Let the nature-child play with anything, but look after it, so that it would not make the weather bad. As they approached to Bermuda, they had a baggage of memory seen the colossal number of storms, and it seemed no one had got in so many of them before. Our siblings placed the new Range Rover (it was not clear whether it was defective) on the deck of the weather-beaten ferry, but they drove from the ship on a rough, tanned and a bit dirty jeep-discoverer. The Islands of Bermuda at the same time are famous and not for its surroundings. I guess, it is the last place people think about when choosing calm and comfortable rest. But Earlyborn and her brother did not think this way. They chose adventures—to reach Antarctic, so they could not back out from their journey, like a person who made his mind on staying awaken for the whole night looks in disdain at a strong desire to close his eyes at 9 p. m.. There was something worth seeing on Bermuda. To be honest, Earlyborn and Zhenka did not know about it, so, probably, that was the reason for them to be fearless and enthusiastic to arrive there by ferry. There were many curiosities. What can you say about tame sharks near the pier? They belonged to a smart local boy, and their meaning was merely to amaze arriving people with the colour of the area! Yes. It was so. Unexpected and simple.
It seemed the elements were furious above the Atlantic. A tiny crab, which came at the white sandy beach now to explore the world, became too worried from what he saw and would see so that it close its face with claws under emotions. Earlyborn and Zhenka looked like this crab very much when they saw each other sunburned. They left their car at the harbor parking as a thing which they would need, but not at the very moment, and now sat at the ocean shore after the storm and looked at the west, talking and thinking simultaneously about their own ideas. Irkutsk was left somewhere behind with its frosty tangerine winters, glamorous Paris that, seemed, smacked his lips with each wind gust was also left somewhere behind—anything that could restrain a free person from enjoying the life was left far from the Islands of Bermuda.
***
They were confident in the day of tomorrow and were not confident in the past days. They conjectured now how their journey would continue. According to the main rule of life, an uplift comes after a stagnation, which means our characters did not have to bother about it themselves. Earlyborn and Zhenka had gone far from the old problems and could think sensibly. They could draw their plans on the sand, frighten and caress the already scared crab, pretend they were parrots and swim from time to time. It happens throughout life: if you would like to lose something, try to love. If you want to be fit, do exercises. Perhaps, this is so, since only sufferings help us to excel and improve ourselves. An artist who is full up is believed to be a bad artist. It turns, then, that the serfdom gave us the prosperity. Arguably, this process in Russia took us more time than people in other countries, yet it was vast, and now we are tought that it is better to do everything just by plan and do not do anything beyond it.
The sky was darkening. Yet it was not the sunset suddenly fallen on the ground – it was the next storm. Earlyborn stopped being afraid of it since she overcame her strongest fear: to see the globe lightning. The siblings sweetly chatted about something. If I am not mistaken, Zhenka said that he did not manage to examine his heart in Irkutsk, because one doctor went on holiday, and another doctor became ill. This topic was chosen accidentally, but the sister abruptly began to worry about brother’s health. “Never mind, sister. Remember as Pushkin expressed with the words of his character Emelian Pugachev?7 It is not a good idea to eat carrion for three hundred years. It is better to live for twenty, thirty years freely.” And so spoke Zhenka, “Sister, do not think about doctors, as my heart does not hurt now, which means everything is alright, and we are well too. Furthermore, we do not have medical records neither at the university hospital, nor at the psychiatric one. I prefer not to know about my illnesses for fifteen years, than to go to hospitals each of my twenty years. This is the truth. There haven’t been any wild animal that could have win the human being in patience when was at bay. And men are helpless to change the nature’s will. If something is needed, it must be given. Cows make way for each other in herd when they go to a water trough, although they go in rows.”
Earlyborn was disappointed when looked at Zhenka’s contemptuous attitude towards his health. But she understood him, for she was a young woman. She, herself, often lying in a bath with soapsuds, exaggerated her disease and instilled the feeling she would die tomorrow. This disease is faith. Hope springs eternal. The sunrise must not die. And Earlyborn (as you remember, she got her name, since she was borne at the crack of dawn) seemed to reborn every day. Sad thoughts came to her mind almost every evening, but as the morning came, she kept them away in attempt to start the new life and merely be happy, looking at the sun. Faith does not let an ill person die, and only the lack of belief make people die. Belief in your strength to withstand life in the battle for the youth and territory. Belief in your abilities to change this world gives you the reason to live. Accidents are the God’s will. “How many ships did sink while last storm spread to Bermuda and the northern part of the Atlantic,” Zhenka thought, rubbing one sharp pebble stone with another. It was stunning to gaze at life powder that spattered the ground after this process. If we speculate properly, we will find out that anything, even diamonds, gold, appeared from one molecule or from the simple Big Bang. Then we can call ourselves dust. And the dust—our brother. Zhenka called in mind memories of his childhood, when he skipped extra drawing lessons, to which his mother took him nearly under pressure, so that he did not spend much time playing with the rabble and running to the Lake. Zhenka did not appreciate these efforts. Years went by. His mother, who learned him so much good and brought him up as an individual, passed away; that rabble also passed away, once fallen under the ice in the Lake in winter. All of a sudden, Zhenka discovered the love to drawing in himself. Although he did not have a gift for this, he continued making and polishing sketches of one thing. It was a small lily and his mother’s darling face that he brought through his childhood. She often came with this lily in her threads in summer, as some people come with a bunch of chamomiles from the field. She told Zhenka the lily was a symbol of her life to him. Everyone on the market was baffled about the purpose of the lily she purchased every day, yet she knew there was beauty in it. Recently Zhenka started drawing a different portrait of the mother—as if it partly reflected his sister, who was younger than he and did not manage to learn skills and secrets, which we should definitely inherit from our mothers. Zhenka drew Earlyborn with the aloe leaf behind her ear. He wanted to warm her heart doing this, to help her soul feel better, since he saw her health problems and strange examinations she did at the doctor’s. They soon went to bed. As the dawn came down the earth, Zhenka got the clear picture of the aloe leaf. It was literally fragrant on the paper. Earlyborn sniffed its smell, lying on the hammock at the seashore, and smiled, while Zhenka, like a manly soldier, draw her portrait and guarded her sleep.
Chapter 15
When the next morning Zhenka disentangled the hammock after Earlyborn’s night fall on the cold from the night storms sand, he was humming the tune of the unknown origin: it was either the old or the composed impromptu one. How vast is the discrepancy between the thoughts come into the mind of a person at the time different. I do not take into consideration the long timespans. Only the ideas of a person who did sleep enough and the one who did not. Such a condition could be compared to one when you lie on your back at the beach, looking above, in the sky, for some time, and when you lie on your stomach and see nothing but sand for another time. There is quite a difference. As Earlyborn slept well, her glance at the world, Zhenka and the tiny crab had changed now, and it seemed to her they moved to another place. Did she miss her apartment in Paris? You bet! People who do not miss, do not live. A person must always await something. Anticipation is a strong feeling. On Monday a person should anticipate his walks towards home during the weekdays; on Friday—how he would have a good sleep at weekends; at midday—that he would do yoga in the evening. In his childhood, a person may well anticipate driving his own car and going shopping on his own. “Turns scarlet the dusk—December, the blueness with colour of ginger; all have and don’t ask a stranger” These words, probably, appeared in a tiny crab’s head when it came out at the beach and became intoxicated with freedom. It got used to the diversity of life around. There are school teachers and the course of study. They tend to teach us following a defined system with the use of undefined methods. How on earth can studying at school be defined? People are not robots. If you ask me, what the school is for, I would say it is folklore, where nerves are the main characters. I reckon that education make people believe: people feel awkward because they are bored. Then it becomes clear why there are many awkward teenagers today. Everything is simple: now they are frowned and placed into a stuffy classroom instead of sitting by the fire and listening to the flames cracking in November. Yet conditions are same for everyone. We should study just for three reasons: this will help you find your vocation, it will make your mentors and relatives, and, in addition to that, you will be able to earn a living with it. Everyone asks, “And where did the nobility disappear?” On the whole, it did not disappear. We cannot get rid of habits that built our souls at once, as a diver is not able to swim quickly back to the water surface from the depth in two kilometres, even though you will seek for his help. Differences in underwater pressure are huge. Noblemen and peasants are with us. Only relationships between them changed. Now it is named “capitalism”. Zhenka went to drive his new car among the undiscovered areas, keeping it secret from Earlyborn, who went to wash the clothes in bay. Everything had been alright before the crocodiles began to cross the road.
7
Zhenka speaks about the abstract from the Russian novel