Б. Сотников Русская любовь перевод на английский

RUSSIAN LOVE
             On the day of our flight home the sky began to frown since very sunrise – wrinkled, as if was going to cry. It was already cold to pour water over ourselves, and we, Genka and myself, decided to betray our habit – in the mornings the pools on the roads and near the Oka began to cover with the thin bristle ice, water in the forest brook, where we used to go, became torpid, heavy and blinked between the stones. The autumn thinned forest seemed sad and quiet, as if listened to the garrulous streams, such a dead silence settled in it. The wavy dark spots of the returned water swam in the stream together with the yellow leaves, separated from the slippery stones. Water began to smell rust. It badly hurt the teeth.
I didn’t feel like getting up and was lying in bed, thinking gloomily. The sunset through the window seemed gray and sad. There was silence in the room, and it was heard how the pendulum on the wall in Vasilisa’s room wove the time… We were silent, and she was silent too, putting her legs down on the floor from the bed and not dressing... Icould see her in the long night shirt, she didn’t shut the door to her room.

 Mashenka stirred in her room . Her door was  only overhung with a piece of cloth. I didn’t see her, only heard. It was something, like a low, covered with a palm, sobbing. But may be, it only seemed to me?.. But no, she was crying. Listening to her grief, I was recollecting, how we had flown here in spring to this airfield, the whole regiment of bombers, how asked Vasilisa to let us stay in her house – till autumn. And she, having lost her husband in the war  (she got the funeral message in 1942), now 10 years since, didn’t want for some reason to let her house to the military. I found out the reason only recently – she herself confessed. Her daughter was only 17 – the age, dangerous for its stupidity and confidence. And we were already 23 experienced years, the pilots in addition, and the uniform so beautiful. We were standing in front of Vasilisa in the dark- blue trousers and jackets, with the dirks at the sides. That’s why she was afraid of us, as the source of sin.  And why in the long run she consented, didn’t explain. Either she believed our eyes that we were not capable of baseness, or decided that with the two officers there was no place for sin. In short, she received us… True, with Genka she was not confident. Especially after he, being a painter, had painted Mashenka’s portrait.  Sitting for the portrait, she eyed him, and Vasilisa noticed it. But for me, for some reason, she had a complete confidence and once told me that she had already had a dweller, also a painter, who had come from Moscow for the sketches.   
        Listening to Mashenka’s low sobbing and Genka’s breathing heavily and at the same time, I as if really, heard Vasilisa’s tale about her former dweller:
– He settled last year – in the beginning of autumn – to paint our village landscapes. Well, let him, I thought, it was none of our business. So silent, in the tie. Already crumpled by years. But he more drank, than painted. Well, perhaps had enough money Would go to the forest or to the Oka, and return, hardly carrying the legs. And all the time looked unwell at my Marya. My neighbor had a he-goat, by the name Basurman. Exactly looksed, as this Vladislav Kazimirovich. The same bad glance. But didn’t allow himself anything. Was silent, as I said, and not very intelligent to my mind. I understood it, when he began to converse with me, deeming me not clever enough, So tried to look our equal, how to express himself simpler and sillier.  But I tried not to encourage him, and he gave it up. So, keep your silence, I didn’t care. Paid regularly, every 5 days, so he decided himself. And once, probably had drunk too much, came out of his silence and began, smelling alcohol, matchmaking.  And the only baseness in the eyes. I was hit, like a bolt out of the blue! My pure little apple-tree in blossom – for this philanderer?!  Though we are poor, but to give her to this crumpled drunkard – almost of the same age with me! – even with money, I’d better strangle myself! She herself would never agree – feeling disgust! So, I immediately drove him out, true, let him spend the night. But in the morning – there was no sign of him
Seeing the book in my hands, Vasilisa changed the subject:
– What do you burn the gas at?
– Just read, – I was confused, – but we have bought the gas.
– I am not about the gas, I am not sorry for somebody’s money. What is the book about?
– Russian history. One scientist wrote, Solovyov.
– Well? Did he write the truth? – Her eyes behind the glasses were attentive but seemed to me mocking. She was waiting what I would say.
– A good book. Probably, all was exactly the way it had been written.
–Marya also brings the books home – she has finished the 7-year school. She used to retell them to me. All about negroes, Indians, american slums, and no books about our life.
– No, there are good books about our life too, Vasilisa Kirillovna.
– I don’t argue, perhaps, there are. My Marya is also Russian. And her destiny is also ours – obviously, you see it yourself every day. They don’t write about it in the books, everything is only about love…
– And why haven’t you sent Masha somewhere to study?
– Oh, dear man! If she had a passport, would I see her here?.. Only a reference: Mariya Kirillovna Kuznetsova, a member of the collective farm “Lighthouse”. No photo, no seal with the coat of arms. It is, like at serfdom!.. If to show such a reference in the city, she won’t be able to get even a parcel at the post office!..
– And why is it so? – I asked, already knowing that the collective farmers had no passports.
– Don’t you guess? – Vasilisa wondered . To make it unable for the people run away from the collective farm. Our farms were poor before too, but after the war almost completely collapsed. So,young people tried to leave for the town, especially after the army. As soon as they got the papers, identifying them, come for a week to visit the relatives, and then – no sign of them for all who live here without the documents. And we, the old people, remaining here, are entertained during the holidays by the marches from the loudspeakers on the telegraph poles…
– Not that to allot something for the working day, to warm our hearts, no, they feed us with the marches.
– I think, such a situation will soon be changed, otherwise it would be the end of the collective farms.
– It has already come. – Vasilisa said. – Nobody, besides us, old women, wants to work for the ticks. We only hear at the meetings, how the chairman reproaches the young: you are afraid of the difficulties! What kind of Komsomol members you are! But think yourself, as a man, why do people need these difficulties? You pay them with a real working day, not with a tick into the book in the bookkeeper’s office, then they would understand everything without the meetings, and would feed all. But instead – our portraits on the board of honor. You go and look at us! These are faces from the hard labor, but with the medals on the breasts. I’ve got the whole box of them at home! But nothing to dress the daughter, a young girl: hasn’t earned enough!
– All the same, she looks, like a flower! – I have praised her.
– That’s because I save her, don’t let her go to our hard old women’s work, she is doing  the light one. And till I live, it will be so! For the ticks into the bargain!  Not for the life of me! If she has no other capital, it is necessary to save this one. May be will meet a good man and marry.
            Suddenly, as if remembering something, she grew stern:
– Only in vain your friend has painted her.
– But why? – I wondered.
– No, it was painted quite like her, only she shouldn’t know that she is such. You will leave, and she would kitchen garden think all fellows not worthy of her! – Vasilisa said angrily and left to her room. 
I knew, Vasilisa really didn’t allow Masha work hard – she saved her health and beauty. Masha worked only till dinner, then returned home, busied herself on the beds in the kitchen garden which fed them. Well, gave corn to the hens, brought the cow and milk her. Those were all her concerns. Compared with her mother, it seemed that the work was easy, but still, her palms were hard. Cracked with the work on the kitchen garden beds, hay, firewood. Also not very easy. But all the same, she was filled with juice, like a ripe apple!
To be continued.