Blue Notebook / Голубая тетрадь. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Даниил Хармс
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down in the yard and tried to look through the window on the first floor. Of course, that was impossible. But that did not convince the mom. She did not even see that he couldn't reach the first floor window.
Finally, confused by the situation, the dad ran into the dining room and had two drinks in a row, giving one of them to the mom. The mom had her drink, and said that she was drinking solely because someone was looking at them through the window.
The dad spread his hands.
– Here – he said to the mom, and opened the window.
A man with a dirty coat and a big knife in his hands tried to get in through the window. When the dad noticed him, he closed the window and said:
– There is nobody.
But, the man with a dirty coat was outside looking into the room through the window, and furthermore, he opened the window and got in.
The mom was extremely disturbed by this. She started acting hysterically, and, after she had a drink that the dad gave her and ate a little mushroom, she calmed down.
Soon the dad calmed down, too. Again everybody sat at the table and continued to drink.
The dad took the papers and spent a long time flipping them up and down trying to determine what comes up and what comes down. But no matter how long he tried he couldn't sort it out so he put the papers aside and had a drink.
– Nice – said the dad – but we're out of pickles.
The mom made a sound like a horse, which was pretty inappropriate, and made the maids look at the table cloth and laugh silently.
The dad had another drink and suddenly grabbed the mom and put her on the cupboard.
The mom's gray, big, light hair was shaking, she got red spots all over her face, and, generally speaking, she was pretty upset.
The dad adjusted his trousers and started on a speech.
But at this point a secret hatch opened down on the floor and out from it crawled a monk.
The maids were so confused that one of them started to vomit. Natasha was holding her forehead and tried to hide what was going on.
The monk, the one that got out of the floor, aimed at the dad's ear and hit him so hard that everybody could hear the bells ringing in the dad's head!
The dad just sat down without even finishing his speech.
Then the monk approached the mom and with his hand, or leg, somehow from below, he kicked her.
The mom started to scream and cry for help.
Then the monk grabbed both maids by their aprons and, after swinging them through the air, let them hit the wall.
Then, unnoticed, the monk crawled back into the floor and closed the hatch behind him.
For a long time neither the dad, nor the mom, nor the maid Natasha could get their compoure again. But later, when they got some fresh air, they had another drink while adjusting their appearance, they sat down at the table, and started to eat salad.
After another drink everyone was talking quietly.
Suddenly the dad got red in the face and started to yell:
– What! What! – the dad was yelling. – You think that I am anal! You look at me like at a devil! I do not ask for your love! You are the devils!
The mom and the maid Natasha ran out of the room and locked themselves in the kitchen.
– Go away you drunk! Go, you son of a devil! – whispered the mom and the totally confused maid Natasha, behind the door.
And the dad stayed in the dining room until the morning when he took his bag, put on a white hat and quietly went to work.
A sonnet
An amazing thing happened to me today, I suddenly forgot what comes first – 7 or 8.
I went to my neigbors and asked them abou their opinion on this matter.
Great was their and my amazement, when they suddenly discovered, that they couldn't recall the counting order. They remembered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, but forgot what comes next.
We all went to a commercial grocery store, the one that's on the corner of Znamenskaya and Basseinaya streets to consult a cashier on our predicament. The cashier gave us a sad smile, took a small hammer out of her mouth, and moving her nose slightly back and forth, she said:
– In my opinion, a seven comes after an eight, only if an eight comes after a seven.
We thanked the cashier and ran cheerfully out of the store. But there, thinking carefully about cashier's words, we got sad again because her words were void of any meaning.
What were we supposed to do? We went to the Summer Garden and started counting trees. But reaching a six in count, we stopped and started arguing: In the opinion of some, a 7 went next; but in opinion of others an 8 did.
We were arguing for a long time, when by some sheer luck, a child fell off a bench and broke both of his jaws. That distracted us from our argument.
And then we all went home.
On Equilibrium
Everyone now knows how dangerous swallowing stones is. A friend of mine even coined the expression «Dan – in – ston», which means: «It's dangerous to ingest stones». And a good thing too. «Dan – in – ston» can be easily remembered and, as required, instantly recalled.
He worked, this friend of mine, as a stoker on a steam engine. He travelled either the northern line or to Moscow. He was called Nikolay Ivanovich Serpukhov and he smoked Rocket cigarettes at thirty – five kopecks a packet, and always said that they made him cough less, while those costing five roubles, he says, «always make me choke».
And so Nikolay Ivanovich once chanced to get in to the restaurant in the Yevropeyskaya Hotel. Nikolay Ivanovich sat at a table and at the next table some foreigners were sitting munching apples.
At this point Nikolay Ivanovich said to himself: – This is interesting – said Nikolay Ivanovich – A man's life this!
Barely had he said this to himself when from out of the blue a Fairy appeared in front of him, saying: – My good man, what do you need?
Well, of course, in a restaurant you do get a commotion from which, it may be said, this unknown diminutive lady may have sprung. The foreigners even ceased munching their apples.
Nikolay Ivanovich himself rather had the wind up and spoke rather offhandedly, so as to give her the brush – off. – I'm sorry – he said – but I don't really require anything in particular.
– You don't understand – said the unknown lady – I – she said – am what is called a Fairy. In the merest jiffy I'll lay on whatever you fancy.
Nikolay Ivanovich happened to notice that a citizen in a grey two – piece was listening intently to their conversation. The maitre d'hotel was rushing through the open doors and behind him some other specimen with a cigarette in his mouth.
– Bloody hell! – thought Nikolay Ivanovich – there's no telling what's going on.
And there was indeed no telling what was going on. The maitre d'hotel was leaping around the tables, the foreigners were rolling up the carpets and generally the devil only knew what! They were all doing whatever they felt like!
Nikolay Ivanovich ran out to the street and didn't even pick up his hat from the custody of the cloakroom; he ran out on to Lassalle Street and said to himself: – Dan – in – ston! It's dangerous to ingest stones – Nothing like this ever really happens, surely!
And arriving home, Nikolay Ivanovich told his wife: – Don't be alarmed, Yekaterina Petrovna, and don't get worried. Only there's no equilibrium in the world. It's just an error of some kilogram and a half over the universe as a whole, but it's really a surprising thing, Yekaterina Petrovna, totally surprising!
And that's all.
Andrey