And now I’ll tell you for your edification a short, funny family story, which, of course, will never happen in your happy home in your entire peaceful family life.
Nellie McGrath and her husband Dinny were considered the best couple in the Poolbeg parish. If only everyone knew, they had lived together for thirty-three years, but they didn’t even know what it was like to look askance at each other. So they would have died, being in this ignorance, if one Christmas Eve the difficult one had not brought the hunter Johnny to them. He thought of handing them a bunch of birds that he had caught by force in the snow. And Dinny bought a couple from him, and Nellie fried them for Christmas dinner.
Dinny, a good man, ate his share with great pleasure, and then, wiping his mouth and smacking his lips with pleasure, said:
- Thank God and you, Nellie. I have never eaten anything more tender and tastier than these blackbirds in my life!
- Amen! Thank him, thank him. The king himself would not have disdained such birds. I say these gray blackbirds, don't you, Dinny?
“Black, Nelly,” repeated Dinny.
“Oh, Dinny,” Nellie was indignant, “I’m telling you, they were gray.” I really don’t know, since I plucked them.
“No, Nellie, I assure you, they were blackbirds.” I really don’t know, since I bought them.
- What, I don’t have eyes, or what? Eh, Dinny?
“I always believed, Nellie, that there is.” But it doesn’t matter whether there is or not, but I’m big-eyed, that’s what everyone says.
“Then I’m very sorry, Dinny, that you can’t tell a gray blackbird from a blackbird.”
“If anyone near me,” said Dinny, “could see with his eyes, he too would someday learn to distinguish a blackbird from a gray one.”
- I don't argue, Dinny. Just know, I'm not going to argue! But these were blackbirds.
“There’s nothing to argue about,” said Dinny. “What’s true is true: the blackbirds were black.”
“Dinny,” said Nellie, “don’t anger God!” I'm telling you, they were gray blackbirds.
“You anger God yourself, Nelly,” objected Dinny. “I’m telling you, they were black.”
- Gray! - Nellie shouts.
- Black! - Dinny shouts.
Then Nellie goes to wash the dishes and begins to hum defiantly to herself, and Dinny takes a pipe out of his pocket, begins to grind tobacco for her and immediately begins to whistle.
And this couple, who until that day had never said a bad word to each other and had never quarreled, stopped talking for a whole month.
Whether long or short, as they say in the fairy tale, Christmas has come again. Nellie prepared an excellent dinner for herself and Dinny, and when both, crossing themselves, sat down at the table, Nellie burst out laughing.
“Dinny, darling,” she says, “do you remember what a fool we were playing on this same evening a year ago?”
And Dinny laughed too.
“Oh, Nellie,” he says, “and who would have thought that we would act like such idiots?”
“And all for nothing,” says Nellie.
“And all for nothing,” says Dinny. - Well, shame on us! - speaks. “Because of some unfortunate pair of blackbirds.” Damn them!
“Oh,” says Nelly, “all because of the unfortunate pair of gray blackbirds.” Damn them!
“Nelly, darling,” says Dinny, looking at her reproachfully, “are you going to start all over again, and all because of some pathetic blackbirds?”
- Well, I’ll start crucifying myself for the sake of some lousy gray blackbirds!
- Come to your senses, Nellie! You know as well as I do that they were blackbirds.
“Come to yourself, Dinny,” Nellie replies. - You know, they were gray.
- Black! - Dinny shouts. - I bet it!
- Gray! - Nellie shouts. - I can swear!
Then Dinny begins to whistle, and Nellie begins to hum. And so they again did not speak to each other for three months, until the neighbors came and reconciled them.
Whether long or short, as they say in old fairy tales, another year passed, and Christmas came again. And when Dinny and Nellie, crossing themselves, sat down to the glorious dinner that Nellie had prepared for both, she burst out laughing again.
“Do you remember, Dinny,” he says, “what a fool you and I played the last two Christmases?”
“Oh-oh-oh, how can I not remember,” says Dinny. - What a fool!
“They’re just buffoons,” says Nellie.
“A joke, that’s all,” says Dinny.
“Sometimes I just can’t believe it,” says Nellie.
“Foolish children wouldn't do that,” says Dinny.
“Children would sooner teach us wisdom,” says Nellie.
“Now you can call these birds graybirds until the morning, I’ll just smile,” says Dinny.
“Thank you, Dinny,” says Nellie, “but why would you smile if they really were gray?”
- Oh, Nellie, Nellie! - says Dinny. - You know, I don’t want to argue with you about this, but I claim that they were black!
“I’m not going to argue with you either,” Nellie assents, “but you’re not going to refute the truth.” They were gray!
-Who denies the truth? says Dinny. “They were blackbirds, you know.”
“No, they’re gray,” says Nellie. “I would have said so myself if I hadn’t resisted.”
- After all, today is Holy Christmas, Nellie. We must tell the truth, be ashamed! Admit it was blackbirds and let's get this over with!
“Well, yes, today is Holy Christmas,” Nellie answers. “Tell the truth yourself.” Say they were grey!
“For God’s sake, Nellie, don’t quarrel over some skinny blackbirds!”
“You yourself are quarreling over poor gray blackbirds.”
- Oh, you're making me more and more impatient. I say they were black!
- And I say, gray!
- Black!
- Gray!
Then Dinny turns his back, takes out his pipe and tobacco, and, without touching his supper, begins to whistle. Nellie does not pay any attention to this and also takes up the stocking that she had previously darned and begins to hum to herself with a grin.
At that moment the door opens and who do you think comes in? Hunter Johnny himself with a bunch of birds on his shoulder. Dinny and Nellie jumped up and rushed towards Johnny. And he looks at one, at the other and does not understand anything.
“Johnny,” says Nellie, “I’m so glad you came!”
“And I’m very pleased, Johnny,” assents Dinny, “that you came just now.”
“Yes, and now you’ll see what a fool my hubby is.”
“Well, yes, Johnny, you came just in time to finally let this woman know what she is.”
“Tell me, for God’s sake,” Johnny pleaded, looking from one to the other in confusion, “what are you arguing about?”
“Yes, about two gray blackbirds that we bought from you on the same evening two years ago,” says Nellie. “Would you believe it, my husband argues all the time that they were blackbirds.”
- Ha-ha-ha! - Dinny laughed. “If you hadn’t heard it with your own ears, Johnny, you wouldn’t have believed it, even if you swore to me on St. Peter, this woman has been saying for two years that you sold me not blackbirds, but gray ones.” Tell her they were blackbirds and let her see for herself what a fool she was.
“Johnny,” Nellie asked, “tell him, this husband of mine, just tell him that they were gray.” Let him be ashamed once and for all!
- What nonsense, Nellie, Dinny! - exclaimed Johnny. “I’m terribly upset if all you two did all these two years was make noise and argue like some kind of infidels, and all because of a pair of skinny, pathetic, bony, useless starlings, damn them!”
In the old days they said: “If my father had made me a shoemaker, everyone would have to go barefoot.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru