On a terrace stayed one lady. She was wiping a railing. And near her there was a swining litthe girl. It was middle of a day and air has already warmed up. It was hot and stuffy. A flower garden with blooming narcissuses and tulips surrounded the terrace. Raspberry was blossoming. Suddenly, the girl jumped down from the swing and ran to a gravel path.
“A grasshopper!”,- shouted she.
“Oh, don’t you want to catch it?”- said the lady.
“But it’s so small and it can spring away”
It seemed that the girl wasn’t disappointed. The insect jumped and disappeared in a bush, but the girl was sitting near the path viewing different plants.
“And? It mustn’t stop you”
Lastly, the girl stood up and sat to the swing again. She liked the way the wind was blowing her face. Moreover, then she felt quite confidently.
“Michael from the kindergarten said that grasshoppers can fly. And even if I can jump, I can’t fly. If a grasshopper flies away from me, I’ll just waste my time. After all, do you know how much time’ll pass away?...- she stopped swinging for a minute and tryed to count how many minutes or even hours she will waste on a grasshopper-catching, - But I wanted else to play with Kate on a playground and to walk with you today”
“Dear, grasshoppers can’t fly. Maybe Michael confused them with locusts?”,- said the lady. Now she was just standing on the terrace and looking at her sister. She was incredibly beautiful. Her long weat hair was shining on the sun and sweet honey-colored eyes were blissfully looking around. It could seem that between them both there was something more than a simply consanguinity. However, it was beyond a human perception.
The girls were so similar that if they had only born at one day, they were absolutely same. And the girl was an absolute lady’s reflection.
“No. Michael never confuses. And I know that locusts can fly. They are very big and eat raspberry. Also, Michael’s smart and he always tells me something interesting. For example, did you know that animals don’t being reborn? They just die”
“How does he know that?”,- this claim didn’t alarmed her, maybe even calmed.
For a while they were keeping silence. Only squeak of the swing and rustling of the surrounding trees could be heard. These sounds were faint and extremely soft. Leaves were jiggling and the little girl was still swinging on the big swing.
A grasshopper appeared again. A grasshopper was chirping with its legs and looking at the different sides.
“See it?- said the lady,- it came to you by itself. And it wasn’t even necessary to fly".
Ïåðåâîä ñ ðóññêîãî íà àíãëèéñêèé ðàññêàçà "Êóçíå÷èê"