Alexander Grin - CRIMSON SAILS

A ship rose from the seaweed; it surfaced and stopped in the very middle of the sunrise. From this great distance it was as clearly visible as the clouds. Radiating joy, it flamed like wine, a rose, blood, lips, red velvet and scarlet fire. The ship was heading straight towards Assol. Two wings of spray were cast up by the powerful thrust of its keel; rising, the girl pressed her hands to her breast, but the magic play of light became ripples: the sun rose, and a bright fullness of morning tore the covers from everything that still languished and stretched on the sleepy earth.

The girl sighed and looked around. The music had ended, but Assol was still under the spell of its ringing chorus. This impression gradually weakened, then became a memory and, finally, simply weariness. She lay down in the grass, yawned and, closing her eyes blissfully, fell asleep – a sleep as deep and sound as a young nut, without cares or dreams.

She was awakened by a fly crawling along her bare sole. Assol wriggled her foot impatiently and awoke; sitting up, she pinned back her dishevelled hair and, therefore, Gray's ring made itself known, but believing it to be simply a blade of grass that had become caught between her fingers, she held them out. However, since the hindrance did not disappear, she raised her hand to her eyes impatiently and instantly jumped to her feet with the force of a shooting fountain.

Gray's radiant ring sparkled on her finger as on someone else's, for at this moment she could not claim it to be her own, she did not feel the finger to belong to her.

"Whose joke is this? Whose joke is this?" she cried. "Am I still sleeping? Maybe I found it and forgot about it?"

She gripped her right hand, on which the ring was placed, with her left, looked around in wonder, searching out the sea and the green thickets with her gaze; but no one moved, no one was hiding in the bushes, and there was no sign in the vastly illumined blue sea. A flush consumed Assol, and the voices of her heart murmured the prophetic "yes". There was no explanation for what had happened, but she found it without words of thoughts in her strange feeling, and the ring now became dear to her. She trembled as she pulled it off her finger and held it in her cupped hand like water as she examined it-with her soul, her heart, the boundless joy and clear superstition of youth-then, tucking it into her bodice, Assol buried her face in her hands from under which a smile strained to burst forth and, lowering her head, she slowly followed the road back home.

Thus – by chance, as people say who can read and write, – Gray and Assol found each other on a summer's morning so full of inevitability.

After Gray returned to the deck of the Secret he stood there motionlessly for some minutes, running his hand over his head from back to front, which indicated a state of utter confusion. Absent-mindedness – a veiled movement of the emotions-was reflected in the senseless smile of the sleep-walker on his face. His mate, Panten, was at that moment coming along the quarter-deck, carrying a dish of fried fish; sighting Gray, he noted the captain's strange state.

"You're not hurt, are you, sir?" he inquired cautiously. "Where were you? What did you see? Actually, though, that's none of my business. An agent has offered us a profitable cargo with a bonus. But what's the matter with you, sir?"

"Thank you," Gray said with a sigh, as if he had been untied. "That was just what I needed, the sound of your simple, intelligent voice. It's like a dash of cold water. Tell the crew we're weighing anchor today, Panten, and moving into the mouth of the Liliana, about ten miles from here. The river bed is dotted with shoals. Come for the chart. We won't need a pilot. That's all for now… Oh, yes, I need that profitable cargo like I need last year's snow. You can tell the agent that's what I said. I'm going to town now, and I'll be there till evening."

"But what happened?"

"Nothing at all, Panten. I want you to bear in mind my desire to avoid all questions. When the time comes, I'll tell you what it's all about. Tell the crew that we'll put up for repairs and that the local drydock is occupied."

"Yes, sir," Panten replied dazedly to Gray's retreating back. "Aye, aye, sir."

Although the captain's orders were quite sensible, the mate was goggled-eyed and raced off to his own cabin, carrying the dish of fish and mumbling: "You're puzzled, Panten. Is he thinking of trying his hand at smuggling? Will we be flying the Jolly Roger now?" At this Panten became confused by the wildest guesses. While he nervously wolfed down the fish, Gray went to his cabin, took out a sum of money and, crossing the bay, appeared in the shopping section of Liss. Now, however, he acted determinedly and calmly, knowing down to the last detail all that he would do on this wondrous journey. Each motion – thought, movement-warmed him as with the refined joy of creative work. His plan was formed instantly and vividly. His understanding of life had undergone that last attack of the chisel after which marble is serene in its magnificent glowing.

Gray visited three shops, placing especial stress on the accuracy of his choice, since he was quite sure of the exact shade and colour he wanted. In the first two shops he was shown silk of gaudy hues, intended to please an unsophisticated vanity; in the third he found samples of imaginative tints. The shopkeeper bustled about cheerfully, spreading out fabrics from his old stock, but Gray was as serious as an anatomist. He patiently unfolded parcels and bolts, laid them aside, moved them together, unrolled and brought up to the light so many crimson strips that the counter, piled high with them, seemed about to burst into flame. A scarlet wave fell upon the tip of Gray's boot; a pink reflection shone on his hands and face. As he rummaged among the slight resistance of the silk he noted the colours: cerise, pink and old rose; the richly simmering cherry, orange and gloomy iron reds; here there were shades of all density and strength, as different in their imaginary kinship as are the words: "charming", "wonderful", "magnificent", "exquisite"; in the folds there lurked allusions inaccessible to the language of the eyesight, but a true crimson tone evaded our captain for quite some time. The fabrics the shopkeeper brought out were good, but they did not evoke a clear, firm "yes". At last, one colour attracted the disarmed attention of the buyer; he sat down in an armchair by the window, pulled a long strip from the rustling bolt, dropped it on his knees and, sitting back with his pipe clenched between his teeth, became contemplatively still.

This colour, as absolutely pure as a crimson ray of morning, full of noble joy and regality, was just exactly the proud colour Gray was searching for. It did not contain the mixed shades of fire, poppy petals, the play of lilac or purple tints; nor was there any blueness or shadow – nothing to raise any doubt. It glowed like a smile with the charm of spiritual reflection. Gray became so lost in thought that he forgot about the shopkeeper who stood at his elbow with the alertness of a hunting dog pointing. Tiring of waiting, the merchant called attention to himself by the crack of a piece of cloth being ripped.

"That's enough samples," Gray said, rising. "I'm taking this silk."

"The whole bolt?" the merchant asked, politely doubting. But Gray stared at his forehead in silence, which prodded the shopkeeper to assume an undue familiarity. "How many metres, then?" Gray nodded, as if telling the man to wait, and, with a pencil, figured the amount he needed on a slip of paper.

"Two thousand metres." He inspected the shelves dubiously. "Not more than two thousand metres."

"Two?" said the shopkeeper, jumping like a jack-in-the-box. "Thousand? Metres? Please sit down, Captain. Would you like to see our latest samples, Captain? As you wish. May I offer you a match, and some excellent tobacco? Two thousand… two thousand at…" He named a price which had as much to do with the real price as a vow does with a simple "yes", but Gray was satisfied, because he did not wish to bargain over anything. "A magnificent, excellent silk," the shopkeeper was saying, "unexcelled in quality. You won't find this anyplace else but here."