Alexander Grin - CRIMSON SAILS

"And that's what she's been called ever since," Menners said. "She's called Sailing-ship Assol."

Gray glanced automatically at Letika, who was still behaving quietly and modestly, then his eyes turned to the dusty road outside the tavern, and he felt as if he had been struck-a double blow to his heart and head. Coming down the road towards him was the very same Sailing-ship Assol whom Menners had just described from a clinical point of view. Her striking features, which resembled the mystery of unforgettable, stirring, yet simple words, appeared to him now in the light of her gaze. The sailor and Menners both had their backs to the window and, in order that they not turn accidentally, Gray found the courage to shift his gaze to Hin's ginger eyes. After he had seen Assol's eyes, all the prejudice of Menners' story was dispelled. Meanwhile, Hin continued unsuspectingly:

"I can also add that her father is a real bastard. He drowned my pater like he was a cat or something, God forgive me. He…"

He was interrupted by an unexpected, wild howl coming from behind. The coalman, rolling his eyes fiercely and having cast off his drunken stupor, suddenly began bawling a song, but with such force that it made everyone jump:

Basket-maker, basket-maker, Skin us for your baskets!

"You're roaring drunk again, you damn whaleboat!" Menners shouted. "Get out!"

But take care that you don't fall Right into our caskets! the coalman bawled and then, as if nothing were amiss, he | dunked his moustache into a slopping glass.

Hin Menners shrugged indignantly.

"He's the scum of the earth," he said with the sinister dignity of the miser. "It happens every time!"

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" Gray asked.

"Me? I just told you her father's a bastard. On account of him, sir, I was orphaned, and while still a boy was forced to earn my bread by the sweat-of my brow."

"You're lying!" the coalman said unexpectedly. "You're lying so foully and unnaturally that it's sobered me up."

Before Hin had a chance to open his mouth, the coalman addressed Gray:

"He's lying. His father was a liar, too; as was his mother. It runs in the family. Rest assured, she's as sane as you and me. I've spoken to her. She rode in my cart eighty-four times or a bit less. If a girl's walking home from town and I've sold all my coal, I'll always give her a lift. She might as well ride. I'm saying that she has a sane head on her shoulders. You can see that now. Naturally, she'd never talk to you, Hin Menners. But me, sir, in my free coal trade, I despise gossip and rumours. She talks like a grown-up, but her way of talking is strange. If you listen closely-it seems like just the same as you and me would say, and it is, but yet, it isn't. For instance, we got to talking about her trade. 'I'll tell you something,' she said, and her holding onto my shoulder like a fly to a bell-tower, 'my work isn't dull, but I keep wanting to think up something special. I want to find a way to make a boat that'll sail by itself, with oarsmen that'll really row; then, they'll dock at the shore, tie up and sit down on the beach to have a bite, just exactly as if they were alive.' I started laughing, see, 'cause I found it funny. So I said, 'Well, Assol, it's all because of the kind of work you do, that's why you think like this, but look around; the way other people work, you'd think they were fighting.' 'No,' she says, 'I know what I know. When a fisherman's fishing he keeps thinking he'll catch a big fish, bigger than anyone ever caught.' 'What about me?' 'You?' She laughed. 'I’ll bet that when you fill your basket with coal you think it'll burst into bloom.' That's the words she used! That very moment, I confess, I don't know what made me do it, I looked into the empty basket, and I really thought I was seeing buds coming out of the basket twigs; the buds burst and leaves splashed all over the basket and were gone. I even sobered UP a bit! But Hin Menners will lie in his teeth and never bat an eye-I know him!"

Finding the conversation to have taken an obviously insulting turn, Menners looked at the coalman scathingly and disappeared behind the counter, from where he asked bitterly: "Do you want to order anything else?"

"No," said Gray, pulling out his purse. "We're getting up and leaving. Letika, you stay here. Come back this evening and don't say a word. Having discovered all you can, report to me. Understand?"

"My dear Captain," Letika said with a familiarity brought on by the rum, "only a deaf-mute would not have understood this."

"Fine. And don't forget that not in a single instance of the many that may occur can you speak of me, or even mention my name. Goodbye!"

Gray left. From then on he was possessed by a consciousness of astonishing discoveries, like a spark in Berthold's powder mortar,-one of those spiritual avalanches from under which fire escapes, blazing. He was possessed by a desire for immediate action. He came to his senses and was able to think clearly only when he got into the rowboat. Laughing, he held out his hand, palm up, to the scorching sun, as he had done once as a boy in the wine cellar; then he shoved off and began rowing swiftly towards the harbour.

On the eve of that day and seven years after Egle, the collector of folk songs, had told the little girl on the beach a fairy-tale about a ship with crimson sails, Assol returned home from her weekly visit to the toy shop feeling distressed and looking sad. She had brought back the toys that she had taken to be sold. She was so upset she could not speak at first, but after looking at Longren's anxious face and seeing that he expected news that was much worse than what had actually happened, she began to speak, running her finger over the windowpane by which she stood, gazing out at the sea absently.

The owner of the toy shop had begun this time by opening his ledger and showing her how much they owed him. She felt faint at the sight of the impressive, three-digit figure.

"This is how much you've received since December," the shopkeeper said, "and now we'll see how much has been sold." And he set his finger against another figure, but this one was a two-digit one.

"It's a pity and a shame to look."

"I could see by looking at his face that he was rude and angry. I'd have gladly run away, but, honestly, I was so ashamed I had no strength to. And he went on to say: 'There's no profit in it for me any more, my dear girl. Imported goods are in demand now. All the shops are full of them, and nobody buys these kind.' That's what he said. He went on talking, but I've mixed up and forgotten what he said. He probably felt sorry for me, because he suggested I try the Children's Bazaar and Alladin's Lamp."

Having unburdened herself of that which was most important, the girl turned her head and looked at the old man timidly. Longren sat hunched over, his fingers locked between his knees on which his elbows rested. Sensing her eyes on him, he raised his head and sighed. Overcoming her depression, she ran up to him, settled down beside him and, slipping her small hand under the leather sleeve of his jacket, laughing and looking up into her father's face from below, she continued with feigned liveliness:

"Never mind, it's not important. You listen, now. Anyway, I left. Well, I came to the big, awfully frightening store; it was terribly crowded. People shoved me, but I made my way through and went over to a black-haired man in spectacles. I don't remember a word of what I said to him; finally, he snickered, poked about in my basket, looked at some of the toys, then wrapped them up in the kerchief again and handed them back."

Longren listened to her angrily. He seemed to be seeing his overawed daughter in the richly-dressed crowd at the counter piled high with fine goods. The neat man in the spectacles was explaining condescendingly that he would go bankrupt if he decided to offer Longren's simple toys for sale. He had casually and expertly set up folding houses and railroad bridges on the counter before her; tiny, perfectly-made automobiles, electric sets, airplanes and motors. All of this smelled of paint and school. According to him, children nowadays only played games that imitated the occupations of their elders.