Chapter 6 chapter Five

"Please accept my sincerest congratulations," said the warden in his bass voice, as he entered Cincinnatus' cell the next morning.Rodrig Ivanovich seemed to be more neatly dressed than usual: his most beautiful frock coat, padded with cotton padding in the back, was broad, smooth, fat, like a Russian coach; his wig It was smooth and new; his chin was doughy, ridiculous, and looked like it had been dusted with flour.In the buttonhole was a pink wax flower with speckled edges.A group of prison staff peered curiously from behind his imposing figure—he was already on the threshold, all in festive attire and their hair smoothed out.Rodion even wears a small medal.

"I'm ready. I'll get dressed right away. I knew it would be today." "Congratulations," repeated the warden, not noticing that Cincinnatus was shaking with emotion. "I have the honor to inform you that from now on you have a neighbor - yes, yes, he just moved in. I'm sure you must be tired of waiting. Well, don't worry about it now - you have a confidant and a friend to hang out with Now that you are working together, you will not feel so dull and boring. And more importantly—this matter must of course be strictly confidential—I can inform you that you have been allowed to see your wife tomorrow morning."

Cincinnatus lay back on the bed and said, "Okay, great. I thank you, Ragdoll, Coach, Painted Pig...Sorry, I'm a little..." At this time, the walls of the cell began to bulge and ripple, like reflections in stirred water; the warden began to rippling slightly, and the bed became a boat.Cincinnatus clung to the side of the boat to keep himself balanced, but the oar fell out of his hand.Neck-deep, among a thousand speckled flowers, he began to swim, got caught, and began to sink.They rolled up their sleeves and began to stretch out their poles and grapples toward him, to catch him and pull him back to shore.They finally dragged him up.

"Don't be nervous, don't be nervous, just a normal little woman," said the prison doctor—whose alias was Rodrigo Ivanovich—smiling. "You can breathe freely, and you can eat anything. Have you ever sweated at night? It's business as usual, and if you're good, maybe we'll give you a quick look at the newcomers... But mind you, only For a brief look at..." "How long...I mean that meeting...how much time will it give us?..." Cincinnatus struggled. "Wait, wait. Don't be so hot, don't be so excited. We promised to bring him to you, and we won't break our word. Put on your slippers and fix your hair. Let me see..." Prison Chang looked to Rodion for advice, and Rodion nodded.

"But please keep absolutely quiet," he said to Cincinnatus again, "and don't grab anything with your hands. Well, get up, get up. You don't deserve that--you, my friend , the performance is not good, but we still give you this chance - well - don't talk, keep silent..." Rodrigo Ivanovic left the cell on tiptoe, balanced on his arms, followed by Cincinnatus, shuffling in oversized slippers.Far down the corridor, Rodion was already bending over a barred door: he had pushed the peephole cover aside, and was peering inside.Without turning around, he just made a gesture with his hand, asking everyone to be quieter, and then gradually changed into a different gesture.The warden raised his toes even higher and turned around with a menacing grimace, but Cincinnatus could not keep his slippers from screeching against the ground at all.In the semi-dark corridor, from time to time, the prison staff can be seen gathering together in shadows, bending down and putting up the awning with their hands, as if trying to see something in the distance.Lab assistant Rodion asked his boss to observe through a well-focused eyepiece.Rodrig Ivanovich bent down to peek, with a firm crunch from his back... At the same time, in the gray shadows, vague figures changed positions silently, soundlessly Called to each other, lined up, many silent feet have moved into position like pistons, ready to step forward.Finally, the warden walked away slowly, and giving Cincinnatus a slight tug on the sleeve, invited him to look at the little window, as a professor invites a layman who drops by to observe something.Cincinnatus obediently pressed one eye to the little circle of light shining through it.At first he saw only flecks of sunlight and bands of color, but then he recognized a bed, just like the one in his cell; beside it were stacked two handsome suitcases with shiny locks, and a rectangular Big box, like for trombones.

"Well, what do you see?" whispered the warden, bending close to him, smelling of lilies growing from open graves.Cincinnatus nodded, though he hadn't seen the main target yet; he shifted his gaze to the left, and now he did. A small, fat man without a beard: about thirty, in old-fashioned but freshly pressed prison pajamas, sitting on a chair, his body turned to the side of the table, motionless as if made of sugar.Striped all over his body - down to his socks, brand new morocco slippers - he sat with one stubby leg crossed over the other, plump hands gripping his shin, showing clean heel.On the ear-shaped finger, a clear aquamarine shines brightly.Honey-colored hair parted in the center of a round head.Long eyelashes cast shadows on chubby cheeks.A mouthful of white and neat wonderful teeth gleamed between the crimson lips.His whole body seemed to be as bright and smooth as frost and snow, only slightly melted by the beam of sunlight falling from above his head.On the table was nothing but a fancy traveling clock in a leather case.

"Okay, okay," said the warden in a low voice, smiling, "I want to see it too," and he moved himself closer to the bright peephole.Rodion gestured to Cincinnatus that it was time to go back.Shadowy clerks followed him respectfully in a single file: behind the warden there was already a long line, waiting to get a peephole, some bringing their eldest sons. "We really spoiled you," Rodion concluded in a low voice. He couldn't unlock the door lock of Cincinnatus' cell for a long time, and finally cursed in Russian. It finally worked and opened the door. Everything returned to silence, and everything was as usual.

"No, that's not all--you'll come tomorrow," Cincinnatus said loudly, still trembling with the ecstasy he had just had. "What should I tell you?" He continued to think, talking to himself, trembling. "What would you say to me? No matter what happens, I love you and will continue to love you--even when I'm on my knees, shoulders back, heels toward the executioner, stretched goose-like neck Then—I still love you. Then—probably after—I will love you, and the day will come when we will be able to explain everything really well, and by then we will perhaps be in some way Melting into each other, you and I somehow transform ourselves into a pattern that solves the puzzle: draw a straight line from point A to point B...without looking or touching a pencil...or in some other way... …we will connect the two dots and draw the line, you and I together form the unique design pattern I crave. If they do this to me every morning, it will bring me into submission and I will be mentally retarded. "

Cincinnatus suddenly yawned—tears were streaming down his cheeks, and there was still wave after wave of fullness under his hard palate.It was nervous—he wasn't sleepy.Before tomorrow came he had to find something to do and keep himself occupied—the new books hadn't arrived yet.His bibliography has not yet returned... Oh, by the way, aren't there still those little paintings!But now, because there is still tomorrow's meeting... Clearly the pen of a child, undoubtedly Amy's drawing, constitutes a coherent story, a promise, a typical fantasy (that's how Cincinnatus saw it yesterday).First, a horizontal line—that is, the stone floor; on the floor there is a very simple chair, like an insect, and above it is a grid of six squares.Another image is the same, but with the addition of a full moon, its mouth deafly drawn out of the grille.The next one is a stool drawn with three strokes, on which sits an eyeless (sleeping) jailer, and a ring on the ground with six keys hanging from it.The next picture is still the same key ring, only a little bigger, with a hand in the short sleeve, five fingers stretched out to grab the key ring.From here the picture gets interesting.In the next painting, the door is ajar, with what appears to be a bird's-eye inside—a clear allusion to escaped prisoners.The next picture is of himself, with commas instead of hair, and wearing a small black robe, represented by an isosceles triangle, which is nothing more than that of an artist of the highest level.He is led by a little girl: legs like forks, wavy skirt, hair drawn in several parallel lines.Then it was the same picture again, only in blueprint form with a square representing the cell, an angled straight line representing the corridor, a dotted line representing the route, and an accordion-like staircase at the end.And finally the epilogue: the dark tower, above the happy moon, with its lips curled up.

No - it's nothing but self-deception, pure nonsense.Kid scribbling aimlessly... Let's copy the titles and set the bibliography aside.Yes, child... The tip of the tongue sticks out from the corner of the right mouth, tightly holding the thick and short pencil, and one finger is white due to pressing down hard... After connecting a straight line with great success, the body leans back , shaking my head back and forth, twisting my shoulders, going back to drawing on the paper, shifting the tip of my tongue to the left corner of my mouth... so painstaking... It's all made up, let's not talk about it in detail...

Cincinnatus was looking for a way to pass the boring time, so he decided to clean himself up so that he could meet Marthe tomorrow.Rodion promised to bring another tub of the kind in which Cincinnatus had once bathed on the eve of the trial.He sat at the table and waited for the water to be brought; the table wobbled a little today. "This meeting," Cincinnatus wrote, "indicates that my dreadful morning may not be far away. By this time the day after tomorrow my cell will be empty. But to see you, I I still feel very happy. Before we went to the workshop, we used different stairs. The man took one and the woman took the other, but we would meet on the penultimate landing. When I first met Marth, she What it was like, I can't remember now, but I still remember, the moment when she opened her mouth slightly before she was about to smile, and the round hazel eyes, the coral earrings-ah, how I want to recreate the past She was, raw and stiff—then softening—and when she turned her head to me, the crease between her cheek and neck became warm, almost alive. This was her world. Her world is connected by a few simple ingredients. In my opinion, the recipes in the simplest cookbook are more complex than the world she bakes while humming: for herself, for me, and for everyone every day. But I don't know when - even in the first few days at that time, I don't know when suddenly there was malice and stubbornness... so soft, funny, warm, and then suddenly... At first I thought she was pretending, Maybe it was to show how cranky and stubborn someone else would be in her shoes. Can you imagine my surprise when I realized this was her true self! Because of some trivial matter - my little Fool, what a small head you have, you can feel it through your thick auburn hair. She knows how to put a girl's pomade on the top of her head to give it a little sheer smoothness.'You A petite wife who looks quiet and gentle, but I tell you, she bites,' said her unforgettable first love to me. The worst part is that he doesn't use this verb metaphorically...because at a certain moment Well, she really bites...that's one of those memories that people should get rid of, or it'll overwhelm you, overwhelm you. Little Marthy does that thing again...I saw it once, I saw it Yes, I saw it—I saw it from the balcony—and since that day, before entering any room, I gave the obvious signal from a long distance—or coughed, or sighed meaninglessly. Witnessed That contorted posture, haste and panting, disgusting—it was all mine in the dark hideaway of Tamara's Gardens, and I lost it. Count how much she's had... Endless Torture: talking to one or the other lover at mealtimes, feigning glee, cracking nuts, making jokes, all the while terrified of stooping down and catching sight of the monster's lower body, its upper body Quite respectable to see a young lady and a young man seated at a table up to the waist, eating and chatting peacefully, but the lower half is a writhing, raging quadruped. I stoop to pick it up from the ground Falling napkins, it was like going to hell. Afterwards, Marthe would say of himself (again, in the first-person plural), 'We were embarrassed to be seen,'There was an expression of displeasure on his face.I still love you.Inescapable, doomed, incorrigible... As long as those oaks stand in the park, I will... When they make it clear to you that I'm no longer welcome and everyone must avoid me - you'll do anything for yourself Surprised by not noticing - it's easy to hide from you!I also remember the situation where you begged me to change myself, you didn't really understand what in me needed to be changed and how, even now you don't understand anything and never stop to think if you understand , and when you wonder, your doubts are almost heartwarming.Even, the bailiffs have started walking around the courtroom with one of those hats in their hands, and you're throwing little pieces of paper in there. " The tub was still shaking slightly when it arrived at the pier, and innocent, cheerful, and seductive steam rose from it.Cincinnatus was quite impulsive, sighed, and put the completed form aside, these two actions were done very quickly.He took a clean towel from the small bedside cabinet.Cincinnatus was so small and thin that he could soak his whole body in the tub.He sat in the barrel, floating peacefully as if in a canoe.The reddish afterglow of the setting sun mixed with the steam, causing a colorful tremor in the small world of the stone cell.Landing, Cincinnatus stood up and landed.The dizziness and heart palpitations haunted him as he dried himself off.He is thin and bony. At this time, the afterglow of the setting sun exaggerates the shadow of his ribs, and the structure of the entire chest cavity appears mysterious, which appropriately shows the nature of the environment in which he was imprisoned in a prison.My poor little Cincinnatus.As he dried off, trying to find something in himself to distract him, he kept checking his veins, unable to help but think that his plug would soon be unplugged and everything in him would flow out.His bones are light and thin.His obedient toenails (you're cute, you're innocent) look up at him with childlike concentration.As he sits on the bed like this—naked, his scrawny back, from tailbone to cervical vertebrae, exposed to prying eyes outside the door (he can hear their whispering, rustling footsteps, talking about this and that is all right, let them see enough).One might think of Cincinnatus as a sickly youth—even the back of his head, with his scrunchie and damp lock of hair, looked childish—and extraordinarily sensitive.Cincinnatus produced a small mirror and a small bottle of depilatory from the same travel bag.Every time he comes into contact with depilatory, he always thinks of the mole on the side of Marth's body that loves to grow hair.He wiped depilatory on his stubbled cheeks to shave the hair, but carefully avoided the mustache. Now it's clean and nice again.He sighed and put on his cool nightshirt, which still smelled of a home bath. it's dark.He lay on the bed and continued to float.Rodion turned on the lights at the usual time and removed the bucket and tub.The spider slid down a filament, and Rodion held out a finger, let the little furry creature land on it, and chatted to it like a canary.At the same time, the door leading to the corridor was still ajar, and something suddenly sounded there...In an instant, the ends of intertwined light-colored curls hung down, and when Rodion moved, the curls disappeared quickly.He looked up at the little black aerialist climbing back up under the circus dome.The door was still a quarter of the way open.The stern Rodion, in his leather apron and curly red beard, moved awkwardly about the cell.There was a raucous din before the clock struck (which now seemed closer because of the direct communication), and he produced a watch from a recess in his belt, and set the time.After he thought that Cincinnatus was asleep, he watched carefully for a long time, and then he leaned on the broom as if he were leaning on a war halberd.Who knows what conclusion he came to, he started to walk again... At this moment, a red and blue ball quietly rolled in from the door, the speed was not very fast, and it rolled straight along a right-angled side of a right-angled triangle Under the bed, disappeared for a moment, slammed into the bedpan and rolled out along the other right-angled edge—rolling towards Rodion, who didn't notice it at all, and kicked it just as he took a step.The ball rolled along the hypotenuse of the right triangle, and rolled out from the crack of the door where it rolled in.Rodion shouldered the broom and left the cell.The lights went out. Cincinnatus wasn't asleep, wasn't asleep, wasn't asleep--no, he was, but crawled out of bed again with a groan--and now he wasn't asleep, was asleep, wasn't Asleep, everything is messed up-- Marth, the executor's block, her velvet—what will it be... which one will it be?Beheaded or have a chance to meet his wife?It all got mixed up, but when the lights were turned on and Rodion tiptoed into the cell, he did open his eyes and blink.Rodion picked up the black-covered bibliography from the table and walked out of the cell. The room was pitch black.