Chapter 18 "My Life - A Mainlander's Story" eighteen

eighteen After a while, my sister and I were walking on the street.I wrapped my sister's body with the front of my overcoat, and we walked hurriedly, picking alleys without street lights, avoiding pedestrians, as if we were running away.She stopped crying and looked at me with dry eyes.I'm going to take her to Makaliha, which is only about twenty minutes' walk.Strange to say, in such a short time we recalled our whole life, we talked about everything, we considered our situation, we pondered... We decided that we could no longer live in this town, When I earn a little money, we'll move somewhere else.In some houses people were asleep, in others they were playing cards.We hate these houses, we are afraid of them, and we speak of the cruelty, cruelty, and insignificance of these honorable families, and of the lovers of the dramatic arts who are terrified by us.I couldn't help asking: In what way were these stupid, cruel, lazy, cunning people better than the drunken and superstitious peasants in Kurilovka, or in what way were these people better than the beasts?Wild animals are bound by instinct, and they are dismayed whenever accidental events disturb their monotonous life.What would happen to her if her sister still lived at home now?She had to talk to her father, to meet acquaintances every day, what kind of mental pain would she go through?I secretly imagined this situation, and I couldn't help thinking of those people, of all those acquaintances who were always slowly excluded from the world by those close to them, and I thought of the dogs who were tortured and mad. , thinking of those live sparrows that were plucked by urchins and thrown into the water, and thinking of the many unbearable and chronic pains that I have been observing since I was a child in this city.I don't understand why these 60,000 inhabitants live, why they read the Gospel, why they pray, why they read books and magazines.What use is it to them, since they are as dark in spirit and loathe liberty as they were a hundred or three hundred years ago?The contractors of the carpenters spent their entire lives building houses in the city, but they used to refer to the "long corridor" as "Zhanglang" until the end of their lives; Truth, love, and liberty, but lie to death from morning to night, torment each other, fear liberty, hate liberty as an enemy.

"Then my fate is sealed," said my sister when we got home. "Now that things have happened, I can't go back there again. My God, how nice it is! I'm relieved." She immediately lay down on the bed.Tears glistened on her eyelashes, but she looked happy, and she slept soundly and sweetly, and you could see that she was really relaxed, and she was really resting.She hasn't slept like this in a long, long time! We started living together from now on.She's always singing and saying she's happy.I always send back the books we borrow from the library intact, because she can't read anymore, she only wants to dream about the future and talk about the future.When she mended my underwear, or helped Karpovna cook, she sang and talked about her Vladimir, about his intelligence, his elegance, his kindness, about his great learning.Although I don't like her doctor anymore, I agree with her.She wanted to work and earn a living independently, and she said that when her health improved, she would become a teacher or a doctor, mop the floors and do the laundry herself.She was already passionately in love with her child, he was not yet born, but she already knew what his eyes were like, what his hands were like, what his smile was like.She liked to talk about the education of children, and since the best man in the world was Vladimir, her whole idea of ​​education boiled down to this: that a child should be as lovely as his father.She talked endlessly, and everything she said aroused real joy in her heart.Sometimes I get happy too, and I don't know why.

Perhaps her fanciful enthusiasm infected me.I don't read any books, just fantasy.Every evening, although I was very tired, I still put my hands in my pockets and walked from corner to corner, talking about Masha. "What do you think?" I asked my sister. "When's she coming back? I think she'll be back before Christmas, not later. What's she going to do over there?" "Since she hasn't written to you, she will obviously be back soon." "That's right," I agreed, knowing that there was no need for Masha to come back to our town. I missed her so much that I couldn't help fooling myself, and trying to get others to fool me too.My sister waits for her doctor, and I wait for Masha.We talked and laughed all the time, but we didn't notice that we were disturbing Karpovna's sleep, and she was lying on the stove, muttering all the time: "The samovar is whining, whining, whining early in the morning! Oh, it's not a good omen, poor man, it's not a good omen."

None of us came here, except the postman, who brought the doctor's letter to my sister.Sometimes Prokofy also came to visit us in the evening, he looked at his sister silently, and then left, but said in the kitchen: "People from all walks of life must know the rules of all walks of life, whoever is arrogant, Whoever is unwilling to understand this will suffer in the world." He likes to say these few words: "Suffering in the world".One day, it was already in the Christmas season, I was walking through the market, and he called me into his butcher's shop. He didn't shake my hand, but declared that he had something very important to say to me. talk.It was cold, and he had just had a drink, so his face was flushed, and beside him stood Nikolka in the counter, looking like a robber, with a bloodstained knife in his hand.

"I want to tell you something," Prokofey began. "This matter can't be dragged on any longer, because you know that people won't say good things about us or you because of this kind of suffering in the world. Mom is soft-hearted, of course she won't say anything that makes you unhappy, and asks your sister Understand your situation and move to live elsewhere. But I don't want to go on like this anymore because I don't approve of her behavior." I understood what he meant and walked out of the butcher shop.On the same day, my sister and I moved to Carrot's place.We had no money to hire a carriage, so we walked.I packed our things into a bundle and carried them on my back. My sister didn't have anything in her hand, but she was panting and coughing, and kept asking me if I was going to go soon.