Читать книгу Сказки / Fairy Tales. Уровень 1 - Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг - Страница 4

Once upon a time, on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee. And the Parsee lived by the Red Sea with nothing but his hat, from which the rays of the sun were reflected, and his knife and a cooking-stove. And one day he took flour and water and currants and plums and sugar and things, and made himself a cake. The cake was two feet across and three feet thick. The Parsee put it on the stove, and he baked it. He baked it till it was all brown and smelt most sentimental.

But when he wanted to eat it there came down to the beach a Rhinoceros with a horn on his nose, two piggy eyes, and bad manners. In those days the Rhinoceros’s skin was quite tight. There were no wrinkles in it anywhere. He had no manners then, and he has no manners now, and he never will have any manners. He said, ‘How!’ and the Parsee left that cake and climbed to the top of a palm tree with his hat, from which the rays of the sun were reflected. The Rhinoceros upset the oil-stove with his nose. The cake rolled on the sand, and he spiked that cake on the horn of his nose, and he ate it. And he went away. Then the Parsee came down from his palm-tree.

Five weeks later, the Red Sea was very hot, and everybody took off all the clothes they had. The Parsee took off his hat; but the Rhinoceros took off his skin and carried it over his shoulder as he came down to the beach to bathe. In those days it buttoned underneath with three buttons and looked like a waterproof. He said nothing about the Parsee’s cake. The Rhinoceros waddled straight into the water and blew bubbles through his nose. His skin was on the beach.

Presently the Parsee came by and found the skin. He smiled, and the smile ran all round his face two times. Then he danced three times round the skin and rubbed his hands. Then he went to his camp and filled his hat with cake-crumbs[11]. You know, the Parsee never ate anything but cake, and never swept out his camp. He took that skin, and he shook that skin, and he scrubbed that skin, and he rubbed that skin just as full of old, dry, stale, tickly cake-crumbs and some burned currants. Then he climbed to the top of his palm-tree and waited.

The Rhinoceros came out of the water and put it on. He buttoned it up with the three buttons, and it tickled like cake-crumbs in bed. Then he wanted to scratch, but that made it worse[12]. Then he lay down on the sands and rolled and rolled and rolled, and every time he rolled the cake-crumbs tickled him worse and worse and worse.

Then he ran to the palm-tree and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed himself against it. He rubbed so much and so hard that he rubbed his skin into a great fold over his shoulders, and another fold underneath. He rubbed some more folds over his legs. But it didn’t work. The cake-crumbs were inside his skin and they tickled. So he went home, very angry indeed and horribly scratchy.

From that day to this every rhinoceros has great folds in his skin and a very bad temper, because he has many cake-crumbs inside.