In fact, she wasn't laughing. Maybe he just works up an appetite, reveling in stories about how giants devour people?

As I said, all human insects have a different taste. The inhabitants of Panama taste insipid, like panamas.

Why - like Panama?

It doesn't hurt that you are quick-witted, as I see it, - said the giant, moving his huge ears. - I thought the rogue people were all very smart, but your head is empty, like an old pumpkin.

Do you love vegetables? Sophie tried to steer the conversation in a safer direction.

You're trying to change the subject," the giant said sternly. We have a weird chat about how each human specimen has its own taste. A man is not a vegetable at all. It has two legs, but the vegetable has no legs.

Sophie didn't argue anymore. The last thing she wanted to do was piss off the giant.

Human specimens have a different taste and smell. For example, the inhabitants of the island of Sardinia smell of sardinia.

Do you mean sardines? Sophie corrected him.

Sardinia is Sardinia, and do not cling to words! Here's another example for you. After eating a human creature from Dublin, there is a nasty taste of wool on the tongue, as happens when wool from a sheep-dog gets into the mouth. The inhabitants of Dublin taste like sheep, because there are many sheep grazing around.

You mean they taste like sheepskin coats! Sophie was taken aback.

Again clinging to words? Stop it now! roared the giant. We're having a serious conversation! I hope you'll let me speak

Please please! Sophie was scared.

The French from France have a taste for French bulldogs.

Of course, Sophie agreed briskly.

That's wrong! The giant slapped his leg. - Frenchies from France are like canned dog food because they taste like Labradors!

And then what is the taste of the inhabitants of Labrador? Sophie asked.

French Bulldogs,” the giant said solemnly.

You don't confuse anything? Sophie asked cautiously.

I always get it all mixed up. I'm such a pervert! But at the same time, I always try not to get confused. In this respect, I am much better than others. I know one giant who always rushes to Wellington to dine ...

To Wellington? Sophie asked. - Where is it?

You might think you have sleepy flies instead of brains! - the giant was indignant. - Wellington is located in New Zealand. The people of Wellington taste like Wellingtons. In any case, this is what the giant, the lover of Wellingtons, says.

What-what taste do they have? Sophie didn't understand.

Wellington boots. Forgot? Rubber boots in England are called wellingtons in honor of the Duke of Wellington.

How did I remember it? Sophie looked surprised.

The girl decided that the conversation was too long. If she is destined to be eaten, then there is nothing to do. Let it be swallowed right away than kept in constant tension.

What kind of people do you like to eat? she asked, trembling.

I?! yelled the giant.

For me to eat people?! Other giants - yes! But to me?! All other giants devour human creatures every evening. And I'm weird. I am a good and kind giant-mixer. I am the only one in the Land of the Giants. I am a Big and Kind giant. I am BD V! And what is your name?

Sophie, - answered the girl, with joy, not believing her ears.

But if you are so good and kind, then why did you need to snatch me out of bed and carry me to no one knows where? Sophie asked.

Because you SEE me. And if anyone SEES a giant, he must be kidnapped immediately. Clear as a jump.

Why? - the girl was surprised.

Well, first of all, people don't believe in giants. They think we don't exist.

For example, I believe

Well, it's only because you SEE me! - exclaimed the Airborne Forces. - And I can’t allow anyone to see me, even a girl, and stay at home as if nothing had happened. The first thing you will do is jump and start squeaking at every corner that you have seen a giant, and the giant-haters will be terribly happy and will begin to hunt for us. A whole flock of giant tormentors with unknown weapons will rush after me to catch me, lock me in a cage and then stare like a wild animal. They will send me to the zoo along with all the tigers and zebras!

Sophie knew the giant was telling the truth. If someone accidentally mentions that he saw a giant, an incredible sensation will rise around the world.

I can swear, - continued the Airborne Forces, - that you will be the first to spread this news everywhere, which is why I had to kidnap you.

Understood, Sophie nodded.

But that won't happen! the giant announced.

What will happen to me now? Sophie asked fearfully.

If you come back, you will blabber to everyone - you will appear in the TV box and speak on the radio station. Therefore, you will have to stay with me forever.

Horrible! Sophie screamed.

Nothing can be done, - said the Airborne Forces. - But I warn you not to dare stick your nose out of here without me, otherwise you will be left with a wet place. Now you will see for yourself who will immediately swallow you, if, of course, they notice.

The big and kind giant took Sophie off the table and carried her to the exit from the cave. He rolled away the huge stone and said:

Look, girl, and tell me who do you see there?

Sophie, sitting on the giant's arm, leaned out.

The sun was already high and brightly illuminated the wasteland, blue rocks and dead trees.

Do you see them? asked the BFG.

Sophie, grimacing at the bright sunlight, drew her attention to several hefty figures that were slowly moving between the rocks five hundred meters away. Three or four giants sat motionless on huge boulders.

This is the Land of the Giants, and they are all giants,” the BFG explained.

Well, what a spectacle! The very tanned giants wore no clothing other than a rag around their waists that looked like a short skirt. Sophie was most shocked by their size. They were simply huge, much more powerful and taller than the Big and Kind giant, in which she sat on his arm. Terrible, terrible! Many had gigantic bellies. And what were their long arms and huge feet worth! The giants sat too far away from her, and their faces could not be clearly seen, but maybe that's for the best.

I wonder what they are doing there? Sophie asked.

Nothing. Just fooling around and waiting for dark. And then they will rush to where people live to catch someone for dinner.

You mean they will run to India? Sophie asked.

Of course, Bone Gnawer will rush to India, the BFG answered, and the rest will rush to Wellington in search of the scent of wellingtons or to Panama to enjoy the taste of papam. Every giant has his favorite hunting grounds.

Do they ever hunt in England?

Often. They say the English have such a wonderful taste of corn!

I don't know the meaning of that word, Sophie said.

The value doesn't matter. I'm not always right. Sometimes I can make mistakes and speak out of place.

Are all those scary giants really going to eat people tonight?!

They all eat human beings every night,” the BFG replied. - Everyone but me. That's why you'll have a heartbreaking end if you get caught in the eye of any of them. They'll gobble you up like a piece of yak pie in one bite!

But it's terrible - to devour people! Sophie screamed. Why won't anyone stop them?

Who, pray tell, could come up with such a thing? asked the BFG.

Why don't you try? Sophie asked.

Just imagine, you are walking down the street, and some gray trousers and skirts are rushing around you at great speed, shoes are walking, bags are swinging right over your head. You can't let your guard down or those legs will run into you. And yet, from somewhere above, sharp and unpleasant sounds are heard that sound on such a wave that you just want to close your ears. Do you think this is footage from a horror movie? Not at all - this is the world that surrounds our child.

You think I'm exaggerating, I don't. Try to convince me of this.

Imagine further, on this gray background, lies a small red button. Of course, these little hands will be drawn to this miracle, because it stands out from all this gray background so much that only an adult can not notice.

And now go down to the level of the child, sit next to him on the rug, and try to look around with a forgotten childish look: huge chairs that you can hardly climb on, let alone get off, high shelves, sofas, inaccessible washbasins ...

Mom wants the child to become independent - but how can you become here, in this country of giants? I can’t take clothes myself to get dressed, I want to wash my hands - I also can’t, I can’t get it. I want to help my mother, but you can’t grab a mop, it just outweighs.

And what if, for starters, to adapt our house for a small child. After all, he also lives with us, and seems to have the right to comfort and convenience.

Pull the clothes down so that he can choose what he likes, or put everything back.

Buy a small scoop with a broom.

Hang hooks in the bathroom where you can hang your own towel.

Buy a stand that the child can move and carry himself in order to get and see what he needs now.

Now, if you are still sitting on the mat, look at the passing adult? Does your neck hurt? And how much do you hear from what you've been told? Yes, and how can you be sure that it was you who was told this? And is it really comfortable to watch?

When I worked at the Montessori center, we all the time sat on the floor with the children, so we played, talked and talked, and when our colleagues approached us and spoke to us from their height, I very clearly managed to trace what it was like to be small and look down up!!

And now it doesn’t surprise me at all why children sometimes don’t hear us! The child is always in our sound background, we always say something to him. He still does not even have so much attention and concentration on the physical level to catch it all. Moreover, we speak when he is busy with something, we say - when he does not look at us, and most importantly - we speak from our HEIGHT.

And if you go down to the level of the child's eyes, establish eye contact, attract attention with a calm, pleasant voice - the child will listen with his mouth open and, most surprisingly, will do what he is asked with pleasure. It is checked up repeatedly, on own experience.

How do we go outside?

Well, for example, a mother is walking with a child, and it snowed all night and a huge amount of it fell. The child looks at the fluffy, sparkling snow, falls into it with his feet, a path of footprints forms behind him, some boots pass around, then a dog runs past, and from it completely different paths are obtained. And the trees around, suddenly, dressed in fluffy fur coats.

Here he is walking down the street so spellbound, suddenly, all this stream of thoughts is interrupted by a twitch of his hand. Mom’s big hand is pulling somewhere, a voice is heard: “How long can you wait, don’t take the snow - wet your mittens, I’m already cold, let’s go faster ...?

And for a child, this endless snow is a whole spectacle, he is all in the “stream”, he lives here and now. What a pity that we lost this skill over time. Wait, a little time will pass, and our child will become like us and will also stop noticing all this, and will begin to hurry and run somewhere.

But, I’ll tell you, in secret, mothers were the luckiest of all - they were given a chance to awaken this forgotten feeling of “here and now” in themselves. Psychologists and philosophers say that the one who lives in the present is happy!!

We can learn from our children to see the significant in the most insignificant and trifling.

Remember the fairy tale "The Train from Romashkovo"? Is it for children? An instructive book for adults: “If you see beautiful things, if you see good things, stop!

It would be good for us, at least sometimes, from our giant kingdom, to get into the small world of childhood: not to rush and not to run, not to exaggerate our importance, not to frown, not to speak tediously and instructively, but simply to observe and look at something, to talk eye to eye, laugh and joke, sing and dance just like that, and just feel the joy of the coming day, not conditioned by anything, but coming from the depths of the heart.

And how lucky is such a child who, suddenly, from the country of giants, gets into an understandable and not at all terrible, but very comfortable reality, well, let it be, at least sometimes ...

Jonathan Swift

Gulliver did not live long at home.
He did not have time to rest well, as he was again drawn to the voyage.
“That must be my nature,” he thought. “The restless life of a sea tramp is more to my heart than the peaceful life of my land friends.”
In a word, two months after his return to his homeland, he was again listed as a doctor on the ship "Adventure", which set off on a long voyage under the command of Captain John Nichols.

June 20, 1702 "Adventure" went to the open sea.

The wind was favorable. The ship sailed in full sail all the way to the Cape of Good Hope. Here the captain ordered to drop anchor and stock up on fresh water. After a two-day stay, the Adventure was supposed to set sail again.
But suddenly a leak opened on the ship. I had to unload the goods and do the repair. And then Captain Nichols fell ill with a severe fever.
The ship's doctor Gulliver carefully examined the sick captain and decided that he should not continue sailing before he completely recovered.
So "Adventure" wintered at the Cape of Good Hope.
Only in March 1703, sails were again set on the ship, and he safely made the transition to the Madagascar Strait.
On April 19, when the ship was already close to the island of Madagascar, a light westerly wind gave way to a severe hurricane.
For twenty days the ship drove east. The whole team was exhausted and dreamed only that this hurricane would finally subside.
And then came the complete calm. The whole day the sea was quiet, and people began to hope that they would be able to rest. But Captain Nichols, an experienced sailor who sailed in these places more than once, looked with disbelief at the quiet sea and ordered the guns to be tied tighter.
- A storm is coming! - he said.
And in fact, on the very next day, a strong, gusty wind arose. Every minute he grew stronger, and finally such a storm broke out that neither Gulliver, nor the sailors, nor Captain John Nichols himself had ever seen.
The hurricane raged for many days. For many days the Adventure struggled with the waves and the wind.

Skillfully maneuvering, the captain ordered either to raise the sails, then to lower them, then to go with the wind, then to drift.
In the end, "Adventure" emerged victorious from this struggle. The ship was in good condition, provisions were plentiful, the crew was healthy, hardy and skillful. Only one thing was bad: the ship was running out of fresh water. I had to fill them up no matter what. But how? Where? During the storm, the ship was blown so far to the east that even the oldest and most experienced sailors could not tell in which part of the world they were thrown and whether there was land nearby. Everyone was seriously alarmed and looked at the captain with concern.
But finally, the cabin boy, who was standing on the mast, saw the ground in the distance.

No one knew what it was - a large land or an island. Desert rocky shores were unfamiliar even to Captain Nichols.
The next day, the ship came so close to the land that Gulliver and all the sailors could clearly see from the deck a long sandy spit and a bay. But was it deep enough for a large ship like the Adventure to enter?
Cautious captain Nichols did not dare to enter his ship into an unknown bay without a pilot. He ordered to anchor and sent a longboat to the shore with ten well-armed sailors. The sailors were given several empty barrels with them and instructed to bring more fresh water if they could find a lake, river or stream somewhere near the coast.
Gulliver asked the captain to let him go ashore along with the sailors.
The captain knew perfectly well that his scientific companion went on a long journey to see foreign lands, and willingly let him go.
Soon the boat moored to the shore, and Gulliver was the first to jump out onto the wet stones. The surroundings were completely empty and quiet. No boat, no fishing hut, no grove in the distance.

In search of fresh water, the sailors dispersed along the shore, and Gulliver was left alone. He wandered at random, looking around with curiosity at new places, but saw absolutely nothing of interest. Everywhere - to the right and to the left - a barren, rocky desert stretched.

Tired and dissatisfied, Gulliver slowly walked back to the bay.
The sea lay before him harsh, grey, inhospitable. Gulliver rounded some huge stone and suddenly stopped, frightened and surprised.
What? The sailors have already boarded the longboat and that there is strength they are rowing to the ship. How did they leave him alone on the shore? What happened?

Gulliver wanted to scream loudly, call out to the sailors, but his tongue in his mouth seemed to be petrified.
And not smart. A man of enormous stature suddenly emerged from behind a coastal cliff - himself no smaller than this rock - and chased after the boat. The sea barely reached his knees. He took great strides. Two or three more such steps, and he would have seized the launch by the stern. But, apparently, sharp stones at the bottom prevented him from going. He stopped, waved his hand and turned towards the shore.

Gulliver's head was spinning with horror. He fell to the ground, crawled between the stones, and then got to his feet and ran headlong, not knowing where.
He thought only about where he could hide from this terrible, huge man.
Finally, coastal sands and stones were left far behind.
Gulliver, out of breath, ran up the slope of a steep hill and looked around.
Everything was green around. On all sides it was surrounded by groves and forests.
He went down the hill and walked along the wide road. To the right and to the left, a dense forest stood like a solid wall - smooth bare trunks, straight, like those of pines.
Gulliver threw back his head to look at the tops of the trees, and gasped. These were not pines, but ears of barley as high as trees!

It must be harvest time. Ripe grains the size of a large fir cone now and then painfully clicked Gulliver on the back, on the shoulders, on the head. Gulliver stepped up.

He walked and walked and finally reached the high fence. The fence was three times higher than the highest ears, and Gulliver could barely make out its upper edge. Getting from this field to the next one was not so easy. To do this, it was necessary to climb the mossy stone steps, and then climb over a large stone that had grown into the ground.
There were only four steps, but each of them is much higher than Gulliver. Only by standing on tiptoe and raising his hand high, he could hardly reach the edge of the bottom step.
There was no point in even thinking of climbing such a ladder.
Gulliver began to carefully examine the fence: is there at least some crack or loophole in it through which one could get out of here?
There was no loophole.
And suddenly a huge man appeared on the top step of the stairs - even more than the one who was chasing the longboat. He was at least as tall as a fire tower!
Gulliver in horror rushed into the barley thicket and hid behind a thick ear.
From his ambush, he saw the giant wave his hand and, turning around, shouted something loudly. He must have just called someone, but it seemed to Gulliver that thunder had struck in a clear sky.
Several of the same peals sounded in the distance, and a minute later seven more guys of the same height turned out to be next to the giant. They must have been workers. They were dressed simpler and poorer than the first giant, and they had sickles in their hands. And what sickles! If six of our scythes were laid out on the ground in a crescent, such a sickle would hardly have turned out.
After listening to their master, the giants, one by one, went down to the field where Gulliver was hiding, and began to reap the barley.
Gulliver, beside himself with fear, rushed back into the thicket of ears.
The barley grew thickly. Gulliver barely made his way between the tall, straight trunks. A whole rain of heavy grains rained down on him from above, but he no longer paid any attention to it.
And suddenly a stalk of barley, nailed to the ground by wind and rain, blocked his path. Gulliver climbed over a thick, smooth trunk and stumbled upon another, even thicker one. Further - a dozen ears of corn crouched to the ground. The trunks were closely intertwined with each other, and the strong, sharp mustaches of barley, or rather, the mustaches, stuck out like spears. They pierced Gulliver's dress and dug into the skin. Gulliver turned left, right ... And there are the same thick trunks and terrible sharp spears!
What to do now? Gulliver realized that he would never get out of this thicket. The strength left him. He lay down in the furrow and buried his face in the ground. Tears welled up from his eyes.

He involuntarily remembered that quite recently, in the land of the Lilliputians, he himself felt like a giant. There he could put a rider with a horse into his pocket, he could pull a whole enemy fleet behind him with one hand, and now he is a midget among giants, and he, the Mountain Man, the mighty Quinbus Flestrin, just look, they will put him in his pocket. And this is not the worst. They can crush him like a frog, they can turn his head like a sparrow! Everything comes into view...
At that very moment, Gulliver suddenly saw that some wide, dark slab had risen above him and was about to fall. What is it? Is it the sole of a huge shoe? And there is! One of the reapers imperceptibly approached Gulliver and stopped just above his head. As soon as he lowers his leg, he will trample Gulliver like a beetle or a grasshopper.

Gulliver screamed, and the giant heard his cry. He bent down and began carefully examining the ground and even rummaging through it with his hands.
And so, moving a few ears of corn aside, he saw something alive.
For a minute he cautiously examined Gulliver, as they consider unseen animals or insects. It was evident that he was thinking about how to grab the amazing animal so that he would not have time to scratch or bite him.
Finally, he made up his mind - he grabbed Gulliver with two fingers by the sides and brought him to his very eyes in order to get a better look.

It seemed to Gulliver that some kind of whirlwind lifted him and carried him straight into the sky. His heart broke. “What if he throws me to the ground with a swing, like we throw bugs or cockroaches?” he thought with horror, and as soon as two huge astonished eyes shone before him, he folded his hands imploringly and said politely and calmly, although his voice trembled and his tongue stuck to his palate:
“I beg you, dear giant, have mercy on me!” I won't do you any harm.
Of course, the giant did not understand what Gulliver was telling him, but Gulliver did not count on this. He wanted only one thing: let the giant notice that he, Gulliver, does not croak, does not chirp, does not buzz, but talks like people.
And the giant saw it. He shuddered, looked at Gulliver carefully and grabbed him tighter so as not to drop him. His fingers, like huge pincers, squeezed Gulliver's ribs, and he involuntarily cried out in pain.
"End! flashed through his head. “If this monster doesn’t drop me and smash me to pieces, then it will probably crush or strangle me!”
But the giant was not at all going to strangle Gulliver. He must have liked the talking grasshopper. He lifted the half of the caftan and, carefully putting his find into it, ran to the other end of the field.

“Carries to the owner,” guessed Gulliver.
And in fact, a minute later Gulliver was already in the hands of that giant who appeared on the barley field before all the others.
Seeing such a little man, the owner was even more surprised than the worker. He looked at it for a long time, turning first to the right, then to the left. Then he took a straw as thick as a cane and began to lift the skirts of Gulliver's caftan with it. He must have thought it was some kind of cockchafer elytra.
All the workers gathered around and, craning their necks, silently looked at the amazing find.
In order to better see Gulliver's face, the owner took off his hat and lightly blew on his hair. Gulliver's hair rose as if from a strong wind. Then the giant gently lowered him to the ground and put him on all fours. He probably wanted to see how the outlandish animal runs.
But Gulliver immediately got to his feet and began to walk proudly in front of the giants, trying to show them that he was not a May beetle, not a grasshopper, but a person like them, and was not at all going to run away from them and hide among the stems.
He waved his hat and bowed to his new master. Holding his head high, he uttered a loud and distinct greeting in four languages.
The giants looked at each other and shook their heads in surprise, but Gulliver clearly saw that they did not understand him. Then he took out a purse of gold from his pocket and placed it in the palm of his master. He bent low, screwed up one eye, and, wrinkling his nose, began to examine the strange little thing. He even pulled out a pin from somewhere in his sleeve and poked the point into his purse, obviously not realizing what it was.
Then Gulliver himself opened his wallet and poured all his gold into the palm of the giant - thirty-six Spanish chervonets.
The giant licked the tip of his finger and lifted one Spanish gold, then another ...
Gulliver tried to explain with signs that he was asking the giant to accept this modest gift from him.
He bowed, pressed his hands to his heart, but the giant did not understand anything and also ordered Gulliver with signs to put the coins back in his purse and hide the purse in his pocket.
Then he talked about something with his workers, and it seemed to Gulliver that eight water mills rustled at once over his head. He was glad when the workers finally left for the field.
Then the giant took out his handkerchief from his pocket, folded it several times and, lowering his left hand to the very ground, covered his palm with a handkerchief.
Gulliver immediately understood what they wanted from him. He obediently climbed onto this wide palm and, in order not to fall off it, lay down on his face.
It can be seen that the giant was very afraid of dropping and losing Gulliver - he carefully wrapped him in a scarf, as if in a blanket, and, covering him with his other hand, carried him to his home.
It was noon, and the hostess had already served dinner on the table, when the giant with Gulliver in his palm crossed the threshold of his house.
Without saying a word, the giant held out his hand to his wife and lifted the edge of the scarf with which Gulliver was covered.

She backed away and squealed so that Gulliver almost burst both eardrums.
But soon the giantess saw Gulliver, and she liked the way he bows, takes off and puts on his hat, carefully walks around the table between the plates. And Gulliver really moved around the table cautiously and cautiously. He tried to stay away from the edge, because the table was very high - at least the size of a two-story house.
The entire host family was seated around the table - father, mother, three children and an old grandmother. The owner put Gulliver near his plate.

In front of the hostess stood a huge piece of roast beef on a dish.
She cut off a small slice of meat, broke off a piece of bread and put it all in front of Gulliver.
Gulliver bowed, took out his travel device from the case - a fork, a knife - and began to eat.
The hosts lowered their forks at once and stared at him smiling. Gulliver was scared. A piece stuck in his throat when he saw from all sides these huge, like lanterns, curious eyes and teeth that were larger than his head.
But he did not want all these giants, adults and children, to notice how much he was afraid of them, and, trying not to look around, he finished his bread and meat.

The hostess said something to the maid, and she immediately put a glass in front of Gulliver, filled to the brim with some kind of golden, transparent drink.
It must have been the smallest glass of liquor, no larger than a jug of wine.
Gulliver stood up, raised his glass with both hands and, going straight to the hostess, drank to her health. All the giants liked it very much. The children began to laugh and clap their hands so loudly that Gulliver almost went deaf.
He hastened to take cover again behind the host's plate, but in his haste he stumbled over a crust of bread and stretched himself to his full height. He immediately jumped to his feet and looked around anxiously - he did not want to seem ridiculous and awkward.
However, this time no one laughed. Everyone looked at the little man with concern, and the maid immediately removed the ill-fated crust from the table.
To reassure his masters, Gulliver waved his hat and shouted “Hurrah” three times as a sign that everything went well.
He did not know that at that very moment a new trouble awaited him.
As soon as he approached the owner, one of the boys, a ten-year-old naughty boy, who was sitting next to his father, quickly grabbed Gulliver by the legs and lifted him so high that the poor fellow was breathless and dizzy.
It is not known what else the mischievous person would have come up with, but the father immediately snatched Gulliver from his hands and put him on the table again, and rewarded the boy with a resounding slap in the face.
With such a blow, a whole squadron of grenadiers could be knocked out of their saddles - of course, an ordinary human breed.
After that, the father strictly ordered his son to leave the table immediately. The boy roared like a herd of bulls, and Gulliver felt sorry for him.
"Should I be angry with him? After all, he is still small, ”Gulliver thought, dropped to one knee and began to beg his master to forgive the naughty with signs.
The father nodded his head, and the boy again took his place at the table. And Gulliver, tired of all these adventures, sat down on the tablecloth, leaned against the salt shaker and closed his eyes for a minute.
Suddenly, he heard a loud noise behind him. Such a measured, thick roar can be heard in hosiery workshops when at least ten machines are working there at once.
Gulliver looked around - and his heart sank. He saw over the table the huge, terrible muzzle of some predatory beast. Green bright eyes squinted slyly, then greedily opened. Long, fluffy mustaches protruded belligerently.

Who is it? Lynx? Bengal tiger? A lion? No, this beast is four times the size of the largest lion.
Carefully peeking out from behind the plate, Gulliver examined the beast. I looked and looked - and finally realized: it's a cat! Common domestic cat. She climbed onto her mistress's lap, and the mistress stroked her, while the cat softened and purred.
Oh, if this cat were as small as all those cats and kittens that Gulliver saw in his homeland, he would also gently stroke her and tickle her behind the ears!
But will the mouse dare to tickle the cat?
Gulliver already wanted to hide somewhere far away - in an empty bowl or cup - but, fortunately, he remembered that predatory animals always attack the one who is afraid of them, and they are afraid of the one who attacks himself.
This thought gave Gulliver courage. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword and stepped forward bravely.

Long-standing hunting experience did not deceive Gulliver. Five or six times he fearlessly approached the very muzzle of the cat, and the cat did not even dare to stretch out its paw to him. She just flattened her ears and backed away.
She ended up jumping off her mistress's knees and moving away from the table herself. Gulliver breathed a sigh of relief.
But then two huge dogs ran into the room.
If you want to know how big they were, put four elephants on top of each other and you'll get the most accurate idea.
One dog, despite its enormous growth, was an ordinary mongrel, the other was a hunting dog, from the breed of greyhounds.
Fortunately, both dogs did not pay much attention to Gulliver and, having received some handout from the owner, ran into the yard.
Towards the very end of dinner, a nurse entered the room with a one-year-old child in her arms.
The child immediately noticed Gulliver, stretched out his hands to him and raised a deafening roar. If this two-foot-long baby were on one of the outskirts of London, even the deaf would certainly hear him on the other outskirts. He must have mistook Gulliver for a toy and was angry that he could not reach her.
The mother smiled affectionately and without thinking twice took Gulliver and placed it in front of the child. And the boy, too, without thinking twice, grabbed him across the torso and began to put his head in his mouth.
But here Gulliver could not stand it. He screamed almost louder than his tormentor, and the child dropped it from his hands in fright.
This would probably have been Gulliver's last adventure if the hostess had not caught him on the fly in her apron.
The child roared even more piercingly, and to calm him, the nurse began to turn the rattle in front of him. The rattle was tied to the baby's belt with a thick anchor rope and looked like a large hollowed-out gourd. At least twenty stones rumbled and rolled in her empty interior.
But the child did not want to look at his old rattle. He burst out screaming. Finally, the giantess, covering Gulliver with an apron, imperceptibly carried him away to another room.
There were beds. She laid Gulliver on her bed and covered him with a clean handkerchief. This handkerchief was larger than the sail of a warship, and just as thick and coarse.

Gulliver is very tired. His eyes glazed over, and as soon as the hostess left him alone, he covered his head with his hard linen blanket and fell sound asleep.
He slept for more than two hours, and he dreamed that he was at home, among relatives and friends.
When he woke up and realized that he was lying on a bed with no end in sight, in a huge room that you could not go around even in a few hours, he became very sad. He closed his eyes again and pulled the corner of the handkerchief up. But this time he couldn't sleep.
As soon as he dozed off, he heard someone jump heavily from the curtains onto the bed, run along the pillow and stop beside him, either whistling or snoring.
Gulliver quickly raised his head and saw that some long-faced mustachioed beast was standing right above his face and looking straight into his eyes with black shining eyes.
Rat! A disgusting brown rat the size of a large mongrel! And she is not alone, there are two of them, they attack Gulliver from two sides! Ah, cheeky animals! One of the rats became so bold that it rested its paws right on Gulliver's collar.
He jumped aside, drew his sword, and with one blow ripped open the belly of the beast. The rat fell, covered in blood, and the other took off running.
But then Gulliver chased her, overtook her at the very edge of the bed and cut off her tail. With a piercing screech, she rolled down somewhere, leaving behind a long trail of blood.
Gulliver returned to the dying rat. She was still breathing. He killed her with a strong blow.
At that very moment the hostess entered the room. Seeing that Gulliver was covered in blood, she ran to the bed in fright and wanted to take him in her arms.
But Gulliver, smiling, handed her his bloody sword, and then pointed to the dead rat, and she understood everything.
Calling the maid, she told her to immediately take the rat with tongs and throw it out of the window. And then both women noticed the severed tail of another rat. He lay at the very feet of Gulliver, long as a shepherd's whip.
The owners of Gulliver had a daughter - a pretty, affectionate and smart girl.
She was already nine years old, but for her age she was very small - only with some three-story house, and even then without any weather vanes and towers.
The girl had a doll for which she sewed elegant shirts, dresses and aprons.
But, since an amazing living doll appeared in the house, she no longer wanted to look at the old toys.
She put her former favorite in some kind of box, and gave her cradle to Gulliver.
The cradle was kept in one of the chest of drawers during the day, and in the evening they put it on a shelf nailed right under the ceiling so that the rats could not get to Gulliver.
The girl made for her "grildrig" (in the language of the giants "grildrig" means "little man") a pillow, a blanket and sheets. She made him seven shirts of the thinnest piece of linen she could find, and she always washed his underwear and stockings for him.
From this girl, Gulliver began to learn the language of the giants.

He pointed with his finger at some object, and the girl distinctly repeated its name several times in succession.
She so carefully looked after Gulliver, so patiently taught him to speak, that he called her his "glumdalclitch" - that is, nanny.
A few weeks later, Gulliver began to understand little by little what was being said around him, and he himself, with sin in half, could explain himself to the giants.
In the meantime, the rumor that his master had found an amazing animal in his field spread throughout the neighborhood.
They said that the animal is tiny, smaller than a squirrel, but it looks very similar to a person: it walks on two legs, chirps in some kind of its own dialect, but has already learned to speak a little in human language. He is understanding, obedient, willingly goes to the call and does everything that he is ordered to. His little muzzle is white - softer and whiter than the face of a three-year-old girl, and the hair on his head is silky and soft, like fluff.
And then one fine day, their old friend came to visit the owners.
He immediately asked them if it was true that they had found some amazing animal, and in response to this, the owners ordered their daughter to bring Grildrig.
The girl ran, brought Gulliver and put him on a chair.
Gulliver had to show everything that Glumdalclitch taught him.
He marched along and across the table, on command he took out his sword from the scabbard and put it back in, bowed to the guest, asked him how he was doing, and asked him to come more often.
The old man liked the strange little man. To better see Grildrig, he put on his glasses, and Gulliver, looking at him, could not help laughing: his eyes were very similar to the full moon when she peers into the cabin through the round ship window.
Glumdalclitch immediately understood what made Gulliver laugh so much, and also snorted.
The visitor pursed his lips in annoyance.
- A very funny animal! - he said. “But it seems to me that it will be more profitable for you if people start laughing at him, and not if he laughs at people.
And the old man immediately advised the owner to take Gulliver to the nearest city, which was only half an hour away, that is, about twenty-two miles, and on the very first market day to show him there for money.
Gulliver caught and understood only a few words from this conversation, but he immediately felt that something was amiss against him.
Glumdalclitch confirmed his fears.
Shedding tears, she said that, apparently, dad and mom again want to do with her the same way as last year, when they gave her a lamb: before she had time to fatten it, they sold it to the butcher. And now the same thing: they have already given Grildrig to her completely, and now they are going to take him to the fairs.
At first, Gulliver was very upset - he was offended to think that they wanted to show him at the fair like a learned monkey or guinea pig.
But then it occurred to him that if he lived without a break in his master's house, he would grow old in a doll's cradle or in a chest of drawers.
And while wandering around the fairs - who knows? his fate may change.
And he began to expect the first trip with hope.
And now this day has come.
A little before light, the owner with his daughter and Gulliver set off. They rode on the same horse: the owner was in front, the daughter was behind, and Gulliver was in the box held by the girl.
The horse ran at such a large trot that it seemed to Gulliver that he was again on the ship and the ship either takes off on the crest of a wave, or falls into the abyss.
Gulliver did not see which road he was being taken along: he was sitting, or rather, lying in a dark box, which his owner had knocked together the day before to transport the little man from the village to the city.
There were no windows in the box. It had only a small door through which Gulliver could enter and exit, and several holes in the lid for air access.
Caring Glumdalclitch put a quilt from her doll's bed in a drawer. But can even the thickest blanket protect you from bruises, when with every push it throws you up a yard from the floor and throws you from corner to corner?
Glumdalclitch listened anxiously as her poor Grildrig rolled from place to place and banged against the walls.
As soon as the horse stopped, the girl jumped off the saddle and, opening the door ajar, looked into the box. The exhausted Gulliver struggled to his feet and, staggering, went out into the air.
His whole body ached and green circles swam before his eyes - he had been shaken so much during half an hour of this difficult journey. If not for the habit of ocean storms and hurricanes, he probably would have gotten seasick.
But Gulliver did not have to rest for a long time. The owner did not want to waste a minute of precious time.
He rented the largest room in the Green Eagle Hotel, ordered a wide table to be placed in the middle and hired a grultrud, in our opinion, a herald.
Grultrud walked around the city and informed the residents that in the hotel under the sign "Green Eagle" for a moderate fee you can see an amazing animal.
This animal is slightly larger than a human finger, but looks like a real person. He understands everything that is said to him, he can say a few words himself and does various funny things.
People poured into the hotel in droves.
Gulliver was put on the table, and Glumdalclitch climbed onto a stool to guard him and tell him what he should do.

At the girl's command, he marched back and forth, unsheathed his sword and brandished it. Glumdalclitch gave him a straw, and he did various exercises with it, like a spear. In the end, he took a thimble filled with wine, drank to the health of the public and invited everyone to visit him again on the next market day.
In the room where the performance was going on, no more than thirty people fit. And almost the whole city wanted to see the amazing Grildrig. Therefore, Gulliver had to repeat the same performance twelve times in a row for new and new viewers. By evening, he was so exhausted that he could barely move his tongue and step over his feet.
The owner did not allow anyone to touch Gulliver - he was afraid that someone would inadvertently crush his ribs or break his arms and legs. Just in case, he ordered to place benches for spectators away from the table on which the performance was taking place. But this did not save Gulliver from unexpected trouble.
Some schoolboy, sitting in the back rows, suddenly got up, took aim and launched a large red-hot nut right into Gulliver's head.
This nut was the size of a good pumpkin, and if Gulliver had not jumped aside, he would certainly have been left without a head.
The boy was pulled out by the ears and taken out of the hall. But from that moment on, Gulliver felt somehow uneasy. The straw seemed heavy to him, and the wine in the thimble was too strong and sour. He was heartily glad when Glumdalclitch hid it in a box and slammed the door behind him.
After the first performance, Gulliver began a difficult life.
Every market day he was brought to the city, and from morning to evening he ran around the table, amusing the audience. And at home, in the village, he did not have a moment of peace. The surrounding landowners with their children, having heard stories about the outlandish little man, came to his owner and demanded that they be shown the scientist Grildrig.
After haggling, the owner arranged a performance at his house. The guests left very satisfied and, returning to their place, sent all their neighbors, acquaintances and relatives to look at Gulliver.
The owner realized that it was very profitable to show Gulliver.
Without thinking twice, he decided to travel with him to all the major cities of the country of the giants.
The collections were short. August 17, 1703, exactly two months after Gulliver got off the ship, the owner, Glumdalclitch and Gulliver set off on a long journey.
The country of the giants was called Brobdingnag, and its main city was Lorbrulgrud, which means to us "the pride of the universe."
The capital was located just in the middle of the country, and in order to get into it, Gulliver and his huge companions had to cross six wide rivers. Compared to them, the rivers that he saw in his homeland and in other countries seemed to be narrow, shallow streams.
Travelers passed eighteen cities and many villages, but Gulliver hardly saw them. He was taken to fairs not in order to show him all sorts of curiosities, but in order to show him himself, like a curiosity.
As always, the owner rode, and Glumdalclitch sat behind him and held a box with Gulliver on her knees.
But before this journey, the girl upholstered the walls of the box with thick, soft cloth, covered the floor with mattresses, and put her doll's bed in the corner.
And yet, Gulliver was very tired of the continuous pitching and shaking.
The girl noticed this and persuaded her father to drive slowly and stop more often.
When Gulliver got tired of sitting in a dark box, she took it out of there and put it on the lid so that he could breathe fresh air and admire the castles, fields and groves that they passed by. But at the same time, she always held him tightly for help.
If Gulliver had fallen from such a height, he would probably have died of fear before reaching the ground. But in the arms of his nurse, he felt safe and looked around with curiosity.
According to the old habit of an experienced traveler, Gulliver, even during the most difficult journeys, tried not to waste time. He studied diligently with his Glumdalclitch, memorized new words, and every day spoke better and better Brobdingneg.
Glumdalclitch always carried with her a small pocket book, a little larger than a geographical atlas. These were the rules of behavior for exemplary girls. She showed Gulliver the letters, and he soon learned to read fluently from this book.
Upon learning of his success, the owner began to force Gulliver to read various books aloud during the performance. This greatly amused the audience, and they flocked in droves to look at the competent grasshopper.
The owner showed Gulliver in every city and in every village. Sometimes he turned off the road and drove into the castle of some noble nobleman.
The more performances they gave along the way, the thicker the owner's purse became, and the thinner poor Grildrig became.
When at last their journey ended and they arrived in the capital, Gulliver could hardly stand on his feet from fatigue.
But the owner did not want to think about any respite. He hired a large hall in the hotel, ordered to put a table in it, purposely surrounded by railings, so that Gulliver would somehow accidentally fall to the floor, and pasted up posters all over the city, where it was said in black and white: “Whoever has not seen the scientist Grildrig, he didn't see anything!"
The performances have begun. Sometimes Gulliver had to show himself to the public ten times a day.
He felt that he could not bear it for long. And often, marching around the table with his straw in his hands, he thought about how sad it is to end his life on this table with railings, to the laughter of an idle audience.
But just when it seemed to Gulliver that there was no one more unhappy than him in the whole world, his fate suddenly changed for the better.
One fine morning, one of the king's adjutants came to the hotel and demanded that Gulliver be immediately taken to the palace.
It turned out that the day before, two court ladies had seen the learned Grildrig and told the queen so much about him that she wanted to look at him herself and show her daughters.

Glumdalclitch put on her best formal dress, washed and combed Gulliver with her own hands, and carried him to the palace. That day the performance was a success. Never before had he wielded his sword and straw so deftly, never had he marched so clearly and cheerfully. The queen was delighted.

She graciously extended her little finger to Gulliver, and Gulliver, carefully clasping it with both hands, kissed her nail. The queen's nail was smooth, polished, and, kissing it, Gulliver clearly saw his face in it, as if in an oval mirror. It was only then that he noticed that lately he had changed a lot - he had turned pale, lost weight, and the first gray hair appeared on his temples.

The queen asked Gulliver several questions. She wanted to know where he had been born, where he had lived until now, how and when he had come to Brobdingnag. Gulliver answered all questions accurately, briefly, politely and as loudly as he could.
Then the queen asked Gulliver if he wanted to stay in her palace. Gulliver replied that he would be happy to serve such a beautiful, gracious and wise queen, if only his master agreed to let him go free.
He will agree! - said the queen and made some kind of sign to her court lady.
A few minutes later, Gulliver's master was already standing in front of the queen.
“I take this little man for myself,” said the queen. How much do you want to get for it?
The owner thought. It was very profitable to show Gulliver. But how long will it be possible to show it? It melts every day, like an icicle in the sun, and it seems that soon it will not be visible at all.
- A thousand gold pieces! - he said.
The queen ordered him to count a thousand gold pieces, and then turned back to Gulliver.
“Well,” she said, “now you are ours, Grildrig.
Gulliver pressed his hands to his heart.
“I bow low to your majesty,” he said, “but if your grace is equal to your beauty, I dare to ask my mistress not to separate me from my dear Glumdalclitch, my nurse and teacher.
“Very well,” said the queen. She will stay at court. Here she will be taught and well looked after, and she will teach you and look after you.
Glumdalclitch almost jumped for joy. The owner was also very pleased. He never could have dreamed that he would arrange for his daughter at the royal court.
Having put the money in his travel bag, he bowed low to the queen, and told Gulliver that he wished him good luck in his new service.
Gulliver, not answering, barely nodded his head at him.
“You seem to be angry with your former master, Grildrig?” the queen asked.
“Oh no,” Gulliver replied. “But I suppose I have nothing to talk about with him. Until now, he himself has not spoken to me or asked me if I can perform in front of an audience ten times a day. I owe him only the fact that I was not crushed and trampled when they accidentally found me on his field. For this favor, I repaid him in abundance with the money that he had amassed by showing me around all the cities and villages of the country. I'm not talking about the thousand gold coins he received from Your Majesty for my insignificant person. This greedy man has driven me almost to death and would never have given me away even for such a price, if he did not think that I was no longer worth a penny. But I hope he's wrong this time. I feel the influx of new strength and ready to diligently serve my beautiful queen and mistress.
The queen was very surprised.
“I have never seen or heard anything like it!” - she exclaimed. - This is the most reasonable and eloquent insect of all insects in the world!
And, taking Gulliver with two fingers, she carried him to show the king.
The king was sitting in his office and was busy with some important state affairs.
When the queen approached his table, he only glanced at Gulliver and asked over his shoulder if the queen had long been addicted to trained mice.
The queen smiled silently in response and put Gulliver on the table.
Gulliver bowed low and respectfully to the king.
- Who made you such a funny wind-up toy? the king asked.
Then the queen made a sign to Gulliver, and he uttered the longest and most beautiful greeting he could think of.
The king was surprised. He leaned back in his chair and began to ask the strange little man question after question.
Gulliver answered the king in detail and accurately. He spoke the pure truth, but the king looked at him with narrowed eyes and shook his head in disbelief.
He ordered three of the most famous scientists in the country to be called and invited them to carefully examine this rare little biped to determine to what category it belonged.
Scientists looked at Gulliver for a long time through a magnifying glass and finally decided that he was not a beast, as he walks on two legs and speaks articulately. He is not a bird either, as he has no wings and apparently cannot fly. It is not a fish as it has no tail or fins. He must not be an insect, since there is no mention of insects so similar to humans in any scientific book. However, he is not a person - judging by his insignificant stature and barely audible voice. Most likely, this is just a game of nature - "repllum skolkats" in Brobdingneg.
Hearing this, Gulliver was very offended.
“Think what you like,” he said, “but I am not a game of nature at all, but a real person.
And, asking the king for permission, he told in detail who he was, where he came from, where and how he had lived until now.
“There are millions of men and women as tall as I live in our area,” he assured the king and scientists. - Our mountains, rivers and trees, our houses and towers, the horses we ride, the animals we hunt - in a word, everything that surrounds us is as much smaller than your mountains, rivers, trees and animals, how much I am less than you.
The scientists laughed and said that this was why they studied for so long so as not to believe the ridiculous fables, but the king realized that Gulliver was not lying.
He dismissed the scientists, called Glumdalclitch to his office and ordered her to find her father, who, fortunately, had not yet had time to leave the city.
He asked both of them for a long time how and in what place Gulliver was found, and their answers fully convinced him that Gulliver was telling the truth.
“If this is not a man,” said the king, “then at least it is a little man.”
And he asked the queen to take care of Gulliver and take care of him as best as possible. The queen willingly promised to take Gulliver under her protection. Smart and polite Grildrig liked her much more than her former favorite - a dwarf. This dwarf is still considered the smallest person in the country. He was only four fathoms tall and barely reached the shoulder of nine-year-old Glumdalclitch. But how could it be compared with Grildrig, which fit in the queen's palm!
The queen gave Gulliver rooms next to her own chambers. Glumdalclitch settled in these rooms with a teacher and maids, and Gulliver himself took refuge on a small table under the window, in a beautiful walnut box, which served as his bedroom.
This box was made by a special order of the Queen court carpenter. The box was sixteen paces long and twelve paces wide. From the outside, it looked like a small house - bright windows with shutters, a carved door with a padlock - only the roof of the house was flat. This roof was raised and lowered on hinges. Every morning Glumdalclitch lifted her up and cleaned Gulliver's bedroom.

The bedroom had two wardrobes, a comfortable bed, a chest of drawers for linen, two tables and two chairs with armrests. All these things were made for Gulliver by a toy craftsman who was famous for his ability to cut graceful trinkets from bone and wood.
The armchairs, chest of drawers, and tables were made of some kind of material that looked like ivory, and the bed and wardrobes were made of walnut, like the rest of the house.

In order for Gulliver not to accidentally hurt himself when his house is moved from place to place, the walls, ceiling and floor of the bedroom were upholstered with soft and thick felt.
The door lock was ordered at the special request of Gulliver: he was very afraid that some curious mouse or greedy rat would not enter his house.
After several failures, the locksmith finally made the smallest lock of all that he had ever had to make.
Meanwhile, in his homeland, Gulliver only once in his life saw a castle of this size. He hung on the gates of a manor estate, the owner of which was famous for his stinginess.
Gulliver carried the key to the castle in his pocket, because Glumdalclitch was afraid of losing such a tiny little thing. And why did she need this key? She still could not enter the door, but in order to see what was happening in the house, or to get Gulliver out of there, it was enough to raise the roof.
The queen took care not only of the dwelling of her Grildrig, but also of a new dress for him.
The suit was sewn for him from the finest silk fabric that was found in the state. And yet this matter turned out to be thicker than the thickest English blankets and worried Gulliver very much until he got used to it. The suit was sewn according to the local fashion: bloomers like Persian ones, and a caftan like Chinese ones. Gulliver really liked this cut. He found it quite comfortable and decent.
The Queen and both her daughters loved Gulliver so much that they never sat down to dine without him.

A table and a chair for Gulliver were placed on the royal table near the left elbow of the queen. His nanny, Glumdalclitch, took care of him during dinner. She poured wine for him, put food on the plates and made sure that no one turned over and did not drop him, along with the table and chair.
Gulliver had his own special silver service - plates, dishes, a soup bowl, gravy boats and salad bowls.
Of course, compared to the queen's tableware, this service looked like a toy, but it was very well made.
After dinner, Glumdalclitch washed and cleaned the plates, dishes, and bowls herself, and then hid everything in a silver box. She always carried this box in her pocket.
It was very funny for the Queen to watch Gulliver eat. Often she herself put a piece of beef or poultry on his plate and watched with a smile as he slowly ate his portion, which any three-year-old child would have swallowed in one go.
But Gulliver watched with involuntary fear as the queen and both princesses ate their dinner.
The queen often complained of a poor appetite, but nevertheless she immediately took into her mouth such a piece as would be enough for a dozen English farmers to eat after the harvest. Until Gulliver got used to it, he closed his eyes so as not to see how the queen gnaws on a grouse wing, which is nine times the size of an ordinary turkey wing, and bites off a piece of bread the size of two village rugs. She drank a golden goblet without stopping, and this goblet contained a whole barrel of wine. Her table knives and forks were twice the size of a field scythe. Once Glumdalclitch, taking Gulliver in her arms, showed him at once a dozen brightly polished knives and forks. Gulliver could not look at them calmly. The glittering points of the blades and the huge teeth, long as spears, made him tremble.
When the queen learned of this, she laughed out loud and asked her Grildrig if all his countrymen were so timid that they could not see a simple table knife without trembling and were ready to run away from an ordinary fly.
She was always very amused when Gulliver jumped up in horror from his place, because several flies, buzzing, flew up to his table. For her, these huge big-eyed insects, the size of a thrush, were really no worse than a fly, and Gulliver could not even think about them without disgust and annoyance.
These importunate, greedy creatures never let him dine in peace. They ran their dirty paws into his plate. They sat on his head and bit him until he bled. At first, Gulliver simply did not know how to get rid of them, and in fact he was ready to run wherever his eyes looked from annoying and impudent beggars. But then he found a way to protect himself.
When he went out to dinner, he took his sea dagger with him and, as soon as the flies flew up to him, he quickly jumped up from his place and - once! once! - on the fly cut them into pieces.
When the queen and princess saw this battle for the first time, they were so delighted that they told the king about it. And the next day the king dined with them on purpose, just to see how Grildrig fought the flies.
On this day, Gulliver cut several large flies with his dagger; and the king praised him greatly for his courage and dexterity.
But fighting flies was not so difficult. Once Gulliver had to endure a fight with a more terrible enemy.
It happened one fine summer morning. Glumdalclitch put the box with Gulliver on the windowsill so that he could get some fresh air. He never allowed his dwelling outside the window to be hung on a nail, as bird cages are sometimes hung.
Opening wider all the windows and doors in his house, Gulliver sat in an armchair and began to have a snack. In his hands was a large piece of sweet cake with jam. Suddenly, about twenty wasps flew into the room with such a buzzing sound as if two dozen Scottish fighting bagpipes were playing at once. Wasps are very fond of sweets and, probably, from afar they smelled the smell of jam. Pushing each other away, they rushed at Gulliver, took the cake from him and instantly crumbled it into pieces.
Those who got nothing hovered over Gulliver's head, deafening him with a buzz and threatening him with their terrible stings.
But Gulliver was not a timid ten. He did not lose his head: he grabbed his sword and rushed at the robbers. Four he killed, the rest fled.

After that, Gulliver slammed the windows and doors and, after a short rest, began to examine the corpses of his enemies. Wasps were the size of a large black grouse. Their stings, sharp as needles, turned out to be longer than Gulliver's penknife. It's good that he managed to avoid being stabbed by those poisoned knives!
Carefully wrapping all four wasps in a towel, Gulliver hid them in the bottom drawer of his chest of drawers.
“If I am ever destined to return to my homeland,” he said to himself, “I will give them to the school where I studied.
The days, weeks and months in the country of the giants were but longer and no shorter than in all other parts of the world. And they ran one after another as fast as everywhere else.
Little by little, Gulliver got used to seeing people around him higher than trees and trees higher than mountains.
One day the queen placed him in her palm and went with him to a large mirror, in which both of them were visible from head to toe.
Gulliver involuntarily laughed. It suddenly seemed to him that the queen was of the most ordinary height, exactly the same as all the people in the world, but here he, Gulliver, became at least twelve times smaller than he was.
Little by little he ceased to be surprised, noticing that people narrowed their eyes to look at him, and put their hand to their ear to hear what he was saying.
He knew in advance that almost every word of his would seem ridiculous and strange to the giants, and the more seriously he talked, the louder they would laugh. He was no longer offended by them for this, but only thought bitterly: “Perhaps it would be funny to me if the canary, which lives in such a pretty gilded cage at my house, decided to make speeches about science and politics.”
However, Gulliver did not complain about his fate. From the time he got to the capital, he did not live badly at all. The king and queen were very fond of their Grildrig, and the courtiers were very kind to him.
Courtiers are always kind to those whom the king and queen love.

Gulliver had only one enemy. And no matter how vigilantly the caring Glumdalclitch guarded her pet, she still could not save him from many troubles.
This enemy was the dwarf queen. Before the advent of Gulliver, he was considered the smallest person in the whole country. They dressed him up, fiddled with him, forgave him daring jokes and annoying pranks. But since Gulliver settled in the queen's chambers, she herself and all the courtiers stopped even noticing the dwarf.
The dwarf walked around the palace gloomy, angry and angry at everyone, and most of all, of course, at Gulliver himself.
He could not indifferently see how the toy man stood on the table and, while waiting for the queen to come out, easily talked to the courtiers.

Insolently grinning and grimacing, the dwarf began to tease the new royal favorite. But Gulliver did not pay attention to this and answered each joke with two, even sharper ones.
Then the dwarf began to figure out how to annoy Gulliver otherwise. And then one day at dinner, waiting for the moment when Glumdalclitch went for something to the other end of the room, he climbed onto the arm of the queen's chair, grabbed Gulliver, who, unaware of the danger threatening him, was calmly sitting at his table, and threw it into a silver cup with cream.
Gulliver went to the bottom like a stone, and the evil dwarf ran out of the room and hid in some dark corner.

The queen was so frightened that it didn’t even occur to her to give Gulliver the tip of her little finger or a teaspoon. Poor Gulliver was floundering in the thick white waves and had probably already swallowed a whole tub of ice-cold cream when Glumdalclitch finally ran up. She snatched it from the cup and wrapped it in a napkin.
Gulliver quickly warmed up, and the unexpected bath did not cause him much harm.
He escaped with a slight runny nose, but from then on he could not even look at the cream without disgust.
The queen became very angry and ordered that her former favorite be severely punished.
The dwarf was painfully flogged and forced to drink a cup of cream in which Gulliver bathed.
After that, the dwarf behaved approximately for two weeks - he left Gulliver alone and smiled affably at him when he passed by.
Everyone - even the cautious Glumdalclitch and Gulliver himself - ceased to be afraid of him.
But it turned out that the dwarf was only waiting for an opportunity to pay off his lucky rival for everything. This incident, like the first time, presented itself to him at dinner.
The Queen placed a marrow bone on her plate, removed the marrow from it, and pushed the plate aside.
At this time, Glumdalclitch went to the sideboard to pour wine for Gulliver. The dwarf crept up to the table and, before Gulliver had time to come to his senses, thrust him almost up to his shoulders into an empty bone.
It's good that the bone had time to cool down. Gulliver didn't get burned. But from resentment and surprise, he almost cried.
The most annoying thing was that the queen and princesses did not even notice his disappearance and continued to calmly chat with their court ladies.
And Gulliver did not want to call them for help and ask to be pulled out of the beef bone. He decided to remain silent, no matter what the cost.
“If only they didn’t give the bone to the dogs!” he thought.
But, fortunately for him, Glumdalclitch returned to the table with a jug of wine.
She immediately saw that Gulliver was not there, and rushed to look for him.
What a commotion arose in the royal dining room! The queen, princesses and court ladies began to lift and shake napkins, look into bowls, glasses and gravy boats.
But it was all in vain: Grildrig disappeared without a trace.
The queen was in despair. She didn't know who to be angry with, and that made her even angrier.
It is not known how this whole story would have ended if the younger princess had not noticed Gulliver's head sticking out of the bone, as if from the hollow of a large tree.
- There he is! There he is! she screamed.
And a minute later Gulliver was removed from the bone.
The queen immediately guessed who was the culprit of this evil trick.
The dwarf was again whipped, and the nanny took Gulliver away to wash and change clothes.
After that, the dwarf was forbidden to appear in the royal dining room, and Gulliver did not see his enemy for a long time - until he met him in the garden.
It happened like this. One hot summer day, Glumdalclitch took Gulliver out into the garden and let him walk in the shade.
He walked along the path along which his favorite dwarf apple trees grew.
These trees were so small that, throwing back his head, Gulliver could easily see their tops. And the apples on them grew, as often happens, even larger than on large trees.
Suddenly, a dwarf came out from behind the turn directly towards Gulliver.
Gulliver could not resist and said, looking at him mockingly:
— What a miracle! Dwarf - among dwarf trees. You don't see it every day.
The dwarf did not answer, only looked angrily at Gulliver. And Gulliver went further. But before he had time to move even three steps, one of the apple trees shook, and a lot of apples, each with a beer keg, fell down on Gulliver with a booming noise.
One of them hit him on the back, knocked him down, and he lay flat on the grass, covering his head with his hands. And the dwarf with a loud laugh ran into the depths of the garden.

Gulliver's plaintive cry and the dwarf's malevolent laughter were heard by Glumdalclitch. She rushed in horror to Gulliver, picked him up and carried him home.
This time, Gulliver had to lie in bed for several days - his heavy apples, which grew on dwarf apple trees in the country of giants, hurt him so badly. When he finally got to his feet, it turned out that the dwarf was no longer in the palace.
Glumdalclitch reported everything to the queen, and the queen was so angry with him that she did not want to see him anymore and gave him to a noble lady.
The king and queen often traveled around their country, and Gulliver usually accompanied them.
During these travels, he understood why no one had ever heard of the state of Brobdingnag.
The country of giants is located on a huge peninsula, separated from the mainland by a chain of mountains. These mountains are so high that it is absolutely unthinkable to get over them. They are sheer, steep, and among them there are many active volcanoes. Streams of fiery lava and clouds of ash block the path to this gigantic mountain range. On the other three sides, the peninsula is surrounded by the ocean. But the shores of the peninsula are so densely strewn with sharp rocks, and the sea in these places is so rough, that even the most experienced sailor could not land on the shores of Brobdingnag.
It was only by some lucky chance that the ship on which Gulliver sailed managed to approach these impregnable rocks.
Usually, even the splinters from wrecked ships do not reach the inhospitable, deserted shores.
Fishermen do not build their huts here and do not hang their nets. Sea fish, even the largest, they consider small and bony. And no wonder! Sea fish come here from afar - from those places where all living creatures are much smaller than in Brobdingnag. But in the local rivers come across trout and perch the size of a large shark.
However, when sea storms nail whales to coastal rocks, fishermen sometimes catch them in their nets.
Gulliver once happened to see a rather large whale on the shoulder of a young fisherman.
This whale was later purchased for the royal table, and was served in a large platter with a gravy of various spices.
Whale meat is considered a rarity in Brobdingnag, but neither king nor queen liked it. They found that river fish are much tastier and fatter.
Over the summer, Gulliver traveled the country of giants far and wide. To make it easier for him to travel and so that Glumdalclitch would not get tired of the big heavy box, the queen ordered a special road house for her Grildrig.
It was a square box, only twelve paces long and wide. In three walls, it was made along the window and tightened with a light grate of iron wire. Two strong buckles were attached to the fourth, blank wall.

If Gulliver wanted to ride a horse, and not in a carriage, the rider would put the box on a pillow in his lap, slip a wide leather belt into these buckles and fasten it to his belt.
Gulliver could move from window to window and inspect the surroundings from three sides.
In the box was a camp bed - a hammock suspended from the ceiling - two chairs and a chest of drawers. All these things were firmly screwed to the floor so that they would not fall or topple over from the shaking of the road.
When Gulliver and Glumdalclitch went to the city for shopping or just for a walk, Gulliver entered his travel office, and Glumdalclitch sat in an open stretcher and put the box with Gulliver on her lap.
Four porters carried them leisurely through the streets of Lorbrulgrud, and a whole crowd of people followed the stretcher. Everyone wanted to see the royal Grildrig for free.
From time to time, Glumdalclitch ordered the porters to stop, took Gulliver out of the box and put him in her palm so that it would be more convenient for the curious to examine him.
When it rained, Glumdalclitch and Gulliver went out on business and for a carriage ride. The carriage was the size of a six-story house on wheels. But it was the smallest of all Her Majesty's carriages. The rest were much larger.
Gulliver, who was always very inquisitive, looked around with interest at the various sights of Lorbrulgrud.
Wherever he has been! And in the main temple, which the people of Brobdiignezh are so proud of, and in the large square where military parades are held, and even in the building of the royal kitchen ...
Returning home, he immediately opened his travel journal and briefly wrote down his impressions.
Here is what he wrote after returning from the temple:
“The building is really magnificent, although its bell tower is not at all as high as the locals say. It does not even have a full verst. The walls are made of hewn stones of some local breed. They are very thick and durable. Judging by the depth of the side entrance, they are forty-eight paces thick. Beautiful marble statues stand in deep niches. They are at least one and a half times taller than living Brobdingnezhians. I managed to find in a pile of rubbish the broken off little finger of one statue. At my request, Glumdalclitch placed it upright beside me, and it turned out that it came up to my ear. Glumdalclitch wrapped this fragment in a handkerchief and brought it home. I want to add it to the other trinkets in my collection."
After the parade of Brobdingneg's troops, Gulliver wrote:
“They say there were no more than twenty thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry on the field, but I could never count them - such a huge space was occupied by this army. I had to watch the parade from afar, because otherwise I would not have seen anything but the legs.
It was a very majestic sight. It seemed to me that the helmets of the riders touched the clouds with their tips. The ground hummed under the hooves of the horses. I saw all the cavalry on command draw their sabers and wave them in the air. Who has not been to Brobdingnag, let him not even try to imagine this picture. Six thousand lightning bolts flashed all at once from all sides of the firmament. Wherever fate takes me, I will never forget it.”

Gulliver wrote just a few lines about royal cuisine in his journal:
“I don't know how to put this kitchen into words. If I describe in the most truthful and honest way all these cauldrons, pots, pans, if I try to tell how the cooks roast on a spit piglets the size of an Indian elephant and deer, whose horns look like big branched trees, my compatriots will perhaps They will not believe me and will say that I am exaggerating, as is the custom of all travelers. And if, out of caution, I understate anything, all the Brobdingnegians, from the king to the last cook, will be offended by me.
That's why I prefer to remain silent."
Sometimes Gulliver wanted to be alone. Then Glumdalclitch carried him out into the garden and let him roam among the bluebells and tulips.
Gulliver loved such lonely walks, but often they ended in big trouble.
Once Glumdalclitch, at the request of Gulliver, left him alone on a green lawn, and she herself, together with her teacher, went deep into the garden.
Suddenly a cloud moved in, and a strong frequent hail fell on the ground.
The first gust of wind knocked Gulliver off his feet. Hailstones as large as tennis balls whipped him all over his body. Somehow, on all fours, he managed to get to the cumin beds. There he buried his face in the ground and, covering himself with some leaf, waited out the bad weather.
When the storm subsided, Gulliver measured and weighed several hailstones and made sure that they were one thousand eight hundred times larger and heavier than those that he had seen in other countries.
These hailstones stabbed Gulliver so painfully that he was covered in bruises and had to lie down in his box for ten days.
Another time a more dangerous adventure happened to him.
He was lying on the lawn under a bush of daisies and, occupied with some thoughts, did not notice that the dog of one of the gardeners ran up to him - a young, frisky setter.
Gulliver did not even have time to shout, as the dog grabbed him with his teeth, ran headlong to the other end of the garden and laid him there at the feet of his master, joyfully wagging his tail. It's good that the dog knew how to wear a diaper. She managed to bring Gulliver so carefully that she did not even bite through his dress.
However, the poor gardener, seeing the royal Grildrig in the teeth of his dog, was frightened to death. He carefully lifted Gulliver with both hands and began to ask how he felt. But from shock and fear, Gulliver could not utter a word.
Only a few minutes later he came to his senses, and then the gardener carried him back to the lawn.
Glumdalclitch was already there.

Pale, howling in tears, she rushed back and forth and called Gulliver.
The gardener with a bow handed her Mr. Grildrig.
The girl carefully examined her pet, saw that he was safe and sound, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Wiping her tears, she began to reproach the gardener for letting a dog into the palace garden. And the gardener himself was not happy about this. He swore and swore that he would never again let even a single dog, neither his own nor someone else's, even near the garden fence, if only Mrs. Glumdalclitch and Mr. Grildrig did not tell Her Majesty about this case.
In the end, it was decided on that.
Glumdalclitch agreed to remain silent, as she was afraid that the queen would be angry with her, and Gulliver did not at all want the courtiers to laugh at him and tell each other how he had been in the teeth of a playful puppy.
After this incident, Glumdalclitch firmly decided not to let go of Gulliver for a minute.
Gulliver had long been afraid of such a decision and therefore hid from his nanny various small adventures that happened to him every now and then when she was not around.
Once a kite, hovering over the garden, fell like a stone right on him. But Gulliver did not lose his head, drew his sword from the scabbard and, defending himself with it, rushed into the bushes.
If not for this clever maneuver, the kite would probably have carried it away in its claws.
Another time, during a walk, Gulliver climbed to the top of some mound and suddenly fell up to his neck into a hole dug by a mole.
It is even difficult to tell what it cost him to get out of there, but he nevertheless got out on his own, without outside help, and did not say a single word to a single living soul about this incident.

The third time he came back to Glumdalclitch limping and told her that he had sprained his leg a little. In fact, while walking alone and remembering his dear England, he accidentally stumbled upon a snail shell and almost broke his foot.
Gulliver experienced a strange feeling during his lonely walks: he felt good, and terribly, and sad.
Even the smallest birds were not at all afraid of him: they calmly went about their business - jumping, fussing, looking for worms and insects, as if Gulliver was not at all near them.
One day a bold thrush, chirping fervently, jumped up to poor Grildrig and with its beak snatched from his hands a piece of cake, which Glumdalclitch had given him for breakfast.
If Gulliver tried to catch any bird, she calmly turned to him and strove to peck right on the head or in outstretched hands. Gulliver involuntarily jumped back.
But one day he nevertheless contrived and, taking a thick club, so accurately launched it into some kind of clumsy linnet that she fell down dead. Then Gulliver grabbed her by the neck with both hands and triumphantly dragged her to the nanny in order to quickly show her his prey.

And suddenly the bird came to life.
It turned out that she was not killed at all, but only stunned by a strong blow from a stick.
Linnet began to scream and break out. She beat Gulliver with wings on the head, on the shoulders, on the hands. She failed to hit him with her beak, because Gulliver held her at outstretched arms.
He already felt that his hands were weakening and the linnet was about to break free and fly away.
But then one of the royal servants came to the rescue. He turned the furious linnet's head off and carried the hunter and his prey to Mrs. Glumdalclitch.
The next day, by order of the queen, the linnet was fried and served to Gulliver for dinner.
The bird was slightly larger than the swans he had seen in his homeland, and its meat was tough.
Gulliver often told the queen about his previous sea voyages.
The queen listened to him very attentively and once asked if he knew how to handle sails and oars.
- I am a ship's doctor, - Gulliver answered, - and I spent my whole life at sea. With a sail, I manage no worse than a real sailor.
“But would you like to go boating, my dear Grildrig?” I think it would be very good for your health,” said the queen.
Gulliver just chuckled. The smallest boats in Brobdingnag were larger and heavier than the first-class warships of his native England. There was nothing to think of coping with such a boat.
“What if I order a toy boat for you?” the queen asked.
“I’m afraid, Your Majesty, that the fate of all toy boats awaits him: the waves of the sea will turn over and carry him away like a nutshell!”
“I will order both a boat and the sea for you,” said the queen.
After ten days of toy making, the master made a beautiful and durable boat with all the gear, according to the drawing and instructions of Gulliver,

This boat could fit eight rowers of an ordinary human breed.
To test this toy, they first let her into a tub of water, but the tub was so crowded that Gulliver could hardly move the oar.
“Don’t worry, Grildrig,” said the queen, “your sea will soon be ready.”
And in fact, in a few days the sea was ready.
By order of the queen, the carpenter made a large wooden trough, three hundred paces long, fifty wide and more than a fathom deep.
The trough was well pitched and placed in one of the rooms of the palace. Every two or three days the water was poured out of it, and in about half an hour two servants filled the trough with fresh water.
On this toy sea, Gulliver often rode his boat.
The queen and princesses were very fond of watching how skillfully he wielded the oars.
Sometimes Gulliver set sail, and the ladies of the court, with the help of their fans, either caught up with a fair wind, or raised a whole storm.
When they got tired, the pages blew on the sail, and it was often not easy for Gulliver to cope with such a strong wind.

After riding, Glumdalclitch took the boat to her room and hung it on a nail to dry.
Once Gulliver almost drowned in his trough. Here's how it happened.
The old court lady, the teacher Glumdalclitch, took Gulliver with two fingers and wanted to put him in the boat.
But at that moment someone called out to her. She turned around, opened her fingers a little, and Gulliver slipped out of her hand.
He would certainly have drowned or crashed, falling from a height of six sazhens onto the edge of a trough or onto wooden walkways, but, fortunately, he caught on a pin sticking out of the old lady's lace scarf. The head of the pin passed under his belt and under his shirt, and the poor fellow hung in the air, frozen with horror and trying not to move, so as not to fall off the pin.
And the old lady looked around in confusion and could not understand where Gulliver had gone.
Then the agile Glumdalclitch ran up and carefully, trying not to scratch, freed Gulliver from the pin.
On this day, the boat trip did not take place. Gulliver felt unwell, and he did not want to ride.
On another occasion, he had to endure a real naval battle during a walk.
The servant, who was instructed to change the water in the trough, somehow overlooked and brought a large green frog in a bucket. He overturned the bucket over the trough, threw out the water along with the frog, and left.
The frog hid at the bottom and, while Gulliver was put into the boat, quietly sat in the corner. But as soon as Gulliver set sail from the shore, she jumped into the boat with one jump. The boat tilted so strongly on one side that Gulliver had to fall on the other side with all his weight, otherwise she would certainly capsize.
He leaned on the oars in order to quickly moor to the pier, but the frog, as if on purpose, interfered with him. Frightened by the fuss that rose around her, she began to rush back and forth: from bow to stern, from starboard to port. With each of her jumps, Gulliver was doused with whole streams of water.
He grimaced and clenched his teeth, trying to avoid touching her slippery bumpy skin. And this frog was as tall as a good thoroughbred cow.
Glumdalclitch, as always, rushed to the aid of her pet. But Gulliver asked her not to worry. He stepped boldly towards the frog and hit it with the oar.
After several good cuffs, the frog first retreated to the stern, and then completely jumped out of the boat.
It was a hot summer day. Glumdalclitch went somewhere to visit, and Gulliver was left alone in his box.
Leaving, the nanny locked the door of her room with a key so that no one would disturb Gulliver.
Left alone, he opened wide the windows and the door of his house, sat comfortably in an armchair, opened his travel journal, and took up his pen.
In a locked room, Gulliver felt completely safe.
Suddenly he clearly heard that someone jumped from the windowsill to the floor and noisily ran, or rather galloped, through Glumdalclitch's room.
Gulliver's heart began to beat.
“He who enters the room not through the door, but through the window, does not come to visit,” he thought.
And, carefully rising from his seat, he looked out the window of his bedroom. No, it was not a thief or a robber. It was only a tame monkey, the favorite of all the palace cooks.
Gulliver calmed down and, smiling, began to watch her funny jumps.
The monkey jumped from the Glumdalclitch chair to another chair, sat a little on the top shelf of the closet, and then jumped onto the table where Gulliver's house stood.
Here Gulliver was frightened again, and this time even more than before. He felt his house rise and become sideways. Chairs, a table, and a chest of drawers clattered across the floor. This roar, apparently, really liked the monkey. She shook the house again and again, and then looked curiously through the window.
Gulliver hid in the farthest corner and tried not to move.
“Oh, why didn’t I hide under the bed in time! he repeated to himself. She wouldn't have noticed me under the bed. And now it's too late. If I try to run from place to place, or even crawl, she will see me.”
And he pressed himself against the stack as tightly as he could. But the monkey did see him.
Baring her teeth merrily, she stuck her paw through the door of the house to grab Gulliver.
He rushed to another corner and huddled between the bed and the closet. But even then a terrible paw overtook him.
He tried to wriggle out, to slip away, but he couldn't. Tenaciously grabbing Gulliver by the floor of the caftan, the monkey pulled him out.
He couldn't even scream in horror.
And meanwhile the monkey calmly took him in her arms, as a nanny takes a baby, and began to shake and stroke his face with her paw. She must have mistook him for a baby monkey.
At that very moment the door was flung open, and Glumdalclitch appeared on the threshold of the room.
The monkey heard a knock. In one leap she jumped onto the window sill, from the window sill to the ledge, and from the ledge she climbed up the drainpipe to the roof.
She climbed on three legs, and in the fourth she held Gulliver.
Glumdalclitch screamed desperately.
Gulliver heard her frightened cry, but could not answer her: the monkey squeezed him so that he could barely breathe.
In a few minutes the whole palace was up and running. The servants ran for ladders and ropes. A whole crowd crowded into the yard. People stood with their heads up and pointing up with their fingers.
And up there, on the very crest of the roof, sat a monkey. With one paw she held Gulliver, and with the other she stuffed his mouth with all sorts of rubbish that she pulled out of her mouth. Monkeys always leave a supply of half-chewed food in their cheek pouches.
If Gulliver tried to turn away or grit his teeth, she rewarded him with such slaps that he involuntarily had to submit.
The servants below rolled with laughter, and Gulliver's heart sank.
“Here it is, the last minute!” he thought.
Someone from below threw a stone at the monkey. This stone whistled over the very head of Gulliver.
and the end of several stairs were attached to the walls of the building from different sides. Two court pages and four servants began to go upstairs.

The monkey quickly realized that she was surrounded and that she could not get far on three legs. She threw Gulliver onto the roof, in a few jumps she reached the neighboring building and disappeared into the dormer window.
And Gulliver remained lying on a sloping, smooth roof, expecting from minute to minute that the wind would blow him down like a grain of sand.
But at this time one of the pages managed to get over from the top step of the stairs to the roof. He found Gulliver, put him in his pocket and brought him safely downstairs.
Glumdalclitch was overjoyed. She grabbed her Grildrig and carried it home.
And Gulliver lay in her palm, like a mouse tortured by a cat. He had nothing to breathe: he was choking on the nasty chewing gum with which the monkey stuffed his mouth.
Glumdalclitch understood what was the matter. She took her thinnest needle and carefully, with the tip, scooped out of Gulliver's mouth everything that the monkey had put in there.
Gulliver immediately felt better. But he was so frightened, so badly dented by monkey paws, that he lay in bed for two whole weeks.
The king and all the courtiers sent every day to find out if poor Grildrig was getting better, and the queen herself came to visit him.
She forbade all courtiers, without exception, to keep animals in the palace. And the monkey that almost killed Gulliver was ordered to be killed.
When Gulliver finally got out of bed, the king ordered to call him to him and, laughing, asked him three questions.
He was very curious to know how Gulliver felt in the paws of a monkey, whether he liked her treat and what he would do if such an incident happened in his homeland, where there would be no one to put him in his pocket and deliver him to earth.
Gulliver answered the king only to the last question.
He said that there were no monkeys in his homeland. They are sometimes brought from hot countries and kept in cages. If some monkey managed to escape from captivity and she would dare to pounce on him, he would easily cope with it. Yes, and not with one monkey, but with a whole dozen monkeys of ordinary height. He is sure that he would have been able to defeat this huge monkey if, at the moment of the attack, he had a sword in his hands, and not a pen. It was enough to pierce the monster's paw to forever discourage him from attacking people.
Gulliver delivered this whole speech firmly and loudly, raising his head high and placing his hand on the hilt of his sword.
He really did not want any of the courtiers to suspect him of cowardice.
But the courtiers responded to his speech with such friendly and cheerful laughter that Gulliver involuntarily fell silent.
He looked around at his listeners and thought bitterly how difficult it is for a man to earn the respect of those who look down on him.
This thought occurred to Gulliver more than once, and later, at other times, when he happened to be among high persons - kings, dukes, nobles - although often these high persons were a whole head shorter than him.
The people of Brobdingnag consider themselves beautiful people. Maybe this is indeed so, but Gulliver looked at them as if through a magnifying glass, and therefore he did not really like them.
Their skin seemed too thick and rough to him - he noticed every hair on it, every freckle. Yes, and it was hard not to notice when this freckle was the size of a saucer, and the hairs stuck out like sharp spikes or like the teeth of a comb. This led Gulliver to an unexpected and funny thought.
One morning he presented himself to the king. The king was shaved at this time by the court barber.
Conversing with His Majesty, Gulliver involuntarily looked at the soap foam, in which thick, black hairs looked like pieces of iron wire.
When the barber finished his job, Gulliver asked him for a cup of soapy foam. The barber was very surprised at such a request, but complied with it.
Gulliver carefully selected forty of the thickest hairs from white flakes and laid them on the window to dry. Then he got a smooth piece of wood and chiseled the back of it for a scallop.
With the help of the thinnest needle from the Glumdalclitch needle case, he carefully drilled forty narrow holes in the wooden back at equal distances from each other, and inserted hairs into these holes. Then I cut them so that they were completely even and sharpened their ends with a knife. It turned out a beautiful strong comb.
Gulliver was very happy about this: almost all the teeth on his old comb broke and he positively did not know where to get a new one. There was not a single craftsman in Brobdingnag who could make such a tiny thing. Everyone admired Gulliver's new crest, and he wanted to make some more trinket.
He asked the queen's maid to save for him the hair that had fallen out of her majesty's braid.

When they had gathered decently, he instructed the same carpenter who had made a chest of drawers and armchairs for him to carve two light wooden chairs.
Warning the carpenter that he would make the back and seat himself from a different material, Gulliver ordered the craftsman to drill small frequent holes in the chairs around the seat and back.
The carpenter did everything he was ordered to do, and Gulliver set to work. He chose the strongest hair from his stock and, having thought over the pattern in advance, wove it into the holes that had been made for this.
The result was beautiful wicker chairs in the English style, and Gulliver solemnly presented them to the queen. The queen was delighted with the gift. She set chairs on her favorite table in the living room and showed them to everyone who came to her.
She wanted Gulliver to sit on just such a chair during receptions, but Gulliver resolutely refused to sit on his mistress's hair.
After the completion of this work, Gulliver still had a lot of the queen's hair, and, with the permission of her majesty, he wove an elegant purse from them for Glumdalclitch. The purse was only a little larger than the sacks in which we carry rye to the mill, and was not suitable for large, heavy Brobdingneg coins. But on the other hand, it was very beautiful - all patterned, with the gold cypher of the queen on one side and the silver cypher of Glumdalclitch on the other.
The king and queen were very fond of music, and they often held concerts in the palace.
Gulliver was also sometimes invited to musical evenings. On such occasions, Glumdalclitch would bring it along with the box and place it on one of the tables away from the musicians.
Gulliver tightly shut all the doors and windows in his box, pulled the curtains and curtains, pinched his ears with his fingers and sat down in an armchair to listen to music.
Without these precautions, the music of the giants seemed to him an unbearable, deafening noise.
Much more pleasant to him were the sounds of a small instrument, similar to the clavichord. This instrument was in Glumdalclitch's room, and she learned to play it.
Gulliver himself played the clavichord quite well, and now he wanted to introduce the king and queen to English songs. This turned out to be no easy task.
The length of the instrument was sixty steps, and each key was almost a full step wide. Standing in one place, Gulliver could not play more than four keys - he could not reach the others. Therefore, he had to run from right to left and left to right - from basses to trebles and back. And since the instrument was not only long, but also high, he had to run not on the floor, but on a bench that the carpenters had prepared especially for him and which was exactly the same length as the instrument.
It was very tiring to run back and forth along the clavichords, but it was even more difficult to press the tight keys, designed for the fingers of giants.
At first, Gulliver tried to hit the keys with his fist, but it was so painful that he asked to make two clubs for him. At one end, these clubs were thicker than at the other, and so that when they struck they did not knock too hard on the keys, Gulliver covered their thick ends with mouse skin.
When all these preparations were completed, the king and queen came to listen to Gulliver.
Drenched in sweat, the poor musician ran from one end of the clavichord to the other, striking with all his might on the keys he needed. In the end, he managed to play quite fluently a cheerful English song that he remembered from childhood.
The king and queen left very satisfied, and Gulliver could not recover for a long time - after such a musical exercise, both his arms and legs hurt.
Gulliver was reading a book taken from the royal library. He did not sit at the table and did not stand in front of the desk, as other people do while reading, but went down and up a special ladder that led from the top line to the bottom.
Without this ladder, specially made for him, Gulliver could not have read the huge Brobdingneg books.

The stairs were not very high - only twenty-five steps, and each step was equal in length to a line of a book.
Going from line to line, Gulliver went down lower and lower, and he finished reading the last words on the page, already standing on the floor. It was not difficult for him to turn the pages, for Brobdingneg paper is famous for its thinness. It really is not thicker than ordinary cardboard.
Gulliver read the arguments of one local writer about how his compatriots had been crushed lately.
The writer talked about the mighty giants who once inhabited his country, and complained bitterly about the diseases and dangers that lie in wait for the weak, undersized and fragile Brobdingnezhians at every turn.
Reading these arguments, Gulliver remembered that in his homeland he had read many books of the same kind, and, smiling, he thought:
“Both big and small people are not averse to complaining about their weakness and fragility. And to tell the truth, both of them are not so helpless as they think. And turning the last page, he descended the stairs.
At that moment Glumdalclitch entered the room.
“We need to pack up, Grildrig,” she said. “The king and queen are going to the seaside and taking us with them.
To the seaside! Gulliver's heart beat happily. For more than two years he had not seen the sea, had not heard the dull roar of the waves and the cheerful whistle of the sea wind. But at night he often dreamed of this measured familiar noise, and in the morning he woke up sad and alarmed.
He knew that the only way to leave the country of the giants was by sea.
Gulliver lived well at the court of the Brobdingneg king. The king and queen loved him, Glumdalclitch looked after him like the most caring nanny, the courtiers smiled at him and were not averse to chatting with him.
But Gulliver is so tired of being afraid of everything in the world - to defend himself from a fly, to run away from a cat, to choke in a cup of water! He only dreamed of living again among people, the most ordinary people, of the same height as himself.
It is not easy to constantly be in a society where everyone looks down on you.
Some kind of vague premonition made Gulliver this time especially carefully pack his things. He took with him on the road not only a dress, linen and his travel diary, but even a collection of rarities he had collected in Brobdingnag.
The next morning, the royal family set off with their retinue and servants.
Gulliver felt great in his travel box. The hammock that made up his bed was suspended from silk ropes from the four corners of the ceiling. It swayed smoothly even when the rider, to whose belt Gulliver's box was fastened, rode at the largest and most jolting trot.
In the lid of the box, just above the hammock, Gulliver asked to make a small window, a palm wide, which he could open and close himself whenever he pleased.
In the hot hours, he opened both the top and side windows and dozed serenely in his hammock, fanned by a light breeze.
But that draughty dream must not have been so helpful.
When the king and queen and his retinue arrived at their summer palace, which was only eighteen miles from the coast, near the city of Flenflasnik, Gulliver felt completely unwell. He had a bad cold and was very tired.
And poor Glumdalclitch, she was quite ill on the road. She had to go to bed and take bitter medicines.
Meanwhile, Gulliver wanted to visit the sea as soon as possible. He simply could not wait for the moment when he would again set foot on the coastal sand. To bring this moment closer, Gulliver began to ask his dear nanny to let him go ashore alone.
“The salty sea air will cure me better than any medicine,” he repeated.
But for some reason, the nanny did not want to let Gulliver go. She dissuaded him in every possible way from this walk and let him go only after long requests and arguments, reluctantly, with tears in her eyes.
She instructed one of the royal pages to carry Grildrig ashore and watch him both ways.
The boy carried the box with Gulliver for a good half an hour. All this time, Gulliver did not leave the window. He felt that the shore was already close.
And finally he saw stones dark from the tide and a strip of wet sand with traces of sea foam.
He asked the boy to put the box on some stone, and, sinking into a chair in front of the window, began sadly peering into the desert distance of the ocean.
How he longed to see there, on the horizon, a triangle of sail! Even from a distance, even for a moment ...
The boy, whistling some song, threw pebbles the size of a small fishing hut into the water, and this noise and splash prevented Gulliver from thinking. He told the page that he was tired and wanted to take a nap. The page was very happy. Closing the tight window in the lid of the box, he wished Gulliver good sleep and ran to the rocks - to look for bird nests in the crevices.
And Gulliver really lay down in his hammock and closed his eyes. Fatigue from a long road and fresh sea air did their job. He fell fast asleep.

And suddenly a strong jolt woke him up. He felt someone tug on the ring screwed into the lid of the box. The box swayed and began to rise rapidly. Gulliver almost flew out of his hammock, but then the movement became even, and he easily jumped to the floor and ran to the window. His head was spinning. From all three sides he saw only clouds and sky.

What happened? Gulliver listened - and understood everything. In the noise of the wind, he clearly distinguished the flapping of broad powerful wings.
Some huge bird must have spied Gulliver's house and, grabbing him by the ring, carries him to no one knows where.
And why did she need a wooden box?
She probably wants to throw it on the rocks, as eagles throw turtles in order to split their shell and get tender turtle meat from under it.
Gulliver covered his face with his hands. It seems that death has never come so close to him.
At that moment, his box shook violently again. Again, again... He heard the scream of an eagle and such a noise, as if all the sea winds had collided above his head. There is no doubt that another eagle attacked the one that kidnapped Gulliver. The pirate wants to take the booty from the pirate.

Push after push, blow after blow. The box swayed right and left like a sign in a strong wind. And Gulliver rolled from place to place and, closing his eyes, waited for death.
And suddenly the box somehow strangely trembled and flew down, down, down ... "The end!" thought Gulliver.
A terrible splash deafened Gulliver, and the house plunged into complete darkness for a minute.

Then, swaying a little, he went upstairs, and little by little daylight made its way into the room.
Light shadows ran along the walls, snaking. Such shadows tremble on the walls of the cabin when the portholes flood with water.
Gulliver stood up and looked around. Yes, he was at sea. The house, upholstered from below with iron plates, did not lose its balance in the air and fell without turning over. But it was so heavy that it settled deep in the water. The waves reached at least half of the windows. What will happen if their mighty blows break the glass? After all, they are protected only by light iron bars.
But no, as long as they can withstand the pressure of water.
Gulliver carefully examined his floating dwelling.
Fortunately, the doors in the house were retractable, not folding, on hinges.
They didn't let the water through. But still, little by little, water seeped into the box through some barely noticeable cracks in the walls.
Gulliver rummaged in his chest of drawers, tore the sheet into strips and, as best he could, caulked the cracks. Then he jumped up on a chair and opened a window in the ceiling.

This was done on time: it became so stuffy in the box that Gulliver almost suffocated.
Fresh air entered the house, and Gulliver breathed a sigh of relief. His thoughts cleared up. He considered.
Well, he's finally free! He would never return to Brobdingnag again. Ah, poor dear Glumdalclitch! Will something happen to her? The queen will be angry with her, send her back to the village ... It will not be easy for her. And what will happen to him, a weak, little man, floating alone on the ocean without masts and without a rudder in a clumsy wooden box? Most likely, the first big wave will turn over and flood the toy house or break it on the rocks.
Or maybe the wind will drive him across the ocean until Gulliver dies of hunger. Oh, if only it wasn't! If you are going to die, then die quickly!
And the minutes dragged on slowly. Four hours have passed since Gulliver got into the sea. But these hours seemed to him longer than a day. Gulliver heard nothing but the measured splash of waves hitting the walls of the house.
And suddenly he thought he heard a strange sound: something seemed to scratch on the blank side of the box, where the iron buckles were attached. After that, the box seemed to float faster and in the same direction.
Sometimes it jerked sharply or turned, and then the house dived deeper, and the waves soared higher, completely overflowing the house. Water rained down on the roof, and heavy spray fell through the window into Gulliver's room.
"Did someone take me in tow?" thought Gulliver.

He climbed onto the table, which was bolted in the middle of the room, just under the window in the ceiling, and began loudly calling for help. He shouted in every language he knew—English, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Turkish, Lilliputian, Brobdingneg—but no one answered.
Then he took a stick, tied a large handkerchief to it, and, putting the stick through the window, began to wave the handkerchief. But this signal remained unanswered.
However, Gulliver clearly felt that his house was rapidly moving forward.
And suddenly the wall with the buckles hit something hard. The house shook sharply once, twice, and it stopped. The ring on the roof jingled. Then the rope creaked, as if it were being threaded through a ring.
It seemed to Gulliver that the house began to gradually rise out of the water. That is how it is! The room became much brighter.
Gulliver again put out his stick and waved his handkerchief.
There was a pounding above his head, and someone shouted loudly in English:
- Hey, you're in the box! Respond! You are being listened to!
Gulliver, choking with excitement, answered that he was an ill-fated traveler who experienced the most severe hardships and dangers during his wanderings. He is happy that he has finally met his compatriots and begs them to save him.
- Be completely calm! answered him from above. “Your box is tied to the side of an English ship, and now our carpenter will cut a hole in its lid. We'll lower the ladder for you, and you can get out of your floating prison.

The sailors surrounded Gulliver and vied with each other to ask him who he was, where he was from, how long he had been sailing the sea in his houseboat and why he was put there. But Gulliver only looked at them in confusion.
“What tiny people! he thought. “Have I really fallen among the Lilliputians again?”

The captain of the ship, Mr. Thomas Wilcox, noticed that Gulliver was barely on his feet from fatigue, shock and confusion. He took him to his cabin, put him to bed and advised him to take a good rest.
Gulliver himself felt that he needed it. But before falling asleep, he managed to tell the captain that he had a lot of beautiful things left in his drawer - a silk hammock, a table, chairs, a chest of drawers, carpets, curtains and many wonderful knick-knacks.
“If you order my house to be brought to this cabin, I will gladly show you my collection of curiosities,” he said.
The captain looked at him with surprise and pity and silently left the cabin. He thought that his guest had gone crazy from the disasters he had experienced, and Gulliver simply had not had time to get used to the idea that there were people like him around him, and that no one could lift his house with one finger.
However, when he woke up, all his belongings were already on board the ship. The captain sent sailors to pull them out of the box, and the sailors carried out this order in the most conscientious manner.
Unfortunately, Gulliver forgot to tell the captain that the table, chairs and chest of drawers in his room were screwed to the floor. The sailors, of course, did not know this and badly damaged the furniture, tearing it off the floor.
Not only that: during the work they damaged the house itself. Holes formed in the walls and floor, and water began to seep into the room in streams.
The sailors barely had time to tear off a few boards from the box that could be useful on the ship, and he went to the bottom. Gulliver was glad that he did not see this. It is sad to see how the house in which you have lived for many days and nights, even if they are sad, is sinking.
These few hours in the captain's cabin, Gulliver slept soundly, but restlessly: he dreamed of either huge wasps from the country of giants, then weeping Glumdalclitch, then eagles that fight over his head. But still, sleep refreshed him, and he willingly agreed to dine with the captain.
The captain was a hospitable host. He cordially treated Gulliver, and Gulliver ate with pleasure, but at the same time he was very amused by the tiny plates, dishes, decanters and glasses that stood on the table. He often took them in his hands and examined them, shaking his head and smiling.
The captain noticed this. Looking sympathetically at Gulliver, he asked him if he was completely healthy and if his mind was not damaged by fatigue and misfortunes.
- No, - said Gulliver, - I am quite healthy. But I haven't seen such small people and such small things for a long time.
And he told the captain in detail about how he lived in the country of the giants. At first, the captain listened to this story with disbelief, but the more Gulliver told, the more attentive the captain became. Every minute he became more and more convinced that Gulliver was a serious, truthful and modest person, not at all inclined to invent and exaggerate.
In conclusion, Gulliver took a key out of his pocket and opened his chest of drawers. He showed the captain two combs: one had a wooden back, the other had a horn. Gulliver made the horn back from a trimming of the nail of His Brobdingnezh Majesty.
What are the teeth made of? the captain asked.
- From the hair of the royal beard!
The captain just shrugged.
Then Gulliver took out several needles and pins - half a yard, a yard and more. He unwound the queen's four hairs in front of the astonished captain and gave him with both hands the golden ring he had received as a gift from her. The queen wore this ring on her little finger, and Gulliver wore it around her neck like a necklace.
But most of all, the captain was struck by a tooth. This tooth was taken by mistake from one of the king's pages. The tooth turned out to be completely healthy, and Gulliver cleaned it and hid it in his chest of drawers. Noticing that the captain could not take his eyes off the giant's tooth, Gulliver asked him to accept this trinket as a gift.
The touched captain emptied one shelf in his closet and carefully placed on it a strange object, resembling a tooth in appearance, but in size like a heavy cobblestone.
He took a word from Gulliver that, having returned to his homeland, he would certainly write a book about his travels ...
Gulliver was an honest man and kept his word.
This is how a book about the country of Lilliputians and the country of giants was born. On June 3, 1706, the ship that took on board Gulliver approached the shores of England.
For several months he was on the road and called at the ports three or four times to stock up on provisions and fresh water, but Gulliver, tired of adventures, never left his cabin.
And so his journey ended. He parted amicably with the captain, who provided him with money for the journey, and, having hired a horse, set off home.
Everything that he saw on the roads familiar from childhood surprised him. Trees seemed to him small bushes, houses and towers seemed like houses of cards, and people seemed like midgets.
He was afraid to crush passers-by and loudly shouted at them to step aside.
To this he was answered with scolding and ridicule. And some angry farmer almost beat him with a stick.
At last the roads and streets were left behind.
Gulliver drove up to the gate of his house. The old servant opened the door for him, and Gulliver, bending down, stepped over the threshold: he was afraid to hit his head on the lintel, which seemed to him very low this time.
His wife and daughter ran out to meet him, but he did not immediately see them, because, out of habit, he looked up.
All relatives, friends and neighbors seemed to him small, helpless and fragile, like moths.
“You must have had a very bad life without me,” he said with pity. “You’ve lost so much weight and shrunk in height that you can’t even see you!”
And friends, relatives and neighbors, in turn, felt sorry for Gulliver and believed that the poor man had gone crazy ...
So a week passed, another, a third…
Gulliver gradually began to get used to his home, his native city and familiar things again. Every day he was less and less surprised to see around him simple, ordinary people of ordinary height.
In the end, he again learned to look at them as equals, and not from the bottom up and not from the top down.
It is much more convenient and pleasant to look at people in this way, because you do not have to lift your head and do not have to bend over three deaths.

Gulliver did not live long at home.
He did not have time to rest well, as he was again drawn to the voyage.
“That must be my nature,” he thought. “The restless life of a sea tramp is more to my heart than the peaceful life of my land friends.”
In a word, two months after his return to his homeland, he was again listed as a doctor on the ship "Adventure", which set off on a long voyage under the command of Captain John Nichols.
June 20, 1702 "Adventure" went to the open sea.

The wind was favorable. The ship sailed in full sail all the way to the Cape of Good Hope. Here the captain ordered to drop anchor and stock up on fresh water. After a two-day stay, the Adventure was supposed to set sail again.
But suddenly a leak opened on the ship. I had to unload the goods and do the repair. And then Captain Nichols fell ill with a severe fever.
The ship's doctor Gulliver carefully examined the sick captain and decided that he should not continue sailing before he completely recovered.
So "Adventure" wintered at the Cape of Good Hope.
Only in March 1703, sails were again set on the ship, and he safely made the transition to the Madagascar Strait.
On April 19, when the ship was already close to the island of Madagascar, a light westerly wind gave way to a severe hurricane.
For twenty days the ship drove east. The whole team was exhausted and dreamed only that this hurricane would finally subside.
And then came the complete calm. The whole day the sea was quiet, and people began to hope that they would be able to rest. But Captain Nichols, an experienced sailor who sailed in these places more than once, looked with disbelief at the quiet sea and ordered the guns to be tied tighter.
- A storm is coming! - he said.
And in fact, on the very next day, a strong, gusty wind arose. Every minute he grew stronger, and finally such a storm broke out that neither Gulliver, nor the sailors, nor Captain John Nichols himself had ever seen.
The hurricane raged for many days. For many days the Adventure struggled with the waves and the wind.

Skillfully maneuvering, the captain ordered either to raise the sails, then to lower them, then to go with the wind, then to drift.
In the end, "Adventure" emerged victorious from this struggle. The ship was in good condition, provisions were plentiful, the crew was healthy, hardy and skillful. Only one thing was bad: the ship was running out of fresh water. I had to fill them up no matter what. But how? Where? During the storm, the ship was blown so far to the east that even the oldest and most experienced sailors could not tell in which part of the world they were thrown and whether there was land nearby. Everyone was seriously alarmed and looked at the captain with concern.
But finally, the cabin boy, who was standing on the mast, saw the ground in the distance.

No one knew what it was - a large land or an island. Desert rocky shores were unfamiliar even to Captain Nichols.
The next day, the ship came so close to the land that Gulliver and all the sailors could clearly see from the deck a long sandy spit and a bay. But was it deep enough for a large ship like the Adventure to enter?
Cautious captain Nichols did not dare to enter his ship into an unknown bay without a pilot. He ordered to anchor and sent a longboat to the shore with ten well-armed sailors. The sailors were given several empty barrels with them and instructed to bring more fresh water if they could find a lake, river or stream somewhere near the coast.
Gulliver asked the captain to let him go ashore along with the sailors.
The captain knew perfectly well that his scientific companion went on a long journey to see foreign lands, and willingly let him go.
Soon the boat moored to the shore, and Gulliver was the first to jump out onto the wet stones. The surroundings were completely empty and quiet. No boat, no fishing hut, no grove in the distance.

In search of fresh water, the sailors dispersed along the shore, and Gulliver was left alone. He wandered at random, looking around with curiosity at new places, but saw absolutely nothing of interest. Everywhere - to the right and to the left - a barren, rocky desert stretched.

Tired and dissatisfied, Gulliver slowly walked back to the bay.
The sea lay before him harsh, grey, inhospitable. Gulliver rounded some huge stone and suddenly stopped, frightened and surprised.
What? The sailors have already boarded the longboat and that there is strength they are rowing to the ship. How did they leave him alone on the shore? What happened?

Gulliver wanted to scream loudly, call out to the sailors, but his tongue in his mouth seemed to be petrified.
And not smart. A man of enormous stature suddenly emerged from behind a coastal cliff - himself no smaller than this rock - and chased after the boat. The sea barely reached his knees. He took great strides. Two or three more such steps, and he would have seized the launch by the stern. But, apparently, sharp stones at the bottom prevented him from going. He stopped, waved his hand and turned towards the shore.

Gulliver's head was spinning with horror. He fell to the ground, crawled between the stones, and then got to his feet and ran headlong, not knowing where.
He thought only about where he could hide from this terrible, huge man.
Finally, coastal sands and stones were left far behind.
Gulliver, out of breath, ran up the slope of a steep hill and looked around.
Everything was green around. On all sides it was surrounded by groves and forests.
He went down the hill and walked along the wide road. To the right and to the left, a dense forest stood like a solid wall - smooth bare trunks, straight, like those of pines.
Gulliver threw back his head to look at the tops of the trees, and gasped. These were not pines, but ears of barley as high as trees!

It must be harvest time. Ripe grains the size of a large fir cone now and then painfully clicked Gulliver on the back, on the shoulders, on the head. Gulliver stepped up.

He walked and walked and finally reached the high fence. The fence was three times higher than the highest ears, and Gulliver could barely make out its upper edge. Getting from this field to the next one was not so easy. To do this, it was necessary to climb the mossy stone steps, and then climb over a large stone that had grown into the ground.
There were only four steps, but each of them is much higher than Gulliver. Only by standing on tiptoe and raising his hand high, he could hardly reach the edge of the bottom step.
There was no point in even thinking of climbing such a ladder.
Gulliver began to carefully examine the fence: is there at least some crack or loophole in it through which one could get out of here?
There was no loophole.
And suddenly a huge man appeared on the top step of the stairs - even more than the one who was chasing the longboat. He was at least as tall as a fire tower!
Gulliver in horror rushed into the barley thicket and hid behind a thick ear.
From his ambush, he saw the giant wave his hand and, turning around, shouted something loudly. He must have just called someone, but it seemed to Gulliver that thunder had struck in a clear sky.
Several of the same peals sounded in the distance, and a minute later seven more guys of the same height turned out to be next to the giant. They must have been workers. They were dressed simpler and poorer than the first giant, and they had sickles in their hands. And what sickles! If six of our scythes were laid out on the ground in a crescent, such a sickle would hardly have turned out.
After listening to their master, the giants, one by one, went down to the field where Gulliver was hiding, and began to reap the barley.

Gulliver, beside himself with fear, rushed back into the thicket of ears.
The barley grew thickly. Gulliver barely made his way between the tall, straight trunks. A whole rain of heavy grains rained down on him from above, but he no longer paid any attention to it.
And suddenly a stalk of barley, nailed to the ground by wind and rain, blocked his path. Gulliver climbed over a thick, smooth trunk and stumbled upon another, even thicker one. Further - a dozen ears of corn crouched to the ground. The trunks were closely intertwined with each other, and the strong, sharp mustaches of barley, or rather, the mustaches, stuck out like spears. They pierced Gulliver's dress and dug into the skin. Gulliver turned left, right ... And there are the same thick trunks and terrible sharp spears!
What to do now? Gulliver realized that he would never get out of this thicket. The strength left him. He lay down in the furrow and buried his face in the ground. Tears welled up from his eyes.

He involuntarily remembered that quite recently, in the land of the Lilliputians, he himself felt like a giant. There he could put a rider with a horse into his pocket, he could pull a whole enemy fleet behind him with one hand, and now he is a midget among giants, and he, the Mountain Man, the mighty Quinbus Flestrin, just look, they will put him in his pocket. And this is not the worst. They can crush him like a frog, they can turn his head like a sparrow! Everything comes into view...
At that very moment, Gulliver suddenly saw that some wide, dark slab had risen above him and was about to fall. What is it? Is it the sole of a huge shoe? And there is! One of the reapers imperceptibly approached Gulliver and stopped just above his head. As soon as he lowers his leg, he will trample Gulliver like a beetle or a grasshopper.

Gulliver screamed, and the giant heard his cry. He bent down and began carefully examining the ground and even rummaging through it with his hands.
And so, moving a few ears of corn aside, he saw something alive.
For a minute he cautiously examined Gulliver, as they consider unseen animals or insects. It was evident that he was thinking about how to grab the amazing animal so that he would not have time to scratch or bite him.
Finally, he made up his mind - he grabbed Gulliver with two fingers by the sides and brought him to his very eyes in order to get a better look.

It seemed to Gulliver that some kind of whirlwind lifted him and carried him straight into the sky. His heart broke. “What if he throws me to the ground with a swing, like we throw bugs or cockroaches?” he thought with horror, and as soon as two huge astonished eyes shone before him, he folded his hands imploringly and said politely and calmly, although his voice trembled and his tongue stuck to his palate:
“I beg you, dear giant, have mercy on me!” I won't do you any harm.
Of course, the giant did not understand what Gulliver was telling him, but Gulliver did not count on this. He wanted only one thing: let the giant notice that he, Gulliver, does not croak, does not chirp, does not buzz, but talks like people.
And the giant saw it. He shuddered, looked at Gulliver carefully and grabbed him tighter so as not to drop him. His fingers, like huge pincers, squeezed Gulliver's ribs, and he involuntarily cried out in pain.
"End! flashed through his head. “If this monster doesn’t drop me and smash me to pieces, then it will probably crush or strangle me!”
But the giant was not at all going to strangle Gulliver. He must have liked the talking grasshopper. He lifted the half of the caftan and, carefully putting his find into it, ran to the other end of the field.

“Carries to the owner,” guessed Gulliver.
And in fact, a minute later Gulliver was already in the hands of that giant who appeared on the barley field before all the others.
Seeing such a little man, the owner was even more surprised than the worker. He looked at it for a long time, turning first to the right, then to the left. Then he took a straw as thick as a cane and began to lift the skirts of Gulliver's caftan with it. He must have thought it was some kind of cockchafer elytra.
All the workers gathered around and, craning their necks, silently looked at the amazing find.
In order to better see Gulliver's face, the owner took off his hat and lightly blew on his hair. Gulliver's hair rose as if from a strong wind. Then the giant gently lowered him to the ground and put him on all fours. He probably wanted to see how the outlandish animal runs.
But Gulliver immediately got to his feet and began to walk proudly in front of the giants, trying to show them that he was not a May beetle, not a grasshopper, but a person like them, and was not at all going to run away from them and hide among the stems.
He waved his hat and bowed to his new master. Holding his head high, he uttered a loud and distinct greeting in four languages.
The giants looked at each other and shook their heads in surprise, but Gulliver clearly saw that they did not understand him. Then he took out a purse of gold from his pocket and placed it in the palm of his master. He bent low, screwed up one eye, and, wrinkling his nose, began to examine the strange little thing. He even pulled out a pin from somewhere in his sleeve and poked the point into his purse, obviously not realizing what it was.
Then Gulliver himself opened his wallet and poured all his gold into the palm of the giant - thirty-six Spanish chervonets.
The giant licked the tip of his finger and lifted one Spanish gold, then another ...
Gulliver tried to explain with signs that he was asking the giant to accept this modest gift from him.
He bowed, pressed his hands to his heart, but the giant did not understand anything and also ordered Gulliver with signs to put the coins back in his purse and hide the purse in his pocket.
Then he talked about something with his workers, and it seemed to Gulliver that eight water mills rustled at once over his head. He was glad when the workers finally left for the field.
Then the giant took out his handkerchief from his pocket, folded it several times and, lowering his left hand to the very ground, covered his palm with a handkerchief.
Gulliver immediately understood what they wanted from him. He obediently climbed onto this wide palm and, in order not to fall off it, lay down on his face.
It can be seen that the giant was very afraid of dropping and losing Gulliver - he carefully wrapped him in a scarf, as if in a blanket, and, covering him with his other hand, carried him to his home.
It was noon, and the hostess had already served dinner on the table, when the giant with Gulliver in his palm crossed the threshold of his house.
Without saying a word, the giant held out his hand to his wife and lifted the edge of the scarf with which Gulliver was covered.

She backed away and squealed so that Gulliver almost burst both eardrums.
But soon the giantess saw Gulliver, and she liked the way he bows, takes off and puts on his hat, carefully walks around the table between the plates. And Gulliver really moved around the table cautiously and cautiously. He tried to stay away from the edge, because the table was very high - at least the size of a two-story house.
The entire host family was seated around the table - father, mother, three children and an old grandmother. The owner put Gulliver near his plate.

In front of the hostess stood a huge piece of roast beef on a dish.
She cut off a small slice of meat, broke off a piece of bread and put it all in front of Gulliver.
Gulliver bowed, took out his travel device from the case - a fork, a knife - and began to eat.
The hosts lowered their forks at once and stared at him smiling. Gulliver was scared. A piece stuck in his throat when he saw from all sides these huge, like lanterns, curious eyes and teeth that were larger than his head.
But he did not want all these giants, adults and children, to notice how much he was afraid of them, and, trying not to look around, he finished his bread and meat.

The hostess said something to the maid, and she immediately put a glass in front of Gulliver, filled to the brim with some kind of golden, transparent drink.
It must have been the smallest glass of liquor, no larger than a jug of wine.
Gulliver stood up, raised his glass with both hands and, going straight to the hostess, drank to her health. All the giants liked it very much. The children began to laugh and clap their hands so loudly that Gulliver almost went deaf.
He hastened to take cover again behind the host's plate, but in his haste he stumbled over a crust of bread and stretched himself to his full height. He immediately jumped to his feet and looked around anxiously - he did not want to seem ridiculous and awkward.
However, this time no one laughed. Everyone looked at the little man with concern, and the maid immediately removed the ill-fated crust from the table.
To reassure his masters, Gulliver waved his hat and shouted “Hurrah” three times as a sign that everything went well.
He did not know that at that very moment a new trouble awaited him.
As soon as he approached the owner, one of the boys, a ten-year-old naughty boy, who was sitting next to his father, quickly grabbed Gulliver by the legs and lifted him so high that the poor fellow was breathless and dizzy.
It is not known what else the mischievous person would have come up with, but the father immediately snatched Gulliver from his hands and put him on the table again, and rewarded the boy with a resounding slap in the face.
With such a blow, a whole squadron of grenadiers could be knocked out of their saddles - of course, an ordinary human breed.
After that, the father strictly ordered his son to leave the table immediately. The boy roared like a herd of bulls, and Gulliver felt sorry for him.
"Should I be angry with him? After all, he is still small, ”Gulliver thought, dropped to one knee and began to beg his master to forgive the naughty with signs.
The father nodded his head, and the boy again took his place at the table. And Gulliver, tired of all these adventures, sat down on the tablecloth, leaned against the salt shaker and closed his eyes for a minute.
Suddenly, he heard a loud noise behind him. Such a measured, thick roar can be heard in hosiery workshops when at least ten machines are working there at once.
Gulliver looked around - and his heart sank. He saw over the table the huge, terrible muzzle of some predatory beast. Green bright eyes squinted slyly, then greedily opened. Long, fluffy mustaches protruded belligerently.

Who is it? Lynx? Bengal tiger? A lion? No, this beast is four times the size of the largest lion.
Carefully peeking out from behind the plate, Gulliver examined the beast. I looked and looked - and finally realized: it's a cat! Common domestic cat. She climbed onto her mistress's lap, and the mistress stroked her, while the cat softened and purred.
Oh, if this cat were as small as all those cats and kittens that Gulliver saw in his homeland, he would also gently stroke her and tickle her behind the ears!
But will the mouse dare to tickle the cat?
Gulliver already wanted to hide somewhere far away - in an empty bowl or cup - but, fortunately, he remembered that predatory animals always attack the one who is afraid of them, and they are afraid of the one who attacks himself.
This thought gave Gulliver courage. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword and stepped forward bravely.

Long-standing hunting experience did not deceive Gulliver. Five or six times he fearlessly approached the very muzzle of the cat, and the cat did not even dare to stretch out its paw to him. She just flattened her ears and backed away.
She ended up jumping off her mistress's knees and moving away from the table herself. Gulliver breathed a sigh of relief.
But then two huge dogs ran into the room.
If you want to know how big they were, put four elephants on top of each other and you'll get the most accurate idea.
One dog, despite its enormous growth, was an ordinary mongrel, the other was a hunting dog, from the breed of greyhounds.
Fortunately, both dogs did not pay much attention to Gulliver and, having received some handout from the owner, ran into the yard.

Towards the very end of dinner, a nurse entered the room with a one-year-old child in her arms.
The child immediately noticed Gulliver, stretched out his hands to him and raised a deafening roar. If this two-foot-long baby were on one of the outskirts of London, even the deaf would certainly hear him on the other outskirts. He must have mistook Gulliver for a toy and was angry that he could not reach her.
The mother smiled affectionately and without thinking twice took Gulliver and placed it in front of the child. And the boy, too, without thinking twice, grabbed him across the torso and began to put his head in his mouth.
But here Gulliver could not stand it. He screamed almost louder than his tormentor, and the child dropped it from his hands in fright.
This would probably have been Gulliver's last adventure if the hostess had not caught him on the fly in her apron.
The child roared even more piercingly, and to calm him, the nurse began to turn the rattle in front of him. The rattle was tied to the baby's belt with a thick anchor rope and looked like a large hollowed-out gourd. At least twenty stones rumbled and rolled in her empty interior.
But the child did not want to look at his old rattle. He burst out screaming. Finally, the giantess, covering Gulliver with an apron, imperceptibly carried him away to another room.
There were beds. She laid Gulliver on her bed and covered him with a clean handkerchief. This handkerchief was larger than the sail of a warship, and just as thick and coarse.

Gulliver is very tired. His eyes glazed over, and as soon as the hostess left him alone, he covered his head with his hard linen blanket and fell sound asleep.
He slept for more than two hours, and he dreamed that he was at home, among relatives and friends.
When he woke up and realized that he was lying on a bed with no end in sight, in a huge room that you could not go around even in a few hours, he became very sad. He closed his eyes again and pulled the corner of the handkerchief up. But this time he couldn't sleep.
As soon as he dozed off, he heard someone jump heavily from the curtains onto the bed, run along the pillow and stop beside him, either whistling or snoring.
Gulliver quickly raised his head and saw that some long-faced mustachioed beast was standing right above his face and looking straight into his eyes with black shining eyes.
Rat! A disgusting brown rat the size of a large mongrel! And she is not alone, there are two of them, they attack Gulliver from two sides! Ah, cheeky animals! One of the rats became so bold that it rested its paws right on Gulliver's collar.
He jumped aside, drew his sword, and with one blow ripped open the belly of the beast. The rat fell, covered in blood, and the other took off running.
But then Gulliver chased her, overtook her at the very edge of the bed and cut off her tail. With a piercing screech, she rolled down somewhere, leaving behind a long trail of blood.
Gulliver returned to the dying rat. She was still breathing. He killed her with a strong blow.
At that very moment the hostess entered the room. Seeing that Gulliver was covered in blood, she ran to the bed in fright and wanted to take him in her arms.
But Gulliver, smiling, handed her his bloody sword, and then pointed to the dead rat, and she understood everything.
Calling the maid, she told her to immediately take the rat with tongs and throw it out of the window. And then both women noticed the severed tail of another rat. He lay at the very feet of Gulliver, long as a shepherd's whip.
The owners of Gulliver had a daughter - a pretty, affectionate and smart girl.
She was already nine years old, but for her age she was very small - only with some three-story house, and even then without any weather vanes and towers.
The girl had a doll for which she sewed elegant shirts, dresses and aprons.
But, since an amazing living doll appeared in the house, she no longer wanted to look at the old toys.
She put her former favorite in some kind of box, and gave her cradle to Gulliver.
The cradle was kept in one of the chest of drawers during the day, and in the evening they put it on a shelf nailed right under the ceiling so that the rats could not get to Gulliver.
The girl made for her "grildrig" (in the language of the giants "grildrig" means "little man") a pillow, a blanket and sheets. She made him seven shirts of the thinnest piece of linen she could find, and she always washed his underwear and stockings for him.
From this girl, Gulliver began to learn the language of the giants.

He pointed with his finger at some object, and the girl distinctly repeated its name several times in succession.
She so carefully looked after Gulliver, so patiently taught him to speak, that he called her his "glumdalclitch" - that is, nanny.
A few weeks later, Gulliver began to understand little by little what was being said around him, and he himself, with sin in half, could explain himself to the giants.
In the meantime, the rumor that his master had found an amazing animal in his field spread throughout the neighborhood.
They said that the animal is tiny, smaller than a squirrel, but it looks very similar to a person: it walks on two legs, chirps in some kind of its own dialect, but has already learned to speak a little in human language. He is understanding, obedient, willingly goes to the call and does everything that he is ordered to. His little muzzle is white - softer and whiter than the face of a three-year-old girl, and the hair on his head is silky and soft, like fluff.
And then one fine day, their old friend came to visit the owners.
He immediately asked them if it was true that they had found some amazing animal, and in response to this, the owners ordered their daughter to bring Grildrig.
The girl ran, brought Gulliver and put him on a chair.
Gulliver had to show everything that Glumdalclitch taught him.
He marched along and across the table, on command he took out his sword from the scabbard and put it back in, bowed to the guest, asked him how he was doing, and asked him to come more often.
The old man liked the strange little man. To better see Grildrig, he put on his glasses, and Gulliver, looking at him, could not help laughing: his eyes were very similar to the full moon when she peers into the cabin through the round ship window.
Glumdalclitch immediately understood what made Gulliver laugh so much, and also snorted.
The visitor pursed his lips in annoyance.
- A very funny animal! - he said. “But it seems to me that it will be more profitable for you if people start laughing at him, and not if he laughs at people.
And the old man immediately advised the owner to take Gulliver to the nearest city, which was only half an hour away, that is, about twenty-two miles, and on the very first market day to show him there for money.
Gulliver caught and understood only a few words from this conversation, but he immediately felt that something was amiss against him.
Glumdalclitch confirmed his fears.
Shedding tears, she said that, apparently, dad and mom again want to do with her the same way as last year, when they gave her a lamb: before she had time to fatten it, they sold it to the butcher. And now the same thing: they have already given Grildrig to her completely, and now they are going to take him to the fairs.
At first, Gulliver was very upset - he was offended to think that they wanted to show him at the fair like a learned monkey or guinea pig.
But then it occurred to him that if he lived without a break in his master's house, he would grow old in a doll's cradle or in a chest of drawers.
And while wandering around the fairs - who knows? his fate may change.
And he began to expect the first trip with hope.
And now this day has come.

A little before light, the owner with his daughter and Gulliver set off. They rode on the same horse: the owner was in front, the daughter was behind, and Gulliver was in the box held by the girl.
The horse ran at such a large trot that it seemed to Gulliver that he was again on the ship and the ship either takes off on the crest of a wave, or falls into the abyss.
Gulliver did not see which road he was being taken along: he was sitting, or rather, lying in a dark box, which his owner had knocked together the day before to transport the little man from the village to the city.
There were no windows in the box. It had only a small door through which Gulliver could enter and exit, and several holes in the lid for air access.
Caring Glumdalclitch put a quilt from her doll's bed in a drawer. But can even the thickest blanket protect you from bruises, when with every push it throws you up a yard from the floor and throws you from corner to corner?
Glumdalclitch listened anxiously as her poor Grildrig rolled from place to place and banged against the walls.
As soon as the horse stopped, the girl jumped off the saddle and, opening the door ajar, looked into the box. The exhausted Gulliver struggled to his feet and, staggering, went out into the air.
His whole body ached and green circles swam before his eyes - he had been shaken so much during half an hour of this difficult journey. If not for the habit of ocean storms and hurricanes, he probably would have gotten seasick.
But Gulliver did not have to rest for a long time. The owner did not want to waste a minute of precious time.
He rented the largest room in the Green Eagle Hotel, ordered a wide table to be placed in the middle and hired a grultrud, in our opinion, a herald.
Grultrud walked around the city and informed the residents that in the hotel under the sign "Green Eagle" for a moderate fee you can see an amazing animal.
This animal is slightly larger than a human finger, but looks like a real person. He understands everything that is said to him, he can say a few words himself and does various funny things.
People poured into the hotel in droves.
Gulliver was put on the table, and Glumdalclitch climbed onto a stool to guard him and tell him what he should do.

At the girl's command, he marched back and forth, unsheathed his sword and brandished it. Glumdalclitch gave him a straw, and he did various exercises with it, like a spear. In the end, he took a thimble filled with wine, drank to the health of the public and invited everyone to visit him again on the next market day.
In the room where the performance was going on, no more than thirty people fit. And almost the whole city wanted to see the amazing Grildrig. Therefore, Gulliver had to repeat the same performance twelve times in a row for new and new viewers. By evening, he was so exhausted that he could barely move his tongue and step over his feet.
The owner did not allow anyone to touch Gulliver - he was afraid that someone would inadvertently crush his ribs or break his arms and legs. Just in case, he ordered to place benches for spectators away from the table on which the performance was taking place. But this did not save Gulliver from unexpected trouble.
Some schoolboy, sitting in the back rows, suddenly got up, took aim and launched a large red-hot nut right into Gulliver's head.
This nut was the size of a good pumpkin, and if Gulliver had not jumped aside, he would certainly have been left without a head.
The boy was pulled out by the ears and taken out of the hall. But from that moment on, Gulliver felt somehow uneasy. The straw seemed heavy to him, and the wine in the thimble was too strong and sour. He was heartily glad when Glumdalclitch hid it in a box and slammed the door behind him.
After the first performance, Gulliver began a difficult life.
Every market day he was brought to the city, and from morning to evening he ran around the table, amusing the audience. And at home, in the village, he did not have a moment of peace. The surrounding landowners with their children, having heard stories about the outlandish little man, came to his owner and demanded that they be shown the scientist Grildrig.
After haggling, the owner arranged a performance at his house. The guests left very satisfied and, returning to their place, sent all their neighbors, acquaintances and relatives to look at Gulliver.
The owner realized that it was very profitable to show Gulliver.
Without thinking twice, he decided to travel with him to all the major cities of the country of the giants.
The collections were short. August 17, 1703, exactly two months after Gulliver got off the ship, the owner, Glumdalclitch and Gulliver set off on a long journey.
The country of the giants was called Brobdingnag, and its main city was Lorbrulgrud, which means to us "the pride of the universe."
The capital was located just in the middle of the country, and in order to get into it, Gulliver and his huge companions had to cross six wide rivers. Compared to them, the rivers that he saw in his homeland and in other countries seemed to be narrow, shallow streams.
Travelers passed eighteen cities and many villages, but Gulliver hardly saw them. He was taken to fairs not in order to show him all sorts of curiosities, but in order to show him himself, like a curiosity.
As always, the owner rode, and Glumdalclitch sat behind him and held a box with Gulliver on her knees.

But before this journey, the girl upholstered the walls of the box with thick, soft cloth, covered the floor with mattresses, and put her doll's bed in the corner.
And yet, Gulliver was very tired of the continuous pitching and shaking.
The girl noticed this and persuaded her father to drive slowly and stop more often.
When Gulliver got tired of sitting in a dark box, she took it out of there and put it on the lid so that he could breathe fresh air and admire the castles, fields and groves that they passed by. But at the same time, she always held him tightly for help.
If Gulliver had fallen from such a height, he would probably have died of fear before reaching the ground. But in the arms of his nurse, he felt safe and looked around with curiosity.
According to the old habit of an experienced traveler, Gulliver, even during the most difficult journeys, tried not to waste time. He studied diligently with his Glumdalclitch, memorized new words, and every day spoke better and better Brobdingneg.
Glumdalclitch always carried with her a small pocket book, a little larger than a geographical atlas. These were the rules of behavior for exemplary girls. She showed Gulliver the letters, and he soon learned to read fluently from this book.
Upon learning of his success, the owner began to force Gulliver to read various books aloud during the performance. This greatly amused the audience, and they flocked in droves to look at the competent grasshopper.
The owner showed Gulliver in every city and in every village. Sometimes he turned off the road and drove into the castle of some noble nobleman.
The more performances they gave along the way, the thicker the owner's purse became, and the thinner poor Grildrig became.
When at last their journey ended and they arrived in the capital, Gulliver could hardly stand on his feet from fatigue. But the owner did not want to think about any respite. He hired a large hall in the hotel, ordered to put a table in it, purposely surrounded by railings, so that Gulliver would somehow accidentally fall to the floor, and pasted up posters all over the city, where it was said in black and white: “Whoever has not seen the scientist Grildrig, he didn't see anything!"
The performances have begun. Sometimes Gulliver had to show himself to the public ten times a day.
He felt that he could not bear it for long. And often, marching around the table with his straw in his hands, he thought about how sad it is to end his life on this table with railings, to the laughter of an idle audience.
But just when it seemed to Gulliver that there was no one more unhappy than him in the whole world, his fate suddenly changed for the better.
One fine morning, one of the king's adjutants came to the hotel and demanded that Gulliver be immediately taken to the palace.
It turned out that the day before, two court ladies had seen the learned Grildrig and told the queen so much about him that she wanted to look at him herself and show her daughters.

Glumdalclitch put on her best formal dress, washed and combed Gulliver with her own hands, and carried him to the palace. That day the performance was a success. Never before had he wielded his sword and straw so deftly, never had he marched so clearly and cheerfully. The queen was delighted.

She graciously extended her little finger to Gulliver, and Gulliver, carefully clasping it with both hands, kissed her nail. The queen's nail was smooth, polished, and, kissing it, Gulliver clearly saw his face in it, as if in an oval mirror. It was only then that he noticed that lately he had changed a lot - he had turned pale, lost weight, and the first gray hair appeared on his temples.

The queen asked Gulliver several questions. She wanted to know where he had been born, where he had lived until now, how and when he had come to Brobdingnag. Gulliver answered all questions accurately, briefly, politely and as loudly as he could.
Then the queen asked Gulliver if he wanted to stay in her palace. Gulliver replied that he would be happy to serve such a beautiful, gracious and wise queen, if only his master agreed to let him go free.
He will agree! - said the queen and made some kind of sign to her court lady.
A few minutes later, Gulliver's master was already standing in front of the queen.
“I take this little man for myself,” said the queen. How much do you want to get for it?
The owner thought. It was very profitable to show Gulliver. But how long will it be possible to show it? It melts every day, like an icicle in the sun, and it seems that soon it will not be visible at all.
- A thousand gold pieces! - he said.
The queen ordered him to count a thousand gold pieces, and then turned back to Gulliver.
“Well,” she said, “now you are ours, Grildrig.
Gulliver pressed his hands to his heart.
“I bow low to your majesty,” he said, “but if your grace is equal to your beauty, I dare to ask my mistress not to separate me from my dear Glumdalclitch, my nurse and teacher.
“Very well,” said the queen. She will stay at court. Here she will be taught and well looked after, and she will teach you and look after you.
Glumdalclitch almost jumped for joy. The owner was also very pleased. He never could have dreamed that he would arrange for his daughter at the royal court.
Having put the money in his travel bag, he bowed low to the queen, and told Gulliver that he wished him good luck in his new service.
Gulliver, not answering, barely nodded his head at him.
“You seem to be angry with your former master, Grildrig?” the queen asked.
“Oh no,” Gulliver replied. “But I suppose I have nothing to talk about with him. Until now, he himself has not spoken to me or asked me if I can perform in front of an audience ten times a day. I owe him only the fact that I was not crushed and trampled when they accidentally found me on his field. For this favor, I repaid him in abundance with the money that he had amassed by showing me around all the cities and villages of the country. I'm not talking about the thousand gold coins he received from Your Majesty for my insignificant person. This greedy man has driven me almost to death and would never have given me away even for such a price, if he did not think that I was no longer worth a penny. But I hope he's wrong this time. I feel the influx of new strength and ready to diligently serve my beautiful queen and mistress.
The queen was very surprised.
“I have never seen or heard anything like it!” - she exclaimed. - This is the most reasonable and eloquent insect of all insects in the world!
And, taking Gulliver with two fingers, she carried him to show the king.

The king was sitting in his office and was busy with some important state affairs.
When the queen approached his table, he only glanced at Gulliver and asked over his shoulder if the queen had long been addicted to trained mice.
The queen smiled silently in response and put Gulliver on the table.
Gulliver bowed low and respectfully to the king.
- Who made you such a funny wind-up toy? the king asked.
Then the queen made a sign to Gulliver, and he uttered the longest and most beautiful greeting he could think of.
The king was surprised. He leaned back in his chair and began to ask the strange little man question after question.
Gulliver answered the king in detail and accurately. He spoke the pure truth, but the king looked at him with narrowed eyes and shook his head in disbelief.
He ordered three of the most famous scientists in the country to be called and invited them to carefully examine this rare little biped to determine to what category it belonged.
Scientists looked at Gulliver for a long time through a magnifying glass and finally decided that he was not a beast, as he walks on two legs and speaks articulately. He is not a bird either, as he has no wings and apparently cannot fly. It is not a fish as it has no tail or fins. He must not be an insect, since there is no mention of insects so similar to humans in any scientific book. However, he is not a person - judging by his insignificant stature and barely audible voice. Most likely, this is just a game of nature - "repllum skolkats" in Brobdingneg.
Hearing this, Gulliver was very offended.
“Think what you like,” he said, “but I am not a game of nature at all, but a real person.
And, asking the king for permission, he told in detail who he was, where he came from, where and how he had lived until now.
“There are millions of men and women as tall as I live in our area,” he assured the king and scientists. - Our mountains, rivers and trees, our houses and towers, the horses we ride, the animals we hunt - in a word, everything that surrounds us is as much smaller than your mountains, rivers, trees and animals, how much I am less than you.
The scientists laughed and said that this was why they studied for so long so as not to believe the ridiculous fables, but the king realized that Gulliver was not lying.
He dismissed the scientists, called Glumdalclitch to his office and ordered her to find her father, who, fortunately, had not yet had time to leave the city.
He asked both of them for a long time how and in what place Gulliver was found, and their answers fully convinced him that Gulliver was telling the truth.
“If this is not a man,” said the king, “then at least it is a little man.”
And he asked the queen to take care of Gulliver and take care of him as best as possible. The queen willingly promised to take Gulliver under her protection. Smart and polite Grildrig liked her much more than her former favorite - a dwarf. This dwarf is still considered the smallest person in the country. He was only four fathoms tall and barely reached the shoulder of nine-year-old Glumdalclitch. But how could it be compared with Grildrig, which fit in the queen's palm!
The queen gave Gulliver rooms next to her own chambers. Glumdalclitch settled in these rooms with a teacher and maids, and Gulliver himself took refuge on a small table under the window, in a beautiful walnut box, which served as his bedroom.
This box was made by a special order of the Queen court carpenter. The box was sixteen paces long and twelve paces wide. From the outside, it looked like a small house - bright windows with shutters, a carved door with a padlock - only the roof of the house was flat. This roof was raised and lowered on hinges. Every morning Glumdalclitch lifted her up and cleaned Gulliver's bedroom.

The bedroom had two wardrobes, a comfortable bed, a chest of drawers for linen, two tables and two chairs with armrests. All these things were made for Gulliver by a toy craftsman who was famous for his ability to cut graceful trinkets from bone and wood.
The armchairs, chest of drawers, and tables were made of some kind of material that looked like ivory, and the bed and wardrobes were made of walnut, like the rest of the house.

In order for Gulliver not to accidentally hurt himself when his house is moved from place to place, the walls, ceiling and floor of the bedroom were upholstered with soft and thick felt.
The door lock was ordered at the special request of Gulliver: he was very afraid that some curious mouse or greedy rat would not enter his house.
After several failures, the locksmith finally made the smallest lock of all that he had ever had to make.

Meanwhile, in his homeland, Gulliver only once in his life saw a castle of this size. He hung on the gates of a manor estate, the owner of which was famous for his stinginess.
Gulliver carried the key to the castle in his pocket, because Glumdalclitch was afraid of losing such a tiny little thing. And why did she need this key? She still could not enter the door, but in order to see what was happening in the house, or to get Gulliver out of there, it was enough to raise the roof.
The queen took care not only of the dwelling of her Grildrig, but also of a new dress for him.
The suit was sewn for him from the finest silk fabric that was found in the state. And yet this matter turned out to be thicker than the thickest English blankets and worried Gulliver very much until he got used to it. The suit was sewn according to the local fashion: bloomers like Persian ones, and a caftan like Chinese ones. Gulliver really liked this cut. He found it quite comfortable and decent.
The Queen and both her daughters loved Gulliver so much that they never sat down to dine without him.

A table and a chair for Gulliver were placed on the royal table near the left elbow of the queen. His nanny, Glumdalclitch, took care of him during dinner. She poured wine for him, put food on the plates and made sure that no one turned over and did not drop him, along with the table and chair.
Gulliver had his own special silver service - plates, dishes, a soup bowl, gravy boats and salad bowls.
Of course, compared to the queen's tableware, this service looked like a toy, but it was very well made.
After dinner, Glumdalclitch washed and cleaned the plates, dishes, and bowls herself, and then hid everything in a silver box. She always carried this box in her pocket.
It was very funny for the Queen to watch Gulliver eat. Often she herself put a piece of beef or poultry on his plate and watched with a smile as he slowly ate his portion, which any three-year-old child would have swallowed in one go.
But Gulliver watched with involuntary fear as the queen and both princesses ate their dinner.
The queen often complained of a poor appetite, but nevertheless she immediately took into her mouth such a piece as would be enough for a dozen English farmers to eat after the harvest. Until Gulliver got used to it, he closed his eyes so as not to see how the queen gnaws on a grouse wing, which is nine times the size of an ordinary turkey wing, and bites off a piece of bread the size of two village rugs. She drank a golden goblet without stopping, and this goblet contained a whole barrel of wine. Her table knives and forks were twice the size of a field scythe. Once Glumdalclitch, taking Gulliver in her arms, showed him at once a dozen brightly polished knives and forks. Gulliver could not look at them calmly. The glittering points of the blades and the huge teeth, long as spears, made him tremble.
When the queen learned of this, she laughed out loud and asked her Grildrig if all his countrymen were so timid that they could not see a simple table knife without trembling and were ready to run away from an ordinary fly.
She was always very amused when Gulliver jumped up in horror from his place, because several flies, buzzing, flew up to his table. For her, these huge big-eyed insects, the size of a thrush, were really no worse than a fly, and Gulliver could not even think about them without disgust and annoyance.

These importunate, greedy creatures never let him dine in peace. They ran their dirty paws into his plate. They sat on his head and bit him until he bled. At first, Gulliver simply did not know how to get rid of them, and in fact he was ready to run wherever his eyes looked from annoying and impudent beggars. But then he found a way to protect himself.
When he went out to dinner, he took his sea dagger with him and, as soon as the flies flew up to him, he quickly jumped up from his place and - once! once! - on the fly cut them into pieces.
When the queen and princess saw this battle for the first time, they were so delighted that they told the king about it. And the next day the king dined with them on purpose, just to see how Grildrig fought the flies.
On this day, Gulliver cut several large flies with his dagger; and the king praised him greatly for his courage and dexterity.
But fighting flies was not so difficult. Once Gulliver had to endure a fight with a more terrible enemy.
It happened one fine summer morning. Glumdalclitch put the box with Gulliver on the windowsill so that he could get some fresh air. He never allowed his dwelling outside the window to be hung on a nail, as bird cages are sometimes hung.
Opening wider all the windows and doors in his house, Gulliver sat in an armchair and began to have a snack. In his hands was a large piece of sweet cake with jam. Suddenly, about twenty wasps flew into the room with such a buzzing sound as if two dozen Scottish fighting bagpipes were playing at once. Wasps are very fond of sweets and, probably, from afar they smelled the smell of jam. Pushing each other away, they rushed at Gulliver, took the cake from him and instantly crumbled it into pieces.
Those who got nothing hovered over Gulliver's head, deafening him with a buzz and threatening him with their terrible stings.
But Gulliver was not a timid ten. He did not lose his head: he grabbed his sword and rushed at the robbers. Four he killed, the rest fled.

After that, Gulliver slammed the windows and doors and, after a short rest, began to examine the corpses of his enemies. Wasps were the size of a large black grouse. Their stings, sharp as needles, turned out to be longer than Gulliver's penknife. It's good that he managed to avoid being stabbed by those poisoned knives!
Carefully wrapping all four wasps in a towel, Gulliver hid them in the bottom drawer of his chest of drawers.
“If I am ever destined to return to my homeland,” he said to himself, “I will give them to the school where I studied.
The days, weeks and months in the country of the giants were but longer and no shorter than in all other parts of the world. And they ran one after another as fast as everywhere else.
Little by little, Gulliver got used to seeing people around him higher than trees and trees higher than mountains.
One day the queen placed him in her palm and went with him to a large mirror, in which both of them were visible from head to toe.
Gulliver involuntarily laughed. It suddenly seemed to him that the queen was of the most ordinary height, exactly the same as all the people in the world, but here he, Gulliver, became at least twelve times smaller than he was.
Little by little he ceased to be surprised, noticing that people narrowed their eyes to look at him, and put their hand to their ear to hear what he was saying.
He knew in advance that almost every word of his would seem ridiculous and strange to the giants, and the more seriously he talked, the louder they would laugh. He was no longer offended by them for this, but only thought bitterly: “Perhaps it would be funny to me if the canary, which lives in such a pretty gilded cage at my house, decided to make speeches about science and politics.”
However, Gulliver did not complain about his fate. From the time he got to the capital, he did not live badly at all. The king and queen were very fond of their Grildrig, and the courtiers were very kind to him.
Courtiers are always kind to those whom the king and queen love.

Gulliver had only one enemy. And no matter how vigilantly the caring Glumdalclitch guarded her pet, she still could not save him from many troubles.
This enemy was the dwarf queen. Before the advent of Gulliver, he was considered the smallest person in the whole country. They dressed him up, fiddled with him, forgave him daring jokes and annoying pranks. But since Gulliver settled in the queen's chambers, she herself and all the courtiers stopped even noticing the dwarf.
The dwarf walked around the palace gloomy, angry and angry at everyone, and most of all, of course, at Gulliver himself.
He could not indifferently see how the toy man stood on the table and, while waiting for the queen to come out, easily talked to the courtiers.

Insolently grinning and grimacing, the dwarf began to tease the new royal favorite. But Gulliver did not pay attention to this and answered each joke with two, even sharper ones.
Then the dwarf began to figure out how to annoy Gulliver otherwise. And then one day at dinner, waiting for the moment when Glumdalclitch went for something to the other end of the room, he climbed onto the arm of the queen's chair, grabbed Gulliver, who, unaware of the danger threatening him, was calmly sitting at his table, and threw it into a silver cup with cream.
Gulliver went to the bottom like a stone, and the evil dwarf ran out of the room and hid in some dark corner.

The queen was so frightened that it didn’t even occur to her to give Gulliver the tip of her little finger or a teaspoon. Poor Gulliver was floundering in the thick white waves and had probably already swallowed a whole tub of ice-cold cream when Glumdalclitch finally ran up. She snatched it from the cup and wrapped it in a napkin.
Gulliver quickly warmed up, and the unexpected bath did not cause him much harm.
He escaped with a slight runny nose, but from then on he could not even look at the cream without disgust.
The queen became very angry and ordered that her former favorite be severely punished.
The dwarf was painfully flogged and forced to drink a cup of cream in which Gulliver bathed.
After that, the dwarf behaved approximately for two weeks - he left Gulliver alone and smiled affably at him when he passed by.
Everyone - even the cautious Glumdalclitch and Gulliver himself - ceased to be afraid of him.
But it turned out that the dwarf was only waiting for an opportunity to pay off his lucky rival for everything. This incident, like the first time, presented itself to him at dinner.
The Queen placed a marrow bone on her plate, removed the marrow from it, and pushed the plate aside.
At this time, Glumdalclitch went to the sideboard to pour wine for Gulliver. The dwarf crept up to the table and, before Gulliver had time to come to his senses, thrust him almost up to his shoulders into an empty bone.
It's good that the bone had time to cool down. Gulliver didn't get burned. But from resentment and surprise, he almost cried.

The most annoying thing was that the queen and princesses did not even notice his disappearance and continued to calmly chat with their court ladies.
And Gulliver did not want to call them for help and ask to be pulled out of the beef bone. He decided to remain silent, no matter what the cost.
“If only they didn’t give the bone to the dogs!” he thought.
But, fortunately for him, Glumdalclitch returned to the table with a jug of wine.
She immediately saw that Gulliver was not there, and rushed to look for him.
What a commotion arose in the royal dining room! The queen, princesses and court ladies began to lift and shake napkins, look into bowls, glasses and gravy boats.
But it was all in vain: Grildrig disappeared without a trace.
The queen was in despair. She didn't know who to be angry with, and that made her even angrier.
It is not known how this whole story would have ended if the younger princess had not noticed Gulliver's head sticking out of the bone, as if from the hollow of a large tree.
- There he is! There he is! she screamed.
And a minute later Gulliver was removed from the bone.
The queen immediately guessed who was the culprit of this evil trick.
The dwarf was again whipped, and the nanny took Gulliver away to wash and change clothes.
After that, the dwarf was forbidden to appear in the royal dining room, and Gulliver did not see his enemy for a long time - until he met him in the garden.
It happened like this. One hot summer day, Glumdalclitch took Gulliver out into the garden and let him walk in the shade.
He walked along the path along which his favorite dwarf apple trees grew.
These trees were so small that, throwing back his head, Gulliver could easily see their tops. And the apples on them grew, as often happens, even larger than on large trees.
Suddenly, a dwarf came out from behind the turn directly towards Gulliver.
Gulliver could not resist and said, looking at him mockingly:
— What a miracle! Dwarf - among dwarf trees. You don't see it every day.
The dwarf did not answer, only looked angrily at Gulliver. And Gulliver went further. But before he had time to move even three steps, one of the apple trees shook, and a lot of apples, each with a beer keg, fell down on Gulliver with a booming noise.
One of them hit him on the back, knocked him down, and he lay flat on the grass, covering his head with his hands. And the dwarf with a loud laugh ran into the depths of the garden.

Gulliver's plaintive cry and the dwarf's malevolent laughter were heard by Glumdalclitch. She rushed in horror to Gulliver, picked him up and carried him home.
This time, Gulliver had to lie in bed for several days - his heavy apples, which grew on dwarf apple trees in the country of giants, hurt him so badly. When he finally got to his feet, it turned out that the dwarf was no longer in the palace.
Glumdalclitch reported everything to the queen, and the queen was so angry with him that she did not want to see him anymore and gave him to a noble lady.
The king and queen often traveled around their country, and Gulliver usually accompanied them.
During these travels, he understood why no one had ever heard of the state of Brobdingnag.
The country of giants is located on a huge peninsula, separated from the mainland by a chain of mountains. These mountains are so high that it is absolutely unthinkable to get over them. They are sheer, steep, and among them there are many active volcanoes. Streams of fiery lava and clouds of ash block the path to this gigantic mountain range. On the other three sides, the peninsula is surrounded by the ocean. But the shores of the peninsula are so densely strewn with sharp rocks, and the sea in these places is so rough, that even the most experienced sailor could not land on the shores of Brobdingnag.
It was only by some lucky chance that the ship on which Gulliver sailed managed to approach these impregnable rocks.
Usually, even the splinters from wrecked ships do not reach the inhospitable, deserted shores.
Fishermen do not build their huts here and do not hang their nets. Sea fish, even the largest, they consider small and bony. And no wonder! Sea fish come here from afar - from those places where all living creatures are much smaller than in Brobdingnag. But in the local rivers come across trout and perch the size of a large shark.
However, when sea storms nail whales to coastal rocks, fishermen sometimes catch them in their nets.
Gulliver once happened to see a rather large whale on the shoulder of a young fisherman.
This whale was later purchased for the royal table, and was served in a large platter with a gravy of various spices.
Whale meat is considered a rarity in Brobdingnag, but neither king nor queen liked it. They found that river fish are much tastier and fatter.
Over the summer, Gulliver traveled the country of giants far and wide. To make it easier for him to travel and so that Glumdalclitch would not get tired of the big heavy box, the queen ordered a special road house for her Grildrig.
It was a square box, only twelve paces long and wide. In three walls, it was made along the window and tightened with a light grate of iron wire. Two strong buckles were attached to the fourth, blank wall.

If Gulliver wanted to ride a horse, and not in a carriage, the rider would put the box on a pillow in his lap, slip a wide leather belt into these buckles and fasten it to his belt.
Gulliver could move from window to window and inspect the surroundings from three sides.
In the box was a camp bed - a hammock suspended from the ceiling - two chairs and a chest of drawers. All these things were firmly screwed to the floor so that they would not fall or topple over from the shaking of the road.
When Gulliver and Glumdalclitch went to the city for shopping or just for a walk, Gulliver entered his travel office, and Glumdalclitch sat in an open stretcher and put the box with Gulliver on her lap.
Four porters carried them leisurely through the streets of Lorbrulgrud, and a whole crowd of people followed the stretcher. Everyone wanted to see the royal Grildrig for free.
From time to time, Glumdalclitch ordered the porters to stop, took Gulliver out of the box and put him in her palm so that it would be more convenient for the curious to examine him.
When it rained, Glumdalclitch and Gulliver went out on business and for a carriage ride. The carriage was the size of a six-story house on wheels. But it was the smallest of all Her Majesty's carriages. The rest were much larger.
Gulliver, who was always very inquisitive, looked around with interest at the various sights of Lorbrulgrud.
Wherever he has been! And in the main temple, which the people of Brobdiignezh are so proud of, and in the large square where military parades are held, and even in the building of the royal kitchen ...
Returning home, he immediately opened his travel journal and briefly wrote down his impressions.
Here is what he wrote after returning from the temple:
“The building is really magnificent, although its bell tower is not at all as high as the locals say. It does not even have a full verst. The walls are made of hewn stones of some local breed. They are very thick and durable. Judging by the depth of the side entrance, they are forty-eight paces thick. Beautiful marble statues stand in deep niches. They are at least one and a half times taller than living Brobdingnezhians. I managed to find in a pile of rubbish the broken off little finger of one statue. At my request, Glumdalclitch placed it upright beside me, and it turned out that it came up to my ear. Glumdalclitch wrapped this fragment in a handkerchief and brought it home. I want to add it to the other trinkets in my collection."
After the parade of Brobdingneg's troops, Gulliver wrote:
“They say there were no more than twenty thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry on the field, but I could never count them - such a huge space was occupied by this army. I had to watch the parade from afar, because otherwise I would not have seen anything but the legs.
It was a very majestic sight. It seemed to me that the helmets of the riders touched the clouds with their tips. The ground hummed under the hooves of the horses. I saw all the cavalry on command draw their sabers and wave them in the air. Who has not been to Brobdingnag, let him not even try to imagine this picture. Six thousand lightning bolts flashed all at once from all sides of the firmament. Wherever fate takes me, I will never forget it.”

Gulliver wrote just a few lines about royal cuisine in his journal:
“I don't know how to put this kitchen into words. If I describe in the most truthful and honest way all these cauldrons, pots, pans, if I try to tell how the cooks roast on a spit piglets the size of an Indian elephant and deer, whose horns look like big branched trees, my compatriots will perhaps They will not believe me and will say that I am exaggerating, as is the custom of all travelers. And if, out of caution, I understate anything, all the Brobdingnegians, from the king to the last cook, will be offended by me.
That's why I prefer to remain silent."
Sometimes Gulliver wanted to be alone. Then Glumdalclitch carried him out into the garden and let him roam among the bluebells and tulips.
Gulliver loved such lonely walks, but often they ended in big trouble.
Once Glumdalclitch, at the request of Gulliver, left him alone on a green lawn, and she herself, together with her teacher, went deep into the garden.
Suddenly a cloud moved in, and a strong frequent hail fell on the ground.
The first gust of wind knocked Gulliver off his feet. Hailstones as large as tennis balls whipped him all over his body. Somehow, on all fours, he managed to get to the cumin beds. There he buried his face in the ground and, covering himself with some leaf, waited out the bad weather.
When the storm subsided, Gulliver measured and weighed several hailstones and made sure that they were one thousand eight hundred times larger and heavier than those that he had seen in other countries.
These hailstones stabbed Gulliver so painfully that he was covered in bruises and had to lie down in his box for ten days.
Another time a more dangerous adventure happened to him.
He was lying on the lawn under a bush of daisies and, occupied with some thoughts, did not notice that the dog of one of the gardeners ran up to him - a young, frisky setter.
Gulliver did not even have time to shout, as the dog grabbed him with his teeth, ran headlong to the other end of the garden and laid him there at the feet of his master, joyfully wagging his tail. It's good that the dog knew how to wear a diaper. She managed to bring Gulliver so carefully that she did not even bite through his dress.
However, the poor gardener, seeing the royal Grildrig in the teeth of his dog, was frightened to death. He carefully lifted Gulliver with both hands and began to ask how he felt. But from shock and fear, Gulliver could not utter a word.
Only a few minutes later he came to his senses, and then the gardener carried him back to the lawn.
Glumdalclitch was already there.

Pale, howling in tears, she rushed back and forth and called Gulliver.
The gardener with a bow handed her Mr. Grildrig.
The girl carefully examined her pet, saw that he was safe and sound, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Wiping her tears, she began to reproach the gardener for letting a dog into the palace garden. And the gardener himself was not happy about this. He swore and swore that he would never again let even a single dog, neither his own nor someone else's, even near the garden fence, if only Mrs. Glumdalclitch and Mr. Grildrig did not tell Her Majesty about this case.
In the end, it was decided on that.
Glumdalclitch agreed to remain silent, as she was afraid that the queen would be angry with her, and Gulliver did not at all want the courtiers to laugh at him and tell each other how he had been in the teeth of a playful puppy.
After this incident, Glumdalclitch firmly decided not to let go of Gulliver for a minute.
Gulliver had long been afraid of such a decision and therefore hid from his nanny various small adventures that happened to him every now and then when she was not around.
Once a kite, hovering over the garden, fell like a stone right on him. But Gulliver did not lose his head, drew his sword from the scabbard and, defending himself with it, rushed into the bushes.
If not for this clever maneuver, the kite would probably have carried it away in its claws.
Another time, during a walk, Gulliver climbed to the top of some mound and suddenly fell up to his neck into a hole dug by a mole.
It is even difficult to tell what it cost him to get out of there, but he nevertheless got out on his own, without outside help, and did not say a single word to a single living soul about this incident.

The third time he came back to Glumdalclitch limping and told her that he had sprained his leg a little. In fact, while walking alone and remembering his dear England, he accidentally stumbled upon a snail shell and almost broke his foot.
Gulliver experienced a strange feeling during his lonely walks: he felt good, and terribly, and sad.
Even the smallest birds were not at all afraid of him: they calmly went about their business - jumping, fussing, looking for worms and insects, as if Gulliver was not at all near them.
One day a bold thrush, chirping fervently, jumped up to poor Grildrig and with its beak snatched from his hands a piece of cake, which Glumdalclitch had given him for breakfast.
If Gulliver tried to catch any bird, she calmly turned to him and strove to peck right on the head or in outstretched hands. Gulliver involuntarily jumped back.
But one day he nevertheless contrived and, taking a thick club, so accurately launched it into some kind of clumsy linnet that she fell down dead. Then Gulliver grabbed her by the neck with both hands and triumphantly dragged her to the nanny in order to quickly show her his prey.

And suddenly the bird came to life.
It turned out that she was not killed at all, but only stunned by a strong blow from a stick.
Linnet began to scream and break out. She beat Gulliver with wings on the head, on the shoulders, on the hands. She failed to hit him with her beak, because Gulliver held her at outstretched arms.
He already felt that his hands were weakening and the linnet was about to break free and fly away.
But then one of the royal servants came to the rescue. He turned the furious linnet's head off and carried the hunter and his prey to Mrs. Glumdalclitch.
The next day, by order of the queen, the linnet was fried and served to Gulliver for dinner.
The bird was slightly larger than the swans he had seen in his homeland, and its meat was tough.
Gulliver often told the queen about his previous sea voyages.
The queen listened to him very attentively and once asked if he knew how to handle sails and oars.
- I am a ship's doctor, - Gulliver answered, - and I spent my whole life at sea. With a sail, I manage no worse than a real sailor.
“But would you like to go boating, my dear Grildrig?” I think it would be very good for your health,” said the queen.
Gulliver just chuckled. The smallest boats in Brobdingnag were larger and heavier than the first-class warships of his native England. There was nothing to think of coping with such a boat.
“What if I order a toy boat for you?” the queen asked.
“I’m afraid, Your Majesty, that the fate of all toy boats awaits him: the waves of the sea will turn over and carry him away like a nutshell!”
“I will order both a boat and the sea for you,” said the queen.
After ten days of toy making, the master made a beautiful and durable boat with all the gear, according to the drawing and instructions of Gulliver,

This boat could fit eight rowers of an ordinary human breed.
To test this toy, they first let her into a tub of water, but the tub was so crowded that Gulliver could hardly move the oar.
“Don’t worry, Grildrig,” said the queen, “your sea will soon be ready.”
And in fact, in a few days the sea was ready.
By order of the queen, the carpenter made a large wooden trough, three hundred paces long, fifty wide and more than a fathom deep.
The trough was well pitched and placed in one of the rooms of the palace. Every two or three days the water was poured out of it, and in about half an hour two servants filled the trough with fresh water.
On this toy sea, Gulliver often rode his boat.
The queen and princesses were very fond of watching how skillfully he wielded the oars.
Sometimes Gulliver set sail, and the ladies of the court, with the help of their fans, either caught up with a fair wind, or raised a whole storm.
When they got tired, the pages blew on the sail, and it was often not easy for Gulliver to cope with such a strong wind.

After riding, Glumdalclitch took the boat to her room and hung it on a nail to dry.
Once Gulliver almost drowned in his trough. Here's how it happened.
The old court lady, the teacher Glumdalclitch, took Gulliver with two fingers and wanted to put him in the boat.
But at that moment someone called out to her. She turned around, opened her fingers a little, and Gulliver slipped out of her hand.
He would certainly have drowned or crashed, falling from a height of six sazhens onto the edge of a trough or onto wooden walkways, but, fortunately, he caught on a pin sticking out of the old lady's lace scarf. The head of the pin passed under his belt and under his shirt, and the poor fellow hung in the air, frozen with horror and trying not to move, so as not to fall off the pin.
And the old lady looked around in confusion and could not understand where Gulliver had gone.
Then the agile Glumdalclitch ran up and carefully, trying not to scratch, freed Gulliver from the pin.
On this day, the boat trip did not take place. Gulliver felt unwell, and he did not want to ride.
On another occasion, he had to endure a real naval battle during a walk.
The servant, who was instructed to change the water in the trough, somehow overlooked and brought a large green frog in a bucket. He overturned the bucket over the trough, threw out the water along with the frog, and left.
The frog hid at the bottom and, while Gulliver was put into the boat, quietly sat in the corner. But as soon as Gulliver set sail from the shore, she jumped into the boat with one jump. The boat tilted so strongly on one side that Gulliver had to fall on the other side with all his weight, otherwise she would certainly capsize.
He leaned on the oars in order to quickly moor to the pier, but the frog, as if on purpose, interfered with him. Frightened by the fuss that rose around her, she began to rush back and forth: from bow to stern, from starboard to port. With each of her jumps, Gulliver was doused with whole streams of water.
He grimaced and clenched his teeth, trying to avoid touching her slippery bumpy skin. And this frog was as tall as a good thoroughbred cow.
Glumdalclitch, as always, rushed to the aid of her pet. But Gulliver asked her not to worry. He stepped boldly towards the frog and hit it with the oar.
After several good cuffs, the frog first retreated to the stern, and then completely jumped out of the boat.
It was a hot summer day. Glumdalclitch went somewhere to visit, and Gulliver was left alone in his box.
Leaving, the nanny locked the door of her room with a key so that no one would disturb Gulliver.
Left alone, he opened wide the windows and the door of his house, sat comfortably in an armchair, opened his travel journal, and took up his pen.
In a locked room, Gulliver felt completely safe.
Suddenly he clearly heard that someone jumped from the windowsill to the floor and noisily ran, or rather galloped, through Glumdalclitch's room.
Gulliver's heart began to beat.
“He who enters the room not through the door, but through the window, does not come to visit,” he thought.
And, carefully rising from his seat, he looked out the window of his bedroom. No, it was not a thief or a robber. It was only a tame monkey, the favorite of all the palace cooks.
Gulliver calmed down and, smiling, began to watch her funny jumps.
The monkey jumped from the Glumdalclitch chair to another chair, sat a little on the top shelf of the closet, and then jumped onto the table where Gulliver's house stood.
Here Gulliver was frightened again, and this time even more than before. He felt his house rise and become sideways. Chairs, a table, and a chest of drawers clattered across the floor. This roar, apparently, really liked the monkey. She shook the house again and again, and then looked curiously through the window.
Gulliver hid in the farthest corner and tried not to move.
“Oh, why didn’t I hide under the bed in time! he repeated to himself. She wouldn't have noticed me under the bed. And now it's too late. If I try to run from place to place, or even crawl, she will see me.”
And he pressed himself against the stack as tightly as he could. But the monkey did see him.
Baring her teeth merrily, she stuck her paw through the door of the house to grab Gulliver.
He rushed to another corner and huddled between the bed and the closet. But even then a terrible paw overtook him.
He tried to wriggle out, to slip away, but he couldn't. Tenaciously grabbing Gulliver by the floor of the caftan, the monkey pulled him out.
He couldn't even scream in horror.
And meanwhile the monkey calmly took him in her arms, as a nanny takes a baby, and began to shake and stroke his face with her paw. She must have mistook him for a baby monkey.
At that very moment the door was flung open, and Glumdalclitch appeared on the threshold of the room.
The monkey heard a knock. In one leap she jumped onto the window sill, from the window sill to the ledge, and from the ledge she climbed up the drainpipe to the roof.
She climbed on three legs, and in the fourth she held Gulliver.
Glumdalclitch screamed desperately.
Gulliver heard her frightened cry, but could not answer her: the monkey squeezed him so that he could barely breathe.
In a few minutes the whole palace was up and running. The servants ran for ladders and ropes. A whole crowd crowded into the yard. People stood with their heads up and pointing up with their fingers.
And up there, on the very crest of the roof, sat a monkey. With one paw she held Gulliver, and with the other she stuffed his mouth with all sorts of rubbish that she pulled out of her mouth. Monkeys always leave a supply of half-chewed food in their cheek pouches.
If Gulliver tried to turn away or grit his teeth, she rewarded him with such slaps that he involuntarily had to submit.
The servants below rolled with laughter, and Gulliver's heart sank.
“Here it is, the last minute!” he thought.
Someone from below threw a stone at the monkey. This stone whistled over the very head of Gulliver.
and the end of several stairs were attached to the walls of the building from different sides. Two court pages and four servants began to go upstairs.

The monkey quickly realized that she was surrounded and that she could not get far on three legs. She threw Gulliver onto the roof, in a few jumps she reached the neighboring building and disappeared into the dormer window.
And Gulliver remained lying on a sloping, smooth roof, expecting from minute to minute that the wind would blow him down like a grain of sand.
But at this time one of the pages managed to get over from the top step of the stairs to the roof. He found Gulliver, put him in his pocket and brought him safely downstairs.
Glumdalclitch was overjoyed. She grabbed her Grildrig and carried it home.
And Gulliver lay in her palm, like a mouse tortured by a cat. He had nothing to breathe: he was choking on the nasty chewing gum with which the monkey stuffed his mouth.
Glumdalclitch understood what was the matter. She took her thinnest needle and carefully, with the tip, scooped out of Gulliver's mouth everything that the monkey had put in there.
Gulliver immediately felt better. But he was so frightened, so badly dented by monkey paws, that he lay in bed for two whole weeks.
The king and all the courtiers sent every day to find out if poor Grildrig was getting better, and the queen herself came to visit him.
She forbade all courtiers, without exception, to keep animals in the palace. And the monkey that almost killed Gulliver was ordered to be killed.
When Gulliver finally got out of bed, the king ordered to call him to him and, laughing, asked him three questions.
He was very curious to know how Gulliver felt in the paws of a monkey, whether he liked her treat and what he would do if such an incident happened in his homeland, where there would be no one to put him in his pocket and deliver him to earth.
Gulliver answered the king only to the last question.
He said that there were no monkeys in his homeland. They are sometimes brought from hot countries and kept in cages. If some monkey managed to escape from captivity and she would dare to pounce on him, he would easily cope with it. Yes, and not with one monkey, but with a whole dozen monkeys of ordinary height. He is sure that he would have been able to defeat this huge monkey if, at the moment of the attack, he had a sword in his hands, and not a pen. It was enough to pierce the monster's paw to forever discourage him from attacking people.
Gulliver delivered this whole speech firmly and loudly, raising his head high and placing his hand on the hilt of his sword.
He really did not want any of the courtiers to suspect him of cowardice.
But the courtiers responded to his speech with such friendly and cheerful laughter that Gulliver involuntarily fell silent.
He looked around at his listeners and thought bitterly how difficult it is for a man to earn the respect of those who look down on him.
This thought occurred to Gulliver more than once, and later, at other times, when he happened to be among high persons - kings, dukes, nobles - although often these high persons were a whole head shorter than him.
The people of Brobdingnag consider themselves beautiful people. Maybe this is indeed so, but Gulliver looked at them as if through a magnifying glass, and therefore he did not really like them.
Their skin seemed too thick and rough to him - he noticed every hair on it, every freckle. Yes, and it was hard not to notice when this freckle was the size of a saucer, and the hairs stuck out like sharp spikes or like the teeth of a comb. This led Gulliver to an unexpected and funny thought.
One morning he presented himself to the king. The king was shaved at this time by the court barber.
Conversing with His Majesty, Gulliver involuntarily looked at the soap foam, in which thick, black hairs looked like pieces of iron wire.
When the barber finished his job, Gulliver asked him for a cup of soapy foam. The barber was very surprised at such a request, but complied with it.
Gulliver carefully selected forty of the thickest hairs from white flakes and laid them on the window to dry. Then he got a smooth piece of wood and chiseled the back of it for a scallop.
With the help of the thinnest needle from the Glumdalclitch needle case, he carefully drilled forty narrow holes in the wooden back at equal distances from each other, and inserted hairs into these holes. Then I cut them so that they were completely even and sharpened their ends with a knife. It turned out a beautiful strong comb.
Gulliver was very happy about this: almost all the teeth on his old comb broke and he positively did not know where to get a new one. There was not a single craftsman in Brobdingnag who could make such a tiny thing. Everyone admired Gulliver's new crest, and he wanted to make some more trinket.
He asked the queen's maid to save for him the hair that had fallen out of her majesty's braid.

When they had gathered decently, he instructed the same carpenter who had made a chest of drawers and armchairs for him to carve two light wooden chairs.
Warning the carpenter that he would make the back and seat himself from a different material, Gulliver ordered the craftsman to drill small frequent holes in the chairs around the seat and back.
The carpenter did everything he was ordered to do, and Gulliver set to work. He chose the strongest hair from his stock and, having thought over the pattern in advance, wove it into the holes that had been made for this.
The result was beautiful wicker chairs in the English style, and Gulliver solemnly presented them to the queen. The queen was delighted with the gift. She set chairs on her favorite table in the living room and showed them to everyone who came to her.
She wanted Gulliver to sit on just such a chair during receptions, but Gulliver resolutely refused to sit on his mistress's hair.
After the completion of this work, Gulliver still had a lot of the queen's hair, and, with the permission of her majesty, he wove an elegant purse from them for Glumdalclitch. The purse was only a little larger than the sacks in which we carry rye to the mill, and was not suitable for large, heavy Brobdingneg coins. But on the other hand, it was very beautiful - all patterned, with the gold cypher of the queen on one side and the silver cypher of Glumdalclitch on the other.
The king and queen were very fond of music, and they often held concerts in the palace.
Gulliver was also sometimes invited to musical evenings. On such occasions, Glumdalclitch would bring it along with the box and place it on one of the tables away from the musicians.
Gulliver tightly shut all the doors and windows in his box, pulled the curtains and curtains, pinched his ears with his fingers and sat down in an armchair to listen to music.
Without these precautions, the music of the giants seemed to him an unbearable, deafening noise.
Much more pleasant to him were the sounds of a small instrument, similar to the clavichord. This instrument was in Glumdalclitch's room, and she learned to play it.
Gulliver himself played the clavichord quite well, and now he wanted to introduce the king and queen to English songs. This turned out to be no easy task.
The length of the instrument was sixty steps, and each key was almost a full step wide. Standing in one place, Gulliver could not play more than four keys - he could not reach the others. Therefore, he had to run from right to left and left to right - from basses to trebles and back. And since the instrument was not only long, but also high, he had to run not on the floor, but on a bench that the carpenters had prepared especially for him and which was exactly the same length as the instrument.
It was very tiring to run back and forth along the clavichords, but it was even more difficult to press the tight keys, designed for the fingers of giants.
At first, Gulliver tried to hit the keys with his fist, but it was so painful that he asked to make two clubs for him. At one end, these clubs were thicker than at the other, and so that when they struck they did not knock too hard on the keys, Gulliver covered their thick ends with mouse skin.
When all these preparations were completed, the king and queen came to listen to Gulliver.
Drenched in sweat, the poor musician ran from one end of the clavichord to the other, striking with all his might on the keys he needed. In the end, he managed to play quite fluently a cheerful English song that he remembered from childhood.
The king and queen left very satisfied, and Gulliver could not recover for a long time - after such a musical exercise, both his arms and legs hurt.
Gulliver was reading a book taken from the royal library. He did not sit at the table and did not stand in front of the desk, as other people do while reading, but went down and up a special ladder that led from the top line to the bottom.
Without this ladder, specially made for him, Gulliver could not have read the huge Brobdingneg books.

The stairs were not very high - only twenty-five steps, and each step was equal in length to a line of a book.
Going from line to line, Gulliver went down lower and lower, and he finished reading the last words on the page, already standing on the floor. It was not difficult for him to turn the pages, for Brobdingneg paper is famous for its thinness. It really is not thicker than ordinary cardboard.
Gulliver read the arguments of one local writer about how his compatriots had been crushed lately.
The writer talked about the mighty giants who once inhabited his country, and complained bitterly about the diseases and dangers that lie in wait for the weak, undersized and fragile Brobdingnezhians at every turn.
Reading these arguments, Gulliver remembered that in his homeland he had read many books of the same kind, and, smiling, he thought:
“Both big and small people are not averse to complaining about their weakness and fragility. And to tell the truth, both of them are not so helpless as they think. And turning the last page, he descended the stairs.
At that moment Glumdalclitch entered the room.
“We need to pack up, Grildrig,” she said. “The king and queen are going to the seaside and taking us with them.
To the seaside! Gulliver's heart beat happily. For more than two years he had not seen the sea, had not heard the dull roar of the waves and the cheerful whistle of the sea wind. But at night he often dreamed of this measured familiar noise, and in the morning he woke up sad and alarmed.
He knew that the only way to leave the country of the giants was by sea.
Gulliver lived well at the court of the Brobdingneg king. The king and queen loved him, Glumdalclitch looked after him like the most caring nanny, the courtiers smiled at him and were not averse to chatting with him.
But Gulliver is so tired of being afraid of everything in the world - to defend himself from a fly, to run away from a cat, to choke in a cup of water! He only dreamed of living again among people, the most ordinary people, of the same height as himself.
It is not easy to constantly be in a society where everyone looks down on you.
Some kind of vague premonition made Gulliver this time especially carefully pack his things. He took with him on the road not only a dress, linen and his travel diary, but even a collection of rarities he had collected in Brobdingnag.
The next morning, the royal family set off with their retinue and servants.
Gulliver felt great in his travel box. The hammock that made up his bed was suspended from silk ropes from the four corners of the ceiling. It swayed smoothly even when the rider, to whose belt Gulliver's box was fastened, rode at the largest and most jolting trot.
In the lid of the box, just above the hammock, Gulliver asked to make a small window, a palm wide, which he could open and close himself whenever he pleased.
In the hot hours, he opened both the top and side windows and dozed serenely in his hammock, fanned by a light breeze.
But that draughty dream must not have been so helpful.
When the king and queen and his retinue arrived at their summer palace, which was only eighteen miles from the coast, near the city of Flenflasnik, Gulliver felt completely unwell. He had a bad cold and was very tired.
And poor Glumdalclitch, she was quite ill on the road. She had to go to bed and take bitter medicines.
Meanwhile, Gulliver wanted to visit the sea as soon as possible. He simply could not wait for the moment when he would again set foot on the coastal sand. To bring this moment closer, Gulliver began to ask his dear nanny to let him go ashore alone.
“The salty sea air will cure me better than any medicine,” he repeated.
But for some reason, the nanny did not want to let Gulliver go. She dissuaded him in every possible way from this walk and let him go only after long requests and arguments, reluctantly, with tears in her eyes.
She instructed one of the royal pages to carry Grildrig ashore and watch him both ways.
The boy carried the box with Gulliver for a good half an hour. All this time, Gulliver did not leave the window. He felt that the shore was already close.
And finally he saw stones dark from the tide and a strip of wet sand with traces of sea foam.
He asked the boy to put the box on some stone, and, sinking into a chair in front of the window, began sadly peering into the desert distance of the ocean.
How he longed to see there, on the horizon, a triangle of sail! Even from a distance, even for a moment ...
The boy, whistling some song, threw pebbles the size of a small fishing hut into the water, and this noise and splash prevented Gulliver from thinking. He told the page that he was tired and wanted to take a nap. The page was very happy. Closing the tight window in the lid of the box, he wished Gulliver good sleep and ran to the rocks - to look for bird nests in the crevices.
And Gulliver really lay down in his hammock and closed his eyes. Fatigue from a long road and fresh sea air did their job. He fell fast asleep.

And suddenly a strong jolt woke him up. He felt someone tug on the ring screwed into the lid of the box. The box swayed and began to rise rapidly. Gulliver almost flew out of his hammock, but then the movement became even, and he easily jumped to the floor and ran to the window. His head was spinning. From all three sides he saw only clouds and sky.

What happened? Gulliver listened - and understood everything. In the noise of the wind, he clearly distinguished the flapping of broad powerful wings.
Some huge bird must have spied Gulliver's house and, grabbing him by the ring, carries him to no one knows where.
And why did she need a wooden box?
She probably wants to throw it on the rocks, as eagles throw turtles in order to split their shell and get tender turtle meat from under it.
Gulliver covered his face with his hands. It seems that death has never come so close to him.
At that moment, his box shook violently again. Again, again... He heard the scream of an eagle and such a noise, as if all the sea winds had collided above his head. There is no doubt that another eagle attacked the one that kidnapped Gulliver. The pirate wants to take the booty from the pirate.

Push after push, blow after blow. The box swayed right and left like a sign in a strong wind. And Gulliver rolled from place to place and, closing his eyes, waited for death.
And suddenly the box somehow strangely trembled and flew down, down, down ... "The end!" thought Gulliver.
A terrible splash deafened Gulliver, and the house plunged into complete darkness for a minute.

Then, swaying a little, he went upstairs, and little by little daylight made its way into the room.
Light shadows ran along the walls, snaking. Such shadows tremble on the walls of the cabin when the portholes flood with water.
Gulliver stood up and looked around. Yes, he was at sea. The house, upholstered from below with iron plates, did not lose its balance in the air and fell without turning over. But it was so heavy that it settled deep in the water. The waves reached at least half of the windows. What will happen if their mighty blows break the glass? After all, they are protected only by light iron bars.
But no, as long as they can withstand the pressure of water.
Gulliver carefully examined his floating dwelling.
Fortunately, the doors in the house were retractable, not folding, on hinges.
They didn't let the water through. But still, little by little, water seeped into the box through some barely noticeable cracks in the walls.
Gulliver rummaged in his chest of drawers, tore the sheet into strips and, as best he could, caulked the cracks. Then he jumped up on a chair and opened a window in the ceiling.

This was done on time: it became so stuffy in the box that Gulliver almost suffocated.
Fresh air entered the house, and Gulliver breathed a sigh of relief. His thoughts cleared up. He considered.
Well, he's finally free! He would never return to Brobdingnag again. Ah, poor dear Glumdalclitch! Will something happen to her? The queen will be angry with her, send her back to the village ... It will not be easy for her. And what will happen to him, a weak, little man, floating alone on the ocean without masts and without a rudder in a clumsy wooden box? Most likely, the first big wave will turn over and flood the toy house or break it on the rocks.
Or maybe the wind will drive him across the ocean until Gulliver dies of hunger. Oh, if only it wasn't! If you are going to die, then die quickly!
And the minutes dragged on slowly. Four hours have passed since Gulliver got into the sea. But these hours seemed to him longer than a day. Gulliver heard nothing but the measured splash of waves hitting the walls of the house.
And suddenly he thought he heard a strange sound: something seemed to scratch on the blank side of the box, where the iron buckles were attached. After that, the box seemed to float faster and in the same direction.
Sometimes it jerked sharply or turned, and then the house dived deeper, and the waves soared higher, completely overflowing the house. Water rained down on the roof, and heavy spray fell through the window into Gulliver's room.
"Did someone take me in tow?" thought Gulliver.

He climbed onto the table, which was bolted in the middle of the room, just under the window in the ceiling, and began loudly calling for help. He shouted in every language he knew—English, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Turkish, Lilliputian, Brobdingneg—but no one answered.
Then he took a stick, tied a large handkerchief to it, and, putting the stick through the window, began to wave the handkerchief. But this signal remained unanswered.
However, Gulliver clearly felt that his house was rapidly moving forward.
And suddenly the wall with the buckles hit something hard. The house shook sharply once, twice, and it stopped. The ring on the roof jingled. Then the rope creaked, as if it were being threaded through a ring.
It seemed to Gulliver that the house began to gradually rise out of the water. That is how it is! The room became much brighter.
Gulliver again put out his stick and waved his handkerchief.
There was a pounding above his head, and someone shouted loudly in English:
- Hey, you're in the box! Respond! You are being listened to!
Gulliver, choking with excitement, answered that he was an ill-fated traveler who experienced the most severe hardships and dangers during his wanderings. He is happy that he has finally met his compatriots and begs them to save him.
- Be completely calm! answered him from above. “Your box is tied to the side of an English ship, and now our carpenter will cut a hole in its lid. We'll lower the ladder for you, and you can get out of your floating prison.

“Don’t waste your time,” Gulliver replied. “It's much easier to stick your finger through the ring and lift the box aboard the ship.
The people upstairs laughed, spoke noisily, but no one answered Gulliver. Then he heard the thin whistle of a saw, and a few minutes later a large square hole lit up in the ceiling of his room.

Gulliver lowered the ladder. He climbed first to the roof of his house, and then to the ship.
The sailors surrounded Gulliver and vied with each other to ask him who he was, where he was from, how long he had been sailing the sea in his houseboat and why he was put there. But Gulliver only looked at them in confusion.
“What tiny people! he thought. “Have I really fallen among the Lilliputians again?”

The captain of the ship, Mr. Thomas Wilcox, noticed that Gulliver was barely on his feet from fatigue, shock and confusion. He took him to his cabin, put him to bed and advised him to take a good rest.
Gulliver himself felt that he needed it. But before falling asleep, he managed to tell the captain that he had a lot of beautiful things left in his drawer - a silk hammock, a table, chairs, a chest of drawers, carpets, curtains and many wonderful knick-knacks.
“If you order my house to be brought to this cabin, I will gladly show you my collection of curiosities,” he said.
The captain looked at him with surprise and pity and silently left the cabin. He thought that his guest had gone crazy from the disasters he had experienced, and Gulliver simply had not had time to get used to the idea that there were people like him around him, and that no one could lift his house with one finger.
However, when he woke up, all his belongings were already on board the ship. The captain sent sailors to pull them out of the box, and the sailors carried out this order in the most conscientious manner.
Unfortunately, Gulliver forgot to tell the captain that the table, chairs and chest of drawers in his room were screwed to the floor. The sailors, of course, did not know this and badly damaged the furniture, tearing it off the floor.
Not only that: during the work they damaged the house itself. Holes formed in the walls and floor, and water began to seep into the room in streams.
The sailors barely had time to tear off a few boards from the box that could be useful on the ship, and he went to the bottom. Gulliver was glad that he did not see this. It is sad to see how the house in which you have lived for many days and nights, even if they are sad, is sinking.
These few hours in the captain's cabin, Gulliver slept soundly, but restlessly: he dreamed of either huge wasps from the country of giants, then weeping Glumdalclitch, then eagles that fight over his head. But still, sleep refreshed him, and he willingly agreed to dine with the captain.
The captain was a hospitable host. He cordially treated Gulliver, and Gulliver ate with pleasure, but at the same time he was very amused by the tiny plates, dishes, decanters and glasses that stood on the table. He often took them in his hands and examined them, shaking his head and smiling.
The captain noticed this. Looking sympathetically at Gulliver, he asked him if he was completely healthy and if his mind was not damaged by fatigue and misfortunes.
- No, - said Gulliver, - I am quite healthy. But I haven't seen such small people and such small things for a long time.
And he told the captain in detail about how he lived in the country of the giants. At first, the captain listened to this story with disbelief, but the more Gulliver told, the more attentive the captain became. Every minute he became more and more convinced that Gulliver was a serious, truthful and modest person, not at all inclined to invent and exaggerate.
In conclusion, Gulliver took a key out of his pocket and opened his chest of drawers. He showed the captain two combs: one had a wooden back, the other had a horn. Gulliver made the horn back from a trimming of the nail of His Brobdingnezh Majesty.
What are the teeth made of? the captain asked.
- From the hair of the royal beard!
The captain just shrugged.
Then Gulliver took out several needles and pins - half a yard, a yard and more. He unwound the queen's four hairs in front of the astonished captain and gave him with both hands the golden ring he had received as a gift from her. The queen wore this ring on her little finger, and Gulliver wore it around her neck like a necklace.
But most of all, the captain was struck by a tooth. This tooth was taken by mistake from one of the king's pages. The tooth turned out to be completely healthy, and Gulliver cleaned it and hid it in his chest of drawers. Noticing that the captain could not take his eyes off the giant's tooth, Gulliver asked him to accept this trinket as a gift.
The touched captain emptied one shelf in his closet and carefully placed on it a strange object, resembling a tooth in appearance, but in size like a heavy cobblestone.
He took a word from Gulliver that, having returned to his homeland, he would certainly write a book about his travels ...
Gulliver was an honest man and kept his word.
This is how a book about the country of Lilliputians and the country of giants was born. On June 3, 1706, the ship that took on board Gulliver approached the shores of England.
For several months he was on the road and called at the ports three or four times to stock up on provisions and fresh water, but Gulliver, tired of adventures, never left his cabin.
And so his journey ended. He parted amicably with the captain, who provided him with money for the journey, and, having hired a horse, set off home.
Everything that he saw on the roads familiar from childhood surprised him. Trees seemed to him small bushes, houses and towers seemed like houses of cards, and people seemed like midgets.
He was afraid to crush passers-by and loudly shouted at them to step aside.
To this he was answered with scolding and ridicule. And some angry farmer almost beat him with a stick.
At last the roads and streets were left behind.
Gulliver drove up to the gate of his house. The old servant opened the door for him, and Gulliver, bending down, stepped over the threshold: he was afraid to hit his head on the lintel, which seemed to him very low this time.
His wife and daughter ran out to meet him, but he did not immediately see them, because, out of habit, he looked up.
All relatives, friends and neighbors seemed to him small, helpless and fragile, like moths.
“You must have had a very bad life without me,” he said with pity. “You’ve lost so much weight and shrunk in height that you can’t even see you!”
And friends, relatives and neighbors, in turn, felt sorry for Gulliver and believed that the poor man had gone crazy ...
So a week passed, another, a third…
Gulliver gradually began to get used to his home, his native city and familiar things again. Every day he was less and less surprised to see around him simple, ordinary people of ordinary height.
In the end, he again learned to look at them as equals, and not from the bottom up and not from the top down.
It is much more convenient and pleasant to look at people in this way, because you do not have to lift your head and do not have to bend over three deaths.

Grigory Ryzhov

The myth of giants and dwarfs

Modern man really appeared as a result of evolution. But the starting point of this evolution was not wild monkeys, as is now believed, but multi-meter people - giants.
Climatic and natural conditions changed periodically on our planet. At the same time, all organisms living on Earth were forced to adapt to these conditions. As a rule, giants always died first, and small organisms survived.
It was as a result of such natural selection that dinosaurs became extinct, and their contemporaries, cockroaches, not only survived to this day, but also achieved incredible endurance. As you know, cockroaches are the only animals that can survive in the epicenter of a nuclear explosion.

The earth was created 4.7 billion years ago.
The first people on earth appeared 3.5 billion years before our era. They reached a height of about 52 meters. And all the plants and animals surrounding them were of the same gigantic size.
Along with the giants on Earth, there were people of lower stature who lived separately from their tall counterparts. The growth of people depended on climatic conditions, on the environment, on national characteristics.
This order of things has been preserved to this day. There are tall nations and short ones. Tall people tend to live in places with a good, even climate. In the same areas that are famous for harsh weather conditions, only undersized peoples survive, for example, the Eskimos, Chukchi, Pygmies, etc.
That is, for example, if a sharp cold snap occurs on Earth and everywhere it is as cold as beyond the Arctic Circle, then in a few generations all people on the planet will be about small in stature, similar to the Chukchi and Eskimos.
In exactly the same way, evolution occurs in animals and plants.
Global climate change has happened on Earth four times already. Each time the conditions of life on the planet became worse and worse. People, animals, and plants were correspondingly reduced in size. Each such change entailed the death of the previous civilization and the birth of a new one from its remnants.
The first people on earth reached a height of 52 meters. In the second civilization, the average height was already 36 meters, in the third - 18, in the fourth - 6, in our fifth - 1.5 - 2 meters.
(If we do not protect nature and the planet, then the next civilization of earthlings will have an average height of 50 cm.) ...

(Materials from the book "Revelation of Angels -
keepers. Start.)
The authors:
Garifzyanov Renat Ildarovich

Panova Lyubov Ivanovna

* * *
... It was a long time ago, about 800 years ago, when local aborigines lived in the Urals near the small lake Okunev, and the settlement was called Okunevsky. In this settlement lived a large family, husband and wife. They had five children. The eldest son was 18 years old, the rest of the children were girls. The youngest just turned three years old.
The husband, his name was Ilvis, was engaged in hunting and fishing. The eldest son Eldar helped his father in hunting animals and catching fish.
The family had a solid house made of logs, there was enough space for everyone. Near the house, the land was cultivated and vegetables were grown on it. They had cows, horses, sheep and chickens, ducks. Alsou's wife and her daughters were engaged in this household.
Eldar's eldest son was raised by his father from childhood as a warrior and hunter of animals. From the age of three, the Eldar sat on horseback. From childhood, he learned to shoot from a bow, to wield a spear, a battle ax and a saber. More than once he won prizes in combat duels and horse races.
Summer, its golden mean, warm time in the Urals. At this time, there are a lot of all kinds of berries in the forest: these are raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, rose hips and others. And how many mushrooms, do not co-read. Do not be lazy, just collect in a bag and prepare for the winter.
Early morning, the rays of the sun only just appeared from behind the forest, there is fog over the water surface of the lake. You can hear the croaking of frogs and trills of forest birds. Nature is waking up from its sleep. The morning chill is still standing, the fresh air is intoxicating and dizzy. Good.
Father and son on horseback, armed to hunt the beast, went to the forest. They had three hunting dogs with them. The best assistants and defenders of the hunter. They need to fill up the wild boar and forest game. Their horses rode stirrup to stirrup. Everyone thought about their own.
- Eldar, it's time for you to get married. What do you think? the father asked his son.
- Father, I thought about it. I have a girl in mind that I like, - after a little thought, the son answered.
-That's good. In the autumn we will marry, - said the father and fell silent.
The hunters for conversations rode on horseback into the forest for 10 kilometers and did not notice this. We drove another mile. Suddenly, the dogs became alarmed, smelling the smell of a wild boar.
The dogs rushed off and rushed after the boar, driving him to the hunters. The barking of dogs was heard in the thicket of the forest, and a few minutes later the boar jumped out onto the path, where hunters with bows and arrows in their hands were in ambush. The wild boar turned out to be a large male with huge fangs that protruded from his mouth.
The wild beast has already approached 15 - 20 meters, it's time to shoot from the bow. The hunters fired shots almost simultaneously, hitting the boar on the spot, which fell on its side, expiring its last breath. One arrow hit the boar directly in the eye, and the other in the front of the left side of the body.
The father said to his son:
- It was a good hunt.
- Good, it's over. The dogs helped us well, - answered the Eldar, looking at the killed boar.
The dogs ran to the hunters, hugging their legs and begging for a treat for their efforts in the hunt. The hunters gave the dogs a piece of bread and some meat, which, wagging their tails and barking slightly, began to eat.
Leaving the wild boar, the hunters went to hunt black grouse, which were numerous in these forests. An hour later they returned with five shot birds. It's time to go home with rich booty. It's not close to home.
The time was drawing to a close. There is silence in the forest, only the wind slightly sways the trees, and the foliage makes a quiet rustle. Birds occasionally utter their trills, sometimes the cuckoo begins to cuckoo, chastising someone of its age. In the shade of trees, midges annoy with their bites. It becomes hot, sweat flows down the face, gets into the eyes, eats them. You have to constantly wipe your face and eyes with a handkerchief, which you always have with you.
The hunters sat down at the edge of the path to rest before the road. After sitting for a while, the Eldar said:
- Father, I will walk through the forest not far. I'll be back soon.
Eldar got up and went into the forest, walking through the grass, bushes and trees. It smells of coniferous forest, grass, all kinds of plants and trees, especially the smell of mushrooms. Good. After walking a few hundred steps, he stopped, admiring nature and breathing in the forest air with his whole chest, which makes him a little drunk and dizzy.
Eldar drew attention to a large tree. In front of him stood an oak tree, which is rare in these places. The oak grew spreading and high, the thickness of its trunk was several human arms around. He began to walk around it and saw in the trunk at a height of 1.5 meters - a large hollow, which beckoned him to see what was there. Maybe a bear, maybe a snake, who knows.
The young hunter decided to climb up there and see what might be there. Without hesitation, Eldar found a suitable snag, dragged it to a tree with a hollow. He made a torch from improvised materials, lit it with flint, climbed onto a snag and lit it inside the hollow. There was no one there, you can see the bottom up to 1.5 meters deep. For some reason, he so wanted to climb into the hollow that he could not restrain himself. Leaving his hunter's equipment at the tree trunk, Eldar easily coped with this task and in a minute he was already in the hollow of a huge oak. Suddenly he felt that he was falling somewhere and did not feel his body ...

... Eldar's father was looking forward to his son, who promised to return soon. Half an hour passed and he was gone. The hunter got worried and gave the command to the dogs to take the trail, which ran into the thicket of the forest. Ilvis hurried after them. Soon they were at a large oak, near which lay the hunter's tackle and a snag attached. Above the driftwood was a large hole in the hollow.
Elvis thought:
- “Eldar climbed into the hollow. What for? Most likely out of curiosity. And where is he?".
The old hunter made a homemade torch, lit it, and climbed onto a snag to look into the hollow. Once at the opening of the hollow, he lit the torch inside it. The bottom of a rather spacious hollow was clearly visible. Nobody here. Empty. Ilvis did not dare to climb into the hollow, thinking that it was empty inside ...

... The Eldar came to his senses and saw that he was lying on a wasteland on which nothing grew. However, next to the wasteland, huge grass grew up to 10 meters, in which insects no less than a meter in size flew and crawled. Animals walked on the grass and nibbled on it. They looked like cows and sheep, like at home, only their size reached the height of pine trees.
Eldar got scared and ran to the grass, where he could hide. He found a comfortable place and began to observe what surrounded him. Suddenly I heard a loud noise, similar to the creak of a cart. The young hunter saw that a cart drawn by horses was driving across the wasteland. Huge people were sitting in the cart, most likely they were children. The cart was followed by giants, a man and a woman. It was family. Their growth was at least 2.5 - th pine, which corresponds to about 52 meters. The woman was a head smaller than the man. They walked with long strides and spoke loudly in their incomprehensible language to the Eldar. Their children laughed merrily and also talked among themselves, gesticulating with their hands. The giants passed, and there was relative silence, only the sound of insect wings in the grass was heard.
The Eldar realized that he had entered the land of the giants through the hollow of an oak into which he had climbed. Once upon a time in early childhood, my grandmother told about the country of giants and dwarfs to them, children. The hunter considered. What to do next? How to get home?
Behind the Eldar came the noise and roar of the beast. He turned around and saw that a beast resembling a boar, with fangs in its mouth, was walking towards him. He grew up to 5 meters. The hunter was immediately taken aback, but, quickly recovering that he had relics, he ran to the wasteland, hoping for nothing. From somewhere a giant dog appeared, the same size as a wild boar, boldly rushed at the beast. After a minute of fighting, the wild boar ran into the grass.
The dog approached Eldar, sniffed him and licked his head in recognition of the little man. She whined and gave a sign, as dogs do at home, so that the Eldar would follow her.
The giant dog walked quickly, and the hunter had to run after it. Soon they approached the giants' settlement. There were dwellings in one floor by the standards of giants. In the middle of the dwellings there was a street along which the giants walked, and somewhere their children crowded and played their games. They turned their attention to the dog and the little man, but did not show any aggression. The dog approached the dwelling, which differed from others in size and beautiful architecture. The main giant of this settlement should live here. The dog began to bark, emitting a powerful sound from itself.
A giant came out of the door of the dwelling and said something to the dog. She barked softly and wagged her tail. The giant realized that the dog had brought a little man with him, bent down and took Eldar with his right hand and went with him to the dwelling. They went into the room where there was furniture for living, the owner sat on a chair, put Eldar on the table in front of him, then put him on a small stand and smiled. The giant's face was the usual for a man, he had a beard, blond hair grew on his head. The nose is straight, slightly snub-nosed, a large mouth with full lips, slightly elongated ears, a high forehead, and the eyes are large and noticeably protruding.
The giant looked at the stranger for a long time, then gave a small piece that looked like bread, indicating with signs that the Eldar should eat it. Looking at the giant, his benevolent face, the hunter began to eat this piece, which tasted like bread. The giant did the same, eating the same-looking piece.
Five minutes passed, and the giant said in his loud voice, although he tried to speak softer:
-What's your name, stranger? Where are you from?
-Eldar. I live in the Ural mountains. And who are you. Why are you big? - answered the hunter, amazed by what he heard from the giant, who spoke his native language.
My name is Yaros. I am the head of this village. We are at the location where you came from, Eldar. From the Ural mountains. What time do you live there? the giant asked.
- At home it is now 1200 years after the birth of Christ, - answered the Eldar.
Yaros paused, thinking about something, and then said:
-Listen, Eldar, and remember. We are the first intelligent people on planet Earth, everything is big here: plants, animals and people because of the favorable climate. The earth was created 4.7 billion years ago. We, the first people, appeared 3.5 billion years before the new era. The life expectancy of people of our era reaches 1000 years or more. How many years do you live in your own time?
-On average, 50 - 60 years old, answered Eldar, looking at the giant.
-Our civilization will last about 800 million years. This is a long time. Then cataclysms occurred on Earth, the climate changed for the worse for the life of plants, animals and people, and the nature of the planet also changed. Three more cataclysms with nature took place on Earth. Each time the climate on Earth changed and the life of plants, animals and people changed, growth, and their size decreased. In total, there will be four civilizations of mankind on Earth. Your fifth civilization of mankind on Earth appeared 27,000 years before our era. It began with Adam and Eve. These are the people of the fifth civilization of mankind, like you and your kind, - the giant fell silent, looking at his guest from the future.
-How do you know this? - cautiously asked Eldar.
-This is the providence of God, - the owner of the house answered and continued, - on Earth there are corridors of time and space, into which you accidentally got. The entrance there may be in unexpected places. How did you get in there?
-My father and I were hunting for a wild boar in the forest. He went into the forest nearby and saw a large oak, and in it a large hollow. I decided to climb into it and fell into the abyss, as it seemed to me. I woke up and found myself here in the country of giants, - said Eldar.
-This is the corridor of time and space. Sometimes people from different civilizations end up in ours. From your civilization too. We tried to send them back home, - said the giant Yaros.
-Is it possible? the Eldar asked reassuringly.
-Yes, it's possible. You will rest with us, refresh yourself, and we will send you to our neighbors, who are half as tall as you. For us, they are dwarfs. We live peacefully with them. The climate there is colder than ours, - the giant ended the conversation.
The giant left the room, and the Eldar was tired of what he had experienced. He took off his outer clothing, laid it under him, put his hat under his head and fell asleep like a log. He was awakened by the giant's loud voice:
- It's time to get up, Eldar. We must set out on our journey to the country of dwarfs. Eat, drink our milk.
He was given something like a cup of porridge and a mug of milk with bread. The Eldar had long felt hungry and thirsty, so he began to eat and drink. He liked the taste of the food. After the meal, the Eldar thanked the giant for the meal:
-Thanks for the meal. Tasty. Come visit us in the Urals. We'll treat you to glory with a wild boar.
-It's good that you liked the food. We are not allowed there, - said Yaros.
-Why?
- We're too big.
-I understand.
The giant grabbed the Eldar with his left hand, and they went out into the street, where the giants and their children were standing, they all looked at the little stranger, talking to each other. Yaros, without stopping, walked to the site, where there was a huge ball of silver color. They entered it, the giant sat down in an armchair and said in an imperious voice:
- We flew to the country of dwarfs.
“Let’s fly,” the pilot answered in tone.
The balloon took off noiselessly, rose to a bird's eye height by their giant standards. Giant birds flew past, not paying attention to the ball. Below you could see settlements and small towns where giants walked and did something about their household. Fields, meadows and forests with giant trees are visible. Some plants grew in the fields, domestic animals grazed in the meadows. Peaceful life went on as usual.
-It's nice and beautiful here, - Eldar said.
Yes, we like to live in this time. It shouldn't be bad for you either, - continued the giant.
-It turns out so. To each his own, and in his own time.
-Well said. We have already arrived.
The giant forest gradually decreased in size and became like houses in the Urals.
The silver ball landed quietly on the landing. The giant did not come out of the ball. A silver ball flew up to him, in which two dwarfs sat. The ball turned out to be large enough to fit another person into it, although larger than the dwarfs. It was a cargo ball.
The giant said something to the dwarf and extended his hand to the cargo ball, placing Eldar in the doorway, while saying:
-Eldar, successful return to your homeland.
-Thank you for your hospitality. Good luck with your time.
The ball of dwarfs flew away from the big ball like a giant and landed on the landing. A large ball of giants flew up into the sky and, gleaming in the rays of the sun, disappeared from view. The pilot of the ball of dwarfs invited the Eldar to come out and follow him. Not far from the site where the ball was located, there was an apparatus on wheels with a large cabin. A dwarf sat at the control panel of the apparatus and waited for the command. Everyone sat in the cockpit, where the Eldar also fit.
The height of the dwarfs reached up to a meter, and the height of the hunter was about 165 cm, not much more. The device on wheels started off and began to quickly develop speed along a flat road, and forests, fields and meadows quickly swept past the window. The device was approaching the village, where one could see houses with one and several floors. There were dwarfs in the street, children were playing. We drove up to the administration building and entered it. Then we ended up in a spacious office with furniture and other attributes for management.
The dwarf who brought the Eldar to his country was in charge here. He invited him to sit at the table in an armchair, which were small, but could be arranged.
- My name is Irvis, head of this settlement. You Eldar, hunter in the Urals, - the dwarf spoke.
Eldar carefully looked at the dwarf and recognized himself in him, only a little shorter. Slender figure, regular facial features, correct speech. Everything is like people. By the way, dwarfs and we meet and live in families.
How do you know my name and who I am? Eldar asked.
- Giant Yaros gave me a telepathic message. Nature has made us different, and we live on different ends of the planet. We live in peace and help each other to the best of our ability.
-Peace is good. Here, on Earth, they fight and kill people like wild animals. There is a war everywhere and at all times, - bitterly said Eldar.
-We know this, but peace will come to your civilization of humanity, but not soon for you. Thousands more years will pass for humanity to come to the long-awaited peace, - Irvis said convincingly, looking at the newcomer.
“Our generation of peace on Earth cannot wait, but it’s a pity,” the hunter said sadly.
- The guest is supposed to be fed from the road and put to bed, - said Irvis and ordered that the table be set.
A few minutes later, various dishes and delicacies appeared on the table. Eldar ate and said to the owner:
-Everything was delicious. Thanks for the meal. Now to rest.
-Let's go to the rest room, - they entered the room where there was a sofa, and on it a skin with soft wool - lie down here on the skin of the beast and rest.
Several hours passed, Eldar was awakened by the voice of Irvis:
Eldar, it's time to get up.
... They were sitting in the office, Irvis began to speak:
- It's time for you to go home, in due time. You will come out of the same hollow of a large oak tree. Your father is waiting for you there. You will get out of the hollow and this corridor of time and space will close, and will open in another place, no one knows for the people of your time. The gift of understanding foreign languages ​​will remain with you forever. You will be the mother of animals and birds. If you tell your people what happened to you and they won't believe you. Prove to them. Here are three pills for you. If you swallow one, you become a giant; if you swallow another, you become a dwarf like us; if you swallow a third, you become yourself. Clear. Don't waste your pills. If you don't use them, burn them in the fire.
As a gift to you and the people of your settlement. Take these gems and gold.
Irvis took a large casket from the wall and gave it to the guest.
- I looked and learned a lot in one day in your time. Thank you for the jewelry gift. Our people do not live richly. Come in handy. Thank you very much, - Eldar replied with gratitude.
-Good. Time to go, - said Irvis, and they went to the exit.
The apparatus was waiting for them at the building, they got into it and drove off. The apparatus raced along the road, mountains, forests and fields could be seen from the window. There were settlements of dwarfs and cities. Beautiful and tidy all around. The apparatus unexpectedly turned into the forest and, after driving for some time, stopped at a large oak, similar to the one from which it all began.
We've arrived, we'll say goodbye here. We leave the apparatus, - Irvis said, pointing to the exit.
They got out of the apparatus and approached an oak that towered over the forest. Eldar said:
- The same oak tree.
- No, but similar, they are in different time zones, but connect the corridor of time and space, - Irvis explained.
-It's the same stupidity. I need to climb into it and I'll be at home. I don't even believe it. It's a pity to part with your time and with all of you, - said Eldar.
We are also sorry, but the aliens must return to their home in due time.
It's time, - firmly said the dwarf.
The Eldar approached the hollow with the chest, began to climb into the hollow along the ladder, which appeared from somewhere, stopped for a moment, waved his hand and said:
-Farewell. Good luck with your time.
You and your people too! Irvis said loudly.
The hunter climbed into the hollow with his chest and fell through time and space...

... The Eldar climbed out of the hollow of the oak, looked around, the dogs barked and looked at the hunter. He saw his father and said:
Father, are you still here?
-And where else should I be, I went to look for you, I came to this oak tree, or rather the dogs led me to it. Your equipment is lying, but you are not. The snag stands by the oak, which means it climbed into the hollow. I shone a torch at him, but there was no one there. Didn't get into it. What were you doing in the hollow, - the old hunter asked irritably.
- How long have you been waiting for me? Eldar asked.
“Just now, they came with the dogs,” answered the father.
-This is weird. I should appear here not earlier than in 12 hours, - the son said inquiringly.
You speak mysteriously, Eldar. Tell me. What happened to you?
- Look what I got, - Eldar opened a casket in which precious stones and gold gleamed, - I accidentally opened the gates of time and space in the hollow of this large oak tree. I moved to another time in the first civilization of mankind, in which giants and dwarfs live. They gave a chest with this wealth as a gift and sent me back home to our time. They say that we live in the fifth civilization of mankind. Believe it or not, believe it or not.
- It's hard not to believe it, because you have direct evidence in the form of this chest in your hands. Yes, in the ancient legends of our ancestors it was said about the country of giants and dwarfs ... - believing and not believing, my father said.
- By the way, the corridor of time and space in this place is closed. That's it, - said Eldar.
-I believe. It's time to go home. It's already evening, - said the father, and they went to the place where the horses and the killed boar were parked.

The Eldar distributed precious stones and gold to his fellow villagers and kept them for his wedding, household and other needs of the family. Everyone had enough of this wealth.
However, the people found out that the Eldar had visited the country of giants and dwarfs. Somehow the whole village came to his house and said:
-Tell us about the country of giants and dwarfs. Verify that you were there.
Eldar began to talk about how he visited this country with giants and dwarfs. The people listened attentively and groaned from surprises in Eldar's stories.
-Something I don't believe in it. People can't be that tall and small. How do you back up your stories? - someone spoke from the crowd.
- If you want, then please. Just don't be scared. Move away from me a hundred meters in the district, - Eldar said to the challenge of the unbelievers.
The Eldar waited until the villagers had retreated to the required distance, took out a pill, put it in his mouth and swallowed it. Unexpectedly for everyone, he began to grow before our eyes, and increase in size. The growth of the Eldar became 2.5 times higher than the forest. The giant looked around him, bent down, took a man in his hands and raised them to their full height. The people gasped and stepped back. Eldar said:
-Now believe. Do not be afraid of me, - his loud voice sounded like thunder.
The giant lowered the people to the ground. He straightened up, drank the second pill and began to rapidly decrease in height. Here he was only about a meter tall. The villagers ran up to him and surrounded him, asking how he did it. They touched it, felt it, made sure that it was Eldar. Only for some reason became small.
Finally, Eldar swallowed the third pill and after a moment became himself...
... Since then, this story with the young hunter Eldar began to be passed down from generation to generation and turned into a legend, into a myth about giants and dwarfs ...