Classics fantasy – 9

Several unlucky fishes who were not in time to go in time with water down fight at a sandy bottom, sparkling scales silver in the spring sun.

– Look! Som! – the same cheerful voice shouts. – Усища! Usishcha!

– And it is right. Got, smart guy! Well and som! Poods on six. Drag on catering establishment!

The huge moustached som remained in the hole filled with water. Fights. Tychet in sand a stupid snout, vzmetat a tail dirty splashes.

And the crowd discusses the plan how to get a catfish.

– And well, children, for me, by the sea, a yak on dry land! – with desperate cheerfulness the young guy shouts and tries to reach som. But legs stick in damp silt. Having waved hopelessly a hand, the guy gets out on the coast.

– Here and itself you will be gone together with som!

– To put boards! – someone offers.

Till the night crowded curious on river banks.

The barrage did the part. By the night Volga began to fill in the left coast slowly. Its plentiful waters went to offensive at the desert, to extinguish the fire of the earth.

11

Matvei on the steppe on a dun horse goes, sings the song. Dun as if listened with delight, trudges a short step and ears spins.

– And well, select legs, Koska-a more cheerfully! – Matvei shouts and continues the song.

To Volga Matvei goes behind goods for collective-farm cooperative. Time spring is expensive, here and left at night that by the morning to return.

Koska again ears spins and a tail twists. Or the song is not pleasant? It is possible another. But the horse does not calm down. Forward extended the head, air smells, sniffs. Even shivers as though. What for the reason? Scented an animal? But what here an animal in the steppe? One gophers.

Stop! There was Koska as driven prt back, sniffs. Opportunity! Matvei on the cart stood up and suddenly sees… and to the eyes does not trust.

very far in the steppe by the light of a month water is silvered by a wide strip. Volga? Yes also halfway did not pass! Perhaps seemed?

– But, went! – There is no horse. The back moves back.

And the silvery strip on the horizon is poured by blue light, grows, spreads. River not the river, lake not the lake. And suddenly dawned on a thought: Volga moved.

Spoke about it to Matvei, warned, but not really he worried: “Until Volga reaches us, twenty times will manage to return!” And here was not in time, took.

Matvei pulled reins, turned the cart back. Koska as if only also waited for it. From where and the speed undertook! Jumps – it is not necessary to adjust.

And water follows them, quietly so as if effortlessly, fills in yes fills in steppe open spaces.

And suddenly water at first on back wheels, then on lobbies rustled, filled in legs of a horse and swept forward, dimming the steppe. Matvei looked at the earth – in water month is reflected.

– Take out, Koska! – Matvei shouts.

And Koska to the course reduced at once: sticks in dirt.

Koska hardly touches legs. Splashed still a bit on water and became. The cart got stuck in fat steppe dirt. You will not get out… To descend, perhaps, in ice cold water yes to help a horse?

Well water is also cold! And there is nothing to do. Matvei Bultykhnutsya, began to pull the cart, urges on a horse…

12

And waters go further and further.

Here they found the bed of the dried-up small river and, squeezed by coast, began to flow quicker. They draw the new map of the region with new lakes, gulfs, the rivers.

Collective farmers of the Dry Dale since midnight are on duty near new huts on the high hill. On radio the message was already carried: there is water! Where there was a waterless steppe, the river will begin to flow.

The children who got up on roofs, uvidal the first.

– Water! To Ida-from!.

At beams of a rising sun the melted gold water flowed, filling in the old river bed left, perhaps, one thousand years ago.

– Trophîme! Drag network! Fish on a visit all right!

– Our dry Dale of a teperich wet leaves!

– Ded Panas! It is advisable to remain to you in an old hut! There would be you the grandfather water now and fish would order!

Panas shchurit old eyes from light, smiles. And suddenly new shout from a roof:

– Steamship all right!

It with anything not in conformity! All heads turned on the West. There among a water smooth surface some black point which was slowly coming moved.

– What steamship! It is the boat!

– The devil on a devil, really!

At last the black point came nearer; the person astride a horse goes.

Tired, all wet, approached Matvei who abandoned the cart into steppes.

13

The new river, still anonymous, flows on the East, moistening air and the earth. It came here, to the adust steppe to extinguish the fire of the earth. Felt the way, carefully as blind, groping all roughnesses of the soil, filling in holes, sometimes branching off aside, and suddenly – stop! Came across, blind, a wall. Stood a bit and turned on the South, having changed the way planned by it the old course.

– Red Dawns station! – Grachev shouted.

On a dam poured out all settlement. Valkirny smiles. Everything left as he wanted. “Red dawns” are saved. There was a danger whether the river will fill in the settlement, having bypassed a dam from above, but also this danger passed: to the South a slope, and the river directed the waters there.

– Let now from Kamyshin come yes will look! I to them saved up not one ten thousand rubles. And all “barrage” was built, the kopek for them was asked!

– Good fellow, Kondrat Semenych! Head!

– And now for work, children! There is nothing to yawn! – And he walked by the saved “Red dawns”.

However this day came to an end absolutely not so joyfully as began.

Valkirny made orders on the farmyard when the out of breath Grachev came running to it. On it the person was not.

– Kondrat Semenych, trouble!

– What, broke through a dam? – quickly asked Valkirny and turned pale a little.

– No, not that! We did del, Kondrat…

– Say yes, the devil, plainly!

– Now called by telephone from Sukhanov. They say, filled in the villages of Igoshki and Chernyaevo which did not need to be filled in. A bit filled in Chernyaevo, and Igoshki in a hollow, so that absolutely on roofs. We, so the dam turned the small river not there where it is necessary. Ask for help…

Valkirny did not listen any more. He rushed and ran to office, having shouted on the run:

– Call alarm!

But Grachev lagged behind him, and Valkirny, the first having reached the square in front of office where the bell convoking for work and a lunch hung began to sound the alarm. From everywhere the people ran together. Valkirny gave orders:

– Harness horses, vividly. Take hooks, axes, ropes, do not feel sorry for horses, you drive with might and main. You fly to Igoshki. There is a flood!.

And itself ran to stables, chose the best horse, hastily put on a bridle and rushed off on a bareback gnedk on the steppe, the coast of the new river.

The village of Igoshki was in twenty kilometers from “Red dawns”.

The kind horse flew a whirlwind, and it seemed to Valkirny that it hardly trudges. Kondrat Semenych beat a neck of a horse with the end of a bridle and heels in sides.

“Here opportunity! I thought that the river will go more to the left… And well as there still people sank…” – Valkirny thought and at the same time involuntarily examined the area. Absolutely unfamiliar! River, creeks, lakes…

Here and roofs Igoshek are seen over water.

On roofs people, roosters, cats… Shout, groan, crying…

The peasants who were in time to get out, while water was low, sit with a sad face ashore. Around on the earth of a blanket, pillow, samovars, sheepskin coats – that managed to take out. Dogs, having raised muzzles, howl, looking at the flooded village.

Valkirny approaches and abruptly rebuffs a horse.

– Why you do not save, you are idle? – snatches on peasants.

– And how you will save? – the red peasant snaps. – There are no boats, with barehanded into water will not get.

– A barn it was necessary to sort yes a raft to make – Valkirny says

– Language easily! – hostile voices are heard. – Make itself! Axes sank, there are no ropes, than the raft will be connected?

– Hands it was possible to sort a barn. On a log you will not drown. So gradually would also drag the people on the coast.

Valkirny, as was, in heavy boots and an invariable leather jacket, floats to the next log hut. He removes from the boy’s roof, mounts to himself upon a neck and floats back to the coast, without paying attention to crowd.

Valkirny when there arrived krasnozoryets managed to drag several people already on the coast.

Work began to boil. Sorted an old barn on logs, made a raft and on it transported all from roofs on the coast.

– In huts remained nobody? There is no drowned? – Valkirny asked.

– As though all are whole … – Began to consider, to have something in common.

Valkirny was already going to return to “Dawns” to dispose how to place the people who remained homeless when after the journey the beep of the car unexpectedly was heard.

There arrived from Kamyshin the secretary of a cell, the Inhabitant of Tula to whom already phoned about everything.

He approached Valkirny, put to it a hand on an elbow – did not reach a shoulder – and, looking directly in eyes, told:

– Well that, Kondrat Semenych, now you understand why private it is necessary to subordinate to the general? Posvoyevolnichali also did del! It is necessary to answer now!

Valkirny was silent, having hung the head.

14

Letter the first

“Dear Lenz!

I do not know what to begin with. I have such state as if I watched without interruption forty movies. Try, understand all this. I choose the general from lots of the diverse impressions: collective farm “New way”, in my opinion, the most interesting place on the globe. I as if moved on other planet where time moves with extreme speed.

To begin with the fact that from Kamyshin where I examined a great Volga dam, I flew through traffic on the big passenger-and-mail airplane to collective farm. Constant line. To the village on the airplane. Not bad?

There was a windy day, and I as if slid on the American mountains over the wide steppe. Once it was waterless, droughty, whimsical for harvests. Now all it is filled in with water: rivers, lakes, lagoons… In places I still saw wooden huts of villages, but stone four-storeyed houses, the whole towns of such houses met on the way more often (or rather under way as I looked from above).

– And also “The new way” is seen – the neighbor told me, pointing to the horizon.

I uvidat the smoking pipes of the plants. It is a lot of factory pipes. Whether my fellow traveler was mistaken? I interrogatively looked at it. He smiled and, seeing my bewilderment, hurried to explain:

– These are collective-farm factories and the plants on primary processing of agricultural raw materials: flax, hemp, development of tinned fruit and vegetables, myasokhladoboyn, cheese dairies, mills, elevators, fish-canning, sugar, oil milling plants.

In a few minutes I saw all agricultural and factory collective-farm city. It stood at the river – the new river created by a piping which supplied it with water. Higher on a current, separated by a wide strip of the wood from smoke of factory pipes, the inhabited city, all from the white two-storeyed houses rolling in gardens and parks was located. Several houses were allocated with the size – it is probable, houses of government and public institutions. On the river swimming baths were seen, boats scurried about.

When we flew by over the wood separating the city from factories and the plants I uvidat equal, as on a ruler, the road which is cutting through the wood. It was asphalted. On it trams and cars scurried about back and forth.

We flew by over the city, and again before us fields stretched. There were spring field works. From airplane height tractors seemed little bugs, someone trained. Rovnenko they moved on fields a close formation, leaving behind themselves the black, loosened soil. Behind them other cars probably of a harrow crept, after they are seeders.

In places among fields buildings were seen. Were under construction new two – three-storyed houses.

– New villages – smiling, my neighbor told. – Old villages were under construction without plan. Now all area of collective farm – and it at us not small – is broken into sites; and all population occupied with agriculture will be evenly placed on all area of collective farm so that each settlement processed the territory adjoining to it. Distances will be reduced to a terminal point, so, and time for moving. Economy in fuel of cars, speed…

– You in collective farm work? – I took an interest.

– In collective farm. Accounting assistant. And you not the correspondent? – he asked me in turn.

– No – I answered. – I go to work in collective farm too. I am an electrician.

– Foreigner?

– Yes, German.

– Here we soon and at home – told помбух.

I uvidat a high openwork tower of radio station on the horizon.

– Send-receive. Our, collective-farm.

Soon also houses seemed. It is a lot of good stone houses, the area surrounded with high buildings, a garden, a monument: the person with the raised right hand is Lenin. A mirror the river bend flashed. How many here is the rivers!.

The airplane began to decrease, and we went down on good airfield soon. I left. I was surprised by abundance of the airplanes standing on airfield.

– Whether has collective farm and own airplanes? – I asked my satellite.

– Public. Osoaviakhimovskiye. For crops and pest control.

With an easy suitcase (my baggage walked separately) I went to the village, collective farm, the city, агрогород – I do not know how to call.

The city is brand new, very clean. Somewhere else end plaster and whitewashing of buildings.

I without effort found the house and the room intended to me for housing. You want to know what this collective-farm room for lonely? Twelve-fifteen meters area. Oblong. A big Vienna window without curtain. Under a window – pipes of water heating. Bluish walls. At a window on the right – a small desk with a chair and a desk electric lamp. Other lamp under a ceiling. Near a table on a wall a small shelf for books. At the left wall – a sofa, the employee and a bed. Bedding – in a drawer in the sofa. Closer to a door, in the same left wall – the wall case for a dress which is a little acting. At the right wall – the wash basin separated from sides at belt height, thick glass walls not to spray water. Further, at a table – phone. Over an entrance door a loudspeaker loud-hailer.

House quite big. In it there is a good public dining room, club, at it small library. If in it there is no book necessary to you, can order it by phone in the central city library. At the end of a corridor – bathrooms where at certain one o’clock in the afternoon you can shave.

I have breakfast and went to “administration”. But about this visit allow to write another time.

Be healthy. Your Karl E.”.

Letter the second

“ – You know agronomics? – the foreman when I was to him asked me.

The question surprised me a little.

– I am an electrician.

– I am an electrician too – he answered. – But at us and in electrical equipment an agronomical bias. So to speak, the agroelectrician as there is an agrochemistry. Whether you thought that you will be invited to potter with electric bulbs?

At us and school children cope with it. All electrical wiring lies in new houses on them. We have requirements to electrical equipment the. We demand something bigger from electricity, than lighting of houses and fields. You arrived to the interesting moment when we, using cheap electric energy which the piping gave us, pass to electrification of agriculture. We receive current from big power plant of the island of the Cone. Saw?

I nodded:

– Yes, grandiose construction. But you did not establish wires of high-voltage tension yet?

The foreman grinned and answered:

– You do not hurry to deny existence of what you do not see.

This answer surprised me, but I understood soon. The Soviet scientists invented the insulators allowing to lay under the earth cables for high-voltage transfer on long distances several years ago.

– Underground cables? – I asked.

The foreman in the affirmative nodded.

– It is cheaper – he answered – more economically in agriculture. Though we have lands and much, but we value each span. Elevated conducting would take away the considerable area of fields for installation of towers and would complicate operation of tractors.

– What application will have electricity in your agriculture?

– The most various. Idemte, I will show you our work. It is much made, it is necessary to make even more. – The foreman critically looked at me. – You already the person elderly, and you should study much.

We came to the suburb of the collective-farm town. Where the field road began, there was a big, long one-storey building with many wide doors. Through open doors I saw tractors of type, new to me.

– Electrotractors – the foreman explained. – Latest model. Work at accumulators. The Volga waters which thousands of years in vain spent the energy give it to us now. Our tractors as working horses, are sated with this energy and go on fields.

– And what you will do with the old tractors using fuel?

– And a lot of work will be them. Let’s transfer them to those collective farms which are too far from an electric power source. Electricity will preserve to us much precious fuel. To burn down oil from which it is possible to receive the most valuable chemical products, as a matter of fact – barbarity.

We entered the neighboring building. There were other cars: electric harrows, mowers…

– At us everything will do electricity – with pride he told. – Same spring we will take our fields in electric hand. And so were ahead of us. Somehow in the day off go to the next collective farm Realovsky – it is closer to Volga. Admire that there does electricity. By Idemte now on farmyards, they at us since fall are electrified.

The road he continued to speak:

– We not only process the earth electricity, but also we heat it. Underground electric hot-water bottles are laid. Too late spring and early fall to us will not be more terrible. But there is more to come. We have a field where we ionize the growing cereals, and the result turns out excellent. Here stalls.

The pure, warm, aired rooms lit with electricity. Near each cow – electric milking.

– The hand of the person does not touch neither a cow, nor milk. Electricity milks, processes milk, cleans cows and stalls.

Then we examined incubators. The longest room reminding the factory shop.

Yes so it, as a matter of fact, also is. It is the real factory. Here “semi-finished product” – egg – turns into “the final product of production” – a live chicken. Long black boxes last. Silence. Deficiency. For people electricity works.

– It is not necessary to look after temperature more. It is regulated automatically. Electric hot-water bottles work ideally. Everything is calculated. When term comes, our poultry breeders only here are to take ready chickens and to put new portions of eggs in incubators.

The following room met me by discordant peep. It is “nursery”, брудергауз. Here bring up the hatched baby birds. They are divided on age and are located in boxes with low walls. Over boxes electric lamps and wires, some metal spheres with needles.

– Ionization and influence by ultraviolet rays. Grow by leaps and bounds. Incidence is brought almost to naught.

– Electric chickens – smiling, I say.

– Whether still you will see – the foreman answers. – Our production does not stop all the year round as hens rush also in the winter not less, than in the summer.

– Surprisingly! – I told, with admiration looking at thousands of fluffy zheltenky chickens, cheerfully and busy pottering about in boxes.

– Perhaps, electricity is designed to play the most important role in agriculture? – I told.

The foreman looked at me with some regret – so it seemed to me – small consciousness such supposedly at the person!

– So only the narrow expert of old time can argue – he answered. – We are dialecticians, and we are not escaped by the general communication of the phenomena. Electrical equipment, chemistry, physics, agronomics, botany, biology, bacteriology, meteorology – everything has the price the same as both air, and a sunlight, and water, and mineral fertilizers are important for plants. Everything is equally important. Take away one – and the plant will die in spite of the fact that it will be provided to all rest enough. Here you get acquainted with companion Boyko, the chemist of our experimental agricultural station. Talk to it. He will tell you about agrochemistry so much that, I am sure, the chemistry will seem to you the most important in agriculture. But neither he, nor I so we do not think.

We came back to a garage where I had to get to work and study soon.

– You are free tonight? – the foreman asked me.

– Absolutely.

And so that. You still will manage to go to Realovka. And today you come by eight o’clock to club. I will show you the movie on which all moments of the electrified processing of the earth in one of our best collective farms are photographed. Look.

In the same evening I saw how huge electric plows crashed into the earth and turned off layer behind layer. I saw how behind them as if I infantry after artillery preparation, send “to finish the enemy” other cars which broke earth lumps. The third cars scattered fertilizers, the fourth sowed, exactly, carefully, accurately, the fifth mowed, reaped, connected and brought sheaves of wheat and a linking of hay from the field. No, not hay, and a fresh grass which went to a huge silo where electric current killed bacteria.

Over fields flew airplanes, and a part of sowing was made from airplanes. Other airplanes sprayed a poison for wreckers.

I saw the electric threshers giving pure, full grain. At last, I saw how electricity filled with grain huge elevators.

“Where – I thought – the overstraining horses, the exhausted bulls poured pbty the mowers, women who are unsteady for fatigue, exhausted nursing right there on a field flabby children?. Instead of them – everywhere cars, and near cars and by cars are visible the dexterous, healthy, surely working collective farmers in the blue working overalls splashed by lubricating oil”.

I admit, I did not see a picture of more fascinating. It is deification of power, the equipment, electrification, the organized work triumphing over forces majeure of the nature…

Be healthy. Write. Your Karl Ernst”.

Letter the third

“Dear Lenz!

The foreman was right: when I visited at the agrochemist Boyko, I was ready to prozakladyvat the head that the most important in agriculture is a chemistry.

Met me by Boyko in chemical laboratory of experimental station.

– Came to us to work? – he asked, giving me a hand. It was in the gray dressing gown burned by acids.

At laboratory tables stood in dressing gowns of the young man and girl, they pottered with torches, flasks, glasses, overtook, boiled, cooled…

In the certain room – a sanctuary where chemical gases do not come – under glass boxes there are chemical scales.

– Pay attention: that concussion of the soil did not affect them, scales stand not on tables, and on the shelves attached to walls. There is our last Soviet achievement – with pride told Boyko, lifting a glass box from brand new scales. – Tear off a scrap of a piece of paper and throw on scales.

I made it. Quickly weighed a scrap, removed from scales, stretched to me and told:

– Now write on a scrap a pencil your surname.

I executed also it. Quickly again put a scrap on scales. And that: scales noted an increase in weight from a short pencil inscription.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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