To my teacher Перевод на английский рассказа Льва

To my teacher
Leo Kalyuzhny
I apologize in advance for the errors that I apparently missed.



The inconvenient for heaven star
Unwillingly burnt over us.


         Rain had pounded on the roof of the veranda, at first pettily, then harder, strained, and suddenly hit onto thousands of little drums (drumlets). Leva slightly opened his eyes, but his dream had not released him yet, enshrouding the being at birth consciousness with an unpredictably outlined fog. The rumble of water bouncing off the roof reflected off the walls, the earth, sky and ravened (gnawed) into the brain with one undesirable thought at those minutes: “It's soggy, it's time to get up.” The day promised to be as usually, a weekday. Leva slowly, as though being afraid of he would lose the sliding out of his consciousness dream, started to get ready for work, but he devoted some tiny piece inside himself to thoughts about Pasternak:
"In the remains of dream reality was being born." And here is another one – “rames of torrents”. What wonderful colors this “favorite of the gods” applied to the canvas of poetry. On the canvas of poetry? Somehow too standard. It was it, slightly blind standard, that Pasternak did not recognized. And, was not only it? His poetry is an immense without pretentiousness, fineness without a sore point, accuracy without compromises, convincing, as well as pain from a cut is. Nevertheless, you won’t be cut over of Pasternak. He will whack you together, glue, lick and gold. A sharpen feather of limitless fantasy – he is a miracle. “And I am undergrowth”, Leva thought of himself, finishing to gather, – Okay, it is time to go.”.
         The road to work was long, but almost never seemed taking a long time. Passing through forests and spaces, it calmed down him, led him away from hard thoughts, enshroud him with the combed in reckon green foliage.
         Somewhere in the middle, there was a enormous high (tall) pine, on both sides of the road. They stood in the open space like sentries, proud and strong. Now, after the rain, their little needles (needlelets) were being silvered with freshness, like the capillary little vessels, allowing the sky to cautiously flow with blue pieces around them. “Beautiful…”, – Leva thought, – “How fortunate that I can sometimes notice beauty. And how fortunate that I can share it with ...”. Stop! There is no Natasha any more. Natasha, who was his friend, his right hand, no, his two hands, she is gone, disappeared, hid off. The forgotten a long time ago feeling of loneliness in a dictatorial way again rejoiced over him. People die in loneliness, but do not they live by the alone one? After all, to whisper with someone about the innermost thing one can just to pain rarely, even when there are lots of friends around. One can talk about the beauty of the sky only with one’s chosen one. Natasha was exactly such one! The ability to watch and see was her pivot trait ...
         Leva entered his laboratory and began to look at the list of the date patients. Ten patients as usual. Ten hearts which one need to photograph, tape, describe on paper and pass on these describes to cardiologists. Ten different people, who will lie on the laboratory bed for forty-five minutes, sharing with Leva the slightly illuminated darkness of the laboratory room. Ten different characters, who connected to each other by the only thing – a test of their hearts.
         Leva prepared the equipment, checked once again the cleanliness of the room scraped by the cleaners during the night, folded up the necessary documents, and began his working day.
         Patients arrived without delaying. Leva took pictures, carefully assessing the state of the lying side by side at the distance of his elbow, beating under the ultrasonic rays, hearts. The diagnoses were alike each other, the time flowed imperceptibly in a measured way. Stenosis of the arterial valve, dilatation of the aorta, distension and weakness of the heart muscle were routine diseases and it was clear from measurements that if any of the patients died today, it was clear, it would not be due to the condition of one’s heart. Leva joked and hummed. He liked his work, he liked the opportunity to talk with people, he liked the responsibility of the results of his measurements. It happened that he sent the patient directly to the operating table, and the patient was never ready for that.
         – How ?, – the patient asked without believing, – I can’t be operated on! I'm getting ready for the marathon, I'm fine. True, I started to choke a little yesterday, but, I think, it will pass.
         – It will pass, it will certainly pass, but only after the operation. You have the lamination of the aortic wall, a pillow has formed around the heart from the flowing out blood, still drop by drop, and, if the operation is delayed, the leaky, other side blood that suddenly becomes your enemy will clamp your heart, – Death! Do you want it?
         The patient was operated on, and ultrasound was checked so that the heart was free again. Now run your marathon, run ...

         During lunchtime, Leva thoughtfully looked at the defiantly ripe apple, and remembered that, in Olesha’s memoirs, Yuri Karlovich was looking for his out-reflection in the glossiness of cherries. Leva always believed that the beauty of the fruit was given to one for his quick crush. The juicier the apple, the faster it will be eaten. And, the more flaws, the longer it will be on the sidelines, dying not in someone’s stomach, but from His Majesty – decay. How strange sometimes nature manages its own beauty. It does not send a handsome man to the rabbish, tries to put him together with another one, heads him to go on the human life. 
And, here is the rosy fresh fruit, that must be eaten, digested, killed. And, all for the sake of someone has licked his lips. That is, the miracles for digestion, and just that’s all ..!

         By the way, about Olesha. His memoir advices – how to write in an expert manner, became Leva’s icon. Indeed, how to write a story without sticking in describing out the tiny details, but strictly keep on the reader’s canvas, as though constantly moving along the current of a full-flowing river without having been sucked into the channels among the islands of its delta? A writer cannot consider himself a giant, if he cannot reach heaven. So, how? …

         The afternoon was similar to before lunch. Heart diseases, acquired and congenital, Leva distinguished them very confidently. Patients, as if assorted, were elderly-aged, hard of hearing and, therefore, especially suspicious and touchy. Leva had to explain the details of the test loudly, trying to make patients feel themselves as comfortable as possible. The procedure was over, one man was going out, the next appeared instead of him? And so on the next, and the next. Finally, it i a quarter to four, the last patient ...

         Leva picked up the medical history (case- record), read the diagnosis and ... jerked. The last patient was a woman of thirty-eight years old, according to a comment on paper, tenaciously seized by breast cancer.
         Oncologists, struggling with the disease, prescribe a treatment that can weaken the heart muscle. Ultrasound is the instrument that is able to see the change. However, it is better not to look at it. Breast cancer, which Leo called the the Beauty Cancer, was the same product of Nature as the beauty itself – a woman was.
         The patient walked in slowly, using a cane. Despite the a kerchief hiding the hairless from treatment head from prying eyes, it was clear that she was a woman of rare beauty. Leva told her how to prepare her herself for the test, explained how to wear a specially designed gown, and went out into the corridor. A few minutes later knocking on the door and having heard: “One may”, he came back the laboratory.
         The patient was lying on the bed, waiting for the start of the examination. Since the gown worn in a backwards way, and Leva supposed to work in the middle of the chest, he asked the woman to extend her left arm from the left sleeve. “That's right, very good.” Now you can pull the fabric and stick the electrodes ...
         As Leva often checked the hearts of patients with such a diagnosis and others ones, he had to see scars. However, now pulling off the fabric of her gown, for a moment he stopped to think. Two, as if licked out with a ladle, in some blue streaks yawners, glowed with pale skin in place of the removed breasts.
         The Beauty cancer has done its job. The flaccidity of the heart that appeared on the screen told Leva about everything.
         The patient is gone. It was dry outside and the wind hopelessly was striking newspapers on the asphalt. The day was as usual –a weekday.

The 2-11th of September 2013