Chapter 11 "My Life - A Mainlander's Story" Eleven

eleven After the warm and sunny weather came the season of muddy roads. It was cold and rainy throughout May.The noise of the millstone and the sound of rain make people lazy and sleepy.The floor vibrates and the smell of flour in the air makes one want to sleep too.My wife, wearing a short leather jacket and men's high rain boots, came twice a day and kept saying the same thing: "It's called summer! It's worse than October!" We drank tea together, cooked porridge, or sat in silence for hours on end, waiting for the rain to stop.Once when Stepan was going to the market, Masha stayed overnight at the mill.

When we got up, we didn't know what time it was, because the rain clouds covered the whole sky, only those sleepy roosters in Dubechnya were crowing, and some crakes were crowing in the meadow, it was still very early. morning. . . . My wife and I went downhill to the water's edge and dragged up the fishing basket that Stepan had thrown into the river the night before in front of us. There was a big bass struggling and another prawn, lifting its claws up and standing upright. "Leave them alone," said Masha. "Let them be happy too." Since we got up early and had nothing to do afterwards, the day seemed long and it became the longest day of my life.Towards evening, Stepan came back, and I went back to the estate.

"Your father was here today," Masha said to me. "Where is he?" I asked. "He's gone. I didn't receive him." She saw that I stood still without saying a word, and she saw that I was sorry for my father, so she said, "One must always be consistent. I did not receive him, but I ordered someone to send him a message saying that from now on he need not worry. You don't have to come see us again." A minute later, I went out the gate and walked into the city, trying to explain something to my father.The roads are muddy, slippery and the weather is cold.For the first time since my marriage I was suddenly depressed, and my mind was so tired from a long, gray day, when a thought suddenly flashed through me: Maybe I shouldn't live like this.I was tired, gradually controlled by cowardice and laziness, unwilling to move or think; so I walked for a while, waved my hand, turned and walked back.

Standing in the middle of the yard, the engineer, in a hooded leather coat, exclaimed, "Where is the furniture? There used to be beautiful Empire furniture, pictures, vases, but now there's nothing! I You bought the estate with the furniture, damn it!" Beside him stood Moise, the general's wife's servant, crumpling his hat.He was a lad of about twenty-five, very thin, with a pockmarked face and a pair of wild small eyes, one face was bigger than the other, as if he had squashed one face flat in his sleep . "You bought it unfurnished, sir," he said hesitantly. "I remember."

"Shut up!" cried the engineer, flushed and trembling, and the echo in the garden answered him loudly.