Blue Notebook / Голубая тетрадь. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Даниил Хармс

right eye.

      Abram Demyanovich rubbed the eye and suddenly saw daylight. And then something jumped out of his left eye, too, and Abram Demyanovich saw the light.

      From that day on it was all downhill for Abram Demyanovich.

      Everywhere Abram Demyanovich was in great demand.

      In the People's Committee for Heavy Industry office Abram Demyanovich was a minor sensation.

      And so Abram Demyanovich became a great man.

      An Unexpected Drinking Bout

      Once Antonina Alekseyevna struck her husband with her office stamp and imprinted his forehead with stamp – pad ink.

      The mortally offended Pyotr Leonidovich, Antonina Alekseyevna's husband, locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn't let anyone in.

      However, the residents of the communal flat, having a strong need to get in to where Pyotr Leonidovich was sitting, decided to break down the locked door by force.

      Seeing that the game was up, Pyotr Leonidovich came out of the bathroom and, going back into his own flat, lay down on the bed.

      But Antonina Alekseyevna decided to persecute her husband to the limit. She tore up little bits of paper and showered them on to Pyotr Leonidovich who was lying on the bed.

      The infuriated Pyotr Leonidovich leaped out into the corridor and set about tearing the wallpaper.

      At this point all the residents ran out and, seeing what the hapless Pyotr Leonidovich was doing, they threw themselves on to him and ripped the waistcoat that he was wearing.

      Pyotr Leonidovich ran off to the porter's office.

      During this time, Antonina Alekseyevna had stripped naked and had hidden in a trunk.

      Ten minutes later Pyotr Leonidovich returned, followed by the house manager.

      Not finding his wife in the room, Pyotr Leonidovich and the house manager decided to take advantage of the empty premises in order to down some vodka. Pyotr Leonidovich undertook to run off to the corner for the said beverage.

      When Pyotr Leonidovich had gone out, Antonina Alekseyevna climbed out of the trunk and appeared before the house manager in a state of nakedness.

      The shaken house manager leaped from his chair and rushed up to the window, but, seeing the stout build of the young twenty – six – year – old woman, he suddenly gave way to wild rapture.

      At this point Pyotr Leonidovich returned with a litre of vodka.

      Catching sight of what was afoot in his room, Pyotr Leonidovich knitted his brows.

      But his spouse Antonina Alekseyevna showed him her office stamp and Pyotr Leonidovich calmed down. Antonina Alekseyevna expressed a desire to participate in the drinking session, but strictly on condition that she maintain her naked state and, to boot, that she sit on the table on which it was proposed to set out the snacks to accompany the vodka. The men sat down on chairs, Antonina Alekseyevna sat on the table and the drinking commenced.

      It cannot be called hygienic if a naked young woman is sitting on the very table at which people are eating. Moreover, Antonina Alekseyevna was a woman of a rather plump build and not all that particular about her bodily cleanliness, so it was a pretty devilish state of affairs.

      Soon, however, they had all drunk themselves into a stupor and fallen asleep: the men on the floor and Antonina Alekseyevna on the table.

      And silence was established in the communal flat

      Theme for a Story

      A certain engineer has made up his mind to build a huge brick wall across Petersburg. He considers how to accomplish this, doesn't sleep for nights cogitating it. Gradually a group of engineering planners is formed and a plan for the construction of the wall is elaborated. It was decided to build the wall at night, indeed, to build the whole thing in one night, so that it would appear as a surprise to everyone. Workers are summoned. The organisation is under way. The city authorities are sidelined and finally the night arrives when this wall is to be built. The building of the wall is known only to four men. The workers and engineers receive exact instructions as to whom to place where and what to do. Thanks to exact calculation, they succeed in putting up the wall in a single night. On the following day there is consternation in Petersburg. And the inventor of the wall is himself dejected. To what use this wall was to be put, he himself did not know.

      The destiny of a professor's wife

      Once a professor had something to eat, and you could not say a little something, and he began to feel sick. His wife approached him and said: «What's wrong with you?» And the professor said: «Nothing.» The wife went back to the kitchen.

      The professor lay down on a divan, stayed there for a while, got some rest, and went to work.

      And there, a surprise awaited him: they had cut down his salary, instead of 650 rubles now he made only 500. The professor tried everything, but nothing would help. He went to the director, but the director wanted to strangle him. He went to the bookkeeper, and the bookkeeper said: «You should go see the director.» The professor got on a train and went to Moscow.

      On the train the professor caught the flu. When he got to Moscow, he was so sick he could not get off the train.

      He was put on a stretcher and taken to a hospital.

      He stayed there no longer than four days and died.

      The professor was cremated, and his ashes were put in a little jar and sent off to his wife.

      So here is the professor's wife, sitting and drinking coffee. Suddenly the doorbell rings. What's going on? «You got a parcel.» The wife is very happy, she is smiling, tipping the mailman with 5 rubles, and quickly opens the parcel.

      She looks, and inside the parcel are a little jar with the ashes and a note: «This is all that is left of your husband.»

      The wife cannot understand what is going on, she shakes the jar, looks at it, she reads the note six times – finally she understands and gets really sad.

      The wife gets on so very sad, she cries for three hours and then decides to bury the jar with the ashes. She wraps the jar in a newspaper and takes it to 1st Petoletka Park, formerly known as Tavrichesky.

      The wife finds a spot, a little out of the way, and then, as she is about to start digging – a park guard appears. «Hey!» shouts the guard. «What are you doing here?» The wife gets scared and says: «Oh nothing, I wanted to catch some frogs in a jar.» «Well,» says the guard, «that's OK, but be careful, it's forbidden to walk on the grass.»

      When the guard leaves, the wife buries the jar in the ground, packs the dirt and goes for a walk around the park.

      In the park a sailor approaches her. «Let's,» he says, «go somewhere and sleep.» She says: «Why would we sleep in the middle of the day?» And he is going on: «Sleep, sleep.»

      And really, the wife got sleepy.

      She is walking around and feeling very sleepy. Around her, some blue and green people are running around – and she is getting sleepier and sleepier.

      She is walking and sleeping. And she dreams that Leo Tolstoy approaches her with a patty in his hand. She asks him: «What is this?» And he points at the patty and says: «See.» He says: «Here I made something, and now I want the whole world to see it. So,» he says, «everybody can share it.»

      The wife looks and sees that this is not Tolstoy anymore, but a shack, and on the shack there is a hen.

      The wife starts chasing the hen, but the hen gets under the bed and from there peeks out, but now as a rabbit.

      The wife goes under the bed after the rabbit, and wakes up.

      She wakes up and sees: really, she is under the bed.

      She gets out from under the bed and sees – her own room. See, here is the table with the unfinished cup of coffee. On the table is the note: «This is all that is left of your husband.»

      The wife cries