One autumn, our group of kindergarten was taken out by the teacher Valentina Aleksandrovna for a walk. There was a classic "Boldin Autumn", a real riot of colors withering nature. Children, as always, played on the veranda. Valentina Alexandrovna, usually in a gloomy, irritated state, was unusually gay this morning. Lively paint in the overall palette of joyful excitement was added by the boy Vasya, who brought yellow, crimson and orange leaves in a bucket, which he poured out on the verandah and began to throw up his arms. The leaves swirled enchantingly in the air, fascinating the look and causing universal rejoicing. "Very beautiful! What a fine fellow you are, Vasya! "- said Valentina Alexandrovna, and Lena gave Vasya such a look, for which I was ready to jump off the bridge across the Ob. This I could not forgive the boy Vasya. I took a bucket and, without specifying where he took such beautiful leaves, went to the nearest garbage dump, picked up leaves, which generously heated the janitor, came and with great pathos dumped the contents on the veranda. All would be nothing, but the leaves, as it turned out, contained "naturprodukt", namely - dog feces. Needless to say, what effect produced my action! Valentina Alexandrovna in one instant for ever got rid of depression, as a real karatek with an edge of the hand slammed my neck, and then grabbed my ear and twisted it so that the blood gushed from the auricle with a fountain. This strange physiological feature of my body, which is apparently explained by too thin capillaries, close to the tympanic membrane, more than once later rescued me in army fights. Abundant bloodletting from the ear at the slightest blow, not causing serious harm to my health, plunged opponents into panic horror and forced them to abandon further violence. Valentina Alexandrovna, I remember, was very frightened then, took me to the shower, where I hastily washed off the "traces of the crime," and then, before the father who came to take me, spilled such oil that it disgusted me. I did not say anything to the parents about the incident; I was not so ashamed - when I remembered the scornful look Lena had given me - the witness of the failed "Golden Autumn Festival".
There were other, no less "successful" attempts to win the love of this cute girl. Once, after watching the feature film "The Red Tent", I decided to demonstrate to Lena and the whole court my contempt for the cold. Let me remind you that the main character, a hardened polar explorer, gives his clothes to his freezing comrades, remaining only in his underwear at 50 degrees below zero. I really liked this episode. And one frosty February morning, when I found the worthy audience and Lena in the courtyard, I loudly declared: "Look at everything!" - began to throw off his clothes in the snow, left only in shorts and a vest. On the home-grown asshole came out to see almost the whole of our house, in which mainly police officers lived. But my mother came back from my store, which did not let me get warm in the "rays of glory", immediately showered the "polar explorer" from the heart, and, grabbing her clothes from the snow, dragged her "scumbag" home. Another attempt to win a woman's heart failed!
And yet, I do not remember how and when, but I managed to reverse the situation - Lena, at last, answered me with her. We became friends, and this friendship lasted from 1 to 3 classes. The main mistake of adults is that they underestimate children, their undoubted emotional maturity, sometimes on equal terms, competing with the emotionality of adults. Sometimes it seems to me that the Creator, by the age of 5 completing the formation of consciousness and perception of a person, carries them, practically without change, through the whole human life. Anyway, now I fully identify myself with that boy in love with Sergei, I perfectly remember my then shame for unseemly acts and my love experiences, which are still fresh in memories, as if it were yesterday. The tender love of two small creatures manifested itself in rather chaste things: together we left and returned from school, and I, of course, carried Lena's portfolio; They clung to each other in awkward embraces at the corners; I do not remember exactly whether they kissed, but if they kissed, it was only on the cheek.
And I also gave Lenochka gifts from my mother's wardrobe. The fact is that the 70s of the last century gave a message of modest existence in virtually all spheres of human life. Women of that time dressed in much the same way as the Chinese during the "cultural revolution" - not gray jackets, of course, but very monotonous and miserable. The eye had nothing to catch on the streets of the city: everywhere flashed products of the Barnaul factory "Avangard" of the same cut and color. My mother, a proud Polish girl, would never have accepted such a monotonous "disgrace". Wherever we came, in the new place, my mother always got a personal tailor, who was "wrapped" in patterns from Soviet fashion magazines. And things from her, I tell you, at that time were very exclusive. For every thing: a dress or a suit - my mother carefully chose jewelry, modest in price, but matched with taste and indubitable decorative delights. All this mother's treasure was kept in the malachite casket. It was to this casket with jewelry that I "laid eyes",
