Бесплатный фрагмент - The Tale of Music, Man and the Dwarf, the Keeper of Precious Stones

Once upon a time Music lived in a cave. She was very young and consisted of a simple sound: drops fell from the ceiling into a puddle on the clay floor, and the booming echo made this clear sound wide and filled the entire space with it. Then the steady “drip-drip” began to be intertwined with the rustle of insects that had chosen the cave and made it their home. And then the dwarf came with a big pickaxe, and every day from morning till night he knocked on the walls of the far part of the cave with this pickaxe. At this time, all sounds shrank: the sharp, hard blows of the pickaxe on the stones drowned out everything around them.

Only at night, when the dwarf sat down with a bag of colored stones near the puddle and leaned on his pickaxe and dozed, the lively sounds of drops, seasoned with a slow rustle, became audible again. Music, as if taking a deep breath, was playing again.

The dwarf never spoke to anyone. But one day, looking at the puddle and the circles of drops running through it, he said:

“Listen, Music! I took almost everything I wanted in this cave — soon I will go from here to another cave. Come with me. I slept well to your sounds — you can be useful to me, and I can be useful to you. I will make wonderful instruments out of rock crystal and gold, and you will be able to sound more beautiful than ever.”

“I want to go to the part of the cave where the light sometimes breaks through,” Music replied. “I’m very interested to see what’s out there, and if there’s anything outside…”

“Everything that’s out there is all a fuss that always has the beginning and the end. There are chaos and uncertainty there… only precious stones and metals have importance and value on this planet — they are eternal. Order exists only in their verified forms. Come with me and you will play the eternity instruments.”

“How funny you are!” Music smiled enigmatically. “I’m very young — I don’t need your eternity. Eternity is boring and silent. I want to know what’s around me. Maybe I can be useful not only to you, the stone miner, but also to someone else.”

The music flapped its transparent wings and flew towards the cave’s exit. The dwarf stared after her. “Nothing,” he thought, “the world is fragile and changeable. The world will disappoint you, and you will come to me, the keeper of order and eternity. Time will pass and you will return…”

Music had already flown out of the cave and then stopped, closing her eyes as the bright light blinded her. When she had adapted to the sun, she began to look around and listen — there was silence all around. The trees, the grass, and even the wind were silent.

“Fast Wind,” she called, “where are you going?”

The wind sighed sadly in response — it could not speak.

“Poor thing,” Music flapped its wings, “come on, let’s do it together!” she flew with the wind past the grasses — the grasses rustled; past the trees — the leaves fluttered and rustled in a friendly chorus. “And now you should do it yourself — fly and whistle!”

The wind flew and whistled, and then boomed loudly in the hollow of an old tree:

“Thank You, Music! I learned to speak. Now I can use sounds to express what I think. Thanks…”

The trees and grasses echoed the wind: “Thank you, Music…”

The next day, Music met the birds. They were also silent.

“I’ll teach you to sing,” said Music. “Listen to the rain, the trees creaking, the wind whistling through their branches… Now you should try it yourself.”

And the birds began to try. They tried, tried — and learned to sing! Yes, it was good to hear, and Music listened them long.