Here I am, wandering through majestic ruins in the very heart of Latin America, and I find myself remembering how, long, long ago, they took us schoolchildren on a class trip to some museum of architecture. Do you remember? We got thoroughly bored there together, and instead of looking at wooden churches, we ran off to wander across the green fields. Oh, how we got into trouble for that!
And now just look at this! Several decades later, Dimas Kalabas is voluntarily visiting an architectural monument all by himself. And just as back then, endless green fields stretch before my eyes as far as I can see. Only here there are palm trees instead of firs, and not wooden manor houses but reddish-red ruins, the color of the local earth. And perched upon them are owls and vultures, instead of the crows we were so used to.
Those little owls study me sternly from atop their red columns. Exactly the way our teacher used to look at us when she was scolding us. They glare at me with their yellow eyes as if asking, "What are you doing wandering around here so aimlessly, Dimas? You ought to be thinking about eternity, and instead you're reminiscing about your childhood again! So many years have passed, and you're still good for nothing!" My mother used to tell me the very same thing: "Dimas, when are you finally going to amount to something? You're always roaming the world, when you should live where your ancestors were born and worked, and work with dignity yourself so that future generations can be proud!"
I remember Mother was always holding up as an example the house my great-grandfather built. My grandfather was born there, and my mother, and I, and for many years our family lived in that house, while it kept growing older and more worn. Everyone expected that I, too, would live there and take care of it so I could pass it on to the next generations. It's a pity my heart isn't made for spending my whole life sitting in one house. I want to see the world, not just the birch tree my great-grandfather planted beyond the village. And what good is a house anyway? Even if it were made of stone, or a palace, or a magnificent church—in time, all that will remain of it are ruins, where only birds and thoughtful tourists like me, Dimas Kalabas, will sit. Or perhaps nothing but an empty field above which vultures circle in the sky. Even that birch tree my great-grandfather planted was broken by a storm a few years ago. All that's left of it in our village is a stump.
To each his own, Ekaterina Sergeyevna. Some are meant to build houses, some to sit in those houses and accumulate wealth, and some are meant to roam the world. And so I, an incurable wanderer, fly across the world like a free bird, admiring the curling patterns of bas-reliefs on the ruins of other ages and telling others about my travels. Perhaps my adventures will inspire someone to set off on a journey. Who knows, maybe you'll decide to come visit me in South America one day. Afterwards you'll tell your grandchildren about distant lands. After all, what else can one leave them as a lasting inheritance?
