My fair- haired head froze in the forbs. Fascinated by the mysterious nature of nature, I looked with wide- open eyes at the untouched beauty of the grass, on scurrying, with insecure fussiness, insects, buzzing, rustling, chirring in the grass. On the trees of the old garden and finally my eyes meet with the sky. I look into his bottomless blue, lying on my back. How you want to fly into the boundless attracting space, soar in it, and watch, and look from the height to your native village. To the garden in which I now lie. To the apiary. At the ancient park. On your house, which is standing next to it, it’s worth climbing over the fence and crossing the road.
The sun rises higher and higher. The colors of the morning gradually lose their transparency, turning into discolored tones. The day flares up. It’s getting hot in the sun, real sunshine. A hot breeze brings smells of pine resin. With difficulty, tearing myself away from the beckoning coolness of the herbs, I walked along the piley green pulp of the grass carpet toward the white little hive- houses, which were lined with apiaries, behind the netting, apiaries…
Through the glass, the only large window on the plank floor of the room falls a sheaf of sun rays, delineating a neat square with moving shadows of leaves in it. Close to the window sill, lined with straight lines (sundials), there is a table, at the same time it is a workbench for carpentry. It smells of tart, resinous aroma. The fresh shavings and spicy smell of wax coming from the frames, entirely hung on the walls of the room, create this amazing aroma of honey of wax and pine shavings.
The furnishing of the beekeeper’s utility room is supplemented by a stove laid almost to the ceiling. In the corner of the room, opposite the window on the left, is a metal barrel with a centrifuge inside. From the big handle through gear gearing the rotation is transferred to the centrifuge.
An old man is sitting at the bench. He holds a thick book in his hands and carefully reads it. Through the round glasses, which have been lowered to the nose, the brown concentrated eyes from under the hanging gray eyebrows look into the book. The old man suddenly broke away from reading, listened. Behind the door there were footsteps. He turned his head and looked inquiringly at the door. A boy appeared on the threshold:
– Hello, grandfather!
– Ah, it’s you, Valik. Come in, come in. «The old man said in a soft, kind voice.
– I’m driving, but it’s time to see the bee already?
It’s time, it’s time. It’s already been a long time. Oh- ho- ho. What did you do earlier?
– That’s why I came so early. «I’m sorry,» I answered, grief.
«Well, nothing.» The beekeeper smiled crookedly.
He, with a puff, rose heavily and headed for the centrifuge with an old, shuffling gait:
«And I’ve prepared you a medication.» And grunting, he took a frame from the barrel with heavy honeycombs full of amber honey.
– Take the mug and get the water.
Honey, mixed with wax honeycombs, melted in the mouth and was much more delicious than honey, which is eaten just a spoon. I took out the neat chewed lumps from my mouth and threw them in a bucket, where The beekeeper dumped pieces of wax to then fuse the wax ingot. These bars he exchanged for wax screensavers in the framework with marked on them neat hexahedrons, for future bee masonry. Having filled with honey, I drank two three sips of water from a heavy copper mug and again began to chew juicy honey combs. And so, relishing, ate and ate until the beekeeper stopped me:
– Come on, show me your stomach.
I tore up the shirt, revealing a swollen, like a drum and a round belly.
He deliberately surprised, carefully examining and probing my belly with a rough hand. «So honey started to perform!»
«And maybe I’m full and I will have a turn in the intestines?» – I thought cautiously. And he did not dare to ask a clever beekeeper about this, instead he asked:
– I’m driving, but, what is this for your mug like that?
– What is this?
– Well, such here, like and small, and heavy. «I turned a copper mug in my hands,
– From our house and a large mug, and light.
– Well, so you have, and then we have.
This usually ended the conversation. But, I wanted to talk. I looked inquisitively at the gray, shaggy eyebrows of the old man, and continued:
– And what are you reading?
– What do I read? Err, it’s still too early for you to know.
He closed the massive binding of the book and pushed the thick volume aside. Then he got up from his chair, attentively, examining some lines traced in pencil on the windowsill. The shadow from the window frame already coincided with one of them. Gruffly grunting, the old man said:
– Well, now it’s time to go lady.
It was insulting in the heart of the old man. And what is he so taciturn, scares the honey that appeared on his stomach. Yes, apparently, the bee- keeper does not like the guests. On the way home, I stopped in front of the garden fence. He looked around at the sides, then hastily pulled up his shirt and carefully examined his stomach. The belly glistened with droplets of sweat that protruded all over its surface, and those droplets were so similar to the droplets of honey that the finger unwittingly reached out to the sticky beads and collected several on a bundle of finger. To taste, the droplets turned out to be the most ordinary bottoms and were bitterly saline. If only his boys noticed him, friends. Peace would run away from him forever. But they were not there and the boy continued to study his bulging belly. He even turned to the sun, but all in vain, except for small sparkles- drops of sweat, honey was nowhere to be found. So the beekeeper deceived him? Again, annoyance came to the throat of a treacherous lump. I frowned, tucked my shirt into my pants, put on my right shoulder a harness- brace, so that they would not fall off, jump over the fence…
Summer, hot season for rural workers working in the field. Summer day passes quickly, like one minute. For children running to kindergartens, and schoolchildren vacationing on vacation, the summer day rushes in a moment, changing the morning to noon, noon for the evening. And the herds are already roaring, returning from the pastures, in the brass rays of the setting sun. Hear calls from mothers calling home to play children.
In the evening, at dinner, I asked my mother:
– Mom, who’s the beekeeper?
Mother replied in displeasure:
– You better ask your grandmother.
I scowled again.
«Well, why, why do not they talk to me kindly? Err, here Father Valchi always with a smile, always tells everything about everything in the world. "But, curiosity prevailed. And I went up to my grandmother, who at that time was busy, as always, by the stove. Grandmother turned to me a face, all dug with deep fine wrinkles, with an ever trembling chin: – What are you jumping from behind the table? Sit down, I hear. „I sat down again at the table.“ I’ll get potatoes and meat now.»
Grandmother, deftly using the pitchforks, removed the hot pot from the stove.
– Ba ah, ah, grandmother?
– Yes, I hear, I hear. Chogee to you?
– And who is the bee- keeper? – I was not building.
– Yes identity Fedos Kuzmovich, dyachek!
– Ba ah, ah, grandmother, what’s that, dyachek?
– This is the one who reads the psalms in the church. Here you go with me to stick a pasture there and See.
Chapter 3
My