkind glance in the direction of the darkening cones, as if a challenge - well, what do you say to that? - and then he carefully began to make his way through the bushes of myrtle to his goats, which were peacefully grazing on the hillside, and their swollen udders dangled like a bag by a bagpipe.

I got to know Yani quite closely, as I constantly met him during my hikes, and sometimes visited him in his house, where he treated me to fruits, gave me various advice and warned about the dangers awaiting me.

But, perhaps, the most eccentric and mysterious character of all who I met was a man with pink beetles. There was something fabulous, irresistible in him, and I always looked forward to our rare meetings. The first time I saw him was on a deserted road leading to one of the remote mountain villages. Before I saw him, I heard him - he played an iridescent melody on a shepherd's pipe, sometimes interrupting to sing a few funny words through his nose. When he came around the bend, Roger and I froze and stared at the alien in amazement.

Pointed fox muzzle with slanting dark brown eyes, surprisingly empty, covered with a film, as it happens on a plum or cataract. Squat, frail, as if undernourished, with a thin neck and the same wrists. But what was most striking was what was on his head: a shapeless hat with wide dangling brim, once bottle-green, and now speckled, dusty, stained with wine, here and there burned with cigarettes, the brim was studded with a whole garland of stirring feathers - rooster, hoopoe, owl, and there also stuck out the wing of a kingfisher, the claw of a hawk and a curled white feather that once belonged, apparently, to a swan. His shirt was worn, frayed, gray with sweat, and over it was a loose tie of discouraging blue satin. A dark shapeless jacket in multi-colored patches, on the sleeve a white gusset with a pattern of rosebuds, and on the shoulder a triangular patch in wine-red and white peas. The pockets of his jacket bulged out, and combs, balloons, painted pictures of saints, snakes, camels, dogs and horses, cheap mirrors, a bunch of handkerchiefs and elongated twisted buns with sesame seeds, almost fell out of them. Trousers, also in patches, like a jacket, went down to the scarlet color charouhias- leather shoes with curved toes decorated with large black and white pom-poms. This entertainer wore bamboo cages with pigeons and chickens on his back, some mysterious sacks and a healthy bunch of green leeks. With one hand he held the pipe to his mouth, and in the other he clamped a dozen harsh threads, to the ends of which were tied pink beetles the size of an almond, which glittered in the sun with golden-green reflections and rushed around his hat with a desperate uterine buzz, trying in vain to get rid of a cruel leash. Occasionally one of them, tired of cutting unsuccessful circles, sat down on his hat, but then took off again to participate in the endless carousel.

The first time he saw us, the guy with the pink beetles gave an exaggerated start, stopped, took off his ridiculous hat and made a deep bow. Roger was so stunned by such increased attention that he burst into a kind of startled tirade. The man smiled, put his hat back on, held up his hands and waved his long, bony fingers at me. The appearance of this ghost amused me and a little overwhelmed me, but out of politeness I wished him a good day. He bowed deeply to us again. I asked if he was returning from some holiday. He nodded vigorously and, holding the pipe to his lips, played a lively melody with dances on the dusty road, then stopped and pointed his thumb over his shoulder to where he came from. He smiled, patted his pockets, and made characteristic movements with his thumb and forefinger, which in Greece served as a hint of monetary reward. Then it suddenly dawned on me that he was dumb. Standing in the middle of the road, I began to explain to him, and he answered me with the help of a varied and very expressive pantomime. I asked, why does he need pink beetles, why are they on strings? In response, he showed with his hand that they were like little children, and as proof he untwisted one such thread over his head, the beetle immediately came to life and let's cut circles around the hat, like a planet around the sun. The man beamed and, pointing to the sky, spread his arms out to the sides and ran along the road with a low nose buzz. It was he who portrayed an airplane. And, again depicting small children, he launched all the beetles above him, which were buzzing with an indignant chorus.

Tired of the explanations, he sat down by the side of the road and played a small passage on the pipe, interrupting to sing the same song. The words, of course, could not be made out, only a series of strange noses and squeaks coming from somewhere from the throat and through the nose. And everything was done with such ardor and expressiveness that you somehow immediately believed that these inarticulate sounds really meant something. Finally he put the pipe in his full pocket, looked at me thoughtfully, threw off his backpack, untied it and, to my amazement and great joy, shook out half a dozen turtles straight onto the road. Their shells, rubbed with oil, glittered, and their front legs were decorated with red bows. With slowed down solidity, they pushed their heads and paws out from under the shining shells and purposefully, but without any enthusiasm, hobbled away. I looked at them spellbound. Especially my attention was attracted by a crumb the size of a teacup. She seemed livelier than others, her eyes were bright, and her shell was light - a mixture of chestnut, caramel and amber. Surprisingly nimble for a turtle. I squatted down, studied it for a long time and finally realized that my family would receive it with special enthusiasm, maybe even congratulate me on finding such a lovely copy. I had no money, but it didn’t mean anything, I’ll just tell him to come for them tomorrow to our villa. It didn't even occur to me that he might not take my word for it. It is enough that I am an Englishman, because among the local islanders, the admiration for our nation exceeds all reasonable boundaries. They will not believe each other, and the Englishman - no questions asked. I asked the guy how much the turtle costs. He spread the fingers of both hands. But I'm already used to the fact that local peasants are always bargaining. So I shook my head emphatically and held up two fingers, subconsciously copying his manner. He closed his eyes in horror at such a proposal and, thinking, showed me nine fingers. I give him three. He is six to me. I answered five. He sighed sadly and deeply, and we both sat down, silently watching the sprawling turtles; they moved heavily and uncertainly, with the dull determination of one-year-old toddlers. Finally he pointed to the crumb and pulled up six fingers again. I showed five. Roger yawned loudly - this wordless bargaining made him terribly bored. The guy took the turtle in his hands and began to explain to me how smooth and beautiful its shell was, how straight its head was, and what sharp claws it had. But I stood firm. In the end, he shrugged his shoulders, showed his five fingers and handed me the goods.

It was then that I told him that I had no money, so let him come to the villa tomorrow. He nodded as if it were a matter of course. Delighted with my new favorite, I was already rushing home to show everyone my purchase, so I thanked the guy, said goodbye to him and hurried on the way home. When I reached the place where it was necessary to cut a corner, turning into an olive grove, I stopped to study the find better. Without a doubt, I have never met a more beautiful turtle, and it cost at least twice as much. I stroked the scaly head with my finger and carefully put the turtle back in my pocket. Before starting down the hill, I turned around. The guy with the pink beetles made a small gig in the middle of the road, he swayed and jumped, playing the pipe, and the turtles crawled ponderously and aimlessly back and forth.

Our new tenant, deservedly named Achilles, turned out to be the smartest adorable creature with a peculiar sense of humor. At first we tied him by the leg in the garden, but when he became tame, he got complete freedom. He quickly remembered his name, and as soon as he called out loudly and, having gained patience, wait a little, he appeared on the narrow paved path, walked on tiptoe, eagerly stretching his neck forward. He loved to be fed: he would sit down like a king in the sun and take from our hands a piece from a lettuce leaf or a dandelion or grape. He loved grapes, as did Roger, and they constantly had serious rivalries. Achilles chewed grapes, the juice flowed down his chin, and Roger, lying at a distance, looked at him with suffering eyes, and saliva ran from his mouth. Although he received his portion of fruit, he seemed to believe that feeding such delicacies to a turtle was a waste of a good product. After feeding, as soon as I turned my back, Roger crawled up to Achilles and began to lick his muzzle lustfully in grape juice. In response to such liberties, Achilles tried to grab the impudent nose, but when this licking became completely slobbering and intolerable, he hid in his shell with an indignant snort and refused to leave until we took Roger away.

But most of all, Achilles loved strawberries. As soon as he saw her, he fell into a form of hysteria, began to sway and stretch his head - well, will you treat me already? - and looked at you imploringly with his eyes, reminiscent of buttons on shoes. The smallest berry he could swallow in one sitting, since it was the size of a pea. But if you gave him a large, hazelnut-sized one, he treated it like no other turtle. Grabbing the berry and holding it securely in his mouth, he crawled at maximum speed to a safe, secluded place among the flowers, and there, putting the strawberries on the ground, ate them in order, and then returned for a new portion.

In addition to craving strawberries, Achilles was inflamed with a passion for human society. When someone went down to the garden to sunbathe, or read, or something else, after a while there was a rustling sound among the Turkish carnations and a wrinkled innocent muzzle protruded. If a person sat on a chair, Achilles crept closer to his legs and fell into a deep peaceful sleep with his head sticking out of the shell and his nose lying on the ground. If you lay down on the mat to sunbathe, Achilles decided that you were stretched out on the ground solely for the purpose of pleasing him. Then he crawled onto the mat with a good-natured, roguish expression on his face, looked at you thoughtfully and chose the part of his body most suitable for the ascent. Try to relax when the sharp claws of a turtle dig into your thigh, determined to climb onto your belly. If you dumped it and moved the bedding to another place, it gave only a short respite - having sullenly circled around the garden, Achilles found you again. This manner of his so exhausted everyone that, after numerous complaints and threats, I had to lock him up every time someone from my family was about to lie down in the garden.

But one day the garden gate was left open, and Achilles disappeared without a trace. Search parties were organized, and all those who until now openly threatened our reptile with terrible punishment, combed the olive groves and shouted: "Achilles ... Achilles ... strawberries! .." Finally we found him. As always, walking, lost in thought, he fell into an abandoned well with dilapidated walls and a hole overgrown with ferns. Alas, he was dead. Neither Leslie's efforts to give him artificial respiration, nor Margot's attempts to shove strawberries into his mouth (that is, to give him what she put it, for which it was worth living) led nowhere, and his remains were solemnly and sadly buried in the garden - under a bush of strawberries, at the suggestion of the mother. Larry wrote and read a short parting word in a trembling voice, which is especially memorable. And only Roger somewhat spoiled the funeral ceremony, as he happily twiddled his tail, despite all my protests.

Soon after we lost Achilles, I bought another pet from the pink beetle guy. This pigeon was recently born, and we had to force-feed it with bread in milk and soaked corn. He was a pitiful sight: feathers only pierce through the red wrinkled skin, covered, like all babies, with a disgusting yellow fluff, as if discolored by hydrogen peroxide. Considering the repulsive appearance, which made him puffy, Larry suggested calling him Quasimodo, and since I liked the name and the associations associated with it were unknown to me, I agreed. Long after Quasimodo learned to eat himself and grew feathers, he had this yellow fluff on his head, which made him look like such a smug judge in a children's wig.

Due to his unconventional upbringing and lack of parents to teach him about life, Quasimodo convinced himself that he was not a bird and refused to fly. Instead, he walked everywhere. If he had a desire to climb on a table or chair, he stood next to his lowered head and cooed until he was put there. He was always happy to join the general company and even followed us on walks. However, this had to be abandoned, since there were two options: either put him on the shoulder with the risk of ruining his clothes, or let him hobble from behind. But in this case, because of him, we had to slow down, and if we went forward, then we heard a desperate, pleading murmur; we turned around and saw Quasimodo skipping after us, wagging his tail seductively and showing indignantly his iridescent chest, deeply indignant at our treachery.

Quasimodo insisted on sleeping in the house; no persuasion and scolding could drive him into the dovecote that I built for him. He preferred to rest at Margot's feet. Over time, he had to be pushed out onto the sofa in the living room, for as soon as Margot rolled over on his side, he immediately hobbled upstairs and sat down on her face with a loud gentle cooing.

That Quasimodo is a songbird, Larry discovered. Not only did he love music, but he also seemed to distinguish between waltz and military march. When the usual music was playing, he crept closer to the gramophone and sat with a proud bearing and half-closed eyes and hummed softly under his breath. But if they played a waltz, he began to cut circles, bowing, spinning and loudly croaking. In the case of a march - preferably Susa - he straightened his shoulders, rolled out his chest and typed a step, and his cooing became so deep and loud that it seemed he would suffocate now. He performed such unusual actions exclusively with a waltz or a military march. But sometimes, after a protracted musical pause, he could be so delighted with the newly working gramophone that he began to perform a waltz to a march and vice versa, but then he caught himself and corrected his mistake.

Once, having woken up Quasimodo, we were saddened to find that he had circled us all around his finger - a shiny white egg lay among the pillows. After that, he was no longer able to really come to his senses. He became embittered, sullen, irritably pecked at anyone who tried to pick him up. Then he laid the second egg, and this changed him beyond recognition. He ... that is, she became more and more wild, treated us like sworn enemies, sneaked into the kitchen for food, as if fearing starvation. Soon, even the sounds of a gramophone could no longer get her into the house. The last time I saw her on an olive tree - a bird with amazing coyness was kurlying, pretending to be a meek, and a healthy gentleman sitting on a nearby branch shuffled and cooed in perfect ecstasy.

For a while, the guy with the pink beetles regularly dropped in at our villa with replenishment for my menagerie: either a frog, or a sparrow with a broken wing. Once my mother and I, in a rush of sentimentality, bought all the pink beetles from him and, when he was gone, set them free. For several days I could not save these beetles: they crawled on the beds, hid in the bathroom, and at night they beat against the burning lamps and fell on us like pink opals.

The last time I saw this guy was one evening, sitting on a hillock. He was clearly returning from a party, where he was well loaded: he walked along the road, playing a sad melody on his pipe, and he swayed from side to side. I shouted some kind of greeting to him, and he waved his hand heartily, without even turning around. Before he disappeared around the bend, for a moment his silhouette was clearly outlined against the background of the lavender evening sky, and I clearly made out a frayed hat with moving feathers, bulging jacket pockets and on the back bamboo cages with sleeping pigeons. And over his head little pink specks were cutting sleepy circles. Then he turned, and there was only a pale sky with a new moon, similar to a floating silver feather, and the sound of a pipe, gradually dying in the twilight.

Bushel of Knowledge

No sooner had we really settled down in the pink villa, when my mother decided that I was completely wild and I needed to be given some kind of education. But how can this be done on a secluded Greek island? As always, as soon as a problem arose, the whole family enthusiastically set about solving it. Each had his own idea of what was best for me, and each defended it with such fervor that the discussion about my future turned into a real squabble.

- Where to rush to study? Said Leslie. “He can read, right? We'll learn shooting with him, and if we buy a yacht, I'll teach him how to sail.

- But, dear, it will hardly come in handy for him later, - objected his mother and added somehow vaguely: - Well, unless he goes to the merchant fleet.

“It seems to me that he needs to learn to dance,” Margot entered, “otherwise the tongue-tied, squeezed teenager will grow up.

- You're right, dear, but this can be done Then... First you have to get the basics ... mathematics, French ... and he writes with terrible mistakes.

“Literature is what he wants,” Larry said with conviction. - Good literary background. The rest will follow by itself. I recommended that he read good books.

- Do not you think that Rabelais is a little for him obsolete? The mother asked cautiously.

“Real cool humor,” Larry reacted lightly. - It is important that he gets the right idea of sex right now.

“You're just obsessed with sex,” Margot said primly. - Whatever we argue about, you definitely need to put it in.

- He needs a healthy lifestyle in the fresh air. If he learns to shoot and steer a yacht ... - bent his Leslie.

“Stop pretending to be a holy father,” said Larry. - You still offer ablution in ice water.

- Tell you what your problem is? You take this arrogant tone, as if you alone know everything, and you simply do not hear other points of view.

- How can you listen to such a primitive point of view like yours?

- Well, everything, everything, break, - the mother could not resist.

- It's just that his mind refuses.

- No, how do you like it! - Larry boiled. - Yes, in this family I am the most reasonable.

- Even so, dear, but picking does not help solve the problem. We need a person who can teach our Jerry something and will encourage his interests.

“He seems to have only one interest,” Larry remarked bitterly. - An irresistible need to fill any void with some kind of living creature. I don't think this should be encouraged. Life is already full of dangers. This morning I got into a cigarette box, and from there a hefty bumblebee flew out.

“And a grasshopper jumped out at me,” Leslie said gloomily.

“I also think that this mess needs to be stopped,” said Margot. - Not just anywhere, but on the dressing table I find a jug, and some nasty creatures are swarming in it.

“He doesn't mean anything bad. - Mother tried to turn the conversation on a peaceful track. - My friend is just interested in such things.

“I wouldn't mind a bumblebee attack if it really did lead to something,” Larry said. - But this is just a temporary hobby, and by the age of fourteen he will outgrow it.

“He has had this hobby since he was two years old, and so far there are no signs that he can outgrow it,” her mother objected.

“Well, if you insist on stuffing him with all sorts of useless information, then I suppose you can entrust it to George.

- Good idea! - the mother was delighted. - Why don't you meet him? The sooner he gets down to business, the better.

Sitting in the deepening twilight by the open window, with a shaggy Roger under his arm, I listened with a mixed feeling of curiosity and indignation as my family decided my fate. And when she finally made up her mind, vague thoughts flashed in my head: but actually, who is this George and why do I need these lessons at all? But in the twilight there were such floral smells, and the olive groves beckoned to themselves with their nighttime mystery that I immediately forgot about the impending threat of primary education and, together with Roger, went to hunt fireflies in the blackberry bushes.

It turned out that George is an old friend of Larry's who came to Corfu to compose here. This was not unusual, since at that time all of my brother's friends were writers, poets or artists. In addition, it was thanks to George that we ended up in Corfu - in his letters he praised these places so much that Larry firmly decided: only there is our place. And now George was to pay for his rashness. He came to meet his mother, and I was introduced to him. We looked at each other with suspicion. George, tall and very thin, moved with the looseness of a puppet. His sunken skull-like face was partially hidden by a pointed brownish beard and large tortoise-shell spectacles. He had a deep melancholic voice and a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. Jokingly, he hid a kind of wolfish grin in his beard, which was not influenced in any way by the reaction of others.

George got down to business with a serious air. The lack of the necessary textbooks on the island did not bother him at all, he simply ransacked his own library and on the appointed day brought in more than an unexpected selection. With firmness and patience, he began to teach me the basics of geography from the maps attached to the old edition of Pierce's Encyclopedia; English - from books by various authors, from Wilde to Gibbon; French - from a weighty tome called "Le Petit Larousse"; and mathematics - just from memory. But the main thing, from my point of view, was that we devoted part of the time to natural science, and George, with particular pedantry, taught me to keep observations and write them down later in a diary. For the first time, my interest in nature, in which there was a lot of enthusiasm, but little consistency, somehow focused, and I realized that by writing down my observations, I memorize and remember everything much better. Of all our lessons, I was not late only for lessons in science.

Every morning at nine o'clock, George appeared among the olives in shorts, sandals and a huge straw hat with frayed brim, a pile of books under his arm, and a cane in his hand, which he energetically threw forward.

- Good morning! Well, the student is waiting for the mentor, in awe of excitement? He greeted me with a grim grin.

In the small dining room, in the greenish light shining through the closed shutters, George methodically laid out the books he had brought on the table. The flies, stunned from the heat, crawled listlessly along the walls or flew like drunkards around the room with a sleepy buzz. Outside the window, the cicadas were enthusiastically glorifying the new day with a shrill chirp.

“Well, well, well, well,” George muttered, sliding his long forefinger down the elaborate class schedule page. - So it’s mathematics. If I haven't forgotten anything, we set ourselves a task worthy of Hercules: figuring out how many days it would take six men to build a wall if it took three a week. I remember that we spent almost as much time on solving this problem as men on building the wall. Well, let's girded up and take the fight once again. Maybe you are confused by the very wording of the question? Then let's try to revive it somehow.

He bent over his exercise book thoughtfully and tweaked his beard. And then, with his large, clear handwriting, he formulated the problem in a new way.

“How many days would it take four caterpillars to eat eight leaves if it took two a week?” So what do you say?

While I sweated over the unsolvable problem of caterpillar appetites, George found himself doing something else. He was an excellent swordsman, and in those days he taught local peasant dances, for which he had a weakness. So, while I was struggling to solve an arithmetic problem, he was swinging a rapier in a dim room or performing complex dance steps; all this, to put it mildly, distracted me, and I’m ready to explain my lack of ability in mathematics with his tricks. Even today, put the simplest problem in front of me, and my memory will immediately appear lanky George, doing lunges and pirouettes in the dim dining room. He accompanied his steps with fake singing, somewhat reminiscent of a disturbed beehive.

- Tum-ti-tum-ti-tum ... Tiddle-Tidle-Tumty- di... one step with the left, three steps with the right ... tum-ti-tum-ti-tum-ti ... doom... back, u-turn, crouched, stood up ... di... - so he itched, making his steps and pirouettes, like an unfortunate crane.

Suddenly the itching ended, a steel glint appeared in his eyes, George took a defensive stance and lunged with an imaginary rapier in the direction of an imaginary opponent. And then, with a squint, glittering glasses, he drove the enemy around the room, skillfully maneuvering among the furniture. Having driven him into a corner, George began to circle and loop around him, like your wasp, stinging, jumping and bouncing. I could almost see the shine of blued steel. And finally, the finale: a sharp turn of the blade up and to the side, throwing back the enemy's rapier, a quick rebound - and then a striking thrust into the heart. All this time I watched him spellbound, completely forgetting about the notebook. Mathematics was not the most successful of our subjects.

With geography, things were better, as George knew how to give the lessons a zoological coloring. We drew huge maps in the creases of the mountain ranges and inscribed various landmarks along with samples of unusual fauna. So, for me Ceylon was tapirs and tea, India - tigers and rice, Australia - kangaroos and sheep. And on the blue bends of the sea currents, painted whales, albatrosses, penguins and walruses appeared along with storms, trade winds, signs of good and bad weather. Our cards were works of art. The main volcanoes spewed such fire and sparks that it was scary for paper continents; the mountain peaks were so piercingly blue and white with ice and snow that one glance at them seized a chill. Our brown, sun-dried deserts were decorated with hillocks in the form of camel humps and pyramids, and our rainforests were so violent and impassable that even creeping jaguars, nimble snakes and sullen gorillas made their way through them with difficulty, and where the forests ended, exhausted the natives with the last bit of strength cut down the painted trees, making clearings, it seems, with the sole purpose of writing in crooked capital letters "coffee" or "cereals." Our rivers were wide and blue, like forget-me-nots, speckled with canoes and crocodiles. In our oceans, where they did not foam from a furious storm or they were not raised by a frightening tidal wave hanging over some lost island overgrown with shaggy palm trees, life was in full swing: good-natured whales allowed themselves to pursue galleons, clearly unsuitable for swimming, but up to teeth armed with harpoons; insinuating and innocent-looking octopuses affectionately embraced the tiny boats with their long tentacles; a Chinese junk with a yellow-skinned team was chased by a whole flock of toothed sharks, and Eskimos in fur clothes pursued fat walruses among the ice densely populated with polar bears and penguins. They were living maps for exploring, expressing doubts, making corrections; in short, they contained a certain meaning.

Our attempts at history were at first not very successful, until George realized that it was enough to plant a sprout of zoology in this bare soil and sprinkle it with completely extraneous details to arouse my interest. So I got acquainted with some historical facts, hitherto not stated anywhere, as far as I know. With bated breath, lesson after lesson, I followed Hannibal's passage across the Alps. The reason why he dared to such a feat, and his plans on the other side interested me in the last place. My interest in the very bad, in my understanding, the organized expedition was due to the fact that I knew the name of every elephant... I also knew that Hannibal had appointed a special person to not only feed and care for the elephants, but also give them hot water bottles in the cold... This curious fact seems to have escaped the attention of serious historians. Almost all history books are also silent about the first words of Columbus when he set foot on American soil: "Oh god, look ... jaguar!" After such an introduction, how could you not get carried away with the further history of the continent? In a word, George, in the absence of suitable textbooks and with the inertia of the student, tried in every possible way to revive the subject so that I would not get bored in his lessons.

Roger, of course, thought every morning was lost. But he didn't leave me, he just slept under the table while I pored over my assignments. If I had to go for a book, he would wake up, dust himself off, yawn loudly and happily twist his tail. However, when he saw that I was returning to the table, he lowered his ears and walked with a heavy gait to his secluded place, where he flopped down again with a sigh of disappointment. George did not mind his presence, as the dog behaved well and did not distract me. But sometimes, deeply asleep and suddenly hearing the barking of a peasant dog, Roger woke up with a hoarse, menacing growl and did not immediately understand where he was. Catching our disapproving faces, he was embarrassed, wagged his tail and timidly looked around the room.

For a while, Quasimodo also attended our lessons and behaved quite decently if I allowed him to sit on my lap. So he could sleep all morning, cooing softly. But one day I chased him away after he turned over a bottle of green ink right in the middle of a gorgeous geographic map that we had just finished drawing. Realizing that this was not deliberate vandalism, I nevertheless could not overcome my irritation. For a whole week, Quasimodo tried to gain confidence in me again, sitting under the door and curling invitingly through the crack, but when I was about to surrender, I caught a glance at his tail, saw a terrifying green spot, and my heart hardened.

Achilles attended one of our lessons, but he didn't like the house. He wandered around the room all morning, scratching now against the baseboard, now against the door. And sometimes he got stuck and began to crawl desperately until he was rescued from under some pouf. The small room was cramped with furniture, and in order to get to one piece of furniture, almost everything had to be moved. After the third general reshuffle, George said that he was not used to such loads and that Achilles would feel much happier in the garden.

As a result, I was accompanied by one Roger. But no matter how nice it is to put your feet on your warm, furry back while you are struggling with the next task, it is still difficult to concentrate when the sun breaks through the shutters, drawing tiger stripes on the table and reminding you of what you could do now.

Outside the window, in the olive groves, cicadas sang, in the vineyards, bright, as if painted, lizards scurried about the stone steps overgrown with moss, insects hid in the thickets of myrtle, and above the rocky cape, flocks of multi-colored goldfinches flew with an excited whistle from thistle to thistle.

When it came to George, he wisely moved our activities to nature. Some mornings he came with a large terry towel, and we set off through the olive groves and further along the road, as if lined with a dusty white velvet carpet. Then they turned onto a goat trail that stretched over miniature cliffs and descended to a secluded cove, bordered by a crescent of white sand. There the undersized olive trees cast a welcome shadow. From the top of the cliff, the water in the bay looked completely still and transparent, so it was easy to doubt its existence. Above the sandy ribbed bottom, it seemed like fish were swimming right through the air, and at a depth of six feet one could clearly see underwater rocks, where anemones wiggled their frail colorful fingers and hermit crabs dragged their shell houses on themselves.

Undressing under the olives, we entered the warm clear water and swam, looking at rocks and algae under us, sometimes diving for prey: a particularly bright shell or a giant hermit crab with an anemone on its shell, reminiscent of a pink flower on a hat. Here and there, black ribbon algae grew on the sandy bottom, and sea cucumbers lived among them. Walking on the water and looking down at the tangled, shiny and narrow algae of greenish and black color, over which we hung like hawks over an unfamiliar landscape, one could make out these, perhaps, the most repulsive creatures of the marine fauna. About six inches long, they looked exactly like long sausages of thick brown wrinkled skin — almost indistinguishable primitive creatures lying in place, rippled by a wave, sucking in seawater at one end and releasing it at the other. Plant and animal microorganisms are filtered in this sausage and processed in the stomach by a simple digestion mechanism. The life of sea cucumbers is by no means interesting. They waddle stupidly on the sand, drawing in the salt water with monotonous regularity. It is difficult to believe that these fat creatures are able to somehow protect themselves and that such a need can arise at all, but in fact they use a curious way of expressing their displeasure. One has only to pull out a sea cucumber, as it shoots sea water at you, even from the front, even from the back, and without any visible muscle effort. George and I even came up with a game with this makeshift water pistol. Standing in the water, we took turns firing from it and watched where the stream fell. Anyone with a more diverse marine life in this location earned a point. At times, as in any game, emotions overwhelmed, indignant accusations of cheating poured in, which were fiercely denied. This is where the water pistol came in handy. But then we always laid them down among the seaweed again. And the next time they lay in the same place and, most likely, in the same position, only from time to time sluggishly turned from side to side.

Having dealt with cucumbers, we hunted for sea shells for my collection or had long discussions around other representatives of the local fauna. At some point, George realized that all this, of course, is wonderful, but it is not education in the strict sense of the word, and then we lay in shallow water and continued our studies, and schools of small fish gathered around us, which tenderly nibbled on our legs.

- The French and British fleets were slowly approaching before the decisive sea battle. When the observer noticed the enemy ships, Nelson stood on the captain's bridge and watched the flight of birds through a telescope ... The seagull had already warned him in a friendly way about the approach of the French squadron ... most likely, a large black-backed one. The ships maneuvered as best they could ... with the help of sails ... then there were no motors, not even outboard ones, and everything was not done as quickly as today. At first, the English sailors were frightened by the French armada, but when they saw the equanimity with which Nelson, sitting on the bridge, glued tags to bird eggs from his collection, they realized that they could not worry ...

The sea, like a warm silk blanket, gently rocked my body. No waves, only this lulling underwater current, a kind of sea pulse. Colored fish, seeing my legs, shuddered, rebuilt, made a stance and opened their toothless mouths. In the heat-exhausted olive grove, the cicada chirped about something under his breath.

“… And then Nelson was hastily carried away from the captain's bridge so that none of the crew would guess that he was wounded… The wound was fatal. The battle was in full swing when he, lying in the hold, whispered the last words: "Kiss me, Hardy" ... and gave up his ghost. What? Well, of course. He said in advance that if something happened to him, the collection of bird eggs would go to Hardy ... Although England lost its best sailor, the battle was won, and this had important consequences for the whole of Europe ...

A boat, whitening in the sun, crossed the bay, driven by a swarthy fisherman in tattered trousers at the stern, and the oar with which he raked, flashed in the water like a fish's tail. He waved his hand at us lazily. Separated by a blue smooth surface, we heard the oar turn in the oarlock with a plaintive creak, and then plunge into the water with a soft squelch.

Spider paradise

One hot, languid day, when everyone seemed to be asleep except for the restless cicadas, Roger and I decided to test how far we could climb the hills before dusk. Passing olive groves, all in white stripes and spots from the blinding sun, with overheated stagnant air, we climbed above the trees, to a bare rocky peak, and sat down to rest. Below is a sleeping island with an iridescent sea surface in a haze of vapor: gray-green olives, black cypresses, coastal cliffs of variegated colors and an opal sea, sometimes turquoise, sometimes jade, in a couple of folds where it skirted a promontory overgrown with tangled olives. Directly below us stretched a shallow, barely blue, almost white cove with a dazzling white sandy beach in the shape of a crescent. After the ascent, I was drenched in sweat, and Roger sat with his tongue out and foam on his mustache. We decided that we would not climb any mountains, but, on the contrary, we'd rather have a swim. So we went down the slope and found ourselves in a deserted, quiet cove, crumpled under the scorching rays of the sun. The same half-asleep, we sat down in warm water, and I began to poke around in the sand. When I stumbled upon some peel or a shard of bottle glass, licked and polished by the sea to such an extent that it turned into a real emerald, green and transparent, I held out my find to Roger, who was watching me closely. Not quite understanding what I want from him, but not wanting to offend me, he carefully clamped his teeth so that after a while, making sure that I did not see this, he would throw her back into the water with a sigh of relief.

Then I dried up, lying on the stones, and Roger trotted through the shallow water and, snorting, tried to grab at least one blend with an inflated, expressionless muzzle on the blue fin, but they scurried between the stones at the speed of swallows. Breathing heavily, keeping his eyes on the clear water, Roger watched their movements with utmost attention. When I was completely dry, I put on shorts and a shirt and called my friend. He reluctantly walked towards me, now and then looking back at the blend dogs, which continued to flash above the sandy bottom, illuminated by bright rays. Approaching almost close, he shook himself off so thoroughly that he poured a real waterfall on me.

After bathing, my body felt heavy and relaxed, and my skin seemed to be covered with a silky crust of salt. Slowly, in some of our dreams, we moved towards the main road. I suddenly felt hungry and began to think in which of the neighboring houses I should have a snack. I stood in thought, lifting the fine white dust with the toe of my boot. If I look into the nearest house, to Leonora, I will be treated to bread and figs, but at the same time she will read me a bulletin about her daughter's health. Her daughter was a hoarse shrew with a slight squint, I absolutely did not like her, and her health did not bother me at all. I decided not to go to Leonora. It's a pity, of course, because she had the best figs in the area, but the price for the delicacy was too high. If I visit the fisherman Taki, then he is now having a siesta, and I will hear an irritated cry from the house with the shutters tightly closed: "Get out of here, corn!" Christaki and his family will most likely be there, but for the treat I will have to answer a bunch of boring questions: “Is England bigger than Corfu? What kind of population is there? Are all inhabitants lords? What does a train look like? Do trees grow in England? " - and so on ad infinitum. If it was morning, I would cut the path through the fields and vineyards and satisfy my hunger along the way at the expense of my generous friends - olives, bread, grapes, figs - and after a short detour, perhaps, I would look into Philomena's estate and finally eat like a crisp pink slice of ice-cold watermelon. But the time has come for siesta, when the peasants sleep in their houses, having locked the doors and closed the shutters. It was a real problem, and as I puzzled over it, hunger made itself felt more and more, I walked faster and faster, until Roger snorted in protest, looking at me with obvious resentment.

Suddenly it dawned on me. Right behind the hill, in a invitingly white house, lived the old shepherd Yani with his wife. I knew that he was spending his siesta in the shade of the vineyard, and if the proper noise was made, the shepherd would surely wake up. And when he wakes up, he will certainly show hospitality. There was no such peasant house where they would let you go without eating too much. Encouraged by this thought, I turned onto a winding rocky path made by the hooves of Jani's goats, over the hill and further down into the valley, where the red roof of the shepherd's house looked like a bright spot among the imposing olive trees. When I got close enough, I flung the rock for Roger to run after him. It was one of his favorite games, but once it started, it demanded to continue, otherwise he would start barking as hard as he could until you repeated the maneuver, only for the dog to untie. Roger brought the stone, threw it at my feet and walked away in anticipation - ears upright, eyes shining, muscles tense, ready for action. However, I ignored both him and the stone. Surprised, he checked if everything was in order with this stone, and looked at me again. I whistled a melody, looking at the sky. Roger gave a tentative bark, and when he made sure I was not paying any attention to him, he burst into a loud bass bark that echoed among the olive trees. I gave him five minutes to bark. Now Jani is probably awake. Finally, I threw a stone, after which Roger rushed to celebrate, and went around the house myself.

The old shepherd, as I thought, was resting in the tattered shade of a vine that twisted around high iron trellises. But, to my great disappointment, he did not wake up. And he was sitting on a simple pine-tree chair, leaning against the wall at a dangerous angle. His arms hung like whips, his legs were stretched forward, and his noble mustache, reddened and gray from nicotine and old age, rose and trembled from his snoring, like unusual seaweed from a light underwater current. Thick fingers on stumpy hands twitched in sleep, and I made out yellowish ribbed nails, like the drips of a tallow candle. His swarthy face, wrinkled and furrowed like pine bark, expressed nothing, his eyes were tightly closed. I glared at him, hoping to wake him up, but all to no avail. Decency did not allow him to be pushed, and I mentally decided the dilemma, whether it was worth waiting for him to wake up, or really put up with Leonora's tediousness, when the lost Roger jumped out from behind the house with his tongue hanging out and ears sticking out. Seeing me, he happily wagged his tail and looked around with the air of a welcome visitor. Suddenly he froze, his mustache bristled up, and he began to slowly approach - his legs tensed, he was trembling all over. It was he who saw what I did not notice: under the tilted chair, curled up, lay a large long-legged gray cat, which insolently looked at us with its green eyes. Before I had time to grab Roger, he rushed to the prey. In one movement, testifying to the long practice, the cat flew like a bullet to the knobby vine, with a drunken relaxation twisted around the trellis, and flew upward with the help of tenacious paws. Sitting among clusters of light grapes, she looked down at Roger and seemed to spit. Roger, completely outraged, threw back his head and burst out in a threatening, one might say, destructive bark. Yani opened his eyes, the chair swayed under him, and he frantically waved his arms to keep his balance. The chair hung for a moment in some indecision, and then sank down on all four legs with a thud.

- Saint Spyridon, help! - Yani pleaded, and his mustache trembled. - Do not leave me, Lord!

Looking around to understand the cause of the whipping, he saw me modestly sitting on the wall. I greeted him politely and cordially, as if nothing had happened, and asked if he had slept well. Yani got to his feet with a smile and voluptuously scratched his stomach.

- That's who makes such a noise that my head almost burst. Well, be healthy. Sit down, young lord. He rubbed his chair and pulled it up for me. - I'm glad to see you. Would you like to eat and drink with me? What a hot day today. In this heat of that look, the bottle will melt.

He stretched and yawned loudly, showing toothless gums like a baby's. Then he turned to the house and shouted:

- Aphrodite ... Aphrodite... woman, wake up ... foreigners have come ... here with me the young lord ... Bring food ... Can you hear me?

“Yes, I can hear, I can hear,” came a muffled voice from behind the closed shutters.

Yani grunted, wiped his mustache and delicately disappeared behind a nearby olive tree, from where he reappeared, buttoning his pants and yawning. He sat on the wall next to me.

- Today I had to overtake the goats in Gasturi. But it's too hot. In the mountains, stones are so hot, even if you light a cigarette. Instead, I went to Taki's and tasted his young white wine. Saint Spyridon! Not wine, but dragon's blood ... you drink and fly away ... Oh, what wine! When I returned, I immediately overcame, like this.

He let out a deep, unrepentant sigh and reached into his pocket for a shabby tin box of tobacco and thin gray paper strips. His brown, calloused hand, folded in a handful, gathered some gold leaf, and the fingers of his other hand picked out a pinch. He quickly rolled a cigarette, removed the excess from both ends, put the unwanted tobacco back into the box and lit a cigarette with a huge lighter, from which the flame burst like an angry snake. He smoked thoughtfully, removed a lint from his mustache, and reached into his pocket again.

- You are interested in the little creatures of the Lord, so look who I caught this morning. The devil was hiding under a stone. He produced a well-sealed bottle from his pocket. - A real fighter. As far as I know, the only one with a sting in the back.

In a bottle filled to the brim with golden olive oil and similar to amber, in the very center, supported by a thick liquid, lay a chocolate-colored embalmed scorpion with a curled tail, reminiscent of a scimitar. He suffocated in this viscous grave. A light cloud of a different shade formed around the corpse.

- See? - Yani pointed at him. - It's poison. Look how much it was.

I wondered why it was necessary to put a scorpion in olive oil.

Yani chuckled and wiped his mustache with the palm of his hand.

- Eh, young lord, catch insects from morning to evening, don't you know? “Looks like I amused him a lot. “Okay, then I'll tell you. Who knows, it will suddenly come in handy. First you need to catch a scorpion, carefully, like a falling feather, and catch a live one - always alive! - put in a bottle of oil. He will release poison there, gurgle a little and die. And if one of his brothers stings you - Saint Spyridon save you! - anoint the bite with this oil, and everything will go away, as if it were an ordinary thorn.

While I was digesting this curious information, Aphrodite came out of the house with a wrinkled face, red as a pomegranate; in her hands she carried a pewter tray with a bottle of wine, a jug of water, and a plate of bread, olives, and dates. Jani and I ate and drank in silence the wine diluted with water to a pale pink hue. Despite the absence of teeth, Jani tore off healthy slices of bread, greedily rubbed them with his gums and swallowed unchewed pieces, which made his wrinkled throat swell before his eyes. When we finished, he fell back, rubbed his mustache carefully, and resumed the conversation as if it had not been interrupted.

“I have known a shepherd like me who celebrated a siesta in a distant village. On the way home he was so happy with the wine he had drunk that he decided to sleep and lay down under the myrtle. And so, while he was sleeping, a scorpion climbed into his ear and stung him.

Jani took a dramatic pause to spit over the wall and roll another roll.

- Yes, - he sighed, - a sad story ... still quite young. Some kind of scorpion ... a bale ... that's all. The poor fellow jumped up and, like a madman, began to rush between the olives, tearing his head apart. Horror! And there was no one nearby who would have heard his cries and came to his aid. With this unbearable pain, he rushed to the village, but never reached it. Collapsed in the valley, not far from the road. We found him the next morning. A terrible sight! His head was swollen as if his brain was in the ninth month. He was, of course, dead. No signs of life.

Jani let out a deep, sad sigh and twirled the amber bottle with his fingers.

“That's why I never sleep in the mountains,” he continued. - And in case I drink wine with a friend and forget about the danger, I have a bottle with a scorpion in my pocket.

We moved on to other, equally fascinating topics, and after about an hour I shook the crumbs from my knees, thanked the old man and his wife for their hospitality and, having accepted a bunch of grapes in farewell, walked home. Roger walked beside me, glancing eloquently at my bulging pocket. Finally we wandered into an olive grove, semi-dark and cool, with long shadows of trees, it was already towards evening. We sat down near a moss-covered slope and divided the grapes for two. Roger ate it with the bones. I spat around and fantasized that a luxurious vineyard would grow here. When I finished eating, I rolled over onto my stomach and, resting my chin on my hands, began to study the slope.

A green grasshopper with an elongated sad face twitched its hind legs nervously. A fragile snail meditated on a mossy twig in anticipation of the evening dew. A plump scarlet mite, the size of a match head, pushed its way through the mossy forest like some short-legged fat hunter. It was a world under a microscope, living its own amazing life. Observing the slow progress of the tick, I noticed an interesting detail. Here and there, there were shilling-sized footprints on the green plush surface of the moss, so pale they could only be seen from a certain angle. They reminded me of a full moon covered with clouds, such pale circles that seemed to move and change shades. What is their origin, I wondered. Too irregular and chaotic to be the footprints of any creature, and who could climb the almost vertical slope, treading so randomly? And it doesn't look like footprints. I poked a stem at the edge of one such mug. No wiggling. Maybe this moss grows so strange here? I once again, already harder, poked with a stem, and then my stomach was already grabbed with excitement. It was as if I had touched a hidden spring - and the circle suddenly opened, like a hatch. I was amazed to realize that, in essence, this was a hatch lined with silk, with neatly cut edges, covering a shaft that went down, also lined with silk. The edge of the hatch was fastened to the ground with a silk ribbon that served as a kind of spring. Staring at this magical work of art, I wondered who the creator of it might have been. Nothing was visible in the tunnel itself. I poked the stem - no answer. For a long time I looked at this fantastic dwelling, trying to comprehend who created it. Wasp? But I've never heard of a wasp hiding its nest with a secret door. I realized that I must address this issue urgently. We must go to George, and what if he knows what this mysterious animal is? I called Roger, who was diligently undermining the roots of the olive, and walked quickly in the other direction.

I rushed to George's villa, breathless, torn by emotion, knocked for show and burst into the house. Only then did I realize that he was not alone. Next to him sat on a chair a man whom I, because of the same beard, at first glance took for his brother. However, unlike George, he was impeccably dressed: a gray flannel suit, a waistcoat, a clean white shirt, a stylish, albeit gloomy, tie and oversized, solid, well-polished boots. Embarrassed, I stopped at the threshold, and George gave me a sardonic look.

“Good evening,” he greeted me. - Judging by your elated look, we must assume that you didn’t come rushing for an additional lesson.

I apologized for the intrusion and told George about the mysterious nests I had found.

“Praise the Almighty that you are here, Theodore,” he turned to the bearded guest. - Now I can put the solution to this problem in the hands of an expert.

- Well, what an expert I am ... - muttered the self-deprecating one who was named Theodore.

“Jerry, this is Dr. Theodore Stephanides,” said George. “He is versed in almost any of the questions you ask. And from the unassigned ones too. He, like you, is obsessed with nature. Theodore, this is Jerry Darrell.

I greeted politely, and the bearded man, to my surprise, got up from his seat, walked up to me with a quick step and held out a healthy white hand.

“I'm very glad to meet you,” he said, obviously referring to his own beard, and threw a quick, embarrassed glance at me with sparkling blue eyes.

I shook his hand with the words that I was also very glad to meet you. Then there was an awkward pause, during which George watched us with a smile.

- What do you say, Theodore? He finally said. - And where do you think these strange secret passages come from?

He clasped his fingers behind his back and raised himself on tiptoe several times, making his boots squeak indignantly. He stared thoughtfully at the floor.

“Well… uh…” The words came out of him with measured meticulousness. - It seems to me that these are the moves of mason spiders ... uh ... a kind, quite common in Corfu ... when I say "quite common", I mean that I happened to meet him thirty times ... or even forty ... for that the time that I live here.

“Well, well,” nodded George. "Mason spiders, then?"

“Yes,” said Theodore. - It seems to me that this is very likely. But I could be wrong.

He still creaked his soles, standing on tiptoe, and threw an eager glance in my direction.

“If it's not very far, we could go and check,” he suggested hesitantly. - I mean, if you have no other business and it's not too far ... - His voice broke off as if with a question mark.

I replied that it was not far away, on a hill.

“Mm,” Theodore nodded.

“Be careful not to let him drag you into who knows where,” said George. - And then go up and down all the neighborhood.

“It's okay,” Theodore reassured him. - I was going to leave anyway, I will make a small detour. It's a simple matter ... uh ... in Kanoni, through the olive groves.

He carefully placed a nice gray felt hat on his head. At the door, he exchanged a short handshake with George.

“Thanks for the great tea,” he said, and paced along the path beside me.

I looked at him surreptitiously. He had a straight, beautifully outlined nose, an amusing mouth hiding in an ashen-blond beard, and straight bushy eyebrows above penetrating, inquisitive, with a sparkle eyes, in the corners of which were gathered funny wrinkles. He walked energetically, humming something to himself. As we passed a ditch of stagnant water, he stopped for a second and stared into it with a bristling beard.

- Mm, daphnia magna- he said casually.

He scratched his beard with his thumb and walked on.

- It's a shame, - he turned to me. “Since I was about to meet… uh… with friends, I didn’t bring the naturalist's backpack with me. It's a pity. In this ditch, we might find something interesting.

When we turned off the relatively flat path onto the stony goat path, I expected an expression of displeasure, but Theodore followed me with the same indefatigable determination, continuing to hum. Finally we found ourselves in a shady grove, I led him to the slope and pointed to the mysterious hatches.

He sat down beside one, his eyes narrowed.

“Yeah… well… uh… well… well.

He took a penknife from his waistcoat pocket, opened it, and carefully pried the hatch with the tip of his blade.

“Well, yes,” he confirmed. - Cteniza.

He peered into the tunnel, then blew into it and closed the hatch again.

“Yes, the moves of the mason spiders,” he said. “But this one is most likely uninhabited. Usually the spider grabs the ... uh ... hatch with its paws or, more precisely, its claws, so tenaciously that if you use force, you can damage the door. Yes ... these are the moves of the female. Males do them too, but half as long.

I noticed that I had never seen anything like it.

“Oh yes,” said Theodore, “very curious creatures. It's a mystery to me how the female realizes that the gentleman is approaching.

Seeing my puzzled face, he raised himself on his tiptoes and continued:

- The female is waiting in her shelter when some insect crawls past - a fly, or a grasshopper, or someone else. And it seems that he knows for sure that someone is very close. Then she… uh… jumps out of the hatch and grabs the victim. Well, if a spider approaches in search of a female ... why, one wonders, does she ... uh ... not devour him by mistake? Perhaps his steps sound different. Or he ... makes special sounds ... that she picks up.

We walked down the hill in silence. Soon we reached a fork in the road, and I began to say goodbye.

“Well, all the best,” he said, looking at his shoes. - It was nice to meet you.

We stood in silence. As it turned out later, when meeting and at parting, Theodore was always seized with great embarrassment. Finally, he held out his hand and shook my hand solemnly.

- Goodbye. I ... uh ... hope to see you again.

He turned and began to descend, swinging his cane and gazing around. I watched him go and walked home. Theodore amazed and puzzled me at the same time. Firstly, as a recognized scientist (one beard is worth something) he meant a lot to me. Actually, I first met a person who shared my interest in zoology. Secondly, I was terribly flattered that he treated me as if we were the same age. The family members did not speak to me condescendingly either, and I treated those who did so with disapproval. But Theodore spoke to me not only as an adult, but also as an equal.

I was haunted by his story about the mason spider. The very idea that the female is hiding in a silky tunnel, keeps the door locked with her crooked legs and listens to the movement of insects on the moss above her head. I wonder what sounds reached her? I can imagine how a snail makes a noise - like the crackle of an adhesive plaster being torn off. The Centipede is a cavalry platoon. The fly makes quick dashes with pauses to wash its front paws - such a dull zipper, like when working with a knife grinder. Big bugs, I decided, should look like a steam roller, while small ones, like ladybugs, might hum like a fine-tuned car engine. Intrigued by these thoughts, I walked through the fields plunging into twilight, in a hurry to tell my family about my find and about my acquaintance with Theodore. I hoped to see him again, since I had many questions for him, but I realized that he would hardly have free time for me. However, I was wrong. Two days later, Leslie, returning from a walk in the city, handed me a small parcel post.

End of introductory snippet.

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Gerald Darrell. My family and other animals

A word in your defense

So, sometimes I managed to believe in the incredible six times before breakfast.

White Queen.

Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass

I tried to give here accurate portraits of my relatives, without embellishing anything, and they pass through the pages of the book as I saw them. But to explain the funniest thing in their behavior, I must immediately say that in those days when we lived in Corfu, everyone was still very young: Larry, the oldest, was twenty-three years old, Leslie was nineteen, Margot was eighteen, and me, the smallest was only ten years old. None of us ever had an accurate idea of my mother's age, for the simple reason that she never remembered her birthdays. I can only say that my mother was old enough to have four children. At her insistence, I also explain that she was a widow, otherwise, as my mother pointed out, people can think of all kinds of things.

So that all the events, observations and joys during these five years of my life could squeeze into a work that does not exceed the volume of Encyclopedia Britannica, I had to reshape, add, cut everything, so that in the end there was almost nothing left of the true duration of the events. I also had to discard many incidents and persons about which I would be happy to tell here.

Of course, this book could not have come into being without the support and help of some people. I am talking about this in order to share the responsibility for it equally among all.

So, I express my gratitude:

Dr. Theodore Stephanides. With his characteristic generosity, he allowed me to use material from his unpublished work on the island of Corfu and provided me with many bad puns, of which I used some of the things.

To my family. After all, they still gave me the bulk of the material and helped a lot while the book was being written, desperately arguing about every case that I discussed with them, and occasionally agreeing with me.

My wife - for the fact that she gave me pleasure while reading the manuscript with her loud laughter. As she later explained, she was amused by my spelling.

Sophie, my secretary, who took it upon herself to separate the commas and mercilessly eradicated all illegal approvals.

I would like to express special gratitude to my mother, to whom this book is dedicated. Like an inspired, gentle and sensitive Noah, she skillfully guided her ship with awkward offspring across the stormy sea of life, always ready for rebellion, always surrounded by dangerous financial shoals, always without the confidence that the team would approve of her management, but in the constant consciousness of her full responsibility for any malfunction on the ship. It is simply incomprehensible how she endured this voyage, but she endured it and did not even really lose her mind at the same time. As my brother Larry rightly pointed out, we can be proud of the way we raised her; She does us all credit.

I think my mother managed to achieve that happy nirvana, where nothing shocks or surprises, and as proof I will cite at least the following fact: recently, on some Saturday, when my mother was left alone in the house, she was suddenly brought several cages. They contained two pelicans, a scarlet ibis, a vulture and eight monkeys. A less persistent person might have been confused by such a surprise, but my mother was not taken aback. On Monday morning, I found her in the garage chasing an angry pelican, which she was trying to feed with sardines from a tin can.

It's good that you came, dear, - she said, barely catching her breath. “This pelican was a bit tricky to handle.

I asked how she knew that these were my animals.

Well, of course, yours, dear. Who else could send them to me?

As you can see, the mother understands very well at least one of her children.

And in conclusion, I want to emphasize that everything told here about the island and its inhabitants is the purest truth. Our life in Corfu could well pass for one of the brightest and most cheerful comic operas. It seems to me that the whole atmosphere, all the charm of this place was correctly reflected by the nautical chart that we had then. It depicted the island and the coastline of the adjoining continent in great detail, and below, on a small inset, there was an inscription:

...

We warn you: buoys marking shoals are often out of place here, so sailors should be careful while sailing along these shores.

I

Relocation

A sharp wind blew out July like a candle, and the leaden August sky hung over the ground. A fine, prickly rain gushed endlessly, swelling with the gusts of the wind in a dark gray wave. Bournemouth's beach baths turned their blind wooden faces to the green-gray foamy sea as it flung furiously against the concrete rampart. Seagulls flew in confusion into the depths of the coast and then, with plaintive groans, rushed around the city on their elastic wings. This kind of weather is specially designed to harass people.