.
he goes with these flowers in hand...
eyes without any expression...
He is being asked: do you want to go to school?
I do!
What marks will you receive?
A's!
Attaboy.
He is brought to school.
There is many dressed up people,
girls also with flowers, such ribbons...
Ribbons like this, but girls are standing like this...
Girls, too, are afraid.
Then...
first bell...
There's your first teacher, go, give her flowers.
And go there yourselves...
And children were brought away.
Afterwards, boy returns from school...
so weird.
[they] ask him:
How was it?
What "how?"! It's not boy asking this,
that's me asking: what "how?"
Did you think it was different? Didn't you know where you brought him?
Mendeleyev wasn't waiting long for new ones.
So why do you ask?
He, too, will be going...silent.
Motorboat was going.
I sat, I had new uniform on which was smelling of warehouse
and fresh...dye.
I was sitting. And from all things I had from my home
there was only an apple left.
Apple was in some plastic bag
where it was wet and there was such apple inside...
all in such brown spots which appear on apple from hits...
it was not nice.
It also had a little twig and little dry leaf.
Leaf had gotten soaked because it was wet
in the bag and it was such wet dry leaf.
You can't say it any other way.
It was wet dray leaf!
This apple was given to me by mom when she saw me off to service,
she gave me it in railway station in native city...
Don't think she gave me it like this:
Son! Take [this] apple!
No, no, no.
That was bag with products.
There was some tomatoes, apples, canned food,
bread, cheese.
Salt in match-box.
Everything was eaten, there was just this apple
left because it was the smallest and ugliest one.
In that moment when motorboat was going...
more precisely, when island was coming towards us,
I didn't want to eat, I didn't even have thoughts about eating,
I just understood I have to eat this apple immediately while island hadn't definitely arrived.
I ate it immediately.
I ate it along with medulla,
with those membranes and seeds.
I had only this twig with a leaf in my fingers.
I twiddled it, I sat and twiddled it,
leaf like this, like that, like this, like that.
Then I threw it away.
What else was I supposed to do?
I had nothing left.
Absolutely nothing.
There was only me left
this me
well...me!
in new uniform
But until this I had whole life and much of everything.
Many things, people, activities.
[I had] whole life which...
Moreover, my life wasn't ending this moment,
I hadn't died, correct? I hadn't died.
It's just that I threw this twig away
and in that moment
this man appeared.
But motorboat kept on going.
Nothing had changed.
I was sitting and looking forward.
If to read in a book: "he was sitting and looking forward",
you can imagine in different ways how he was sitting...
But me, no...I was just sitting like this.
In such position of body head is like this,
there is face on the head, and there are eyes on the face.
It's not that I was sitting and looking forward.
I was sitting and seeing forward!
Then I turned my head together with face and eyes...
and I looked there.
And there between cape and island was such water
that it was clear...it was in such colour that it was clear
there was so much water I couldn't even comprehend.
Until this I hadn't properly seen the sea.
We had only little river in our city.
I had whole life there,
but then I turned my head like this...
I had whole life...
but then I turned my head like this...
And I saw ocean for the first time in my life.
I was once asked
Tell, what is the sky above Pacific Ocean like?
I said: but sk...
sky...
and suddenly I realized I hadn't looked there even once.
I hadn't looked there even once!
????
But sky was always there.
There was sky during day and during night.
There was sky above Russian Island, too.
There shouldn't be sky above this place.
How is it possible to have