Chapter 3

The next day, Kotik, coming to me, shared the news:

"I was at Gliere's." Yesterday! Yes! he cried out, "he wants to learn
me by all the rules of the composition! I do not need this at all! On
pianoforte! What can be expressed on this tempered dudur with her
unfortunate music scores? Mmo kcoloccol harmonization - is he
Did not you hear them? When my grandmother died, I fell in a fit, but when I later
stood up, I immediately played a new harmonization, and I wrote it down right away,
but
a record ... it always does not work, they do not understand it!
He said these words with such bitterness that a grimace appeared on his face,
in an instant it grew old.
- I knew all this when I started my childhood activities, I gave them to you
I'll show you when you come to me, because I have not yet met with
kolokolami! Preppodobnye! They do not understand what kkolo-kola is! Nno I
promised you to show the scheme! My 1701st sound! - he became animated and asked
for a sheet
paper.
While I cooked dinner in the kitchen, I warmed up the lentil gruel and
cranberry jelly, Kitty, sitting on the sofa in my room, drawing something and
inscribed. But I insisted that he ate first. He agreed willingly. From
eating his face became pink, he was sitting so handsome, attractive, smart,
healthy, which was strange to remember his heavenly music. It is inconceivable that
for a strange conglomerate this man! And how were these qualities cultivated in him
the fun he brings to his semi-tramps - by people - the days of the misunderstood
musician?
And here he is stretching this mysterious world! Drawing: it is painted
clearly,
correct lines and semicircles and inscribed in a round childish handwriting.
- It's quite simple! - Kotik explained, - 243 zazvuchaniya in each
Note (central and in both directions from it on 121 flat and 121 sharp), if
multiply by 7 notes of an octave, - it turns out 1701. Etto the same child will
understand!
Why do not they understand? Onni think, I'm fantasy! Because onni -
Do not hear! You understand? They do not hear, but it turns out - that I'm to
blame!
He felt ridiculous. He laughed pouringly, and one could call his laughter
childish - if it were not bitter and even desperate at the bottom. He somehow
choked on them and stopped laughing:
- Vot and my whole story! It's quite simple! But on the piano I can not
play these 243 sounds when these unfortunate blacks are missing - only one sharp
and one unfortunate flat ... I hear all the sounds they do not hear! No,
no not like this! - suddenly he cried out in an enlightened, burning voice - they
You hear it! That is, they do not hear the sound. But that impression,
which is obtained from the colocalization harmonizations, they distinguish it,
because
they go to listen to the game in the church of St. Maron ... "He suddenly withered.
Chegoto he was unable to finish, he only understandable. - Etthot Glier,
he ... "He stood up. "It's time for me to go ..."
- Cat! - I said very pleadingly, - but you can still
play - on the piano? The piano harmonization in E flat major, your
Mi-Bemol-Minor dedicated. You played somewhere, and people admired ...
We'll go with you to my friends - there's my girlfriend, a beauty,
concertmaster - no, it does not matter! - I hurried, seeing how the features of the
Cat
distorted. - I mean, she has a piano, great sound! And still there -
a little boy, such a child ... even if you do not like children - then this
you...
 "I'm a daddy, I like it," said Kitten. "The children understand better, they
just - understand! Well, I'll go with you and play. But if they had
were ksolkola ...
The address of the girlfriend, where I called Kitty, I gave him, appointing
the hour of the meeting.
But, being late for work, it was too late. I was already waiting for Kitty and the
accompanist
Nei in the high, spacious room of the big house with windows on Sretensky
Boulevard, behind a long table, richly - for those times - covered. Already
fed deliciously and abundantly, the bell-ringer talks incisively:
- In one house I met with ... with ... with ... - do not give him these
oncoming! - In a word, they are actors! And they persuaded me to play. Not no
think, not on my part (though on kkolokolah there too ...) on their part,
play in the theater - Fyodor Ioannovich, - there was such a knight. Ont tam on
their
kkolokolah ringing, so I understand! And I will be this king in royal clothes - and
I will have to call on kpolokolah! Something coming up? There they have them
bells? Absolutely useless ... Etto in the Kamergersky lane, called
the Moscow Art Theater.
Gray, dark eyes, under heavy eyelids, look at the guest with a smile
caressing attention. From strong myopia, she barely distinguishes the face of the
guest,
but clearly feels the presence of the unusual.
Big-eyed - eyes like his mother's, gray - four-year-old boy
too, does not take his eyes off the guest.
And Kitty is already wandering around the room - getting to know a new place.
Has stopped
at the piano, lifted the lid. Will she start playing now? But he persistently
struck and
hit the same key.
An elderly thin woman, the wife of the artist Altman, entered the room.
The note kept on eagerly. Found a flaw? Something strange. I approached. is he
held his finger on the "la".
"Why does not she hear?" I call her, "he asked in bewilderment.
Kitty, - she's a "la," a pure central note! Having understood, I already explained
entered:
- Faina Yuryevna, your key is "la!" And Constantine
Konstantinovich ...
"I will play the harmonization of M-Bemol," interrupted Kotik. Slow,
frankly, somehow everything goes from the bottom up sounds. Knelt before the
unattainable height of the E-flat? And all the multi-timbre flute creature
grand piano, all the violin, all the vocal and organ sound of it woven into
A new orchestration, causing bell voices. They rush within
pianos, giving birth to an unheard of in hearing.
I looked at my friends: the mother of my girlfriend, her daughter, Nei, on
their
elderly guest - Faina Yurievna, "la" - on the faces of all of them, so different,
there was one expression: the absorption of unexpected, unique! we
were present at the extraordinary.
It was not an imitation on the piano of the bells, as it is found in
some musicians - but quite another: with the help of the despised bell ringer
white and black keys, serving one sharp, one flat, - he found
way (could not find, yearning for the sound of the bell from morning to
night) create a bell in the keys!
It was the evening of a bell piano!
Something like a half-forgotten dream. Gloomy transitions, the height is not
long,
light and shadow, and the booming organ. We climbed the stairs of the conservatory
into the workroom of the Frozen Source. I am writing this word with a capital
letter
from himself, and involuntarily transferring his expression in the mouth of his son
- respect,
the title. Kotik did not tell me about his father, but later I found out that he
Gently loved his father from those years when he was not yet named Source, but was
just dad; from the days when his mother was alive, when he himself was curly and
and the father is young and cheerful ... These are the things that are immaterial,
Past, in eternity by a departed mother, invisible yet Future, as in New Year's
mirrors mirrored in each other, flashed on the dark staircases of the conservatory,
which we were going. All this was heard, like the hushed tinkling of a harp, like
inaudible
sound Veshnyakovskogo bell, and it was real here this immateriality
family tragedy ... As in old houses, there was a smell that night in our way, and
We walked as if not Moscow - St. Petersburg Gogol time.
And then, finally, the room. I do not remember furniture there, although she,
of course,
was. The doors and ceiling, and the windows into the unknown, were more clearly
etched. There was
hour evening, hour of absence, somewhere spent rest, and maybe someone's
concerts ...
Kitty hands me the album. I open - and am amazed: about ten years
a boy is sitting by the piano; dark wavy hair took possession of the forehead and
cheeks, and
from under them the eyes look into my soul. In them - detachment, dreaminess.
Despite the elegant costume, the sailor's - in a pose, in the essence of the child
-
sadness.
- This - I, this photo very much my grandmother loved: here, she
she said, I look like a mama ...
He turned the page. Then came the sheet music.
- Here are my children's compositions, I then studied on the piano. But I'm
very young
my teacher mumbled, I wanted to write, and he wanted me to play
scales ... But after lessons I loved it, good!
But now I'm looking at the already faded photo. In a very long
moire dress, is a young woman, carefully smoothed out small creases
at the knitted bottom of the dress, intricately outlining the hem with a pattern of
ruches. AT
a combination of black and whiteness is represented by its light mill,
The most feminine in the touching beauty of pure features. Spring, lily of the
valley
spring, happy; looks, does not smile. But, maybe, just about
smiles - so kind at the edge of shyness are big, in interrogative
sincerity, bright, under dark eyelashes and eyebrows, eyes. The nose is correct,
easily outlined nostrils. The mouth is slightly elusive in breathing,
simultaneously
light and lush. Forehead open, gracefully surrounded by light, selected
up hair, hair style simple and exquisite.
-- My mum! - Kotik says quietly ...