Несовременные записки. Том 3 - страница 24

The cardboard castle was in the album indeed where its coloured components were precisely contoured — and one had only to cut out its parts with scissors and rig them up. They began to do it at once. The boy worked diligently, just like out-of-doors recently, but, unlike in the forest, it was the man who supervised the process now. They cut bright-red serrated walls and towers with arrow-loops, a black drawbridge on paper chains, a dark-blue building of the castle itself and, at last, figures of armoured horsemen and multicoloured unmounted spear-carriers, sword-carriers and archers. After that the boy produced a box with tin soldiers in it from under a closet and undertook their attack on the castle which continued for good thirty minutes. It goes without saying that the defenders of the castle were fighting valiantly and at the end of battle smote the foe hip and thigh.

'It's a good castle,' the boy said wiping his brow, 'but it's not real.'

'Where's real, then?' his father asked. 'In the forest?'

'Yes, there… there it's real,' answered the boy gravely.

You are right, kiddy, the man said in his mind again: of course, this paper fort could never have become a citadel for us; but the glade on the ravine brink could have been the very place for our stronghold or for just a dwelling — could have been but for… too many buts, though, and the most essential but is your mummy who had given birth to you, similarly with the way another mummy had given the same good old thing to your favourite John Bonham. And still you are right, kiddy — the place you've chosen is real, indeed.

'Do you want to hear a story about one knight?' he asked his son.

'What night?'

'Not night, but knight — an armoured horseman, clear?'

'Oh, yes!' laughed the boy happily as he had understood the verbal trick. 'Such a funny thing, Daddy! A night and a knight, I mean.'

They sat on a sofa side by side, the proud valorous defenders of the cardboard castle and the slain tin soldiers all around them on the floor, and the man began his story about the knight, his deeds, his dearly beloved woman, and her death and resurrection. He stopped his narration soon, for his little one, fatigued by the walk in cold weather and the exerted battle for the paper citadel, fell asleep leaning on his father's side.

Next time they appeared on the left bank in a month. It was a hot July afternoon, and the old burg in the hollow was hazed with the bluish mass of immobile scorched air. They were walking along the same path, apparently going to their temporarily forsaken but not forgotten castle. Again, like a month ago, they plunged down to the bottom of the ravine, skipped over the almost dried brook and climbed the opposite brink of the gully. The boy remembered the way perfectly well, and even luxuriant growth of green grass didn't prevent him to define the place without any doubt.

'It's O.K., Daddy,' he said having examined the glade and found their masonry intact. 'Now let's play king, knight and enemies.'

The man was a king, the boy was a knight, and the pines around were their enemies. There were a lot of them — but the knight chopped off their heads with his magic sword and released the king who had been captured by the adversaries and had been waiting for death in prison. And they stood together after the fight which had been hard and victorious, hand in hand again — the tiny rescuer and the burly grateful rescuee: the knight and his king, without a queen. She was not remembered then, anyhow.

'I want to fly, Daddy. Fly me please, Daddy,' the boy asked softly, knowing that in any case his father would hear him, and would take him under his arms, and would throw him up as high as he can, and it would be a wonderful and at the same time a bit fearful thing, but there'd be nothing to be afraid of, for the father would never drop him on the ground but would always catch him with his strong hands.

The man embraced the boy, held him in his hug for some seconds, then tossed him up, caught him and tossed up again. The two hearts were palpitating with joy and delight beside each other; the knight's little heart was flying up, away from the big one of the king, and the next moment was returning under force of gravity, and God only knows which gravity was stronger then — that of the Earth or of the king's heart. And the last motion of the knight's heart was towards the king's — but not away from it.