Page 25 - Revelation

Svetlana de Rohan-Levashova. Revelation

frightened faces around and the owner, endlessly asking whether everything was all
right with me. Of course I was not all right, but I was not going to confess it and
declared that I would go home. A whole crowd accompanied me. My poor
grandmother almost fainted, when she suddenly saw that impressive "procession"
which chaperoned me home.

I stayed in bed for ten days. As it turned out later, the fact that I managed to get
off with just a scratch after such a stunning seven meter deep "flight" with my head
downward was considered something unbelievable. The owner, Schreiber, came to
us every day for some reason, every time bringing a kilogram of candies and asked
whether I truly felt all right. To tell the truth, he looked very scared.
Be that as it may, I am sure that someone had put a "pillow" under me; someone,
who considered it too soon for me to break my head. By that time my very short life
had contained quite lot of "strange" cases of this kind. Some happened and very
quickly were forgotten, others were remembered, although they were not necessarily
interesting. Thus for an unknown reason, I well remember the case with making a fire.

The fire that did not warm up

All neighbour's kids (including me) were very keen on making campfires,
especially, when we were allowed to bake potatoes there, which was one of our
favourite delicacies, and making such a campfire was a real festivity for us! Indeed,
could something else ever be compared with scalding potato, which we just fished out
from the fire with our sticks, smelling fabulous and powdered with ash?! One would
really have to try hard to stay serious, on seeing our awaiting and thoroughly
concentrated faces: we sat around a campfire, as if not having eaten for a whole month,
like hungry Robinson Crusoes. And at that very instant nothing in the world was more
delicious for us than that little, smoking ball of potato slowly baking in our campfire.

Exactly in one of such cheery "potato" evenings the next "unbelievable"
adventure happened to me. It was a quiet and warm summer evening and it already
started getting dark. We gathered at somebody's "potato" field, found a suitable place,
brought a sufficient amount of firewood and were ready to make a campfire when
somebody noticed that we had forgotten the most important thing – matches. Our
disappointment had no limit. Nobody wanted to go back home and get them, because
we had come quite far away. We tried to make fire in the ancient way – rubbing a
piece of wood against another piece of wood, but very soon patience ran out even in
the most persistent of us.
Suddenly one boy said:

— Oh! We completely forgot that our "little witch" is here with us! Well,
c’mon! Do it! Set fire!
They often called me a "little witch" and it was more a rather tender nickname,
than offensive.
Therefore, I was not offended, but, honestly speaking, was taken aback. To my
huge regret, I had never set a fire in my life; it somehow never occurred to me to do
this kind of thing. But this was the first time they had asked me to do something and
I, certainly, was not going to let such a chance slip away and moreover, "lose face".

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