Read the book Running on the Waves online
Alexander Green
Running on the waves
This is Desirade ...
O Desirade, how little we rejoiced in you when your slopes grew out of the sea, overgrown with manzenil forests.
I was told that I ended up in Lisse thanks to one of those severe illnesses that come on suddenly. It happened on the way. I was removed from the train with unconsciousness, high temperature and admitted to the hospital.
When the danger had passed, Doctor Filatr, who had amiably entertained me all the last time before I left the ward, took care to look for an apartment for me and even found a woman for services. I was very grateful to him, especially since the windows of this apartment overlooked the sea.
Once Filatr said:
Dear Harvey, it seems to me that I am unwittingly keeping you in our city. You could leave when you are well, without any embarrassment because I rented an apartment for you. Nevertheless, before traveling further, you need some comfort - a stop within yourself.
He was clearly hinting, and I remembered my conversations with him about power (Unfulfilled). This power was somewhat weakened thanks to an acute illness, but I still heard sometimes, in my soul, its steel movement, which did not promise to disappear.
Moving from city to city, from country to country, I obeyed a force more imperative than passion or mania.
Sooner or later, in old age or in the prime of years, the Unfulfilled is calling us, and we look around, trying to understand where the call came from. Then, waking up in the middle of our world, painfully recollecting and dear every day, we peer into life, trying with all our being to see if the Unfulfilled is not beginning to come true? Is his image not clear? Isn't it necessary now only to reach out to grab and hold his faintly flickering features?
Meanwhile, time passes, and we sail past the high, foggy shores of the Unfulfilled, talking about the affairs of the day.
I have spoken to Filat on this topic many times. But this handsome man was not yet moved by the farewell hand of the Unfulfilled One, and therefore my explanations did not bother him. He asked me about all this and listened rather calmly, but with deep attention, acknowledging my anxiety and trying to internalize it.
I almost recovered, but experienced a reaction caused by a break in movement and found Filatr's advice useful; therefore, upon leaving the hospital, I settled in the apartment of the right-hand corner building of Amilego Street, one of the most beautiful streets of Lisse. The house stood at the lower end of the street, near the harbor, behind the dock, - a place of ship's junk and silence, broken, not too intrusively, softened, in distance, by the language of the port day.
I occupied two large rooms: one with a huge window overlooking the sea; the second was twice more than the first. In the third, where a staircase led down, there was a servant. The old, prim and clean furniture, the old house and the whimsical arrangement of the apartment corresponded to the relative silence of this part of the city. From the rooms located at an angle to the east and south, the sun's rays did not leave all day, which is why this Old Testament peace was full of bright reconciliation of the years gone by with the inexhaustible, forever new solar pulse.
I saw the owner only once when I paid the money. He was an overweight man with the face of a cavalryman and quiet blue eyes pushed out to the interlocutor. When he went in to receive his payment, he showed neither curiosity nor excitement, as if he saw me every day.
The servant, a woman of about thirty-five, slow and alert, brought me lunches and dinners from the restaurant, cleaned the rooms and went to her room, knowing already that I would not ask for anything special and would not enter into conversations, which are mostly undertaken only in order to, chatting and picking my teeth, surrender to the scattered flow of thoughts.
So I started living there; and I lived only twenty-six days; Dr. Filatr came several times.
The more I talked to him about life, spleen, travel and impressions, the more I understood the essence and type of my Unfulfilled. I will not deny that it was enormous and — perhaps — that is why it was so persistent. Its slenderness, its almost architectural acuteness, grew out of the shades of parallelism. This is what I call the double game that we play with the phenomena of everyday life and feelings. On the one hand, they are naturally tolerant of necessity: conventionally tolerant, like a banknote for which one should receive in gold, but there is no agreement with them, since we see and feel their possible transformation. Pictures, music, books have long established this feature, and although the example is old, I take it for lack of a better one. All the longing of the world is hidden in his wrinkles. Such is the nervousness of the idealist, who is often forced by despair to sink lower than he stood - solely out of a passion for emotion.
Among the ugly reflections of the law of life and its litigation with my spirit, I was looking, without knowing it for a long time, for a sudden, distinct creation: a drawing or a wreath of events, naturally twisted and just as invulnerable to the suspicious glance of spiritual jealousy as the four lines of our favorite poem that most deeply struck us ... There are always only four such lines.
Of course, I recognized my desires gradually and often did not notice them, thereby wasting time to pull out the roots of these dangerous plants. They grew and hid me under their shady foliage. It happened more than once that my meetings, my positions sounded like a deceptive beginning of the melody, which is so typical for a person to want to listen to before he closes his eyes. Cities and countries from time to time brought the light of a strange, distant transparency, already beginning to admire, to my pupils, already beginning to delight, but all this developed into nothing; tearing like rotten yarn pulled by a swift shuttle. The unfulfilled, to which I stretched out my hands, could only rise up by itself, otherwise I would not have recognized it and, acting on an exemplary model, risked for sure creating soulless scenery. In a different way, but absolutely sure, you can see this in artificial parks, in comparison with random forest visions, as if carefully taken out by the sun from a precious box.
Thus, I understood my Unfulfilled and submitted to it.
About all this and a lot more - on the topic of human desires in general - my conversations with Philatr proceeded, if he touched on this issue.
As I noticed, he never ceased to be interested in my latent excitement directed at objects of imagination. I was like a scent of tulip to him, and if such a comparison may seem vain, it is still essentially true.
Meanwhile, Filatr introduced me to Steers, whose house I began to visit. In anticipation of money, which I wrote to my attorney Lerch, I quenched my thirst for movement in the evenings at Steers and walks to the harbor, where, under the shadow of huge feed hanging over the embankment, I looked at the exciting words, signs of the Unfulfilled: \\ "Sydney \\", - \\ "London \\ ", - \\" Amsterdam \\ ", - \\" Toulon \\ "... I was or could be in these cities, but the names of the harbors meant for me another \\" Toulon \\ "and not at all \\" Sydney \\ ", which really existed; the inscriptions of golden letters kept the undiscovered truth.
Morning always promises ...
says Mons,
After a long-suffering day
The evening is sad and forgiving ...
Just like the "morning" of Mons, the harbor always promises; its world is full of undetected meaning, descending from giant cranes by pyramids of bales, scattered among the masts, squeezed by the embankments by the iron sides of ships, where in the deep cracks between the closely closed sides, silently, like a closed book, lies green sea water in the shadows. Not knowing - to rise or fall, clouds of smoke from huge pipes swirl; the force of the machines is tense and held by chains, one movement of which is enough for the calm water under the stern to rush by a hillock.
Entering the port, it seems to me, I discern on the horizon, beyond the cape, the shores of the countries where the bowsprites of the ships are directed, waiting in the wings; the hum, the screams, the song, the demonic scream of the siren - everything is full of passion and promise. And over the harbor - in the country of countries, in the deserts and forests of the heart, in the sky of thoughts, the Unfulfilled - the mysterious and wonderful deer of eternal hunting sparkles.
Alexander Green
Running on the waves
I was told that I ended up in Lisse thanks to one of those severe illnesses that come on suddenly. It happened on the way. I was removed from the train with unconsciousness, high temperature and admitted to the hospital.
When the danger had passed, Doctor Filatr, who had amiably entertained me all the last time before I left the ward, took care to look for an apartment for me and even found a woman for services. I was very grateful to him, especially since the windows of this apartment overlooked the sea.
Once Filatr said:
- Dear Harvey, it seems to me that I unwittingly keep you in our city. You could leave when you are well, without any embarrassment because I rented an apartment for you. Nevertheless, before traveling further, you need some comfort - a stop within yourself.
He was clearly hinting, and I remembered my conversations with him about power Unfulfilled... This power was somewhat weakened thanks to an acute illness, but I still heard sometimes, in my soul, its steel movement, which did not promise to disappear.
Moving from city to city, from country to country, I obeyed a force more imperative than passion or mania.
Sooner or later, in old age or in the prime of years, the Unfulfilled is calling us, and we look around, trying to understand where the call came from. Then, waking up in the middle of our world, painfully recollecting and dear every day, we peer into life, trying with all our being to see if the Unfulfilled is not beginning to come true? Is his image not clear? Isn't it necessary now only to reach out to grab and hold his faintly flickering features?
Meanwhile, time passes, and we sail past the high, foggy shores of the Unfulfilled, talking about the affairs of the day.
I have spoken to Filat on this topic many times. But this handsome man was not yet moved by the farewell hand of the Unfulfilled One, and therefore my explanations did not bother him. He asked me about all this and listened rather calmly, but with deep attention, acknowledging my anxiety and trying to internalize it.
I almost recovered, but experienced a reaction caused by a break in movement and found Filatr's advice useful; therefore, upon leaving the hospital, I settled in the apartment of the right-hand corner building of Amilego Street, one of the most beautiful streets of Lisse. The house stood at the lower end of the street, near the harbor, behind the dock, - a place of ship's junk and silence, broken, not too intrusively, softened, in distance, by the language of the port day.
I occupied two large rooms: one with a huge window overlooking the sea; the second was twice more than the first. In the third, where the stairs led down, there was a servant. The old, prim and clean furniture, the old house and the whimsical arrangement of the apartment corresponded to the relative silence of this part of the city. From the rooms, located at an angle to the east and south, the sun's rays did not leave all day, which is why this Old Testament peace was full of bright reconciliation of the years gone by with the inexhaustible, forever new solar pulse.
I saw the owner only once when I paid the money. He was an overweight man with the face of a cavalryman and quiet blue eyes pushed out to the interlocutor. When he went in to receive his payment, he showed neither curiosity nor excitement, as if he saw me every day.
The servant, a woman of about thirty-five, slow and alert, brought me lunches and dinners from the restaurant, cleaned the rooms and went to her room, knowing already that I would not ask for anything special and would not enter into conversations, which are mostly undertaken only in order to, chatting and picking my teeth, surrender to the scattered flow of thoughts.
So I started living there; and I lived only twenty-six days; Dr. Filatr came several times.
The more I talked to him about life, spleen, travel and impressions, the more I understood the essence and type of my Unfulfilled. I will not deny that it was enormous and — perhaps — that is why it was so persistent. Its slenderness, its almost architectural acuteness, grew out of the shades of parallelism. This is what I call the double game we play with the phenomena of everyday life and feelings. On the one hand, they are naturally tolerant of necessity: conventionally tolerant, like a banknote for which one should receive in gold, but there is no agreement with them, since we see and feel their possible transformation. Pictures, music, books have long established this peculiarity, and although the example is old, I take it for lack of a better one. All the longing of the world is hidden in his wrinkles. Such is the nervousness of the idealist, who is often forced by despair to sink lower than he stood - solely out of a passion for emotion.
Among the ugly reflections of the law of life and its litigation with my spirit, I was looking, myself for a long time without suspecting it, - a sudden, distinct creation: a drawing or a wreath of events, naturally coiled and just as invulnerable to the suspicious glance of spiritual jealousy, as the four lines of our favorite poem that most deeply struck us ... There are always only four such lines.
Of course, I recognized my desires gradually and often did not notice them, thereby wasting time to pull out the roots of these dangerous plants. They grew and hid me under their shady foliage. It happened more than once that my meetings, my positions sounded like a deceptive beginning of the melody, which is so typical for a person to want to listen to before he closes his eyes. Cities and countries from time to time brought the light of a strange, distant transparency, already beginning to admire, to my pupils, already beginning to delight, but all this developed into nothing; tearing like rotten yarn pulled by a swift shuttle. The unfulfilled, to which I stretched out my hands, could only rise up by itself, otherwise I would not have recognized it and, acting on an exemplary model, risked for sure creating soulless scenery. In a different way, but absolutely sure, you can see this in artificial parks, in comparison with random forest visions, as if carefully taken out by the sun from a precious box.
Thus, I understood my Unfulfilled and submitted to it.
About all this and much more - on the topic of human desires in general - my conversations with Filatr proceeded, if he touched on this issue.
As I noticed, he never ceased to be interested in my latent excitement directed at objects of imagination. I was like a scent of tulip to him, and if such a comparison may seem vain, it is still essentially true.
In the evening, they played cards at Steers. Among those gathered was Thomas Harvey, a young man stranded in Lisse due to a serious illness. During the game, Harvey heard a woman's voice, clearly saying: "Running on the waves." And the rest of the players did not hear anything.
The day before, Harvey watched from the tavern window as a girl stepped off the steamer, behaving as if she had been gifted secretly to subjugate circumstances and people. The next morning, Thomas went to find out where the stranger who struck him was staying, and learned that her name was Biche Seniel.
For some reason, he saw a connection between the stranger and yesterday's incident behind the cards. This guess was strengthened when in the port he saw a ship with light contours and on its side the inscription: "Running on the waves."
Captain Gueuze, an unfriendly and harsh man, refused to take Harvey as a passenger without the permission of the owner, a certain Brown.
With Brown's note, the captain received Harvey almost kindly, introduced him to his assistants Sinkright and Butler, who made a good impression, unlike the rest of the crew, which looked more like rabble than sailors.
While sailing, Thomas learned that the ship was built by Ned Seniel. The portrait of his daughter Biche Seniel Harvey had already seen on the table in the captain's cabin. Gueuze bought the ship when Ned went broke.
In Dagon, three women boarded. Harvey did not want to take part in the fun that had begun with the captain, and he stayed with him. After a while, hearing the screams of one of the women and the threats of the drunken captain, Garvey intervened and, in defense, knocked the captain down with a blow to the jaw.
In a rage, Gueuze ordered to put him in a boat and put it into the open sea. When the boat was already being carried away from the side, the woman wrapped up from head to toe deftly jumped to Harvey. Under a hail of ridicule, they set sail from the ship.
When the stranger spoke, Harvey realized that this was the voice he heard at Steers's party. The girl named herself Frezi Grant and told Harvey to head south. There he will be picked up by a ship going to Gel-Gyu. Taking from him the word not to tell anyone about her, including Biche Seniel, Frezi Grant went down on the water and was carried off into the distance along the waves. By noon, Harvey actually met a Dive heading for Gel-Gyu. Here on the ship, Harvey heard about Frezi Grant again. Once, in a completely calm sea, a rising wave lowered her father's frigate near the extraordinary beauty of the island, to which it was not possible to moor. Frezi, however, insisted, and then the young lieutenant casually noticed that the girl was so thin and light that she could run on water. In response, she jumped into the water and ran easily over the waves. Here the fog fell, and when it cleared, neither the island nor the girl was visible. They say she began to appear shipwrecked.
Harvey listened to the legend with particular attention, but this was noticed only by Daisy, Proctor's niece. Finally, "Dive" approached Gel-Gyu. The city was in the grip of a carnival. Harvey walked along with the motley crowd and found himself near a marble figure, on the pedestal of which was the inscription: "Running on the waves."
The city, it turns out, was founded by Williams Hobs, who was wrecked a hundred years ago in the surrounding waters. And Frezi Grant saved him, who came running along the waves and named the course that brought Hobs to the then deserted coast, where he settled.
Then a woman called Harvey and said that a person in a yellow dress with brown fringe was waiting for him at the theater. No doubt that it was Biche Seniel, Harvey hurried to the theater. But the woman who was said to be dressed was Daisy. She was disappointed that Harvey named her by Biche and quickly left. A minute later, Harvey saw Biche Seniel. She had brought the money and was now looking for a meeting with Gueuze to redeem the ship. Harvey managed to find out in which hotel Gueuze was staying. The next morning he went there with Butler. They went up to the captain. Gueuze lay with a bullet in his head.
The people came running. Suddenly Biche Seniel was brought in. It turned out that the day before the captain was very drunk. In the morning a young lady came to him, and then a shot rang out. The girl was detained on the stairs. But then Butler spoke up and admitted that it was he who killed Gueuze.
He had his own account with the scammer. It turns out that the Wave Runner was carrying a cargo of opium, and Butler owed a significant part of the income, but the captain deceived him.
He did not find Gueuze in the room, and when he appeared with the lady, Butler hid in the closet. But the meeting ended in an ugly scene, and in order to get rid of Gueuze, the girl jumped out of the window onto the landing, where she was later detained. When Butler got out of the closet, the captain pounced on him, and Butler had no choice but to kill him.
After learning the truth about the ship, Biche ordered to sell the defiled ship at auction. Before breaking up, Harvey told Beach about his meeting with Frezi Grant. Biche suddenly began to insist that his story was a legend. Harvey thought that Daisy would have taken his story with complete confidence, and with regret he remembered that Daisy was engaged.
Some time passed. Once in Lega, Garvey met Daisy. She parted with her fiancé, and there was no regret in her story about it. Harvey and Daisy soon got married. Doctor Filatr visited their home by the sea.
He spoke about the fate of the Wave Runner, whose dilapidated hull he had found near a deserted island. How and under what circumstances the crew left the ship remained a mystery.
I saw Filatr and Biche Seniel. She was already married and gave Harvey a short letter of happiness.
Daisy, she said, expected the letter to recognize Harvey's right to see what he wants. Daisy Garvey speaks on behalf of everyone: “Thomas Garvey, you are right. Everything was as you told. Frezi Grant! You exist! Answer me! "
"Good evening friends! - we heard from the sea. - I'm in a hurry, I'm running ... "
This is Desirade ...
O Desirade, how little we rejoiced in you when your slopes grew out of the sea, overgrown with manzenil forests.
Chapter 1
I was told that I ended up in Lisse thanks to one of those severe illnesses that come on suddenly. It happened on the way. I was removed from the train with unconsciousness, high temperature and admitted to the hospital.
When the danger had passed, Doctor Filatr, who had amiably entertained me all the last time before I left the ward, took care to look for an apartment for me and even found a woman for services. I was very grateful to him, especially since the windows of this apartment overlooked the sea.
Once Filatr said:
- Dear Harvey, it seems to me that I unwittingly keep you in our city. You could leave when you are well, without any embarrassment because I rented an apartment for you. Yet, before traveling further, you need some comfort - a stop within yourself.
He was clearly hinting, and I remembered my conversations with him about power Unfulfilled... This power was somewhat weakened thanks to an acute illness, but I still sometimes heard its movement of steel in my soul, which did not promise to disappear.
Moving from city to city, from country to country, I obeyed a force more imperative than passion or mania.
Sooner or later, in old age or in the prime of years, the Unfulfilled is calling us, and we look around, trying to understand where the call came from. Then, waking up in the middle of our world, painfully recollecting and dear every day, we peer into life, trying with all our being to see if the Unfulfilled is not beginning to come true? Is his image not clear? Isn't it necessary now only to reach out to grab and hold his faintly flickering features?
Meanwhile, time passes, and we float past the high misty shores of the Unfulfilled, talking about the affairs of the day.
I have spoken to Filat on this topic many times. But this handsome man was not yet moved by the farewell hand of the Unfulfilled One, and therefore my explanations did not bother him. He asked me about all this and listened rather calmly, but with deep attention, acknowledging my anxiety and trying to internalize it.
I almost recovered, but experienced a reaction caused by a break in movement and found Filatr's advice useful; therefore, upon leaving the hospital, I settled in the apartment of the right-hand corner house of Amilego Street, one of the most beautiful streets in Lisse. The house stood at the lower end of the street, near the harbor, behind the dock, a place of ship's junk and silence, broken by the not too annoyingly relaxed, in distance, language of the port day.
I occupied two large rooms: one with a huge window overlooking the sea; the second was twice more than the first. In the third, where the stairs led down, there was a servant. The old, prim and clean furniture, the old house and the whimsical arrangement of the apartment corresponded to the relative silence of this part of the city. From the rooms, located at an angle to the east and south, the sun's rays did not leave all day, which is why this Old Testament peace was full of bright reconciliation of the years gone by with the inexhaustible, forever new solar pulse.
I saw the owner only once when I paid the money. He was an overweight man with the face of a cavalryman and quiet blue eyes pushed out to the interlocutor. When he went in to receive his payment, he showed neither curiosity nor excitement, as if he saw me every day.
The servant, a woman of about thirty-five, slow and alert, brought me lunches and dinners from the restaurant, cleaned the rooms and went to her room, knowing already that I would not ask for anything special and would not enter into conversations, which are mostly undertaken only in order to, chatting and picking my teeth, surrender to the scattered flow of thoughts.
So I started living there; and I lived only twenty-six days; Dr. Filatr came several times.
Chapter 2
The more I talked to him about life, spleen, travel and impressions, the more I understood the essence and type of my Unfulfilled. I will not deny that it was enormous and — perhaps — that is why it was so persistent. Its slenderness, its almost architectural acuteness, grew out of the shades of parallelism. This is what I call the double game we play with the phenomena of everyday life and feelings. On the one hand, they are naturally tolerant of necessity: conventionally tolerant, like a banknote for which one should receive in gold, but there is no agreement with them, since we see and feel their possible transformation. Pictures, music, books have long established this feature, and although the example is old, I take it for lack of a better one. All the longing of the world is hidden in his wrinkles. Such is the nervousness of the idealist, who is often forced by despair to sink lower than he stood - solely out of a passion for emotion.
Among the ugly reflections of the law of life and its litigation with my spirit, I was looking, myself for a long time without suspecting it, - a sudden, distinct creation: a drawing or a wreath of events, naturally coiled and just as invulnerable to the suspicious glance of spiritual jealousy, as the four lines of our favorite poem that most deeply struck us ... There are always only four such lines.
Of course, I recognized my desires gradually and often did not notice them, thereby missing the time to pull out the roots of these dangerous plants. They grew and hid me under their shady foliage. It happened more than once that my meetings, my positions sounded like a deceptive beginning of a melody that is so typical for a person to want to listen to before he closes his eyes. Cities and countries from time to time brought closer to my pupils the light of a strange distant banner, which was barely outlined by the lights, which was already beginning to admire - but all this developed into nothing; tearing like rotten yarn pulled by a swift shuttle. The unfulfilled, to which I stretched out my hands, could only rise up on its own, otherwise I would not have recognized it and, acting on an exemplary model, would certainly risk creating soulless scenery. In a different way, but absolutely sure, you can see this in artificial parks, compared to random forest visions, as if carefully taken out by the sun from a precious box.
Thus, I understood my Unfulfilled and submitted to it.
About all this and much more - on the topic of human desires in general - my conversations with Filatr proceeded, if he touched on this issue.
As I noticed, he never ceased to be interested in my latent excitement directed at objects of imagination. I was like a scent of tulip to him, and if such a comparison may seem vain, it is still essentially true.
Meanwhile, Filatr introduced me to Steers, whose house I began to visit. In anticipation of money, which I wrote to my attorney Lerch, I quenched my thirst for movement in the evenings at Steers and walks to the harbor, where, under the shadow of huge feed hanging over the embankment, I looked at the exciting words, signs of the Unfulfilled: "Sydney" - "London" - "Amsterdam "-" Toulon "... I was or could be in these cities, but the names of the harbors meant for me another" Toulon "and not at all the" Sydney "that really existed; the inscriptions of gold letters kept the undiscovered truth.
Morning always promises ... -
says Mons, -
After a long-suffering day
The evening is sad and forgiving ...
Just like Mons' morning - the harbor always promises; its world is full of undetected meaning, descending from giant cranes with pyramids of bales, scattered among the masts, squeezed by the embankments by the iron sides of ships, where in the deep cracks between the closely closed sides, silently, like a closed book, lies green sea water in the shadows. Not knowing - to rise or fall, clouds of smoke from huge pipes swirl; the force of the machines is tense and held by chains, one movement of which is enough for the calm water under the stern to rush like a hillock.
Entering the port, it seems to me, I discern on the horizon, beyond the cape, the shores of the countries where the bowsprites of ships are directed, waiting in the wings; the hum, the screams, the song, the demonic cry of the siren - all full of passion and promise. And over the harbor - in the country of countries, in the deserts and forests of the heart, in the sky of thoughts - the Unfulfilled - the mysterious and wonderful deer of eternal hunting - sparkles.
Chapter 3
I don’t know what happened to Lerch, but I didn’t get a response from him as quickly as I expected. Only towards the end of my stay at Lisse did Lerch respond, as was his custom, with a hundred pounds, without explaining the slowdown.
I visited Steers and found in these visits an innocent pleasure, akin to the coolness of a compress applied to a sore eye. Steers loved playing cards, and so was I.
On the eve of the day from which much began, for the sake of which I sat down to write these pages, my morning walk along the embankments was somewhat delayed, because, suddenly getting hungry, I sat down at an ordinary tavern, in front of its door, on a terrace entwined with ivy-type plants with white and blue flowers. I ate fried merlan, washed down with light red wine.
Only after satisfying my hunger, I noticed that a steamer was mooring in front of the tavern, and, having waited, when the passengers began to descend the ladder, I plunged into contemplation of the commotion caused by the desire to find myself at home or in a hotel as soon as possible. I watched a mixture of scenes, noticing the traits of weariness, irritation, restrained or obvious fury that make up the soul of a crowd when the nature of its movement changes dramatically. Among the carriages, relatives, porters, blacks, Chinese, passengers, agents and beggars, heaps of luggage and the crackling of wheels, I saw an act of the greatest deliberation, loyalty to oneself to the last detail, calm - considering the circumstances - almost depraved, so inimitable, flawless and picturesque there was a descent down the ladder of an unknown young girl, apparently not rich, but, it seemed, gifted with secrets to subjugate a place, people and things.
I noticed her face as it appeared over the side of the suitcase and hats knocked over to the side. She came down slowly, with a thoughtful interest in what was happening around her. Due to its flexible folding or some other reason, it completely avoided jolts. She did not carry anything, did not look back at anyone, and did not look for anyone in the crowd with her eyes. So they go down the stairs of a luxurious house to the respectfully open door. Her two suitcases floated behind her on the heads of swarthy porters. With a short movement of a quietly outstretched hand, indicating how to proceed, the suitcases were hoisted right on the pavement, at a distance from the steamer, and she sat on them, looking in front of her reasonably and calmly, like a man, quite confident that what was happening should continue to be done according to her desire , but without any tedious participation on her part.
This tendency, disastrous for many, immediately justified itself. Commissioners and several other personalities, both shabby and decent-looking, ran up to the girl, creating an atmosphere of intolerable hubbub. It seemed that the same thing would happen to the girl as the dress is subjected to if it - clean, ironed, calmly hanging on a hanger - is torn off with a hasty hand.
Not at all ... Without betraying herself, with dignity shifting her gaze from one figure to another, the girl said something to everyone a little, once laughed, once frowned, slowly stretched out her hand, took the card of one of the agents, read it, returned it dispassionately and tilted her head sweetly , began to read another. Her gaze fell on a glass of soft drink slipped by a street vendor; since it was really hot, she thought, took the glass, got drunk and returned it with the same air of presence at home as in everything she did. Several hairy arms, stretched out over her suitcases, wandered through the air, waiting for the moment to grab and rush, but all this, apparently, did not concern her very much, since the question of the hotel had not yet been resolved. A group of helpful, self-serving and curious formed around her, to whom, as ordered, the girl's lazy calmness was communicated.
The people of the fussy, tearing day to shreds of the world stood, turning their eyes, she was still sitting on suitcases, surrounded by invisible protection, which gives a sense of her own dignity, if it is innate and so merged with us that the person himself does not notice it, like breathing ...
I watched this scene without stopping. The noise around the girl gradually subsided; it became so respectful and decent, as if the daughter of some fantastic chief of all the harbors of the world had stepped ashore. Meanwhile, she was wearing (thought involuntarily unites power with pomp) a simple cambric hat, the same blouse with a sailor's collar, and a blue silk skirt. Her shabby suitcases looked shiny because she sat on them. The girl's attractive face, with a firm expression, long eyelashes of calm, cheerful dark eyes made me think in the direction of the feelings caused by her appearance. A benevolent little hand, lowered on the head of a shaggy dog \u200b\u200b- such a comparison suggested itself to this scene, where the muffled noise of the Unfulfilled One was felt.
As soon as I realized this, she got up; all her entourage, with exclamations and suitcases, rushed to the carriage, on the back of which was the inscription "Hotel Dover." Approaching, the girl handed out a change and sat down with a smile of complete satisfaction. She seemed to be interested in everything that was happening.
The agent jumped into the seat next to the driver, the carriage started, the ragamuffins who ran behind fell behind, and as I watched the dust rushing along the pavement, I thought, as I thought more than once, that perhaps the end of the thread leading to the ball flashed in front of me again.
I will not hide - I was upset, and not only because in the face of an unknown girl I saw an attractive clarity of being marked by harmonious wholeness, as I deduced from the impression. Her brief stay on the suitcases touched the old longing for the wreath of events, for the wind singing melodies, for the beautiful stone found among the pebbles. I thought that her being, perhaps, was marked by a special law that touches life with the power of a conscious process, and that, having fallen into the shadow of such a fate, I could finally see the Unfulfilled. But sadder than these thoughts - sad because they were painful, like an old wound in bad weather - there was the recollection of many similar cases, which should have been said that they really did not exist. Yes, deception was repeated several times, taking the form of a gesture, a word, a face, a landscape, and, like a law, left decay in itself. If I wanted to, I could find the girl very easily. I would be able to find a common interest, a natural reason not to let her out of my field of vision, and somehow meet the desired course of an undiscovered river. To the most delicate movements of our vital soul, I could give both an intelligible and a decent form. But I no longer trusted myself or others, or any loud appearance of a sudden promise.
For all these reasons, I rejected the action and returned to myself, where I spent the rest of the day among the books. I read inattentively, experiencing confusion that surged with the force of the through wind. Night fell when, tired, I dozed off in an armchair.
Between reality and sleep came the memory of those minutes in the carriage when I began to feel badly about my situation. I remember how the sunset waved a red kerchief at the window, sweeping through the sandy steppes. I sat, half-closed my eyes, and saw strangely changing profiles of satellites protruding from one another, like on a medal. Suddenly the conversation became loud, turning, it seemed to me, into a cry; after that, the lips of the conversation began to move silently, their eyes sparkled, but I stopped thinking. The car swam up and disappeared.
I didn’t remember anything else - the heat darkened my brain.
I do not know why this recollection appeared to me so importunately that evening; but I was willing to admit that his tone was inexplicably linked to the waterfront scene. Slumber forged a twilight pattern. I began to think about the girl, this time with late remorse.
Is banal caution appropriate in the game I played with myself? aimless vanity? even - a doubt? Didn't I refuse to enter the already opened door just because I remembered too well the big and small lies of the past? There was a full sound, the right tone - I heard it, but I plugged my ears, dubiously recalled the previous cacophonies. What if the melody was suggested by the true orchestra this time?
After several hundred-year transitions, human desires will have achieved the clarity of artistic synthesis. The desire will avoid the torment of looking at the images of your world through an obscure, dimly illuminated canvas of nervous turmoil. It will become distinctly like an insect in January. I, by comparison, had to appear for people like Lettierry's Duranda to face the steel Leviathan of the Transatlantic line. The unfulfilled was hidden among the mountains, and I had to take into account all the roads in the direction of this side of the horizon. I should have caught every hint, used every ray among the clouds and forests. In many ways - for the sake of many - I had to act at random.
As soon as I fixed some decision caused by such a turn of thoughts, the phone rang, and, driving off my half-sleep, I began to listen. It was Filatr. He asked me a few questions regarding my condition. He also invited me to meet tomorrow at Steers, and I promised.
When this conversation was over, in a strange crowd of feelings, as shy as restrained breathing, I phoned the Dover Hotel. It is common in this kind of business to think that everyone, even outsiders, knows the secret of your mood. The most indifferent answers sound like evidence. Nothing can bring us closer to someone else's life so suddenly, as a telephone, leaving us invisible, and immediately at our request - to remove, as if we did not speak at all. These considerations, aimless for the fact, will mark, perhaps, the slightly uneasy state with which I began the conversation.
It was brief. I asked to call Anna Macphersonwho arrived today with the steamer Granville. After a slight silence, a business clerk's voice announced to me that the lady in question was not in the hotel, and I, knowing that I would receive such an answer, helped the misunderstanding by accurately describing the costume and the whole appearance of the unknown girl.
My interlocutor was silently thinking. Finally he said:
- You are, therefore, talking about a young lady who recently left us at the station. She signed up for Biche Seniel.
With more annoyance than I expected, I sent a note:
- Well. I got the name confused on an errand. I was also asked to find out ...
I cut off the phrase and replaced the pipe. It was a sudden cerebral aversion to the pointless words that I began to utter out of inertia. What would have changed if I had known where Biche Seniel had gone? So, she continued on her way - probably in the spirit of the serene command of life, as it was on the embankment - and I sank into an armchair, inwardly buttoning myself up and trying to get carried away by the book, from the first lines of which I had already seen that boredom lay ahead with a count of five hundred pages ...
I was alone, in silence, measured by the sound of the clock. Silence raced, and I went into the area of \u200b\u200bconfused outlines. Twice a dream came up, and then I no longer heard or remembered its approach.
So quietly falling asleep, I awakened at sunrise. My first feeling was a smile. I sat up and sat down in a burst of deep admiration - incomparable, pure pleasure from a spectacular surprise.
I slept in a room that I mentioned that its wall facing the sea was essentially a huge window. It ran from the ceiling cornice to the floor frame, and did not reach the walls by a foot on either side. Its doors could be moved apart so that the glass was hidden. Outside the window, below, there was a narrow ledge planted with flowers.
I woke up in this position of the sun rising above the sea line, when its rays passed into the room along with the reflection of the waves falling on the screen of the back wall.
The dances of solar ghosts were dancing on the ceiling and walls. The whirlwind of the golden net shone with mysterious patterns. Radiant fans, galloping ovals and firing lines rushing from corner to corner were like flying into the walls of a swift golden flock, visible only at the moment of touching the plane. These motley carpets of sun fairies, whose dashing thrill, without stopping for a moment weaving a dazzling arabesque, reached a frantic speed, were everywhere, around, underfoot, overhead. An invisible hand drew strange letters, the meaning of which was impossible to understand, as in music when she speaks. The room came to life. It seemed that she could not resist the onslaught of the sun bouncing off the water, she - just about - would begin to quietly circle. Even on my hands and knees, bright spots were constantly slipping off. All this changed imperceptibly, as if transparent moths were beating in a shaking sparkling net. I was fascinated and sat motionless among the blue light of the sea and gold - around the room. I was glad. I got up and, with a light heart, with a subtle and unaccountable confidence, said to everything: “To you, signs and figures that have rushed in with an unknown meaning and yet amused me with serious, lonely gaiety, - while you haven’t disappeared yet, - I entrust the rust of my Unfulfilled One. Light it up and erase it. "
As soon as I finished speaking, knowing that later I would remember this half-asleep trick with a smile - like a golden net dimmed; only in the lower corner, near the door, the semblance of a curved window, open for a stream of sparks, trembled for some time; but that also disappeared. The mood in which the morning began has also disappeared, although its trace has not been erased to this day.
In the romantic genre. Modern critics would attribute it to fantasy, although the author himself did not admit it. This work is about the unfulfilled. The action takes place, as in most of Green's writings, in a fictional country.
Wave Runner: Summary of Chapter 1-6
In the evening everyone gathered at Steers to play cards. Among other guests was Thomas Harvey. This young man stayed in Lisse due to a serious illness. During the game, he distinctly heard a woman's voice say: "Running on the waves." And yesterday Thomas watched from the tavern window at the girl who had just got off the boat. She behaved as if she could subdue both people and circumstances. In the morning, Harvey learned that the stranger who struck him was Biche Seniel. For some reason, it seemed to him that the girl and yesterday's voice were somehow connected. When he saw a ship in the port with the inscription "Running on the waves", his guess only strengthened. Captain Geuze, a harsh and not very friendly person, agreed to take Harvey as a passenger only with the permission of the owner of the ship - a certain Brown.
Wave Runner: Summary of Chapters 7-12
When Thomas returned with the note, the captain became friendlier. He introduced Harvey to Butler and Sinkright, his assistants. The rest of the crew did not resemble sailors, but a different rabble.
Wave Runner: Summary of Chapters 13-18
Already during the voyage, Thomas learns that this ship was once built by Ned Seniel. On the captain's table was a portrait of his daughter. When Ned went bankrupt, Guez acquired the ship. At Dagon, the captain took on board three women for amusement. But soon Harvey heard one of them screaming, and Guez threatened her. Defending the woman, Thomas hit the captain so hard in the jaw that he fell. Enraged Gez ordered to put Harvey in a boat and put it into the sea. When the ship was almost sailing off, a woman, wrapped from head to toe, jumped into it. The girl's voice was the same as the one that uttered the cryptic phrase from Steers at the party. She said her name was Frezi Grant and told her to sail south. There he will meet a ship bound for Gel-Gyu, and it will pick him up. At the girl's request, Harvey promised no one, not even Biche Seniel, to tell about her. Then Frezi Grant stepped onto the water and swept away through the waves. By lunchtime, Thomas really met the ship "Dive", which was heading for Gel-Gyu and picked it up. There, Harvey heard about Frezi Grant again. Her father had a frigate. Once a wave in a completely calm sea lowered him next to an unusually beautiful island, to which it was not possible to moor. Frezi, however, insisted on this. Then the young lieutenant noticed that she was so light and thin that she could run right on the water herself. The girl really jumped off the ship and easily walked along the waves. Immediately the fog descended, and when it dissipated, there was no longer either Frezi or the island. The fact that Thomas listened to the legend especially attentively was noticed only by Proctor's niece, Daisy.
Wave Runner: Summary of Chapters 19-24
Soon the ship arrived at Gel-Gyu. A carnival took place in the city. Thomas was near the marble figure, on its pedestal was carved the familiar inscription: "Running on the waves." It turned out that Frezi Grant saved Williams Hobs (the founder of the city) a hundred years ago when he was shipwrecked. The course indicated by the girl led him to this coast, which was then still deserted. Harvey was told that a woman would be waiting for him at the theater. He had hoped to see Seniel, but it turned out to be Daisy. Thomas called her Biche, the girl took offense and left. And a minute later he really met Seniel: she was looking for Gez to buy the ship.
Wave Runner: Summary of Chapters 25-29
In the morning Thomas, together with Butler, went to the hotel where the captain was staying. Guez was lying in his room, he was killed. They said that everyone heard the shot right after Biche's visit to the captain. She was detained as a suspect, but then Butler admitted that he was the killer. He and Guez had their own bills: the captain did not give him most of the income he received for transporting opium. Butler went into his room, there was no one there. But he had to hide in the closet as the captain showed up with the lady. Unable to withstand the harassment of Geza, Biche jumped out of the window of the room onto the landing. The captain pounced on Butler, who got out of the closet, and he, in defense, killed him.
Wave Runner Summary: Chapters 30-35
Biche decided to auction the ship. Harvey told her about Frezi Grant. She insisted that it was just a legend. Thomas thought with regret that Daisy would believe him, but she was already engaged. However, he was soon destined to meet her again. Daisy said that they parted with the groom. After a while, the heroes got married and lived in a house on the seashore. They were visited by Doctor Filatr. He said that he saw the broken hull of the "Wave Runner" off the coast of a deserted island. Nothing is known about the fate of his crew. I saw the doctor and Bice. She was already married and gave Harvey a small letter wishing a happy life. On behalf of everyone, Daisy said that Harvey was right - Frezi Grant really existed.