Алые паруса

Translated by F. Glagoleva, В. Scherr

ALEXANDER GRIN

SCARLET SAILS 

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ 
 
Г85

ISBN 978-5-9925-1394-3

Грин, Александр Степанович.

Г85  
Алые паруса : книга для чтения на английском языке / 
А. С. Грин — [пер. с русск. яз. Ф. Глаголевой, Б. Шерра] — 
Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 2019. — 256 с. — (Русская классическая литература на иностранных языках).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1394-3.

В книгу вошли замечательные произведения русского 
писателя Александра Грина «Алые паруса», «Искатели приключений», «Корабли в Лиссе»в переводе на английский язык.

УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ

© КАРО, 2019 
Все права защищены

Scarlet sails 
A FANTASY  
(translated by Fainna Glagoleva)

Presented and dedicated  
to Nina Nikolayevna Grin

by the AUTHOR
November 23,’ 1922 Petrograd

I. THE PROPHESY

Longren, a sailor of the Orion, a rugged, three
hundred ton brig on which he had served for ten 

years and to which he was attached more strongly 

than some sons are to their mothers, was finally 

forced to give up the sea.

This is how it came about. During one of his 

infrequent visits home he did not, as he always 

3

had, see his wife Mary from afar, standing on the 

doorstep, throwing up her hands and then running 

breathlessly towards him.

Instead, he found a distraught neighbour wom
an by the crib, a new piece of furniture in his small 

house.

“I tended her for three months, neighbour,” the 

woman said. “Here’s your daughter.”

Longren’s heart was numb with grief as he bent 

down and saw an eight-month-old mite peering in
tently at his long beard. Then he sat down, stared at 

the floor and began to twirl his moustache. It was 

wet as from the rain.

“When did Mary die?” he asked.

The woman recounted the sad tale, interrupt
ing herself to coo fondly at the child and assure 

him that Mary was now in Heaven. When Longren 

learned the details, Heaven seemed to him not much 

brighter than the woodshed, and he felt that the 

light of a plain lamp, were the three of them toge
ther now, would have been a joy unsurpassed to the 

woman who had gone on to the unknown Beyond.

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About three months previously the young 

mother’s finances had come to an abrupt end. 

At least half of the money Longren had left her 

was spent on doctors after her difficult confine
ment and on caring for the newborn infant; finally, 

the loss of a small but vital sum had forced Mary 

to appeal to Menners for a loan. Menners kept a ta
vern and shop and was considered a wealthy man. 

Mary went to see him at six o’clock in the evening. 

It was close to seven when the neighbour woman 

met her on the road to Liss. Mary had been weep
ing and was very upset. She said she was going to 

town to pawn her wedding ring. Then she added 

that Menners had agreed to lend her some money 

but had demanded her love in return. Mary had 

rejected him.

“There’s not a crumb in the house,” she had said 

to the neighbour.

“I’ll go into town. We’ll manage somehow until 

my husband returns.”

It was a cold, windy evening. In vain did the 

neighbour try to talk the young woman out of going 

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to Liss when night was approaching. “You’ll get wet, 

Mary. It’s beginning to rain, and the wind looks as 

if it will bring on a storm.”

It was at least a three hours’ brisk walk from 

the seaside village to town, but Mary did not heed 

her neighbour’s advice. “I won’t be an eyesore to 

you any more,” she said. “As it is, there’s hardly 

a family I haven’t borrowed bread, tea or flour 

from. I’ll pawn my ring, and that will take care 

of everything.” She went into town, returned and 

the following day took to her bed with a fever and 

chills; the rain and the evening frost had brought 

on double pneumonia, as the doctor from town, 

called in by the kind-hearted neighbour, had said. 

A week later there was an empty place in Longren’s 

double bed, and the neighbour woman moved into 

his house to care for his daughter. She was a widow 

and all alone in the world, so this was not a difficult 

task. “Besides,” she added, “the baby fills my days.”

Longren went off to town, quit his job, said 

goodbye to his comrades and returned home 

to raise little Assol. The widow stayed on in the 

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sailor’s house as a foster mother to the child until 

she had learned to walk well, but as soon as Assol 

stopped falling when she raised her foot to cross 

the threshold, Longren declared that from then 

on he intended to care for the child himself and, 

thanking the woman for her help and kindness, 

embarked on a lonely widower’s life, focusing all 

his thoughts, hopes, love and memories on the lit
tle girl.

Ten years of roaming the seas had not brought 

him much of a fortune. He began to work. Soon 

the shops in town were offering his toys for sale, 

finely-crafted small model boats, launches, one and 

two-deck sailing vessels, cruisers and steamboats; 

in a word, all that he knew so well and that, owing 

to the nature of the toys, partially made up for the 

hustle and bustle of the ports and the adventures 

of a life at sea. In this way Longren earned enough 

to keep them comfortable. He was not a sociable 

man, but now, after his wife’s death, he became 

something of a recluse. He was sometimes seen 

in a tavern of a holiday, but he would never join 

7

anyone and would down a glass of vodka at the bar 

and leave with a brief: “yes”, “no”, “hello”, “goodbye”, 

“getting along”, in reply to all his neighbours’ ques
tions and greetings. He could not stand visitors and 

would get rid of them without resorting to force, 

yet firmly, by hints and excuses which left the for
mer no choice but to invent a reason that prevented 

them from remaining further.

He, in turn, visited no one; thus, a wall of cold 

estrangement rose up between him and his fel
low-villagers, and if Longren’s work, the toys he 

made, had depended in any way on village affairs, 

he would have felt most keenly the consequences 

of this relationship. He bought all his wares and 

provisions in town, and Menners could not even 

boast of a box of matches he had sold to Longren. 

Longren did all his own housework and patiently 

learned the difficult art, so unusual for a man, of 

rearing a girl.

Assol was now five, and her father was begin
ning to smile ever more gently as he looked upon 

her sensitive, kind little face when she sat in his 

8

lap and puzzled over the mystery of his buttoned 

waistcoat or sang sailors’ chants, those wild, wind
blown rhymes. When sung by a child, with a lisp 

here and there, the chants made one think of 

a dancing bear with a pale blue ribbon around its 

neck. At about this time something occurred that, 

casting its shadow upon the father, shrouded the 

daughter as well.

It was spring, an early spring as harsh as win
ter, but still unlike it. A biting North off-shore wind 

whipped across the cold earth for about three 

weeks.

The fishing boats, dragged up onto the beach, 

formed a long row of dark keels which seemed like 

the backbones of some monstrous fish on the white 

sand. No one dared to venture out to sea in such 

weather. The single village street was deserted; the 

cold whirlwind, racing down from the hills along 

the shore and off towards the vacant horizon, made 

the “open air” a terrible torture. All the chimneys of 

Kaperna smoked from dawn till dusk, shaking the 

smoke out over the steep roofs.

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However, the days of the fierce North wind en
ticed Longren out of his cozy little house more often 

than did the sun, which cast its coverlets of spun gold 

over the sea and Kaperna on a clear day. Longren 

would go to the very end of the long wooden pier and 

there he would smoke his pipe at length, the wind 

carrying off the smoke, and watch the sandy bottom, 

bared near the shore when the waves retreated, foam 

up in grey froth that barely caught up with the waves 

whose rumbling progress towards the black, stormy 

horizon filled the space between with flocks of weird, 

long-maned creatures galloping off in wild abandon 

to their distant point of solace. The moaning and the 

noise, the crashing thunder of the huge, upthrusted 

masses of water and the seemingly visible currents 

of wind that whipped across the vicinity — for so 

forceful was its unhampered course — produced 

that dulling, deafening sensation in Longren’s tor
tured soul which, reducing grief to undefin-able 

sadness, is equal in its effect to deep slumber.

On one such day Menners’ twelve-year-old 

son Hin, noticing that his father’s boat was being 

10