As Lev Kassil recalls, this story began on the day when he and his brother Oska were serving a sentence in the corner for a lost chess queen. The figurines of the set were made to order for the father, and he was very dear to them.
Country open in pantry
In the dark corner of the pantry, the brothers felt like they were in prison.
- And let's run away! - with hope said the younger brother Oska. - How do we get down!
But Lelku's elder brother suddenly had a bright thought.
“We will not run away!” He declared. - Let's come up with a new game! This will be the land we have discovered: palaces, mountains, palm trees, the sea. There will be our own state, which adults will not know about.
The new land required a beautiful name. Lelka and Osya called the land promised by Swabrania, in association with the book of Swab "Greek myths". The letter "M" was added for harmony.
Conduit and Swamp. Book Summary
Oska himself captured the swamp on a makeshift map. In form, it resembled a human tooth, which the young artist copied from an advertisement for a dentist.
The tooth symbolized the wise policies of the new state.
Swabrania was a continent, surrounded by akian, waves and the sea. On the mainland there were cities, bays and mountains. Some words with errors, which was justified by the youth of the cartographer. There was a blot, it was honestly written under it: "The island does not count, it is an accident blot."
At the bottom of the map was the island of Piliginia, with the capital Abroad. For convenience, two inscriptions were written on the “sea” for the pilots of passing ships: “this is with the flow” - “and so against.”
The map was striking in its symmetry. This was due to the craving for justice, which the creators of the country dreamed of.
On the left “sea” - on the right “sea”, here - Argonsk, and there Drandzonsk. You have - a rupe, and I - 100 cents. It is called justice!
Further, the author tells that Swabrania waged wars. The enemies were called Caldonians and Balvonians.
The war began like this: the postman (Oska) appeared from the front door to the tsar (Lelka) and handed the tsar a letter challenging the enemies. Enemies lived on the other side of the "fences" depicted on the map in semicircles. The battles took place on the rectangle indicated by the word "war". On both sides of the "war" were placed "captives", where they put the captured soldiers.
Breshka and Jack, companion of sailors
In parallel with the swagambran battle, Russia also entered the First World War. Swabrania has always emerged victorious from battles, like Tsarist Russia, in school textbooks.
In Swabrania, Oska and Lelka lived in Drandzonsk, on the top floor of a thousand-story building. And in their hometown of Pokrovsk, under the windows, there was a street, popularly called Breshka.
In the evenings, boys and girls from nearby villages walked along it. The street was strewn with husks of seeds. From the street came snatches of "subtle" conversations:
- Let me cling to you, young lady! How are they calling you? Masha, Chi Katyusha?
- Don’t hush ... He’s nimble! - the rural beauty answered exquisitely, spitting the husk from the seeds. - And by the way, hi tobi walnut, - chuck!
... A lot of cargo steamers walked along the Volga, which could not but affect Swambronia. There also appeared a hero known as Jack, the companion of sailors. This happened in connection with a book purchased in the market. It was an international vocabulary for sailors.
Like a polyglot, Jack spoke freely: “Ken ah help u ?! Donner wind, Guten Morgen, hello, man overboard, mother Mia, how much will you take to save the ship? ”
In this, he was different from the inhabitants of Breska, spitting on a husky street, and could serve as a model of culture for conscious swabbers.
First and third class cabins
Many amusing moments are described by Lev Kassil in the book “Conduit and Swamp.” The summary does not allow you to completely immerse yourself in the life of little heroes, which sometimes resembled a ship.
Passenger cabins were conditionally divided into categories of first and third class. The first class cabins served as a drawing room, father's study and dining room. The third class cabins are the cook's room and kitchen.
From the porthole of the kitchen opened a view of another world. In this world there lived those whom adults called inappropriate acquaintance. Among them were: beggars, movers, chimney sweeps, janitors, locksmiths and firefighters. Maybe they were good people, but adults convinced our heroes that they were full of germs.
Naive Oska once asked a question to Levontiy Abramkin, the master of garbage collection:
“Is it true that scarlet fever crawls on you?”
- What kind of scarlet fever? - offended Levontius. - Ordinary lice. But scarlet fever - I don’t remember such animals ...
Oska liked to take fish out of the aquarium, and then arrange their funeral in matchboxes. Once he brushed a cat's teeth, and she scratched it.
Once Oska met with a priest, whom he thought was a girl, and the priest entered into a religious conversation with him.
Oska was a great traveler and constantly confused: cannibals with the Balkans; St. Bernard with artist Sarah Bernhardt, monsters with an erupting volcano.
Trips to the people
Papa Schwambrantsev worked as a doctor. Sometimes, for democratic reasons, he ordered a horse-drawn cart, put on a shirt-shirt and, as a coachman, sat down on a radiator. If the ladies I knew were coming in front, dad asked Lelka to ask them to give way. Lelka came up and embarrassedly said: “Aunts, that is, Madame ... Papa asks you to move the ropes. And then we will inadvertently crush you. "
"This" ride to the people "ended with the fact that dad once knocked us all down into the ditch. Since then, the trips have stopped" (Lev Kassil, Conduit and Swabrania).
Russian cinderella
Once the swabbers realized that something was wrong in life. The main ones on this earth were adults, but not all. But only those that wore expensive fur coats and uniform caps. The rest were classified as inappropriate acquaintances and worked from dawn to dawn. Injustice rules the world . This is the main idea of ​​the book "Conduit and Swabber", a brief summary of which will tell about the main positive and negative characters.
A cousin Mitya, expelled from the gymnasium, came to visit the swabbers. Mitya did not like officials and offered to annoy the Zemsky.
A masquerade ball was coming, and the cute maid Marfush was prepared for the role of the outrage of the heart of Zemsky. For her they made a suit in the form of an envelope. He went for postage stamps that Marfusha collected for many years.
At the ball, Marfusha conquered everyone with beauty and received a prize: a gold watch. The Zemsky chief fell in love with a charming woman, but he was informed that Marfush was a simple servant. Zemsky was put to shame.
Mitya fastened a huge galosh to his porch with a note: “To anyone who has a galosh on his foot, she will be the wife of the Zemstvo.”
Everything - as in the story of Cinderella ...
Sisari and Conduit
Lelka was admitted to the gymnasium. High school students were called sisars because of the color of their greatcoats. Sisari were free birds and did not want to obey orders. On the first day, Lelka, who went to a cafe with his mother, got into Conduit (or the Pigeon Book). That was the name of the magazine where the headmaster of the gymnasium, nicknamed Fisheye, brought in fines. The cafe was considered an entertainment institution, and gymnasium students were not allowed to visit such places.
Entries in the conduit were also made by the supervisor of the gymnasium, nicknamed Tsap-Tsarapich. Getting into the magazine was easy; for unbuttoned greatcoat and appearance in the city after seven in the evening; for visiting the cinema or wearing an embroidered shirt.
In the gymnasium, it was fun. Sizari, mostly the children of the farmers, fought, smoked in the toilet and did dirty tricks on the teachers. They came up with tricky devices for transferring cheat sheets from neighboring classes. Young bullies mumbled, burned phosphorus for the stink - all in order to disrupt the lesson.
The only one that the gymnasium students liked was the linguistic inspector Romashov, who raised cesarean with tedious suggestions. After his lectures, many lost their desire to hooligan, recalls the author of the work "Conduit and Swabrania".
The heroes of the book went through the everyday life of the old gymnasium. Of the most striking figures of the book stood Athos Recruit, the hero of the shalman, a man who fixed electric bells and loved literature.
Shalman, as the townspeople called him, was the haven of the poor. He was near the meat rows in the bazaar. It eked out the miserable existence of the Chinese woman Chi Sung-cha, the cesspool worker Levontiy Abramkin, the German organ grinder Gersht, the thieves of Krivopatry and Shebarsh and the small trading agent Joseph Pukis. Books were read in the shalman, and high school students felt like adults, equal among equals ...
This recalls Leo Kassil. Conduit and Swabrania (the summary of the book cannot fully convey this) describes the life of the common people. This description will introduce young readers to a life that for many will be a real discovery.
Cockroach and Matrona
The director of Fisheye because of a fight in the People’s Garden forbade festivities. The students of the gymnasium were indignant and, in protest, cut off the front door calls throughout the city. Athos Recruit, who made good money on this, was very pleased.
The police were looking for mysterious hooligans. Stepan Le Havre, nicknamed Atlantis, and Bindyug, who was respected due to his powerful fists, were caught. They, and with them six more sizars who participated in this case, were expelled from the gymnasium. And only after the intervention of Joseph Pukis, the violators were restored.
I remembered a teacher named Tarakanius, or Long-necked. He taught Latin and strewed deuces to the right and left. There was also a touchy French teacher Matrena Martynovna. She didn’t annoy the gymnasium students, the severe sisars even loved her in their own way, but they still played mercilessly and cruelly in the classroom.
The echo of the war reached Pokrovsk. The townspeople met the wounded who returned from the front. The year 1917 was drawing near. These historical events are narrated by L. Cassille ("Conduit and Swambrain"). The main characters of the book are eyewitnesses of the Russian revolution.
On December 31, the parents of Lelka and Oska went to their friends to celebrate the New Year. A classmate came to Lelka, and they went for a walk. Unfortunately, they came across a horse cart of a local millionaire. Grammar school students decided to ride. The horse, smelling strangers, carried the abductors along the deserted streets. The terrified schoolboys could not stop him. As luck would have it, they met Tsap-Tsarapych.
Seeing the overseer, the horse stopped. Tsap-Tsarapych promised the cesars to write them in a conduit and leave them without lunch. After that, he sat down on the radiator to return the stolen wagon to the owner. The animal, not seeing the difference between the abductors, started to jump, and the owner of the cart, who left the house, called the police.
It is not known how Tsap-Tsarapich made excuses in the police, but he no longer remembered about this incident.
The loss of Atlantis
Suddenly Steppe Atlantis disappeared. As it turned out, he fled to the front. The former teachers were dispersed, and instead of the gymnasium, they created the Unified Labor School with the joint training of girls and boys.
A delegation of high school students went to a female gymnasium to select the most beautiful girls for the class. They were immediately nicknamed: Bamboo, Lul-Pill, Oglobl and Blot. With the advent of girls in the gymnasium, they began to play "peepers." The game was to look at the person for hours. Blinking was not allowed. There were cases that came to fainting.
A revolution took place in Russia, the tsar abdicated. Swabrania, respectively, also reacted by riots. After long and deep doubts, Jack, Sputnik Sailors, died. His last words were: “Farm la car! Stop di car! He was carrying the same ... ”A golden anchor was erected on the hero’s grave, instead of wreaths it was decorated with lifebuoys.
“Science knows a lot of geeks,” says L. Cassil. Such is the book "Conduit and Swabbery", the author of which is able to speak funny and tragic about simple things.
Conclusion
The red commissar Chubarkov was shared in the apartment. He taught Oska how to play the hoe. Game got carried away and dad. The players had hands floppy red.
Aunt-relatives came to visit, who began to educate Oska and Lelka and take them to the theater.
A military man, La Bazri de Bazan, settled in one room, and a commission to combat deserters occupied the other room. Dad was taken to the front. The Marquis De Bazan, as his aunt called him, stole the soap hidden by his mother in the piano, but after the Cheka was called, the soap was found. And with soap, the missing maps of Swabrania. The Chekists, seeing the maps of the new state, laughed until they fell.
Swabbers found in the abandoned house of the alchemist Kirikov, who cooked the elixir of life. Then it turned out that this is ordinary moonshine.
Dad returned from the front. He had typhoid. He looked thin and yellow and lice crawled over his beard.
Dreamland is tired of our heroes. Harsh everyday life pushed aside a fictitious state in which it was never used, as Kassil argues, conduits. And Swabrania, whose readers' reviews are enthusiastic, will forever be remembered by those who read this book.
The House of the Eel, where Lelka and Oska played, was taken apart for firewood. Swabbery ceased to exist.
About these events was written by L. Cassille. Conduit and Swabrania - a tale of unforgettable times - has become the most famous book of his works.