- ... Yes, you look! Avona what a colorful! Yes, with birdies, with bushings! And materyal something, eh? pure Hebe, a hundred percent, or more! You wrap it up with a handkerchief from above - don't leave your eyes, these are the cross! Masha! ..
- Na-sha Ma-sha, man-ny porridge, plump little snout, soft kakash ...
- Mashun! Well, straight knife pó heart! Do not you like something?
- Like, like, granny, - Masha went to her grandmother and smacked her cheek. - Thank you. In the lecture hall, perhaps, this artifact will look somewhat exotic ... but, in the end, should the scientist maintain national identity?
- Thu on you, forgive, Lord! nothing to understand, as if a Turk mumbles. Eh, Masha, Masha ...
- ... soft kakash, doll-doll-Masha, doll-tumbler!

She did not like her name. She did not like all of her, from top to bottom, and that was her secret curse. Fragile, morbidly fragile figure, strict (with a light decadent strain) black suit - pants, vest, jacket a la Germina from “Steppe Wolf”, dark square, thin pale face, like the graces of Rosetti, elegant pince-nez glasses, and under They are the eyes that shimmer with spiritual chasms, eyes-riddles, eyes-X-rays penetrating through, revealing Masha's inner world, her intellect and deep essence ...

So it should be. But in reality it was the opposite: puffy lips bow, huge blue eyes, cornflowers, blond hair, golden with copper, wavy-fluffy and braided to the knee, healthy, strong body of a rural beauty ...

Such an appearance would fit any female who dreams of grabbing a tough guy and flipping glossy magazines, but not Masha - a mathematics prodigy whose work has been stirring up the scientific world for several years. Even these dresses, dresses, Russian dresses, in which Masha was forever tied by her mother and grandmother, making her a living matryoshka ... And now Grandma got rid of herself - dragged her some kind of gypsy rag, motley, like the apron of old Izergil. Tomorrow the symposium, Professor Ogolevets himself will come from the USA, - and she, Masha, will be like a rose in a merchant's drawing room. She will not dress - will offend the relatives whom Masha adored, in spite of everything; tomorrow, they will certainly come, sit back, so as not to be shy, and will patiently swallow tons of formulas, admiring how their Mashunechka stands before real academicians ...

Dress - well, the dog with him; but Masha's own appearance caused the real torment.

The meanest thing was that Masha knew how beautiful she was, and her beauty tightly tied her hands. She was a slave of her beauty. She knew that she had unique hair - and all the dreams of haircuts and dyes would remain dreams; she knew that she had the perfect complexion, cheeks, lips, eyelashes - and all the makeup of the makeup would ruin what nature gave her; she knew that she had a “purebred Russian type” - and any experiments with the image would be ridiculous, like a zipoon on a Negro. She is forever doomed to these merchant dresses, these shawls, long skirts, coral earrings in her ears ... Masha was beautiful, but not at all with the beauty she wanted.

Even her voice let her down: thick, low, like that of Frosya Burlakova, he was buzzing with village warmth, even when Masha spoke about the theory of chaos - and she was angry with him, like a naughty dog.

***

“At seventeen, such hard labor! ... And you cannot tell anyone ... Beauty is not her, and her voice is not, and her hair is not, and world fame does not make her happy in tenth grade ... The girl lit up. Ugh! ”- Masha could not stand it and burst into tears.

She hated crying in public, but she never managed to hold back her tears. As soon as something happened, her face turned against her will, her cheeks were made crimson, her eyes were crystal, and from them flowed like a crane. Here and now ... She walked along the twelve collegiums *, where the registration for the symposium took place, and the sympathetic scholarly brotherhood was staring at her: how could they have offended such a sweetheart, such a rural flower, such a naive, rosy little chippy blonde ... Veeeeeee! ..
______________________________
* The main building of the Petersburg University. - approx. auth.

- ... Well, why are we crying? Our eyes are spoiling? Are they made for that? BUT?

Masha gently, but imperiously restrained someone's hand. A tall man in a jacket stood in front of her and looked at her eyes mockingly.

Masha wanted to tell him something poisonous, intellectual, as she knew how, but instead burst into tears even more:
- Geeeeeee! ...
- Oh well! He hurt you, right? He's a scoundrel, right? Nothing: he is a fool worse. Such a treasure profukal! You will still show him ...

Masha snorted against her will.

- ... Here you go! Smiled! Well, it's a completely different thing! And still! Try it! Rrraz! First of all! And further! And yet ... You see: it turns out!

Machine cheeks, despite her misfortune, desperately crawled to the side.

- Let's consolidate success, - a stranger winked at her conspiratorially. - Let's do something very nice. We slap on a shampusik, for example. BUT? Do you like shampusik? What kind of animal are you? You! furry fox, golden-haired maiden! What is your name? He asked, holding Masha's hand.

He was self-confident to indecency, but at the same time charming and good-natured, and his charm justified self-confidence, as it always happens.

“Mnazidika. Abbreviated Mnazya ”- Masha wanted to tell him, but for some reason she babbled:
- Ma-asha ...

It sounded so infantile that her cheeks lit up like two traffic lights.

- Masha? Doll Masha? Where is the bear? Do you know that Masha should be with a bear? Can I be your bear?

She wanted to say something to him, like, “I only speak to polite bears, which are presented to a lady,” but instead she began to babble again:
- Yeah ...

It was a nightmare: her body responded in her place.

“Yugu!” The stranger mocked her. - Where did you find such a doll-Masha-no-bear? Where else do these live? Where did you wander to our city of sins? Tell me!

Masha opened her mouth ... and suddenly a crazy thought flashed through her head. With a sob, she replied:

- That is not far off. Kilometrov shysotsot will be from Peter. From the village of Zakopteyevo we ...
- Zakopteyevo? How I heard, I heard ...
- Have you heard? - Masha joyfully crept up. - And from whom? Could you have been tama yourself? “Masha imitated grandmother's reprimand, which was not difficult at all: she heard him every day, and even in her speech sometimes she missed“ interest ”and“ kilometer ”.
- Not. I myself was not, I will not lie. And I heard ... you can not even imagine, the doll Masha from Zakopteyev, which only I did not hear! Well, do you want shampusika? With a bear, I mean with me?
“Shampusik ... is this something like a gimlet?” How do you drive?
- chase? With grapes, Masha, with grapes. Shampusik is much tastier than a gimlet, I can assure you.
- With grapes? Duck, it should be delicious! - Masha idiotically smiled, looking at the Bear. Playing the doll Masha was easy and reckless, and did not want to cry at all.
- Tasty, tasty, do not hesitate! Come on!
- And where will we go?
- A tude. Come to my residence. Here, near, on the eighth line. Let's go
- Well, send ...

The bear slyly smiled at Masha and led her along the embankment, without releasing her hand.

***

- ... how, how did you say?
- Misha-Misha-Bear, teach me how to fart!
- Ha ha ha ha! ..

They sat with the Bear in the hotel "Sokos", in his room, and laughed like crazy. Masha has already managed to tell him the story of her life - how she lived in the driver of the tractor driver Zory Mordokvas, how he tried to pump her “with love,” and she ran off to Aunt Bouferich, where she was spudding cabbage day and night ...