In the far-far country there was one young boy. He was seven, and he very much liked to read.
But he often forgot what he had read, and he had to re-read the same books many times.
- Don’t keep books opened, - once his grandmother had said him. - The devil reads left off-hand opened books, and then you forget all, that is written there.
The boy had become thoughtful.
" It is the reason! - He had thought. – Till now I’ll never keep the books opened! "
But he had pity devil, which, probably, very like to read too… And he became to think, how to make such, that and he nothing forgets, both the devil would not be without reading.
The boy thought a long time, and had invented. "Let me give to devil something, which I did not read. Then, naturally, I could not forget anything, and devil would be pleased ".
The boy was very much delighted to this decision, which one was truly worthy of Solomon. He had taken one of his sister's books (which was a tutorial on geography), and had put it on the best place behind the desktop. Then our boy has prolonged reading "Robinson Crusoe", diligently inverting pages both for himself, and for the devil.
This day the sister turned back from the school into tears.
- Teacher of geography asked me the lesson, - she told, - and I feel, that remember nothing. That is too insulting, because of I really had read all. And I have forgotten totally at once!
The boy pity sister. Of cause, he has not told her anything, but he has decided henceforth to give to devil only something which cannot to have such consequences.
He comes to a paternal cabinet to look what is possible to give to devil for the reading.
The father of our boy was the chief-editor of a thick literary journal, and some reading in his cabinet was too much. So, the boy had become to search.
The journal, where the father of our boy worked, was not only thick, but also venerable, and it published only thick and venerable writers, considering below dignity to pay any attention to others.
Specious, at the end of each journal number, everybody, who can read, would have read a sacral phrase: "the manuscripts are not reviewed and returned". And everybody, who can think, would have thought: “and are not published”. However more and more some cranks send own manuscripts to this journal. Such manuscripts added in the heap, which, according to the father words, was “a waiting room” for the wastebasket. And this heap was small only after general cleaning.
- Maybe, though the devil would interest it, - the boy has thought, and has dragged therefrom first fallen manuscript.
***
Some days have passed, and once the boy unintentionally has heard the talk of his parents.
- … he wrote the novel all his life, and nobody wanted to read it. He has coaxed me to take his “scripture”. And yesterday he was taken by ambulance with a total amnesia.
***
That night the boy dreamed the road, on which the devil and that writer slowly went and talked. The boy never saw neither devil, nor that writer, but at once he had recognized both. They left away from our World. In the morning the boy very much would like to read, what this person has written, but the sheets of the manuscript were carbonized, and the characters could not be understood.
Since that day the boy stop to forget the read books. In due course, as it often happens, he also became a chief-editor of a Thick and Venerable Literary Journal. Never in reality and in a dream, he saw either that author, or the devil, but each time opening a new manuscript, he hoped to see that one, which nobody had found a time to read, before it become too late. However, the heap of the unread manuscripts did not become less from it...
(2001)