Alexander Grin - CRIMSON SAILS

Then Assol had gone to Alladin's Lamp and to two other shops, but all in vain.

As she finished her tale she laid out their supper; having eaten and downed a mug of strong coffee, Longren said: "Since we're out of luck, we'll have to start looking for something else. Perhaps I'll sign on a ship again-the Fitzroy or the Palermo. Of course, they're right," he continued thoughtfully, thinking of the toys. "Children don't play nowadays, they study. They keep on studying and studying, and will never begin to live. This is so, but it's a shame, it really is a shame. Will you be able to manage without me for one voyage? I can't imagine leaving you alone." "I could sign up with you, too. Say, as a barmaid." "No!" Longren sealed the word with a smack of his palm on the shuddering table. "You won't sign up as long as I'm alive. However, there's time to think of something."

He settled into a sullen silence. Assol sat down beside him on the edge of the stool; out of the corner of his eye, without turning his head, he could see that she was doing her best to console him and nearly smiled. No, if he smiled it would frighten her off and embarrass her. Mumbling to herself, she smoothed his tumbled grey hair, kissed his moustache and, covering her father's bristly ears with her small, tapering fingers, said,

"There, now you can't hear me say that I love you." Longren had sat still while she had been making him pretty, as tense as a person afraid to inhale smoke, but hearing what she said, he laughed uproariously.

"You dear," he said simply and, after patting her cheek, went down to the beach to have a look at his rowboat.

For a while Assol stood pensively in the middle of the room, hesitating between a desire to give herself up to wistful melancholy and the necessity of seeing to the chores; then, having washed the dishes, she took store of the remains of their provisions. She neither weighed nor measured, but saw that they would not have enough flour to last out the week, that the bottom of the sugar tin was now visible; the packets of coffee and tea were nearly empty and there was no butter; the only thing on which her eye rested ruefully, as it was the sole exception, was a sack of potatoes. Then she scrubbed the floor and sat down to stitch a ruffle on a skirt made over from something else, but recalling instantly that the scraps of material were tucked behind the mirror, she went over to it and took out the little bundle; then she glanced at her reflection.

Beyond the walnut frame in the clear void of the reflected room was a small, slim girl dressed in cheap, white, pink-flowered muslin. A grey silk kerchief covered her shoulders. The still childish, lightly-tanned face was lively and expressive; her beautiful eyes, somewhat serious for her age, looked out with the timid intentness peculiar to sensitive souls. Her irregular face was endearing in its delicate purity of line; each curve, each elevation might have been found in many a woman's face, but taken all together the style was extremely original – originally sweet; we shall stop here. The rest cannot be expressed in words, save for one word: "enchantment".

The reflected girl smiled as impulsively as Assol. The smile turned out rather sad; noticing this, she became disturbed, as if she were looking at a stranger. She pressed her cheek against the glass, closed her eyes and stroked the mirror softly over her reflection. A swarm of hazy, tender thoughts flashed through her; she straightened up, laughed and sat down to sew.

While she is sewing, let us have a closer look at her-a look into her. She was made of too girls, two Assols mixed up in happy, wonderful confusion. One was the daughter of a sailor, a craftsman, a toy-maker, the other was a living poem, with all the marvels of its harmonies and images, with a mysterious alignment of words, in the interaction of light and shadow, cast by one upon the other. She knew life within the limits of her own experience, but besides the generalities, she saw the reflected meaning of a different order. Thus, looking into objects, we observe them not with a linear perception, but through impression-which is definitely human and – as is all that is human – distinct. Something similar to that which (if we have succeeded) we have portrayed by this example, she saw above and beyond the visible. Without these modest victories all that was simply understandable was alien to her. She loved to read, but in each book she read mostly between the lines, as she lived. Unconsciously, through inspiration, she made countless ethereally-subtle discoveries at every step, inexpressible, but as important as cleanliness and warmth. Sometimes-and this continued for a number of days – she even became transformed; the physical opposition of life fell away, like the stillness in the sweep of a bow across the strings; and all that she saw, that was vital to her, that surrounded her, became a lace of mystery in the image of the mundane. Many a time, apprehensive and afraid, did she go to the beach at night where, waiting for dawn to break, she looked off most intently, searching for the ship with the Crimson Sails. These minutes were pure joy to her; it is difficult for us to give ourselves up thus to a fairy-tale; it would be no less difficult for her to escape from its power and enchantment.

On some other occasion, thinking back over all this, she would sincerely wonder at herself, not being able to believe that she had believed, forgiving the sea with a smile and sadly coming back to reality; as she now gathered the ruffle she thought about her past life. There had been much that was dull and simple. The two of them being lonely together had at times weighed heavily on her, but there had formed within her by then that fold of inner shyness, that suffering wrinkle which prevents one from bringing or receiving cheer. Others mocked her, saying: "She's touched in the head", "out of her mind" – she had become accustomed to this pain, too. The girl had even suffered insults, after which her breast would ache as from a blow. She was not a popular girl in Kaperna, although many suspected that there was more to her than to others-but in a different tongue. The men of Kaperna adored stout, heavy-limbed women with oily skin on their large calves arid powerful arms; they courted them here by slapping them on the back and jostling them as they would in a crowded market place. The style of such emotion resembled the unsophisticated simplicity of a roar. Assol was as well suited to this determined milieu as the society of a ghost would be to extremely high-strung people, had it even possessed all the charm of Assunta or Aspasia; anything resembling love here was out of the question. Thus, meeting the steady blast of a soldier's bugle, the sweet sadness of a violin is powerless to bring the stern regiment out from under the influence of its straight planes. The girl stood with her back to all that has been said in these lines.

While she was humming a song of life, her small hands were working swiftly and adroitly; biting off a thread, she looked off, but this did not stop her from turning the hem evenly or stitching it with the accuracy of a sewing machine. Although Longren did not return, she was not worried about her father. Of late, he had often set out fishing in his boat at night or simply for some air. Fear did not gnaw at her: she knew that no ill would befall him. In this respect Assol was still the little girl that had prayed in her own way, lisping fondly, "Good morning, God!" in the morning and: "Goodbye, God!" in the evening.

In her opinion such a first-hand acquaintance with God was quite sufficient for Him to ward off any disaster. She imagined herself in His place: God was forever occupied with the affairs of millions of people and, therefore, she believed that one should regard the ordinary shadows of life with the polite patience of a guest who, discovering the house full of people, waits for the bustling host, finding food and shelter as best he can.