The fog fell upon the small, quiet town suddenly. Only an hour earlier the sun had been shining, playing with sunbeams feared not by sunny hares but by the real ones who had climbed into the vegetable garden by the house on the edge of town for the cabbage still left there.
The walls of the houses, whitewashed only a couple of months before, immediately lost their aristocratic pallor, seemed to become covered with patina, and turned shabby and anxious.
Suddenly the tops of the trees disappeared. A moment ago they were there — and now they were gone. Not sharply, as under a woodcutter’s axe, but softly, sinking into the viscous foggy jelly.
From the very thick of this jelly-like disgrace came the knocking of a woodpecker. Either the woodpecker was knocking at the door of its house-nest, prudently closed by someone at home (or should one say: someone in the nest?), or it was warning birds and sailors in Morse code about the sudden fog.
Only this knocking, so peaceful in sunny weather, sounded ominous in the foggy gloom, as if foretelling a catastrophe.
The knocking woke the Little Old Woman who lived in the second house from the left under a beautiful tiled roof of noble carmine hue. In fact, the neighboring houses, and those on the far street, and even those standing almost by the grove, had the same wonderful roofs. People said of this town: the town with roofs the color of carmine.
So under one such roof, which covered the second house from the left, lived the Little Old Woman.
Usually she woke very early, even before the first ray of dawn, and went outside to meet the sunrise, waving a beautiful blue scarf that had been a bow in the days when the old woman was a girl and wore a long braid. Gradually the girl grew, matured, and even imperceptibly grew old and acquired curls, but she did not wish to part with the bow. True, she now wore it as a scarf and snorted indignantly if anyone expressed surprise: why is your scarf so long and narrow?
After the sun rose, gradually lighting all the houses with their freshly whitewashed walls and tiled roofs, the lawns before the houses, the flowers on those lawns, the tall trees with birds living in them, the paths in gardens and squares, and even the benches standing along those paths, the Little Old Woman would look around and, seeing that no one was visible, stretch energetically, yawn, and go into her little house to drink tea and eat half a marshmallow spread with strawberry jam. In general, the Old Woman was very well brought up and knew that stretching and yawning in the street was improper; but there was no one nearby. And how could one not stretch toward the sun and swallow air pink and golden from its rays, when it so promotes a good appetite and an easy daytime sleep?
So on that day too the Little Old Woman, as usual, greeted the first sunrays, admired the walls of her little house, whitewashed two months before, even ran her palm over them and stroked them, once again wondering how all the walls of all the little houses in their town always turned out to have been whitewashed exactly two months earlier; but thinking about this was boring, the old woman yawned especially sweetly, opened the door, and disappeared into her house, the second from the left, under a tiled roof of noble carmine.
And the traditional tea after the walk was tastier than usual today, brewed in a special way with rose petals and cornflowers carrying morning dew; and the jam turned out not merely strawberry, but with the addition of wild strawberries at a ratio of one to twenty.
Therefore after tea the Old Woman fell asleep at once, with a smile on her lips. Her sleep was light, like a sunbeam merrily playing on the lenses of her glasses. And when a strange knocking sounded, not at all like a postman knocking at the door and not even like a woodpecker knocking on a tall tree (although we know that it was indeed he), the Old Woman opened her eyes and immediately sat up in bed. “What strange sounds, like Morse code?” thought the Old Woman. “Something must have happened. Or is about to happen.”
However, Morse code was understood exclusively by sailors, of whom there were none at all in this town with tiled roofs; and the heroine of our story had never been a sailor, not even in those distant times when her scarf was still a bow. Therefore she did not understand the knocking alphabet, but felt only the anxiety of the ominous, as it seemed to her half-awake, knocking.
She looked out of the window, but saw neither the white walls of the neighboring houses, nor the walls of the houses on the opposite street, nor the tiled roofs. Even the bright carmine of the tiles did not shine through the thick gray gluten, like steam from boiling oat jelly.
“All is lost!” cried the old woman and quickly drew the snow-white lace curtains over the window. But the reflection of the gray twilight jelly that filled the air turned the snow-white lace into dirty dark tow. The poor Old Woman was so frightened that she forgot this was a contre-jour effect — or perhaps she had never known about contre-jour at all.
Snatching from the whatnot, covered with a napkin of the same snow-white lace, her reticule with pink lipstick, documents, and the half marshmallow not eaten at breakfast, the Old Woman stretched out her other hand to take her scarf with the habitual gesture — but the scarf was not there! Frightened even more, she searched for it in the wardrobe, on the coat rack by the door, in the little chest where the remaining lace and dried petals for morning tea were kept — the scarf was not there. It was not under the pillow, nor under the bed, nor even on the hook for bath towels!
Opening the door, the Old Woman, without her scarf, rushed straight into the veil of oat jelly that had conquered the noble carmine and, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, ran along the empty invisible streets. Running with closed eyes was not as frightening and no more dangerous than running with open ones: nothing could be seen in the fog anyway.
Where was the Old Woman trying to run? Whether she was running in search of the lost blue scarf or trying to hide from the frightening sticky jelly, from the steady knocking that spoke of danger, no one knew. Nor did she herself know. She simply ran and ran until suddenly she bumped into a person coming toward her. At first, though, the Old Woman thought it was a tree. Or an electric pole. Or an empty bench.
But it was a person, and he turned out to be a sailor. Bowing slightly, he said: “Excuse me, you are in such a hurry that you may accidentally stumble and fall. Allow me to walk you home; in such gloom it is easy to get lost. But do not worry, the fog will soon disperse. And the sun will shine again.” The sailor knew this for certain from the woodpecker tapping out the news on the old tree, whose top had hidden itself in the strange gray jelly with the beautiful name “fog,” which the Old Woman had never seen before. But sailors know fogs and Morse code very well. Even former sailors, who were young in the days when the blue scarf was still called a bow.
The sailor took the Little Old Woman by the arm, and they slowly walked along the street, where the walls of the houses, whitewashed a couple of months before, and tiled roofs the color of noble carmine gradually appeared; past the hares finishing the last cabbage leaves; past the tree in whose branches the blue scarf, lost during the morning walk, had tangled, while at the top sat the woodpecker, knocking now in a way that was not frightening at all, but even quite encouraging: “The fog is leaving. Everything will be all right.”
And this time the Old Woman heard and understood the woodpecker’s message: either the knocking sounded different, or beside the sailor she felt calm and confident.
“It is only fog,” thought the Old Woman, and aloud she said: “I have strawberry jam and half a marshmallow. Let us go drink tea.”
