Natalia Patratskaya - Sapphire fairy. Prose in English

The autumn gray sky was replaced by a frosty clear sky. Rare cirrus clouds did not prevent the sun from illuminating the first ice on the reservoirs of the city. The people and gentlemen with pleasure changed coats with capes on fur coats and casings, if they were. Long skirts swayed under fur jackets. Furs spread the smell of snuff, which poured clothes against moths. Snuff was kept in snuffboxes, it was considered supremely chic to sniff tobacco and sneeze for health. Smoke streamed from the chimneys of the houses. On the avenue rolled carriages and horses.

On a frosty morning Katerina gave birth to a boy Ilya. Jacob Timofeevich was overwhelmingly pleased with the heir. The son of the king did not know who his real father was. For the child prepared a children’s room, in which hung a crib attached to the ceiling. The boy’s parents brought him up according to all the rules and started learning to read early. Five years later, God sent them a girl, Masha.

Katerina walked with the children herself. She liked to raise children. At home, her parents and servants from the village helped her, but she did not trust anyone to raise her children while they were small. Yakov Timofeevich dreamed that Ilya would become a lawyer. And the boy met his hopes. He studied well and entered the law faculty of the university. Yakov Timofeevich and Katerina were a quiet couple, without great needs and costs. Everything went well with them. Their villages flourished.

And the yields were good. Their parents lived long and were tactful enough not to disturb them, but only to help. Ilya and Masha grew up under the supervision of parents, grandparents and servants. Everything good sometimes changes dramatically. The parents of Jacob and Katerina died one by one.

Their homesteads were left unattended. And immediately incomes from villages became less, and expenses in the Northern capital increased very quickly, and children grew rapidly. Barin Yakov Timofeevich had to go through the villages and bring relative order to them. He fell ill from an unusual job and died in one of the villages called the Copper Bucket, before reaching the northern capital.

Katerina tried to connect with the villages. The villages brought less and less means to its existence. She did not dare to leave the children to the servants for a long time, but she had to. Arriving in the village Copper Bucket, she realized that in the city they no longer live, will have to lead a rural lifestyle. She decided to take her daughter Masha to her and send money to her son to study. So she did. The door between the apartments in the house was walled up. One apartment rented. The houses required repairs and were not very expensive.

For some time, Katerina has adjusted the village life. One day she looked at the yellow sapphire, and it seemed to her that he was not satisfied with her life. Or sapphire did not like life in the village. Sometimes she perceived the radiance of a stone as a lively response to her troubles. How could a queen of honor, a lady from the royal retinue, live in the village? Could not. And she remembered Ulana Cyril. She thought that if ulan is alive, he still loves her.

Katerina appointed a new manager of all the villages and went to the Northern capital, taking with her the means of subsistence in the city.

First of all, she started repairing her house, then updated her wardrobe, then found Kirill. Forget the first love he could not yet. By this time he had become a beautiful and docile man. Life has taught him a lot. Katerina and Kirill got married and restored the second apartment.

Catherine’s daughter Masha grew up, but did not look like her mother. She was not distinguished by her mother’s beauty and stateliness, so there was no hope that she would become the Queen’s maid of honor. Masha looked like her father, Yakov Timofeevich, in everything. She had no bad habits, but there were few good ones. Masha was married to an equally calm guy who had no particular desires. Previously, his desire was dictated by his mother, now Masha, if she herself was not lazy to desire anything.

Both were melancholic.

The kids have grown up. Katerina could calmly read books again. She read the book The History of the Clans of the Russian Nobility with great interest. Katerina took herself to the nobles, but she really wanted to find ancestors in the book! One was a pity that all the nobles were counted in the male line from the rulers of the ancient clan.

And if you trace all the boyars and princes to the nineteenth century, in which Katherine lived, it turned out that the princes destroyed themselves from generation to generation.

How? With great chic they married and married almost relatives in different generations. Of course, there were newcomers from other clans, but people tried to keep their clan along the line of the ancient clan.

The women who married people from another kind disappeared from the lists of princely families. It turned out that the more and more I looked through Katerina’s book, the more I met stories about barren men, sons of great clans.

Some of the princely family survived, but it was very clear that the story now and then turned back to find the ancestors of the omnipotent at other times. The surnames were constantly changing in a somewhat strange way: the name of the whole clan was obtained from the nickname. Katerina came to the conclusion that she definitely did not have direct ancestors from the ancient race, but she did not exclude lateral branches.

Cyril did not condemn Katerina’s addiction to books; he knew one thing: if the wife reads, it means that the house is quiet. And he was at peace with her. They lived quite well. Cyril had no children of his own.

Daughter Masha surprised her relatives by going to live in the village, to the estate of her mother. Her husband Anton Ivanovich left with Masha. In parting, Katerina presented Masha the Sapphire Straw Widow.

The son of Katerina Ilya graduated from the university. He became a handsome and intelligent man. Outwardly, he looked like Katerina. Ilya took the personal lawyer Prince Voronov, who often visited the court. The prince’s daughter, Lizonka, fell in love with the handsome gray-eyed Ilya. The prince himself was not against the marriage of his daughter.

He perfectly understood that such an Ilya, a hardworking and decent person, can save and replenish the wealth accumulated by the ancestors. And Ilya looked like a king…

The love of the young princess was hot-tempered. All her houses were called Lizonkoy. She was a flying moth. Her knobs hovered over the piano keys. Her skirts flew over the grand palace of the prince. Thin and light, graceful and beautiful girl enveloped with their fluids noble Ilya. Next to her, he seemed to be an even taller and stronger man. Lysonka had a pronounced temperament. Live and agile girl. For a long time she was not angry. Not a lot worried. In life, she had everything, in terms of income and wealth.

Wedding Lizonka asked to make a magnificent, but without a lot of people. They collected an entire sleigh train and drove around the central streets of the Northern capital with bells. Sable fur coat with an ermine collar perfectly kept Lizonka warm during the trip. To live young remained in the palace of the prince.

Ilya calmly endured his wife’s quirks and fit well into his father-in-law’s palace. The love of the young was dictated by Lizonkoy herself. Her irrepressible temperament. But they had no children for a long time. Smart wife, as a noble noblewoman, to protect against pregnancy used a gold ring. Ilya mentally experienced the absence of children, not knowing about the golden ring.

But they were young. He had a lot of work, as the prince, Lizonka’s father, had his own factories in the city. The workers were not always submissive. Yes, and suppliers had relative decency. Masha did not visit her brother. Home to his mother, Ilya almost did not go. Masha and Ilya did not find a common language. Brother was further separated from his sister.