– Here to you and two and a half dielectric constant of ebonite! – Guzik answered.
– You talk nonsense, the brother?
– And, it you, Vanya? Hi! – Guzik rose, shook off and faced Vanyushka. Dense chestnut, a little curly hair over a high forehead and big, very transparent light gray eyes, always the thoughtful, looking somewhere afar, as if penetrating material objects – “x-ray” as Volkov was expressed once. These eyes involuntarily attracted attention.
The young electrical engineer, the scientific inventor Mikola Guzik was simple as the child, and is phenomenally absent-minded. But this absent-mindedness belonged only to the outside world and external things, and there was it because that Guzik was able to concentrate so deeply internally that forgot about all surrounding.
– We go to have dinner, perhaps! – Vanyushka told.
– Yes, yes … – Guzik answered and, having transferred a look of transparent eyes from unknown world heights on a dynamo, again took seat on hunkers and began to potter at the car.
– Mikola-chudotvorets! – Vanyushka cried suddenly and began to shake Guzik for shoulders. – There is enough! Let’s go to the dining room! – And it dragged the scientific friend. – Makar Ivanych to have dinner! – he shouted by the way to Konobeev.
In the dining room Volkov already sat. Пунь gave on a table. To everyone’s astonishment, Ji Zi did not welcome by a lunch.
– Where Kye Tsa? – Volkov Pun asked.
– Цолт зял (the devil took) – she answered. – And let!
Guzik could not eat for days on end. But, having taken seat at a table and having deeply thought, he managed to eat imperceptibly for himself and more, than it is necessary. Once he one ate a big frying pan of the liver prepared for all. Now the young inventor was accepted to the sauce made of a sea cabbage and absorbed it with big appetite, penetrating Konobeev an unseeing look.
– And well, let’s try! – Vanyushka told, moving to himself a sauce-boat and imposing on a plate.
Sauce was very tasty and nutritious, but Vanyushka discontentedly moved a nose.
– Not that! – he told, having sighed.
– Not habit, and more than nothing – Volkov objected – the sea cabbage is more tasty terrestrial and is much more nutritious. When you get used, will not want another. And I am sure that the sea cabbage will be the same necessary dish at each table soon as potato. Potatoes in the beginning did not want too and were even afraid to eat. The locust, ants, swallow’s nests seem to you disgusting, and meanwhile at many tribes these foods are the most delicious dish.
Vanyushka even punched himself a breast.
– Semyon Alekseevich! I feel, I understand! If did not understand, then and on a bottom would not get. For the sake of what I got? For the sake of this most sea cabbage got. But only, Semyon Alekseevich, did not get used I still. Here Marfa Zakharovna treated us with Russian cabbage soup recently. Natural. Ah, it is impossible to forget, Semyon Alekseevich! Beauty! – And suddenly, having slapped Konobeev on a back, Vanyushka exclaimed: – Makar Ivanych, you remember? No, as you want, and we will bring Marfa Zakharovna here. If under water at us Russian cabbage soup begins to smell, absolutely other ocean will be. Beauty! Only as, Makar Ivanych? On what a hook on what bait to us to catch this small fish – Marfa Zakharovna, that is?
Konobeev sighed and even put a spoon aside.
– Still such hook on which it would be possible to catch such independent old women is not made – he answered. – Is afraid of a sin, by stupidity of babsky. Staroverka it at me.
– And you are a conservative too? – Vanyushka asked.
– Was and all left, however! – Konobeev answered. – Temnost.
Makar Ivanovich deeply thought of something, then, without having ended a lunch, rose because of a table and left.
– Misses! – said Vanyushk in low tones, having nodded after Co-nobeevu. – Eh you, a kruchenye-muchenye with this floor, with a long hem.
And Konobeev passed to the room, gloomy, anxious. His dense eyebrows, moustaches and a beard puffed up and continuously moved. He put on a diving suit. The old man wanted on the coast, but he did not decide to show the face to Marfa Zakharovna. And it went far to the South, to investigations. Konobeev very much loved these investigations. Then he reported on all seen under water on Volkov: where what soil where seaweed where they do not grow grow, but can grow.
Konobeev wandered the whole day, returned late at night, settled on a floor – he did not like to sleep on a bed – and began to turn and sigh so that he woke Guzik.
– What do you turn, Makar Ivanovich? – asked it Mikol.
– By bad weather. The typhoon will be – Konobeev answered. – Always I feel!
But not one approach of a typhoon forced it to turn and sigh on – elephant. He felt sorry for the old woman, Marfa Zakharovna who this night turns one in the Chinese fanza under a fir-tree. The fir-tree rustles, the door creaks, the dog barks, and it is one…
It is not a pity for the old woman, but also he can throw water. No, cannot in any way! And how to give up the adjusted business, whether a joke?
Makar Ivanovich began to remember the life up to that moment as it met Volkov.
Chapter 4
UNDERWATER STATE FARM
Konobeev was born and grew up in Primorye. His father was a hunter. And Makar Ivanovich still the ten-year-old boy already went with the father to a bear. How many it laid them then on the century, coming to an animal “in private”! But unlike the father who was present “a forest person” Makar Ivanovich had a public vein. In old time, before revolution, he tried to organize artel of hunters and fishers. But from this nothing left. Konobeev trustfully distributed to members of artel money which he saved, selling furs; he was deceived, left with money and did not return.
After the revolution Makar Ivanovich removed to the ocean coast and was engaged in fishing – at first one, then in small artel from Dalselsoyuz. But from time to time in it the hunter woke up, and he threw a seine and to a jail to undertake the gun and a bear spear. During these hunting hard drinkings Konobeev also met the agronomist Volkov, too the inveterate hunter. They made friends soon as two isty professionals.
Volkov lodged in Primorye not so long ago. Earlier it worked in Belarus on collective-farm construction. But it had an uneasy nature. Having bored with work of the land surveyor, it was attached to one scientific expedition which went to the Far East. Beauty and an originality of this edge so captivated Volkov that he remained to live there.
It had the true intuition of the hunter and a keen eye. If Konobeev “cost” four tens bears, then Volkov had other merits: it with own hand killed two tigers – a quite good experience for the beginner. However, it had to kill one tiger, having incidentally come across it and defending. Only exclusive composure and resourcefulness saved to it life. The tiger was killed, but, already dying, managed to scratch a cheek to Volkov one claw, having left a mark for the rest of life.
Sitting at a fire, Konobeev and Volkov told each other infinite stories from hunting life.
One morning they came to the seashore. There was an end of October. Weather was extremely silent. In the ocean the outflow bared shallows with the heaps of seaweed which are swept together on them. Near the coast two Japanese were engaged in strange occupation. One of them sat in the square-tipped boat loaded with the bamboo branches connected in a bunch. The second Japanese, having put a naked leg on edge of the boat, other leg, leaning all weight of a body, stepped on the conic