Vasilievich. What! what! Devil take it... Nobody home. Everyone's gone. I'm all alone. Wait! Wait! On your right. You've passed it. The peeling door on your right. Pull... Harder! Thank you for the tooth. We couldn't pull it ourselves, and now you... Everything turned out well. Nobody comes to see us. Forgive me... I didn't know... I didn't mean to... Forgive me, who are you? That's Grandma Sonia. Shake her hand and she'll bow to you. That's all she can do... You see, she's a child now. I matured, and she... A diffusion has taken place. Like the tale: little girl slept on the furnace while the old woman baked, washed, sewed, knitted for her. Then the old woman lay down on the furnace and slept, while the little girl... I won't repeat the verbs. You want to know about grandpa? He is dead. He died last year. He was old. I repeat, he was old. He let himself go and drank like a man who'd lost his mind and all sense of his own station in life. It's useless to speak to her. She's mad. You see, when we lived in the south during the war Grandma went to fetch the family ration. She picked up the salami ration for the whole family. She was very hungry and she ate the whole stick. When she returned she was already mad. It is as though god punished her. Since then she stopped speaking. You may address yourself to me. Marie. Grandpa did not die a natural death. Alexander helped me. I poisoned him. How did it happen? Simple. Like in Shakespeare. I read about it in a play. We rolled up a paper funnel and when he fell asleep we put one end to his ear and poured a lot of salt. Grandpa died. I had a dream - it was revealed to me that if he died our parents would come back. You know the quip: if you weigh Cezanne's apples against the cathedral of Rouen it's not clear which side will turn out heavier. Parents did not come back. The dream was from the devil. I became mistress of the house. My brother doesn't go to school. I'm against it. I told you before. Yes, a matter of principle. He will not go to school. Me neither. We have left society. Forever, I imagine. You smoke? Go ahead. There are cigarettes on the still-life table. Left over from grandpa. They braid, and I unbraid - imbeciles... And... what did my mother have to say? Thank you. You were friendly with her, no? Shortly before her death, when white raspberries ripened in her garden... in the fall... we were supposed to start school. We did not go. Alexander was starting 1st grade, and I the 3rd. Maria Alexandrovna insisted. I refused. She stood under our window all day. I did not open to her. She pleaded. I didn't open. Like any decent person, she did not report us. That wasn't the break... No, the break came earlier. Maria Alexandrovna told me once that life happened according to a plan, that someone is working toward some end by means of our lives. In order to hope to understand this plan one must first of all submit oneself to it. Do what is required of us. I couldn't agree to that. That's when I decided to end it all. Hold on... What if Maria Alexandrovna was right? A man is put in a boat, Marie, and pushed out to sea. And he sails on and on... That's the way of the world. Perhaps Maria Alexandrovna was right? It's the way of the world. Each of us must trust someone. Each of us must pass through school. Do you understand me, child? Each of us must start with the ABCs. Must? Yes, must, if you will. I see. If you take a hungry, half-blind man from a street-corner, lead him inside a fine structure, and make him move some stick up and down - then before this man can ask why he was chosen, what the stick is for, whether the entire establishment is rational, this beggar... must first of all move the stick. If he moves the stick he will learn that the stick operates a pump, which pumps water, which is channeled to orchards. Then ------------------------------ Читайте также: - текст Герой-любовник на английском - текст Берлин на английском - текст Как зелена была моя долина на английском - текст Бег на английском - текст Другие 48 часов на английском |