Chapter 6 Chapter Six

There is a car parked at the door, and we will drive to your apartment.I heard your voice again, I felt you tenderly staying beside me again, I was as intoxicated as before, and I felt innocent and happy as before.After more than ten years, I climbed your stairs again for the first time, and my mood - no more, no more, I can't describe to you, how I felt double for everything in those few seconds Feelings of the past and the present, and of everything and everything I feel only you.Your room hasn't changed much, there are a few more pictures, a few more books, and some new pieces of furniture in some places, but everything is still so familiar to me.There is a vase on the desk with roses in it - my roses, which I sent to you on your birthday the day before, in memory of a woman you can't remember, who is near you even now hand in hand, lips to lips, you wouldn't recognize her.Still, I am glad that you offer these flowers: after all there is still a little breath of mine, a breath of my love that surrounds you.

You hold me in your arms.I spent another night of ecstasy with you.But even when I took off my clothes and was naked, you didn't recognize me.Blissfully receptive to your skilful tenderness and caresses, I found that your passions make no distinction between a lover and a whore.You indulge your passions, you indulge your passions without restraint, and you squander your affections without thinking.You are so tender, so noble, so loving and respectful to me, to a woman brought from a nightclub, and so passionate in enjoying a woman; I am intoxicated with past happiness , feeling once again this unique duality of your essence, the passion of the mind amidst the passions of the flesh, which made me, a little girl, your slave back then.Never have I seen a man so eager for a moment's pleasure in tender caresses.Such indulgence of one's feelings, revealing the depths of one's heart--and then disappearing into oblivion, oblivion, oblivion is simply inhumane.But I myself got carried away: who am I lying next to you in the dark?Is it that anxious little girl from before, is it the mother of your child, or is it a strange woman?Ah, in this night of passion, everything is so familiar, so familiar, and yet everything is so strangely new.I pray to God that this night will last forever.

But dawn came, we got up very late, and you asked me to have breakfast with you.Breakfast was carefully laid out in the dining-room by an absent servant, and we shared tea and chatted.You spoke to me again with your frank, sincere intimacy, never asking any inappropriate questions, never expressing any curiosity about me as a person.You don't ask me what my name is or where I live: to you I'm nothing more than an adventure, a nameless woman, a passionate time that vanishes in the smoke of oblivion .You tell me that you are going to go to North Africa again for two or three months; I trembled again in the midst of happiness, because the voice boomed again in my ears: It’s over, it’s over, forget it !I can't wait to throw myself at your feet and shout: "Take me, so that you will finally recognize me. After so many years, you will finally recognize who I am!" But I am so in front of you Shy, timid, full of servility, weak character.All I can say is: "What a pity!" You looked at me with a smile and said, "Do you really feel sorry?"

Then a sudden savagery seized me.I stood up and stared at you intently for a long time.Then I said, "The man I love is always out of town, too." I stared at you, right into the pupils of your eyes. "Now, now he's going to recognize me!" Every nerve in me trembled.But you smiled at me and reassured me: "He will come back."--"Yes," I replied, "will come back, but when he comes back he will forget everything." There must have been something peculiarly vehement about the tone in which I said this.For you also stood up and looked at me with amazement and kindness.You grabbed my shoulders and said: "Good things can never be forgotten, I will never forget you," you said, your eyes have been shooting into the depths of my heart, as if you want to firmly hold my image As if keeping in mind.I feel your eyes keep entering my body, exploring, feeling, sucking my whole life inside, when I believe, the blind see again.He's gonna recognize me, he's gonna recognize me!This thought made my whole soul tremble.

But you didn't recognize me.No, you don't recognize who I am, and I have never been so strange to you as this moment, because otherwise—you would never have done what you did a few minutes later.You kissed me, kissed me furiously again.My hair was messed up, so I had to comb it again, and I was standing right in front of the mirror, and in it I saw--I was so ashamed and startled that I almost fell down--I saw you very carefully A few big bills stuffed into my muff.How could I not have called out and slapped you at this moment! --I have loved you since childhood and am the mother of your son, but you pay me for this one night!It is not enough to be forgotten by you, I have to be insulted like this.

I hurriedly packed my things.I want to go, leave quickly.My heart is in too much pain.I grabbed my hat, which was lying on the desk, near the vase with the white roses, my roses.Another strong desire, an irresistible desire, arises in me: I want to try again to remind you: "Would you like to give me one of your white roses?"--"Of course," you say, and take it at once one. "But perhaps these flowers were given to you by a woman, a woman who loved you?" I said. "Maybe," you say, "I don't know, they were given to me, I don't know who sent them; that's why I like them so much." I stare at you. "Maybe it's from a woman you've forgotten!" You have a look of astonishment on your face.I looked at you intently: "Recognize me, recognize me!" cried my gaze.But your eyes smile, kind but know nothing.You kissed me again.But you didn't recognize me.

I walked quickly to the door, because I felt that my tears were about to come out of my eyes, but I couldn't let you see me cry.In the front room I almost ran into your servant John, and I was too hasty to go out.He jumped aside timidly, pulled open the door leading to the corridor, and let me out, at this very second, did you hear me? --At the moment when I looked at him directly and looked at this old man with tears in my eyes, his eyes suddenly lit up.Just this second, do you hear that?At that moment the old man recognized me, but he hadn't seen me since my childhood.For him to recognize me, I wish I could kneel in front of him and kiss his hands.I just took the money you whipped me hastily out of the muff and stuck it in his hand.He shivered and looked up at me in panic -- he knew more about me in one second than you've ever known me in a lifetime.Everyone pampers me, loves me, everyone treats me well—only you, only you forget me completely, only you, only you never recognize me!

My child died yesterday, our child - and now I have no one else in the world to love but you.But who are you to me, you never recognize who I am, you walk by me like you walk by a river, you touch me like you touch a stone, you always walk Ah, go, go on and on, but tell me to wait forever.There was a time when I thought I'd got you, got you in the child, you erratic creature.But like father, like son: overnight he left me cruelly and left, never to return.I'm all alone again, more alone than I've ever been, and I've got nothing, and I've got nothing that's in you—no more children, not a word, not a line, not a memory, if anyone is in your presence When my name is mentioned, you will be as deaf as a stranger.Since I am dead to you, why should I not be happy to die, and since you have left me, why should I not walk away?No, dear, I don't blame you, I don't want to throw my misery into your joyous life.Don't worry that I will continue to push you--please forgive me, at this moment, my child is dead, lying there, ignored, and I have to let me vomit what I have accumulated in my heart.Just this once I have to talk to you, and then I go back to my darkness silently, just as I have been silently by your side all these years.But as long as I live, you'll never hear me cry -- only when I'm dead will you receive this will from me, from a woman who loves you more than anyone else, and you Never recognized her, she was always waiting for you, and you never called her.Maybe you will call me after this, and I will be unfaithful to you for the first time, I am dead, I will never hear you call again: I did not leave you a picture, did not give you Leave a mark as if you left me nothing; henceforth you will never know me, never know me.Such was my fate in life, and it will remain so in my death.I don't want you to come and see me in my last hours, and you don't know my name or what I look like when I'm gone.I die easily, because you do not feel my death from a distance.If my death would cause you pain, I cannot breathe my last.

I can't write any more...my head is so dizzy...my limbs ache, I'm running a fever...I think I'll have to lie down right away.Maybe fate will be kind to me once, and I don't have to watch how they carry the child away with my own eyes. ... I can't write any more. Farewell, dear, farewell, I thank you... It was fine as it was, it was fine anyway... I will thank you for that until my last breath.I feel very comfortable in my heart: I have told you everything I want to say, and now you know, no, you just feel that I love you so much, and you will not be hindered by this love.I'm not going to make you lose - that comforts me.Nothing will change in your good and bright life... My death does not add to your pain... That comforts me, you, my dear.

But who... who will always give you white roses on your birthday?Ah, the vase shall stand there empty, and the faint breath, my slight breath, which blows around you once a year, shall be gone!My dear, listen to me, I beg you... this is my first and last request to you... just to make me happy, every year on your birthday, -- on your birthday, everyone Always thinking of himself—to buy some roses and put them in a vase.Do as I say, my dear, as others say a Mass once a year for a dear dead man.But I don’t believe in God anymore, I don’t want people to give me mass, I only believe in you, I only love you, and I only want to live on you... Well, I only live for one day a year, just silently, completely To live quietly for a day, just like I used to live by your side... I beg you, do as I say, dear... This is my first request to you and the last One request... I thank you... I love you, I love you... Farewell...

With trembling hands, he put the letter down.Then he pondered for a long time.He vaguely recalled a little girl next door, a young girl, a woman in a nightclub, but these memories were hazy and chaotic, like a stone under a rushing river, flickering and changing. Measurement.Shadows come and go from time to time, and then disappear suddenly, finally failing to form a figure.He felt some emotional clues, but he couldn't recall them.It seemed to him that he had dreamed all these images, had often seen them in deep dreams, but only dreamed them. His eyes suddenly fell on the blue vase on the desk in front of him.The vase was empty, and for the first time in years on his birthday the vase was empty without a flower arrangement.He was terrified: it seemed that an invisible door was suddenly opened, and a cold draft was blown into his silent room from another world.He felt death, he felt immortal love: for a moment a thousand emotions came to him, and he thought vaguely of that invisible woman, floating and yet ardent, like a distant music.