The road to the right turned out to be... How did Mother say she was passing by? Or is she passing by? In short, the road was shitty. It was a swamp, a storm, a black gloomy spruce tree... In such a spruce-tree I wanted to get lucky or to get stuck.
However, Antonin suddenly realized that he did not have any stick in his sight and there was no sheath from it, and in general there was nothing habitual except black robes reminiscent of a torn black jacket and soft comfortable boots on it.
Dolokhov continued to go forward, already on one stubbornness - and, at last, saw the light. Melnik parted, and he approached the strangest building in the world - a hut on chicken legs.
- I wasn't drinking before the battle," he muttered in bewilderment.
My legs were long, covered in yellow leather, thick and rough, and had very impressive claws. The hut's visible wall was deaf - no doors, no windows - but a pipe of blue smoke was sticking out of the covered straw roof.
He walked around the hut trying to find the door, but the hut's dragonfly stepped on its feet, turning its back all the time. Something like that was in her memory, almost forgotten... Here!
- The hut was a hut, stand back to the forest, and to me in front of it! - He said, surprised himself. He hadn't talked to the houses yet.
Surprisingly, the stubborn structure obeyed - and, creaking and stepping on his feet, turned around - and he saw a normal door and a pair of windows curtained with unexpectedly white curtains.
But how to get to that door was still not clear, because the threshold was eight feet above the ground. It was possible, of course, to cling to it with one's hands and try to pull it up - and if the house doesn't decide to lie down suddenly... Merlin, where did he go?
- The owners! - He called for it. - You won't let him in?
The door opened completely silently, and on the doorstep there appeared an old woman in a rag instead of a dress, tied with a dirty apron, and in a bright red shawl, suddenly coquettishly tied on grey cosmos. Thin as a pole, she scratched a large wart, which decorated her large, bird beak-like nose, and said:
- Goy, good for you, good for you. Where and from where do you keep the way?
- And this one is the same," said Dolokhov. - Here they said hello to you. From the cat on the Prophetic Stone.
- Well, come here, - the old woman bared, exposing in her grin completely whole, but very curved and uneven, and also yellow teeth.
- What to give? - he didn't understand.
- Hello," the old lady said mockingly. - Get up here," she said, "and the hut suddenly knelt down on its knees, so now there's only about a foot left from the ground to the doorstep.
He stepped into the doorway and tilted his head down.
- Good health to you, Grandma! And the cat said hello to you in his words, so.
The jokers got close to you," he thought, "that the cat is a grandmother.
- In words," the grandmother repeated with dissatisfaction. - The animal... what to take from it. Well, what about you? - She put her hands in her sides and looked at him - and Dolokhov couldn't take his eyes away from her left hand.
Which, strictly speaking, wasn't exactly a hand: from the usual limb there were only bones available. And how they moved, in the absence of joints, and how they held together, Dolokhov did not understand.
- Where and from where do you keep the way? - Meanwhile, she asked her grandmother.
- I am going to the right of the prophetic stone," Dolokhov said briefly.
And I thought that he was lucky to have strange acquaintances: one foot and no eye, the other nose, the third hand ... Now there's this grandmother...
- To the right, you say, - grandmother spoke with interest. - What is your name? Let me guess, - she interrupted herself. - Ivan?
- Not Ivan, but Antonin," said Dolokhov. - But he is also a fool.
- Oh, you fool," the grandmother gladly agreed with him. - Why do you answer at once? - She bumped into him. - Al didn't know the rules at all?
- What rules? - Dolokhov was surprised.
- Who tells everything at once? - My grandmother shook my head. - Yes, she says her name. First, you have to eat and sing, then you have to steam in a bath and sleep in the morning... I'm really stupid at all," she said.
- In a bath... - He sighed. - I've only heard fairy tales about the bath. A long time ago, as a child. But it wouldn't hurt to eat and sleep.
- How did you get to us like that? - My grandmother asked me dissatisfiedly. - Although what now... and go to the bath," she nodded at the door. - Bannik, come on, waited. When you come back, your granddaughter will feed you and put you to bed. She's a quick and beautiful girl," she said. - Remember: if you touch her, you will hurt me and break the law of hospitality. And no - tomorrow we will talk.
Сontinuation should be...