Бегущая по волнам. Крысолов (L)

The cult novel of the last Russian romantic Alexander Grin takes the reader into the enchanting world of an unattainable dream, where a fairy tale lives next to reality, and the characters believe in the power of goodness and beauty. Subtle, lyrical and at the same time surprisingly dynamic novel "Running on the Waves" is filled with Green's unique atmosphere of waiting for a miracle, the dream of the Unfulfilled, embodied in the image of Fresy Grant. "When the days begin to gather dust and the colors fade, I take Green ... Everything becomes light, bright, everything mysteriously excites again, as in childhood" (D. Granin).

One of Green's best short stories "The Pied Piper closes the chain of the greatest poetic works about old Petersburg-Petrograd, the magical city of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Blok ..." (Vera Panova)
The realistic description of the "revolutionary" half-empty Petrograd is organic turns into a mythical battle between the Pied Piper and the Liberator (a giant overseas rat). The main character is faced with such an ability of rats, which almost lured him into a deadly trap, appearing to him in the form of a little boy, then his beloved girl. When he finally gets to the Pied Piper, he reads to him an excerpt from the medieval German book by Ert Ertrus “The Pantry of the Rat King”: “This insidious and gloomy creature owns the powers of the human mind. It also possesses the secrets of the dungeons where it hides. It is in his power to change his appearance, appearing as a man, with arms and legs, in clothes, having a face, eyes similar to a human and not even inferior to a man - as his full, although not real, image. Rats can also cause incurable disease, using the means available only to them. They are favored by pestilence, famine, war, flood and invasion. Then they gather under the sign of mysterious transformations, acting like people, and you will talk to them without knowing who they are. They steal and sell with a profit surprising to an honest worker, and deceive with the splendor of their clothes and softness of speech. They kill and burn, cheat and lie in wait; surround with luxury, eat and drink enough and have everything in abundance. Gold and silver are their favorite loot, as well as precious stones, which are stored underground.
"But enough reading," said the Pied Piper, "and of course you can guess why I translated this particular place."
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