Сергей Довлатов – Pushkin Hills / Заповедник. Книга для чтения на английском языке (страница 9)

There was no sound in response. Chickens maundered about. Golden braids of onions hung above the porch…

“I’ll make your life hell! I’ll.”

Red-faced and dishevelled, Mikhail Ivanych bellowed:

“Have you forgot?! Have you forgot everything, you snake? Clean forgot it?!”

“What’d I forget?” Nikitin leant out.

“If you forgot, we’ll remind you!”

“What’d I forget, eh?”

“We remember everything! We remember 1917! We whatchamacallit… We dispossessed you, you scummy scrud! We’ll dispossess your whole Party lot! We’ll ship you off to the Cheka[62]. Like Daddy Makhno[63]. There they’ll show you…”

And after a short pause:

“Hey neighbour, lend me a fiver… All right, a trey. I’m begging you, for the love of Christ. you larder bitch!”

Finally I mustered up the courage to start work. I was assigned a group of tourists from the Baltics. These were reserved, disciplined people who listened contentedly and did not ask questions. I tried to be brief and was not entirely sure I was being understood.

Later I would be given a full overview. Tourists from Riga are the best-mannered. Whatever you say, they smile and nod in agreement. If they do ask questions, then they’re always on the practical side: how many serfs did Pushkin own? What was the revenue from Mikhailovskoye? What was the total cost of renovations to the manor house?

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