Читать книгу Blue Notebook / Голубая тетрадь. Книга для чтения на английском языке - Даниил Хармс - Страница 10

An amazing thing happened to me today, I suddenly forgot what comes first – 7 or 8.

I went to my neigbors and asked them abou their opinion on this matter.

Great was their and my amazement, when they suddenly discovered, that they couldn't recall the counting order. They remembered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, but forgot what comes next.

We all went to a commercial grocery store, the one that's on the corner of Znamenskaya and Basseinaya streets to consult a cashier on our predicament. The cashier gave us a sad smile, took a small hammer out of her mouth, and moving her nose slightly back and forth, she said:

– In my opinion, a seven comes after an eight, only if an eight comes after a seven.

We thanked the cashier and ran cheerfully out of the store. But there, thinking carefully about cashier's words, we got sad again because her words were void of any meaning.

What were we supposed to do? We went to the Summer Garden and started counting trees. But reaching a six in count, we stopped and started arguing: In the opinion of some, a 7 went next; but in opinion of others an 8 did.

We were arguing for a long time, when by some sheer luck, a child fell off a bench and broke both of his jaws. That distracted us from our argument.

And then we all went home.