Tarasovna paid attention to me. Having learned that I am a guest of her summer resident, she lowered a voice on several tones why its shrillness did not decrease, and with forced affability invited me «to be as at home».
– Really really will not even be enough for a samovar? – I asked, cautiously glancing at the small river and feeling what in a throat at me dried up.
– Will be enough, will be enough, do not worry. We have a well. Vaska! Deliver a samovar to the guest.
I turned back and saw the guy of years of eighteen lying on a grass; it was Tarasovna’s son and her assistant – adding on a mill. Vaska it is lazy rose, stegnut a rod a grass and started wandering to the house, and Tarasovna tormented to me ears with a shrill voice for a long time, complaining of a drought, of the dried-up Ilevka, of god, of the whole world. Its mill stood, and the mill feeds it with children, feeds all year.
– And that for the people irresponsible! See: to a mosquito to get drunk will not be enough, and they – to grind. As though I refuse bread!.
– The samovar began to boil! – Vasily from the yard shouted.
– Welcome.
I did not manage to drink tea in a garden among mean apple-trees yet as I heard a familiar voice of Wagner:
The village where Evgeny missed,
There was a charming corner…
– You miss? – Wagner took seat for a little table near me. He told me that he becomes in the city, I to it – about the impressions.
– Yes, Tarasovna should help. Go after tea to it to a mill – professor offered.
And we went. Wagner was in the most cheerful mood.
– It is possible to look at the device of your mill? – he asked.
Tarasovna graciously resolved, and we with professor entered the twilight of a mill. Wagner examined its simple mechanics.
– For one and a half thousand years mills were under construction B.C., it is not enough what differing from this – Wagner told. – How many it at you in day of a namalyval?
– How many will bring, it is so much and namalyvat – Tarasovna answered. – Fifty centners, and even it is more when there is a lot of water.
– So, so. – Wagner thoughtfully nodded. – I do not promise fifty centners, but ten can be ground. For a start. And then we will look.
– Hundred! If at least hundred! – Tarasovna sighed. Wagner stood some more minutes over millstones, tried a shaft, thought and told:
– Here that, Anna Tarasovna. I will deliver you the small engine. It will only be necessary to rearrange millstones – these will be great for my engine. I will fit your old, it will be possible to make small of them. Vasily will help me. But only a promise is a promise. My engine will be in a box. Do not open this box and you do not watch what is in it, otherwise you will damage the engine, and then I will help nothing to you. Goes?
– Really! Yes of course! Yes unless I?. Be mercy!
Wagner turned to work. Vasily and I helped him.
I decided that, most likely, Wagner wants to put the small kerosene or oil engine. But why such mystery?
We worked almost till midnight. When we with Vasily fell down for fatigue and strong fell asleep, Wagner continued to work: it did not need rest.
Having woken up in the morning, I went to a mill. Wagner was there. He established quite voluminous box over millstones and now was busy with the fact that removed an iron pipe through a ceiling.
– Help me – he told.
– Chimney? – I asked.
Wagner lowed in reply something uncertain, but eyes so derisively and cheerfully glanced at me that I solved: Wagner starts something curious. It is not similar to the gazolinovy engine.
– What is in this box? – I asked.
– Engine.
– What?
– Crippled.
– Eternal? – I asked again, thinking that I misheard. But Wagner answered nothing. It strongly began to knock the axe, cutting through a hole in a ceiling. Through this hole it removed a pipe. Then Wagner asked us to leave and, having remained one, was engaged in the last preparations. In a few minutes I heard as millstones zavorochatsya slowly. I looked at the pipe rising meters by five over a roof, but did not notice over it the slightest sign of smoke or steam.
Wagner opened doors of a mill and invited us to enter.
– The mill works – he told, addressing Tarasovna. – You see this handle on a box? When want to stop a mill, turn the handle.
– Why to stop? It is more than enough of grain, I will grind day and night.
– Well also grind on health. Only you remember an arrangement: not to open a box.
Tarasovna began to thank Wagner.
– For the present there is nothing. When you collect flour for a grinding, then thank. We go – he addressed me. We went outside. – Now I go to Moscow – Wagner told. I will arrive back by a lunch by very interesting car.
– Car?
– D-d-yes – Wagner stretched. – Autofugue. Samobezhka, so to speak. Yes here you will see.
Having waved me at parting a hand, Wagner went to the station, vigorous, fresh in spite of the fact that worked all night long. I went to a garden, found for the town in a shadow of a shed and went deep into reading. However this day I was not fated to enjoy rest.
Bloodcurdling women’s scream sounded from a mill. As if two corkscrews made white-hot bored through to me eardrums, and at the same time and a brain. The violent cry which broke off silence sleepy Stryabtsov could be made only by vocal chords of the respectable widow Tulikova. Possibly, the bishop Gatton alive eaten by rats did not shout so before death as cried out Tarasovn. But what could frighten her so? On a mill was many rats and mice, but Tarasovna got used to them. I did not manage to rise from the earth as shout unexpectedly stopped on the choking note as though to Tarasovna someone squeezed a throat. I ran to a mill.
After a bright sun in the twilight of a mill at the first moment I could sort nothing. Everything was silent. Millstones continued the work. I took several steps and was hooked by a leg for something soft. My eyes already got used to the twilight a little. Having bent, I saw the heavy body of the widow Tulikova lying prone on a floor. Her one hand was rejected aside, fingers are convulsively compressed in a fist, other hand was pressed by a body… Murder?. Sudden death?. I turned Tarasovna’s body, took a hand and groped pulse. It was hardly notable. Tarasovna, probably, was in a deep faint.
I took a ladle and ran to the small river to gather waters and to sprinkle a little on Tarasovna. It seemed to me that I returned very quickly. But during this time Tarasovna already recovered. I did not manage to approach to the wide doors of a mill as from there ran out with the same violent shout of Tarasovn. As the enraged cow, she flew on me, brought down from legs, and the water from a ladle intended for its reduction in feeling poured over me. My side was decently hurt by the heavy foot which ran on my plunged Tarasovna’s body, the nape strongly hurt. I lay on the earth probably for about a minute while, at last, had an opportunity to think. At the end of the village, about the Village Council, Tarasovna’s shout interrupted by abrupt exclamations was heard. I hardly raised the head and took seat on the dusty road. On the occasion of a holiday peasants were at home, and members of the Village Council, sitting on a zavalinka at the chairman’s log hut, peacefully discussed public affairs when Tarasovna’s shout blew up before them as a bomb. The chairman поковырял in ears as if taking the got stuck Tarasovna’s squeals from there, and something told her. She began to chatter loudly again. Then all rose. The chairman called to the militiaman, and all moved to a mill. I noticed that Tarasovna, the woman not of shy ten, went in the thick of crowd, probably, being afraid to act forward. I rose, shook off and welcomed authorities.
– Well, show where it? – the chairman asked, shortening a stride.
– Yes here a box over a millstone, you see? – Tarasovna told, without entering a mill.
The chairman, probably, was afraid, but «noblesse oblige». It carefully approached a box.
– Here it piece what. How this box opens? Well, maybe, you understand better? – he addressed the militiaman.
The militiaman, the young guy in freckles, approached a box and bravely lifted a cover. At the same moment of Tarasovn shouted and ran out on the street. After it also the crowd of curious which jammed into a mill took to the heels. Only authorities remained on a mill. But also they involuntarily started back, having glanced in a box. I approached closer and when uvidat that is in a box, was struck not less the others.
In a box the end of horizontally rotating shaft was concluded. The wheel with the handle is attached to a shaft. A human hand – a live hand! – strong held this handle, and, probably, it rotated a wheel, and together with it and the shaft setting in motion through millstone gear wheels. In an elbow joint the hand was attached to the metal cylinder. This cylinder was connected to the pipe coming to light. Besides, two glass tubules and, apparently, the electric wires leaving a box were inserted into the cylinder it is less. On the same small box the galvanometer and the manometer were established.
Yes, with an ulterior motive Tarasovna so shouted. A strange and terrible impression was made by this working live human hand. Tarasovna, as well as her legendary progenitress Eve, curiosity ruined. Wagner was the same bad expert on female psychology, as well as bible god. Do not tell Wagner Tarasovne what in a box cannot be looked, she would not take an interest in the mechanism setting millstones in motion, quite satisfied with the fact that they spin. But Wagner forbade it to look and it excited insuperable curiosity. And now she learned the terrible truth: its millstones spin with a hand of the dead person!
Authorities were stunned. They did not know how to react to such case which is not provided by the law.
– Citizen! Get out from a box! – the militiaman shouted, assuming that if the hand moves, then she belongs to the living person who, obviously, is hidden in a box. But the hand continued to twirl a wheel, and no citizen appeared.
– There is no place to hide to the person here – the chairman told. – You see, the shoulder in bank is moved, and it is higher than one small box.
– Violation of the code about work – was thoughtfully told by the chairman’s son-in-law, the weigher of the railway station. – Without labor exchange uninsured is employed and, probably. Violation of days of rest and working hours. It is possible to appeal against the resolution.
– Whose hand? – the militiaman asked, having quickened.
– The summer resident my Wagner attached to me. His hand! – Tarasovna answered. – «I – say – to you I will use a mill, only do not look in a box». Unless I knew? Fie! That hands to earn bread by mortuaries? I do not want to work at a devil’s mill!
– And than badly? – the old man with the cunning blinked eyes asked. – It is not necessary to feed, it is not necessary to pay, and works day and night. And to a braid such piece to fit it or, say, to thresh. You lie on the furnace yes you eat kalatches, and it…
– And you be silent! – angrily the militiaman told. – Do not force down. I ask, a hand whose? Perhaps, here the smertoubiystvo occurred. Perhaps to the person the hand was cut off, and he without hand goes now and looks for where a hand.
– Good gracious! – Tarasovna began to wail. – Well, as will come yes here will shout: «Give my hand!»
– Here that and it. It, citizens, not a joke, but a crime under the article of the Criminal code. Where your summer resident Wagner?
– In Moscow. Today has to be.
– Here we will arrest him and we will remove interrogation from it. From where it got a human hand and on what code operates it? To stop a grinding! Illegally.
– Ah, fathers! – again Tarasovna screamed. Now she bitterly regretted the curiosity, and it is even more in what in a temper stirred up about the hand which frightened her. – Unless you will stop it? Shout at it do not shout – will not hear, there are no ears. Twists and twists.
– Well and let twists, and do not fill up grain.
Talking loudly, all left a mill. I remained to look what will be done by Tarasovna. She did not dare to disobey an administration order did not fill up grain in a funnel any more. But she regretted a hand which now in vain a millstone spit or maybe it was a pity for millstones, and Tarasovna stopped work of a hand, having turned a rychazhok on a box.
– You did affairs! – I told Tarasovna, becoming angry about her for the fact that her curiosity and garrulity will give now a lot of trouble to Wagner. I for a minute did not doubt that Wagner did not commit any crime.
– You did! – she answered with irritation. – All mill was befouled! Here and people speak: devil’s mill.
The chairman of the Village Council and the militiaman returned with the press and sealing wax. The militiaman remembered that measures to protection of traces of crime are not taken.
– Ceased to grind? – the militiaman asked.
– Poshabashila – Tarasovna answered.
The chairman set the seal to doors of a box in which there was a hand, and Tarasovna awfully was afraid that the chairman did not burn a mill. But everything was safely. The second seal was set to a mill door.
I met halfway on Wagner Road, intending to warn him about events of day. However my maneuver was not successful. The militiaman called to me and suggested to return. Anything else did not remain to me how to go to a garden and to continue the interrupted reading.
The village worried and hooted as an alarmed beehive. All with impatience expected Wagner’s arrival, and he forced itself to expect long enough. Already began to get dark when the boys guarding on the road cried:
– Goes! Goes!
All hurried on the road. Wagner really drove up to us. But on what crew! Imagine the long office table covered with the cloth which is going down to the earth. Above at the edges «table» is fenced with a board or iron wall of centimeters fifty height. It, obviously, was also that «samobezhka» about which Wagner spoke to me.
Because of the mountain the gray cloud rose. Wind twisted small tornadoes of dust on the road. The rain, long ago zhdanny Tarasovna came.
– Sit down! – Wagner shouted, having seen me. It stopped the extraordinary cart, I jumped and took seat near it. At this time the crowd, predvoditelstvuyemy the chairman of the Village Council, already approached a samobezhka.
– The citizen, climb up, you are arrested! – the chairman told.
Unexpectedly the wind gust lifted the edge of cloth which veiled a samobezhka. Shout of horror swept on crowd, and she started back as if not a light breeze, but the strongest hurricane suddenly struck it. Shrill squeal of Tarasovna covered all voices. Several minutes proceeded this confusion which reason I did not understand.
Wagner quietly looked at crowd, undertook a wheel of management, and… the crowd screamed even more loudly than former again. Samobezhka rose by racks as a horse whom the skilled equestrian forces to turn all the case on hind legs. Then Wagner directed the crew uphill, without paying attention to shouts of crowd, the chairman and the militiaman. The militiaman rushed after, but Wagner translated the speed lever, and the samobezhka with extraordinary ease began to take rise.
The militiaman remained behind, but he did not want to be reconciled with the defeat. He ran after us. To the station was nearby. We went not at a full speed yet. In a few minutes after we passed the station and came out to the highway conducting to Moscow, we heard for ourselves a motorcycle crash. Obviously, the militiaman who got from where the car, decided to continue a pursuit. Wagner smiled.