Аннотация: Перевод рассказа Н. Сладкова "Лесные тайнички"
FOREST HIDE-OUTS
The forest is deep, green, and full of rustlings, squeaks, and songs.
Then a hunter entered it, and everybody hid in alarm. Like a wave in the water from a cast stone, alarm spread from tree to tree. All hid behind bushes and between the branches--and quieted down.
Now, if you want to see things--become invisible yourself; if you want to hear them--be un-heard; if you want to understand--just stand still.
I know this. I know that from all the forest hideouts quickly moving eyes are watching me, and moist noses are catching the smells that are carried off me by the breezes. There are plenty of birds and beasts around me. However, should you try to find them!
I came here to seek the scops owl--a tiny, starling-sized bird.
All night long, it cries, like a wind-up toy, its call: "Scree! Scree! Scree!"--just as a clock would go "Tick! Tick! Tick!"
At dawn, however, that forest clock will stop: the scops owl falls silent and hides. In addition, it hides so adroitly that it is as if the bird was never in the forest at all.
The call of the scops owl--the nighttime clock--was heard by many, yet what does the bird look like? I knew it only from pictures. Moreover, I wanted to see it live so badly that I spent the whole day in the forest, examined every tree and branch, and peeked into every bush. I got tired. I got hungry. However, I never found the owl.
Therefore, I sat down onto an old stump. Moreover, I sat quietly.
In addition, behold, out of nowhere, a snake makes an appearance. A gray-colored one as well. Its flat head hangs off a thin neck like a bud off a stem. It had crawled out of somewhere and stared me right in the eye, as if expecting something.
The snake can get into any place, so it ought to know.
Therefore, I spoke to it, as if it were a fairy tale:
"Snake, oh snake, tell me, where dwells the scops owl, the night-time clock?"
The snake just flicked its tongue and slithered back into the grass.
Moreover, just like in a fairy tale, the forest's hideouts opened before me.
The snake took its time to slither through the grass, appeared once more next to another stump, and slid beneath its moss-covered roots. It slid beneath, but what slid out was a big green lizard with a blue head! It was as if someone had pushed it out. The lizard rustled through dry leaves--and scuttled into someone's burrow.
In the burrow was another hideout. A blunt-faced vole owned it.
The blue-headed lizard, fled from the burrow, from darkness into light, became disoriented, and fled under a lying log, scared the vole.
Squeaks and scurrying started beneath the log. There too was a hideout. Moreover, the whole day long two critters slept in it--the edible dormice. Two critters that looked like small squirrels.
The dormice fled from the log, crazed with fear. Their tails were perked upright. They fled up a tree. They chattered, and then they grew even more scared, spiraling further and further up around the trunk.
Moreover, higher up in the tree trunk was a hole.
The dormice fled into it--and crashed into each other at the entrance! Squeaking from pain, they charged simultaneously at the hole and fell into it together at once.
In addition, out of it--whoosh!--a small arboreal imp emerged. The feather tufts on top of its head were raised just like horns. Its eyes were round and yellow. It sat on a branch with its back towards me, but turned its head around so far that it stared me right in the face.
Of course, it was no imp, but the scops owl-the nighttime clock!
I did not have time to blink when it whooshed back into the foliage. Moreover, from there came scurrying and squeaks: someone else was hiding there as well.
Thus from tree-hole to tree-hole, from burrow to burrow, from log to log, from bush to bush, from crack to crack scurries the forest's small folk, revealing to me their hiding places.
From tree to tree, from bush to bush, like a wave from a rock, the alarm spreads through the forest. All hid behind bushes and between the branches--and quieted down.
If you want to see things--become invisible yourself; if you want to hear them--be unheard; if you want to understand--just stand still.
![[google gemini]](/img/k/kaminjar_d_g/foresthide-outs/hideouts.jpg)