Anthony Dorr - all the light invisible to us. Anthony Dorr “All the Light We Cannot See” About the book “All the Light We Cannot See” Anthony Dorr

The novel “All the Light We Cannot See” was written in 2014. The book was on the bestseller list for 38 weeks. In 2015, the author was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his work.

The story begins in May 1944. Then the author takes readers back 3 years ago, and then gradually moves on to 1944. At the very end of the novel, the life of the main characters in post-war period.

In the center of events are the German boy Werner and the French girl Marie-Laure. At the beginning of the story, the children do not know each other. Werner lives in a German mining town. He is an orphan. Despite his difficult life, the boy does not feel unhappy. Werner becomes interested in radio, which leads him into an unusual educational institution. Here he will gain new knowledge not only about the subject in which he is interested, but also about life. Werner learns true cruelty, finds and loses friends. When the young man turned 16, he was sent to the front. Werner's knowledge is necessary in order to search for enemy radio transmitters.

Frenchwoman Marie-Laure lives in Paris with her father, a museum worker. By the age of six, the girl was completely blind. Now she is forced to learn to live in a new way. The director of the museum where Marie-Laure's father works is trying to save a very valuable exhibit located in cultural institution- cursed stone. To prevent the Nazis from getting the exhibit, two copies are made of it. Three museum employees, including the father of the main character, each receive a copy of the stone. However, none of them knows whether he received the original or a copy.

Marie-Laure's little family is forced to wander around the country so that the Nazis lose track of the stone. In the end, father and daughter find their distant relative, a lonely old man, with whom they stay. Marie-Laure and the elderly man quickly find mutual language. Throughout the entire story, the main characters seem to meet each other halfway.

Characteristics

German Werner

Little Werner lives in an orphanage. The only one close person the main character is his sister. Also in early childhood Werner understands what he wants to do in life. He loves radios and everything connected with them. Werner's dream is to become a scientist-inventor.

The opportunity to get an education becomes a chance for an orphan to realize his dreams. However, once at school, Werner realizes that everything in this world has 2 sides. The ugly side of his dream appeared before him. Werner wants to remain himself, but life requires adaptability. While receiving education, the young man has only peaceful intentions. However, he soon learns that his talent and knowledge will be used to serve Hitler's unhealthy ambitions. Making a deal with his conscience, a peace-loving young man tries to force himself to believe that war is truly necessary and beneficial.

Frenchwoman Marie-Laure

Having lost my sight for quite some time early age, the girl did not lose her love of life, did not withdraw into herself. Opened up for her new world, which was not available to her at the time when she was sighted.

Marie-Laure's little universe is filled with smells and sounds. The girl associates the apartment in which she lives with the aromas of wood and glue because in free time father makes wooden crafts. Morning for the main character smells like coffee. Marie-Laure learned to read with her hands, which helps her improve her educational level. A caring father creates wooden models of the streets of Paris for his daughter. Before leaving the house, Marie-Laure carefully feels them, planning the upcoming route in her head.

main character I learned to overcome my illness. She lives like thousands of her Parisian peers, ignoring her blindness.

main idea

Life often presents unpleasant surprises. Today it’s just a quarrel with a loved one. And tomorrow it could be incurable disease or war. However, not a single one unpleasant situation should not become a reason for despair. The universe is multifaceted. The ability to accept both its light and dark sides makes a person truly happy.

Among the most interesting books The novel “All the Light We Cannot See” can also be called a novel about the Second World War. Anthony Dorr managed to excite readers all over the world. The author wanted to create a beautiful sad story about the death of the world that existed before the war. Despite the huge losses, many were able to survive it scary time. But those who went through the horrors of war will never be the same. Even the appearance of the French capital has changed beyond recognition. Pre-war Paris and post-war Paris are 2 different cities.

Against the backdrop of the horrors of war with all its atrocities, touching characters are presented: a fragile blind girl and a talented, purposeful young man. Children made for peaceful life and simple human joys, forced to survive in difficult times war time. Thousands of promising teenagers did not live to see the end of the war. They did not have time to give anything to this world. Dorr wants the reader to feel the tragedy and realize the horror of what was happening in Europe in the early 1940s.

Unnecessary mysticism

According to the point of view of some critics and readers, mysticism in the novel is one of its main shortcomings. The mysterious diamond "Sea of Fire", which is so protected by the director of the museum, has magical properties. It grants immortality to its owner. However, the immortal will have to come to terms with the fact that his entire eternal life numerous misfortunes will follow. Moreover, the author repeatedly hints to readers that it was this stone that caused the outbreak of World War II.

Anthony Dorr

All the light we cannot see

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE Copyright

Publishing house AZBUKA®

* * *

Dedicated to Wendy Weil 1940-2012

In August 1944, the ancient fortress of Saint-Malo, the brightest jewel of the Emerald Coast of Brittany, was almost completely destroyed by fire... Of the 865 buildings, only 182 remained, and even those were damaged to one degree or another.

Philip Beck

Leaflets

In the evening they fall from the sky like snow. They fly over the fortress walls, somersault over the roofs, and circle in the narrow streets. The wind sweeps them along the pavement, white against the background of gray stones. “Urgent appeal to residents! - they say. “Get out into the open immediately!”

The tide is coming. A flawed moon hangs in the sky, small and yellow. On the rooftops of seaside hotels east of the city, American artillerymen fire incendiary shells into the muzzles of mortars.

Bombers

They fly across the English Channel at midnight. There are twelve of them, and they are named after songs: "Stardust", "Rainy Weather", "In the Mood" and "Baby with a Gun". The sea glitters below, dotted with countless chevrons of lambs. Soon the navigators can already see the low, moonlit outlines of the islands on the horizon.

The intercom wheezes. Carefully, almost lazily, the bombers drop altitude. Strings of scarlet light stretch upward from air defense points on the coast. The skeletons of ships are visible below; one had his nose completely blown off by the explosion, the other was still burning out, flickering faintly in the darkness. On the island that is furthest from the shore, frightened sheep are rushing between the rocks.

On each plane, the bombardier looks through the sight hatch and counts to twenty. Four, five, six, seven. The fortress on the granite cape is getting closer. In the eyes of the bombers, she looks like a bad tooth - black and dangerous. The last boil to be opened.

In a narrow and tall house number four on the rue Vauborel, on the last, sixth floor, sixteen-year-old blind Marie-Laure Leblanc is kneeling in front of a low table. The entire surface of the table is occupied by a model - a miniature semblance of the city in which she is kneeling, hundreds of houses, shops, hotels. Here is a cathedral with an openwork spire, here is the Chateau Saint-Malo, rows of seaside guesthouses studded with chimneys. From the Plage du Mole there are thin wooden spans of the pier, the fish market is covered with a lattice vault, tiny public gardens are lined with benches; the smallest of them are no larger than an apple seed.

Marie-Laure runs her fingertips along the centimeter-long parapet of the fortifications, outlining the irregular star of the fortress walls - the perimeter of the model. He finds openings from which four ceremonial cannons look out to the sea. “Dutch bastion,” she whispers, walking down the tiny staircase with her fingers. - Rue de Cordières. Rue-Jacques-Cartier."

In the corner of the room there are two galvanized buckets filled with water to the edge. Pour them whenever possible, her grandfather taught her. And a bath on the third floor too. You never know how long the water will last.

She returns to the cathedral spire, from there south to the Dinan Gate. All evening Marie-Laure walks her fingers over the model. She is waiting for her great-uncle Etienne, the owner of the house. Etienne left last night while she was sleeping and did not return. And now it's night again hour hand She described another circle, the whole block was silent, and Marie-Laure could not sleep.

She can hear bombers three miles away. Increasing sound, like static on a radio. Or a hum in a sea shell.

Marie-Laure opens her bedroom window and the roar of the engines gets louder. Otherwise, the night is eerily quiet: no cars, no voices, no footsteps on the pavement. No air raid alarm. You can't even hear the seagulls. Just a block away, six floors below, the tide hits the city wall.

And another sound, very close.

Some rustling noise. Marie-Laure opens the left window sash wider and runs her hand along the right. A piece of paper stuck to the binding.

Marie-Laure brings it to her nose. It smells like fresh printing ink and maybe kerosene. The paper is tough - it hasn't been in the damp air for long.

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE Copyright

Publishing house AZBUKA®

* * *

Dedicated to Wendy Weil 1940-2012

In August 1944, the ancient fortress of Saint-Malo, the brightest jewel of the Emerald Coast of Brittany, was almost completely destroyed by fire... Of the 865 buildings, only 182 remained, and even those were damaged to one degree or another.

Philip Beck

0. August 7, 1944

Leaflets

The tide is coming. A flawed moon hangs in the sky, small and yellow. On the rooftops of seaside hotels east of the city, American artillerymen fire incendiary shells into the muzzles of mortars.

Bombers

They fly across the English Channel at midnight. There are twelve of them, and they are named after songs: "Stardust", "Rainy Weather", "In the Mood" and "Baby with a Gun" 1
Stardust the song, written by Hoagy Carmichael in 1927, has been covered by almost all the greats jazz performers. Stormy Weather song by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, written in 1933 . In the Mood – Joe Garland's song, which became a hit for Glenn Miller. Pistol-Packin' Mama – song written by Al Dexter in 1943; it was recorded by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters in 1944. (Hereinafter approx. Transl.)

The sea glitters below, dotted with countless chevrons of lambs. Soon the navigators can already see the low, moonlit outlines of the islands on the horizon.

Young woman

In a narrow and tall house number four on the rue Vauborel, on the last, sixth floor, sixteen-year-old blind Marie-Laure Leblanc is kneeling in front of a low table.

The entire surface of the table is occupied by a model - a miniature semblance of the city in which she is kneeling, hundreds of houses, shops, hotels. Here is a cathedral with an openwork spire, here is the chateau of Saint-Malo, rows of seaside boarding houses dotted with chimneys. Thin wooden piers stretch from the Plage du Mole, the fish market is covered with a lattice vault, tiny public gardens are lined with benches; the smallest of them are no larger than an apple seed.

She returns to the cathedral spire, from there south to the Dinan Gate. All evening Marie-Laure walks her fingers over the model. She is waiting for her great-uncle Etienne, the owner of the house. Etienne left last night while she was sleeping and did not return. And now it’s night again, the hour hand has described another circle, the whole quarter is quiet, and Marie-Laure cannot sleep.

She can hear bombers three miles away. Increasing sound, like static on a radio. Or a hum in a sea shell.

And another sound, very close.

Some rustling noise. Marie-Laure opens the left window sash wider and runs her hand along the right. A piece of paper stuck to the binding.

Marie-Laure brings it to her nose. It smells like fresh printing ink and maybe kerosene. The paper is tough - it hasn't been in the damp air for long.

A girl stands by the window without shoes, wearing only stockings. Behind her is the bedroom: shells are laid out on the chest of drawers, and rounded sea pebbles line the baseboard. Cane in the corner; A large braille book, open and turned spine up, waits on the bed. The drone of planes is increasing.

young man

Five blocks north, a blond eighteen-year-old soldier German army Werner Pfennig wakes up from a quiet, fractional hum. More like a buzzing sound, as if flies were hitting the glass somewhere far away.

Where is he? The cloying, slightly chemical smell of weapon lubricant, the aroma of fresh shavings from brand new ammunition boxes, the mothball scent of an old bedspread - it’s in a hotel. L'h?tel des Abeilles- “Bee House”.

It's still night. The morning is far away.

Towards the sea there is a whistling and rumble - anti-aircraft artillery is working.

The air defense corporal runs down the corridor towards the stairs. "Into the basement!" - he shouts. Werner turns on the flashlight, puts the blanket in his duffel bag and jumps out into the corridor.

Not so long ago, the Bee House was welcoming and cozy: bright blue shutters on the facade, oysters on ice in the restaurant, Breton waiters in bow ties wiping glasses behind the bar. Twenty-one rooms (all with sea views), with a fireplace the size of a truck in the lobby. Parisians who came for the weekend drank aperitifs here, and before them - rare emissaries of the republic, ministers, deputy ministers, abbots and admirals, and centuries earlier - weather-beaten corsairs: murderers, robbers, sea robbers.

And even earlier, before a hotel was opened here, five centuries ago, a rich privateer lived in the house, who gave up sea robbery and began studying bees in the vicinity of Saint-Malo; he wrote down his observations in a book and ate honey straight from the honeycomb. Above the front door there is still an oak bas-relief of bumblebees; The mossy fountain in the courtyard is made in the shape of a beehive. Werner's favorite is the five faded frescoes on the ceiling of the largest room on the top floor. The transparent wings of child-sized bees—lazy drones and worker bees—spread against a blue background, and a three-meter-tall queen with compound eyes and golden fluff on her abdomen curled up above the hexagonal bathtub.

Over the past four weeks, the hotel has been transformed into a fortress. A detachment of Austrian anti-aircraft gunners boarded up all the windows and turned over all the beds. The entrance was strengthened and the stairs were lined with shell boxes. On the fourth floor, where a winter garden with French balconies overlooks the fortress wall, a decrepit anti-aircraft gun named “Eight-Eight” took up residence. 2
8.8-cm-FlaK, also known as "Eight-eight" ( German"Acht-acht" / Acht-acht) is a German 88-mm anti-aircraft gun, which was in service in 1928–1945.

Shooting nine-kilogram projectiles over fifteen kilometers.

“Her Majesty,” the Austrians call their cannon. last week they looked after her like bees care for a queen: they filled her with oil, lubricated the mechanism, painted the barrel, laid out sandbags in front of her like offerings.

The regal "aht-aht", the deadly monarch, must protect them all.

Werner is on the stairs, between the basement and the first floor, when Eight-Eight fires two shots in a row. He had never heard her from such a close distance; the sound was as if half the hotel had been blown away by an explosion. Werner stumbles and covers his ears. The walls are shaking. The vibration rolls first from top to bottom, then from bottom to top.

You can hear the Austrians reloading a cannon two floors above. The whistle of both shells gradually fades away - they are already about three kilometers above the ocean. One soldier sings. Or not alone. Maybe they're all singing. Eight Luftwaffe fighters, none of whom will be alive in an hour, sing a love song to their queen.

Werner runs through the lobby, shining a flashlight at his feet. The anti-aircraft gun roars for the third time, somewhere nearby a window shatters with a ringing sound, soot rains down the chimney, the walls hum like a bell. Werner feels like the sound will make his teeth fly out.

He opens the door to the basement and freezes for a moment. It floats before my eyes.

- This is it? he asks. – Are they really advancing?

However, there is no one to answer.

Saint Malo

In the houses along the streets, the last non-evacuated residents are waking up, groaning and sighing. Old maids, prostitutes, men over sixty. Scumbags, collaborators, skeptics, drunkards. Nuns of various orders. Poor. Stubborn. Blind.

Some rush to bomb shelters. Others tell themselves that this is a drill. Someone hesitates to pick up a blanket, a prayer book, or a deck of cards.

D-Day was two months ago. Cherbourg is liberated. Kahn is freed, and so is Renn. Half of Western France is liberated. In the east, Soviet troops recaptured Minsk, and there was an uprising in Warsaw Polish Army Craiova. Some newspapers, emboldened, suggest that a turning point has occurred in the course of the war.

However, no one says such things here, in the last stronghold of Germany on the Breton coast.

Here, the locals whisper, the Germans cleared two-kilometer-long catacombs under the medieval walls, laid new tunnels, and built an underground defensive complex of unprecedented power. Under the peninsular fort of Cité across the river from the Old Town, some rooms are completely filled with shells, others with bandages. They say that there is even an underground hospital, where everything is provided: ventilation, a two hundred thousand liter water tank and direct telephone communication with Berlin. Booby traps and pillboxes with periscopes are installed on the approaches; there is enough ammunition to bombard the sea day after day for a year.

They say there are a thousand Germans there, ready to die but not surrender. Or five thousand. Or maybe more.

Saint-Malo. Water surrounds the city on four sides. Connection with France - dam, bridge, sand spit. We are Maluens first and foremost, the locals say. Secondly, the Bretons. And lastly, the French.

On stormy nights, granite glows blue. At the highest tide, the sea floods the basements of houses in the city center. At the lowest tide, the shell-covered hulks of thousands of dead ships emerge from the sea.

Over three millennia, the peninsula has seen many sieges.

But never like this.

The grandmother takes her noisy one-year-old grandson into her arms. A kilometer away, in an alley near the Saint-Servan church, a drunk man urinates on the fence and notices a leaflet. The leaflet reads: “Urgent appeal to residents! Get out into the open immediately!”

Anti-aircraft artillery fires from the outer islands, the big German guns in the Old Town fire another salvo, and three hundred and eighty Frenchmen, trapped in the island fortress of Fort National, look up at the sky from a moonlit courtyard.

After four years of occupation, what does the roar of bombers mean to them? Liberation? Death?

The crackle of machine gun fire. Drum sounds of anti-aircraft guns. Dozens of pigeons fly from the cathedral spire and circle over the sea.

House number 4 on rue Vauborel

Marie-Laure Leblanc is in her bedroom sniffing a leaflet she can't read. Sirens are wailing. She closes the shutters and slides the latch on the window. The planes are getting closer. Every second is a missed second. You have to run downstairs to the kitchen, from where you can climb through the hatch into the dusty cellar, where mouse-eaten carpets and old chests that no one has opened for a long time are stored.

Instead, she returns to the table and kneels in front of the model of the city.

Once again he finds with his fingers the fortress wall, the Dutch bastion and the staircase leading down. From this window in a real city, a woman shakes out the rugs every Sunday. From this window, a boy once shouted to Marie-Laure: “Watch where you’re going!” Are you blind?

Glass rattles in houses. Anti-aircraft guns fire another salvo. The earth still has a little time to rotate around its axis.

Under Marie-Laure's fingers, the miniature Rue d'Estrée crosses the miniature Rue Vauborel. Fingers turn to the right, sliding along doorways. First second Third. Fourth. How many times has she done this?

House number four: an ancient family nest belonging to her great-uncle Etienne. The house where Marie-Laure has lived for the last four years. She is on the sixth floor, alone in the entire building, and twelve American bombers are roaring towards her.

Marie-Laure pushes down the tiny front door, releasing the interior latch, and the house separates from the model. In her hand it is about the size of her father's cigarette pack.

The bombers are already so close that the floor beneath my knees is vibrating. Outside the door, the crystal pendants of the chandelier above the stairs tinkle. Marie-Laure turns the chimney of the house ninety degrees. Then he moves the three planks that make up the roof and turns it again.

A stone falls onto the palm.

He's cold. The size of a pigeon egg. And in shape - like a drop.

Marie-Laure clutches the house in one hand and the stone in the other. The room seems unsteady, unreliable, as if gigantic fingers are piercing the walls.

- Dad? - she whispers.

Basement

Under the lobby of the Bee House, a corsair cellar was carved into the rock. Behind the drawers, cabinets and boards on which tools hang, the walls are bare granite. The ceiling is supported by three powerful beams: centuries ago, horse teams dragged them from the ancient Breton forest.

A single bare light bulb is burning under the ceiling, shadows tremble along the walls.

Werner Pfennig sits on a folding chair in front of a workbench, checks how charged the batteries are, then puts on his headphones. The station is a transceiver, in a steel case, with a one hundred and sixty-centimeter band antenna. It allows communication with the same station in the hotel above, with two other anti-aircraft installations in the Old City and with an underground command post on the other side of the river.

The station hums, warming up. The fire spotter reads the coordinates, the anti-aircraft gunner repeats them. Werner rubs his eyes. In the basement behind him, requisitioned valuables are piled up: rolled carpets, large grandfather clocks, wardrobes of enormous size oil landscape, all covered in small cracks. On the shelf opposite Werner - eight or nine plaster heads. Their purpose is a mystery to him.

A tall, big man, Chief Sergeant Major Frank Volkheimer, descends a narrow wooden staircase, bending under the beams. He smiles affectionately at Werner, sits down in a high-backed chair upholstered in golden silk, and places the rifle on his lap. His legs are so powerful that the rifle seems disproportionately small.

- Began? – asks Werner.

Volkheimer nods. Then he turns off his flashlight and bats his surprisingly beautiful long eyelashes in the semi-darkness.

– How long will this last?

- Not for long. We're completely safe here.

Engineer Bernd arrives last. He is small, cross-eyed, with thin, colorless hair. Bernd closes the door behind him, bolts it, and sits down on the stairs. The face is gloomy. It's hard to say whether it's fear or determination.

Now that the door is closed, the howl of the air raid sound is much quieter. The light overhead blinks.

Water, Werner thinks, I forgot water.

Anti-aircraft fire is heard from the far edge of the city, then the Eight-Eight fires again deafeningly above, and Werner listens to the shells whistling in the sky. Dust is falling from the ceiling. Austrians singing in headphones:

...auf d'Wulda, auf d'Wulda, da scheint d'Sunn a so gulda...3
“On the Vltava, on the Vltava, where the golden sun shines” (German). Austrian folk song.

Volkheimer sleepily scratches a stain on his trousers. Bernd warms his frozen hands with his breath. The station, wheezing, reports wind speed, atmospheric pressure, trajectories. Werner remembers the house. Here Frau Elena, bending down, ties his shoelaces into a double bow. Stars outside the bedroom window. Younger sister Jutta sits wrapped in a blanket, a radio earpiece pressed to his left ear.

Four floors above, the Austrians push another shell into the smoking barrel of the Eight-Eight, check the horizontal guidance angle and cover their ears, but Werner below hears only the radio voices of his childhood. “The goddess of history looked down from heaven to earth. Only in the hottest flame can purification be achieved.” He sees a forest of dried sunflowers. He sees a flock of blackbirds fly up from a tree at once.

Bombing

Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Under the hatch of the sight the sea rushes, then the roofs. Two smaller planes mark the corridor with smoke, the first bomber drops bombs, followed by the remaining eleven. Bombs fall obliquely. The planes are rapidly going up.

The night sky is dotted with black lines. Marie-Laure's great-uncle, trapped with hundreds of other men in Fort National, a few hundred meters from the shore, looks up and thinks: "Locusts." From cobwebbed days to Sunday school Old Testament words sound: “The locusts have no king, but they all move forward in order.”

Hordes of demons. Peas from a bag. Hundreds of torn rosaries. There are thousands of metaphors, and not a single one can convey this: forty bombs per plane, four hundred and eighty in total, thirty-two tons of explosives.

An avalanche hits the city. Hurricane. Cups jump off cupboard shelves, paintings are torn off their nails. After a split second, the sirens are no longer heard. Can not hear anything. The noise is so loud that it can burst your eardrums.

Anti-aircraft guns fire their last shells. Twelve bombers, unharmed, fly away into the blue night.

At number four rue Vauborel, Marie-Laure is huddled under the bed, clutching a stone and a model of the house to her chest.

In the basement of the Bee House, the only light goes out.

1. 1934

National Museum of Natural History

Marie-Laure Leblanc is six years old. She is tall, freckled, lives in Paris, and her eyesight is rapidly failing. Marie-Laure's father works at a museum; Today there is an excursion for children. The guide - an old hunchback himself not much taller than a child - taps the floor with a cane, demanding attention, then leads small visitors through the garden into the galleries.

Children watch as workers use blocks to lift a fossilized dinosaur femur. They see in the storage room a stuffed giraffe with bald spots on its back. They look into taxidermist drawers, where feathers, claws and glass eyes lie. They sort through the sheets of a two-hundred-year-old herbarium with orchids, daisies and medicinal herbs.

Finally they climb sixteen steps to the Mineralogical Gallery. The guide shows them a Brazilian agate, an amethyst and a meteorite on a stand. The meteorite, he explains, is as old as solar system. Then they go down in single file along two spiral staircases and there are several corridors. In front of the iron door with the only keyhole the hunchback stops.

“The tour is over,” he says.

- And what's in there? – asks one of the girls.

– Behind this door is another locked door, a little smaller.

- And behind her?

– The third locked door, even smaller.

- And behind her?

“And behind the thirteenth door...” the guide gracefully waves his wrinkled hand, “a sea of fire.”

The children are marking time in intrigue.

– Haven’t you heard about the Sea of Fire?

The children shake their heads. Marie-Laure squints at the bare light bulbs hanging on the ceiling every two and a half meters. For her, each light bulb is surrounded by a rainbow halo.

The guide hangs his cane on his wrist and rubs his hands:

- The story is long. Want to hear a long story?

They nod.

He clears his throat:

“Centuries ago, on the island that we now call Borneo, a prince, the son of the local sultan, picked up a beautiful blue pebble in the bed of a dry river. On the way back, the prince was overtaken by armed horsemen, and one of them pierced his heart with a dagger.

- Pierced through the heart?

- This is true?

“Shh,” the boy tuts.

“The robbers took his rings, horse and everything else, but did not notice the blue stone clutched in his fist. The dying prince managed to crawl home. There he lay unconscious for nine days, and on the tenth, to the amazement of the nurses, he sat up and unclenched his fist. There was a blue stone in the palm of his hand... The Sultan’s doctors said that it was a miracle, that it was impossible to survive after such a wound. The nurses said that perhaps the stone had healing powers. And the Sultan’s jewelers reported something else: this stone is a diamond of unprecedented size. The best stone cutter in the country cut it for eighty days, and when he finished, everyone saw a blue diamond - blue, like a tropical sea, but with a red spark in the middle, like a fire burning in a drop of water. The Sultan ordered a diamond to be inserted into the crown of the prince. They say that when he sat on the throne, illuminated by the sun, it was impossible to look at him - it seemed as if the young man himself had turned into the light.

– Is this really true? - asks the girl.

The boy tuts at her again.

– Diamond was called the Sea of Fire. Others believed that the prince was a deity and that as long as he owned the stone, he could not be killed. However, something strange began to happen: the longer the prince wore the crown, the more misfortunes befell him. In the first month, one of his brothers drowned, and the other died from the bite of a poisonous snake. Less than six months later, his father fell ill and died. And to top the trouble, the spies reported that a huge enemy army was moving from the east to the borders of the country... The Tsarevich called his father’s advisers to him. Everyone said that we must prepare for war, and one priest said that he had a dream. In a dream, the earth goddess told him that she created the Sea of Fire as a gift to her lover, the god of the sea, and sent it to him along the river. However, the river dried up, the prince took the stone for himself, and the goddess became angry. She cursed the stone and whoever owned it.

All the children lean forward, and so does Marie-Laure.

“The curse was that the owner of the stone would live forever, but as long as he had the diamond, misfortune would fall on everyone he loved.

- Live forever?

“However, if the owner throws the diamond into the sea where it was originally intended, the goddess will lift the curse. The prince - now a sultan - thought for three days and three nights and finally decided to keep the stone for himself. One day a diamond saved his life. The young Sultan believed that the stone made him invulnerable. He ordered the priest's tongue to be cut off.

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE Copyright

Publishing house AZBUKA®

* * *

Dedicated to Wendy Weil 1940-2012

In August 1944, the ancient fortress of Saint-Malo, the brightest jewel of the Emerald Coast of Brittany, was almost completely destroyed by fire... Of the 865 buildings, only 182 remained, and even those were damaged to one degree or another.

0. August 7, 1944

Leaflets

The tide is coming. A flawed moon hangs in the sky, small and yellow. On the rooftops of seaside hotels east of the city, American artillerymen fire incendiary shells into the muzzles of mortars.

Bombers

Young woman

She returns to the cathedral spire, from there south to the Dinan Gate. All evening Marie-Laure walks her fingers over the model. She is waiting for her great-uncle Etienne, the owner of the house. Etienne left last night while she was sleeping and did not return. And now it’s night again, the hour hand has described another circle, the whole quarter is quiet, and Marie-Laure cannot sleep.

She can hear bombers three miles away. Increasing sound, like static on a radio. Or a hum in a sea shell.

And another sound, very close.

Some rustling noise. Marie-Laure opens the left window sash wider and runs her hand along the right. A piece of paper stuck to the binding.

Marie-Laure brings it to her nose. It smells like fresh printing ink and maybe kerosene. The paper is tough - it hasn't been in the damp air for long.

young man

Five blocks north, blond eighteen-year-old German Army soldier Werner Pfennig wakes up to the sound of a quiet rumble. More like a buzzing sound - as if flies were hitting the glass somewhere far away.

It's still night. The morning is far away.

Towards the sea there is a whistling and rumbling sound - anti-aircraft artillery is working.

And even earlier, before a hotel was opened here, five centuries ago, a rich privateer lived in the house, who gave up sea robbery and began studying bees in the vicinity of Saint-Malo; he wrote down his observations in a book and ate honey straight from the honeycomb. Above the front door there is still an oak bas-relief of bumblebees; The mossy fountain in the courtyard is made in the shape of a beehive. Werner's favorite is the five faded frescoes on the ceiling of the largest room on the top floor. The transparent wings of child-sized bees - lazy drones and worker bees - are spread out against a blue background, and a three-meter-tall queen with faceted eyes and golden fluff on her abdomen curls up above the hexagonal bathtub.

Over the past four weeks, the hotel has been transformed into a fortress. A detachment of Austrian anti-aircraft gunners boarded up all the windows and turned over all the beds. The entrance was strengthened and the stairs were lined with shell boxes. On the fourth floor, where a winter garden with French balconies overlooks the fortress wall, a decrepit anti-aircraft gun named “Eight-Eight” settled, firing nine-kilogram shells fifteen kilometers.

Anthony Dorr

All the light we cannot see

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE Copyright

Publishing house AZBUKA®

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Dedicated to Wendy Weil 1940-2012

Philip Beck

Leaflets

The tide is coming. A flawed moon hangs in the sky, small and yellow. On the rooftops of seaside hotels east of the city, American artillerymen fire incendiary shells into the muzzles of mortars.

Bombers

In a narrow and tall house number four on the rue Vauborel, on the last, sixth floor, sixteen-year-old blind Marie-Laure Leblanc is kneeling in front of a low table. The entire surface of the table is occupied by a model - a miniature semblance of the city in which she is kneeling, hundreds of houses, shops, hotels. Here is a cathedral with an openwork spire, here is the chateau of Saint-Malo, rows of seaside boarding houses dotted with chimneys. Thin wooden piers stretch from the Plage du Mole, the fish market is covered with a lattice vault, tiny public gardens are lined with benches; the smallest of them are no larger than an apple seed.

She returns to the cathedral spire, from there south to the Dinan Gate. All evening Marie-Laure walks her fingers over the model. She is waiting for her great-uncle Etienne, the owner of the house. Etienne left last night while she was sleeping and did not return. And now it’s night again, the hour hand has described another circle, the whole quarter is quiet, and Marie-Laure cannot sleep.

She can hear bombers three miles away. Increasing sound, like static on a radio. Or a hum in a sea shell.

And another sound, very close.

Some rustling noise. Marie-Laure opens the left window sash wider and runs her hand along the right. A piece of paper stuck to the binding.

Marie-Laure brings it to her nose. It smells like fresh printing ink and maybe kerosene. The paper is tough - it hasn't been in the damp air for long.

Five blocks north, blond eighteen-year-old German Army soldier Werner Pfennig wakes up to the sound of a quiet rumble. More like a buzzing sound, as if flies were hitting the glass somewhere far away.

It's still night. The morning is far away.

Towards the sea there is a whistling and rumble - anti-aircraft artillery is working.

Over the past four weeks, the hotel has been transformed into a fortress. A detachment of Austrian anti-aircraft gunners boarded up all the windows and turned over all the beds. The entrance was strengthened and the stairs were lined with shell boxes. On the fourth floor, where a winter garden with French balconies overlooks the fortress wall, a decrepit anti-aircraft gun named “Eight-Eight” settled, firing nine-kilogram shells fifteen kilometers.