Chapter 20 "My Life - A Mainlander's Story" Twenty

twenty If I had the heart to order a ring for myself, I would choose this sentence to engrave on my ring: "Nothing passes".I believe that nothing passes without leaving traces, and the smallest step we take will affect our present and future lives. Everything I've been through has not passed in vain.My great misfortune and my patience touched the hearts of the townspeople, and now they no longer call me a small interest, nor laugh at me, nor do they pour water on me whenever I pass the market place.They are used to me being a worker, and they don't find it strange to see me, a nobleman, carrying a paint bucket and installing glass.They were more than happy to give me work, and I was already regarded as a brilliant craftsman and the best contractor after the turnip.Although the turnip has been restored, although the dome of the bell tower can still be painted without scaffolding, it has no power to interfere with the workers.Now I will run around the city in his place, looking for work.I hired workers, paid them off, and fired them, and I borrowed money at high interest rates.Now that I am a contractor, I understand why I have to travel around the city for three days looking for roofers for a small job.Everyone is very polite to me and calls me "you".In the house where I worked, the owners offered me tea, and sent to ask me if I would eat with them.Children and girls used to come by and look at me with curiosity and concern.

One day I was working in the governor's garden, painting a gazebo there the color of marble.The governor came out for a walk, strolled into the gazebo, and since he had nothing to do, he started talking to me.I reminded him how he once invited me to his place for training.He looked at me for a moment, then opened his mouth in the shape of the letter "O," spread his hands, and said, "I can't remember!" I am old, silent, gloomy, stern, and rarely laugh.It is said that I have become like a turnip, and that, like him, I often bore the workmen with unhelpful admonitions.

My former wife Maria Viktorovna is now living abroad. Her father, the engineer, was building a railroad somewhere in the east of the country, buying properties there.Dr. Bragovo is also abroad.Dubechnya passed into the hands of Mrs. Cheprakova, who bought it back from the engineer at a 20% discount. Moise had put on his bowler hat.He used to drive into town on errands in a buggy and stop by the bank.It was said that he had bought a mortgaged property, and that he was constantly asking the bank about Dubechnya, which he also intended to buy.Poor Ivan Cheprakov loitered about the town for a long time, doing nothing but drinking.I was going to have him in our line of business, and at one point he painted roofs with us, installed glass, and even got a little interest in doing it, stealing dry oil, asking for money, and drinking like real painters; But the work soon bored him, and he was homesick, and went back to Dubechnya, and the workmen told me that one night he had persuaded them to go with him to kill Moisey, Robbed the property of the general's wife.

My father was much older and hunchbacked, and he took a walk near his house every evening.I have not been to him. Prokofy used pepper wine and tar to treat small shopkeepers during the cholera epidemic to make money.I read in the newspaper that he sat in his butcher's shop and criticized the doctors, so he was beaten with a tree by the government.His buddy Nikolka died of cholera.Karpovna was still alive, still loved her Prokofy, and was afraid of him.Every time she sees me, she always shakes her head sadly, sighs and says, "You child is finished!" On weekdays, I'm always on the go.On holidays, when the weather was fine, I hugged my little niece (my sister was expecting a boy, but instead gave birth to a girl) and walked slowly to the cemetery.When I got there, I stood or sat looking for a long time at the tomb that I cherished, and told the little girl that her mother lay there.

Sometimes I meet Anyuta Bragovo on the cemetery.We say hello and stand there in silence, or talk about Kleopatra, about her daughter, about how miserable it is to live in this world.Then we walked out of the cemetery in silence.She slowed down on purpose, in order to walk alongside me for a while longer.The little girl was happy, happy, squinting her eyes because the sun was too bright, and she smiled and held out her hand to her, and we stopped and played with this lovely little girl for a while. When we entered the city, Anyuta Bragovo, restless and flushed, said good-bye to me and continued walking alone.She is steady and serious. ...When the passers-by on the road saw her, they would never think that she just walked beside me and even teased a little girl.