Scarlet Sails / Алые паруса. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“I swear by the Brothers Grimm, Aesop and Andersen,” Egle said, looking from the girl to the yacht, “that there’s something very special here! Listen, you, flower! This is yours, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I ran all the way down along the stream after it; I thought I’d die. Did it come here?”

“Right to my feet. The shipwreck has made it possible for me, acting as an off-shore pirate, to present you with this prize. The yacht, abandoned by its crew, was tossed up on the beach by a three-inch wave – landing between my left heel and the tip of my stick.

” He thumped his stick. “What’s your name, child?”

“Assol,” the girl replied, tucking the toy Egle had handed her into the basket.

“That’s fine.” The old man continued his obscure speech, never taking his eyes, in the depths of which a kindly, friendly chuckle glinted, from her. “Actually, I shouldn’t have asked you your name. I’m glad it’s such an unusual one, so sibilant and musical, like the whistle of an arrow or the whispering of a seashell; what would I have done if your name had been one of those pleasant but terribly common names which are so alien to Glorious Uncertainty? Still less do I care to know who you are, who your parents are, or what sort of life you lead.

Why break the spell? I was sitting here on this stone comparing Finnish and Japanese story plots… when suddenly the stream washed up this yacht, and then you appeared. Just as you are. I’m a poet at heart, my dear, even though I’ve never written anything. What’s in your basket?”

“Boats,” Assol said, shaking the basket, “and a steamship, and three little houses with flags. Soldiers live in them.”

“Excellent. You’ve been sent to sell them. And on the way you stopped to play. You let the yacht sail about a bit, but it ran off instead. Am I right?”

“Were you watching?” Assol asked doubtfully as she tried to recall whether she had not told him about it herself.

“Did somebody tell you? Or did you guess?”

“I knew it.”

“How?”

“Because I’m the greatest of all magicians.”

Assol was embarrassed; the tension she felt at these words of Egle’s overstepped fear. The deserted beach, the stillness, the tiring adventure of the yacht, the strange speech of the old man with the glittering eyes, the magnificence of his beard and hair now seemed to the child as a brew of the supernatural and reality.