A classic little novel a day | the white steamer

White steamer

(Former Soviet Union) Chingis. Aitmatov

Mountains, mountains, mountains, mountains on all sides, cliffs, rocks, forests. The mountains are so majestic, so majestic. The child feels too small, too lonely, and alone at this moment. The sun had already tilted to the west and gradually set in the direction of the lake. A short shadow appeared on the slope to the east, and the shadow was about to climb towards the foot of the mountain.

The child uses the telescope to look at the farthest distance hundreds or even thousands of times. Ah, it's it! Ahead, on the blue edge of Lake Issyk-Kul, a white steamer appeared! Here it comes, that's it! The mighty, beautiful white steamer glided on the strings, straight and steady. The child quickly wiped the glass with the placket and adjusted the focus again. It can now be seen that the ship is slightly bumping in the waves, and the stern is dragging a long band of bright and dangling foam. The child admired the white steamer for a long time, and thought for a long time about how he turned into a fish, swimming down the river to find the white steamer... The first time he saw the white-steamer on the hill of Calauer, his heart fluttered and jumped. He immediately concluded that his father was on this boat! He firmly believes in this because he very much hopes that is the case.

He remembered neither His father nor His mother. He hadn't seen them once, and they hadn't come to see him. But the child knew that his father was a sailor on Lake Issyk-Kul, and after his mother divorced his father, she left him to his grandfather and never returned. Grandpa said that the mother of the child had a new family and two daughters; the father of the child, as if still a sailor on a steamship, seemed to have a new family and a child.

The ship moved forward, gradually moving away. It didn't know that a child had turned into a fish and was swimming towards it. He wanted to change the fish in this way: the body of a fish with everything on its body, the tail, the wings, the scales of the fish—only the head was still his own, and the big, round head grew on the thin neck, and let the head grow two windy ears and a scarred nose. He said goodbye to his stone companions: "Goodbye, 'Sleeping Camel'; Goodbye, 'Wolf'; Goodbye, 'Saddle'; Goodbye, 'Tank'!" I'm going to Lake Issyk-Kul, to the white steamer to find my dad. Then he jumped into the river at once, burrowed into the raging rapids, and went down the river, swimming over high red clay cliffs, over rocky beaches, drilling under suspension bridges, rubbing the willow bushes on the shore, and down the rumbling canyon all the way down to Lake Issyk-Kul.

He swam through wave after wave in Lake Issyk-Kul, and finally came to the white steamer. "Hello, White Steamer, here I come!" He said to the white steamer, "I am the one who looks at you with a telescope every day." The people on the boat were very surprised and ran up to see it. He said to his father, who was a sailor, "Hello, Daddy, I'm your son, I'm here for you." "What son are you?" You're half-human, half-fish!"" You're about to pull me on the boat and I'll be in human form. "Okay, let's try it."

Dad threw down the fishing net, fished him out of the water, put him on the deck, and he immediately returned to his original form.

And then......

Then the white steamer continued on its way. He told his father everything he knew, all his life.

He wanted to tell his father that Grandpa Momont was the best grandfather, and Uncle Orozkull often scolded him in the old man's house, sometimes in front of many people. When I was very young, my grandmother died. Later, this grandmother came, sometimes very fierce, and when she lost her temper, she wanted to eat people.

In winter, the snow we have there is neck deep. The forest on the other side of the river is called the wind to click, whistling, whistling and whining. It's scary!

Our summer herders occasionally spent the night in the big meadow with sheep and horses, and I was with their children, playing hide-and-seek, learning to fight, playing so much that I didn't want to leave. How nice it would be to be able to play in the meadow with the children every day!

In the winter, at night, when things were done, Grandpa would tell me stories. I knew that it was dark, cold and cold outside, and the wind was blowing fiercely. Even the biggest mountain grew timid on such a night, huddled in a pile, desperately leaning toward our house and the light in the window.

It made me scared and happy. If I were a giant, I would have gone out of the room and said loudly to the mountain, "Mountain, don't be so bold, there I am here!" Let the wind be strong, let the sky be dark, let the snow be fierce, don't be afraid, stand back to the original place, don't squeeze into a pile. "Then I stepped on the snow, crossed the river, and went into the forest. Trees in the forest at night are scared. The trees were deserted and no one spoke to them. The bare trees were frozen and shivering, and there was no place to hide. I'm going to go into the forest and pat the body of each tree and tell the tree not to be so afraid. Presumably, the trees that don't turn green until spring are scared to death.

When Grandpa told me stories, I thought about all this. He tends to tell a long time, with all sorts of stories. Winter is very long, long, and if there is no grandfather to tell stories, winter is very boring.

The white steamer was drifting away, and the ship's chimney was no longer clear in the telescope.

......

Now it's time for the child to come up with an ending to the story of sailing with his father's ship. Everything is well thought out, but the ending is always unable to think of. He could effortlessly imagine how he would become a fish, how he would swim down the river into the lake, how he would meet a white steamer, how he would meet his father, and everything he would say to him. But further down, things get harder. Because, if you go further down, the ship will gradually approach the dock, the sailors will have to go home, and Daddy will go home. How can this be done? Go with Dad?

Will Daddy take him...

The white steamer went farther and farther away, gradually turning into a faint little white dot. The sun was about to fall on the water.

In the telescope, you can see that the purple-red lake is shining brightly.

(Excerpt, with deletions)

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