Page 55 - СКАЗКИ СНЕЖНОГО ЭЛЬФА

‘I will. How can I do without you? And you promise you’ll
be like new in no time. I’d like a walk with you. We are friends,
aren’t we? And friends are supposed to go for a walk and
warm up to interesting topics. Could be better than sitting on
your cornice like an entirely orphaned.’
‘Oh, Snezhik, stop grumbling. Speak up!’
‘Right. Now listen to what an incredible dancer I’ve met.
Just close your eyes and imagine ---
First I saw snowflakes just falling down, slowly and majes-
tically crossing the streetlights. Then, of a sudden, one of them
started to dance, involving her drowsy sisters. Soon there
was a choral dance of white beauties that turned about and
about, fluttering and twisting in the streetlights. They looked
like little fluffy dandelions, creating an amazing dance. More
and more flakes came into dancing. To preview it, they flew
up to the lonely bright window and pressed against it for a
second. I looked through the window to see a woman dancing
motionless. The dance itself whirled in her greenish eyes, a
dreamy smile touched her lips, her fingers were moving as if
she was conducting a magic dance. She was giving the flakes
their dance, a swirl and an exciting flight. She was stunning!
‘This is Martha,’ prompted the wind, holding on the street
lamp. ‘Today she is the Queen of snow dances.’
‘Is she?’ I watched the woman closely. And there I saw it.
Martha adored dandelions, admiring the sunlit flowering
bloom and the light flying of the fluffy travellers that carried
their seeds to remote glades. In her daydreams she saw her-
self running about a dandelion meadow, with the yellow flow-
er heads tickling her feet and their white parachutes stick-
ing in her hair. That was what she saw at that moment: not
snowflakes but seeds of snow dandelions were there, and she
danced, smiling at them. Danced in her imagination, because
she could hardly get off her wheelchair and never left the

49