Chapter 21 twenty one

My father rode out every day.He had a brindle-gray brindle English thoroughbred with a long thin neck and long legs, which was tireless and fierce. Everyone calls it Elektrik.No one can ride it but father.Once my father came to me in a good mood, he hadn't been in such a good mood for a long time, and he was going to ride out, and he had put on his spurs.I begged him to take me with him. "Then we'd better play jumpbacks," my father replied, "or you won't be able to keep up with me on your own German horse." "I'll follow and I'll put my spurs on too."

"Well, that's fine." off we go.I rode a black shaggy pony with strong legs, and I was going pretty fast.Admittedly, when the Elektrik was going fast, it had to hustle.But I wasn't left behind after all.I never saw a rider like my father; he looked so handsome, so handsome, so nimble on his horse, that even his mount seemed to feel it, and was proud of him.We ran through all the avenues, came to a maiden's land, jumped a few fences (at first I was afraid to jump over them, but my father despises the timid, so I stopped being afraid), forded twice Moskva River, I thought we were going home, not to mention that my father said my horse was tired, but he suddenly turned his horse and left me, turned towards the Crimea Shoal, and galloped along the river bank.I ran after him desperately.When he came to a high pile of old timber, he sprang from Elektrik's saddle, bade me dismount also, and handed me the bridle of his horse.Asked me to wait for him by the log, but he turned into an alley and disappeared.I walked up and down the river bank with two horses, cursing Elektrik.As it walked, it shook its head from time to time, shook its body, snorted, and neighed sharply: When I stopped, it used its hooves to dig the soil in turn, and bit the neck of the German horse, neighing harshly In short, it shows itself in every way as a spoiled pursang①.Father hasn't come back yet.There was an uncomfortable dampness on the river surface; #?饭江辏善切┪Axillary machine pepper shallow Q Xiuyu G⒈ fear dinao? Many small black spots appeared on the wood (I Walked around those lumber, many times).I'm restless, but my father hasn't come back yet.A Finnish policeman, also gray and unrefined, wore an old tall military cap that looked like a large earthen jar, and was holding a long-handled halberd (I thought to myself: Why is there on the banks of the Moskva River? A post is to be set up!), came up to me, turned his wrinkled old woman's face towards me, and said in a low voice:

"Master, what are you doing here with the two horses? Let me lead them for you." I ignored him; he begged me for cigarettes.In order to get rid of him (and, besides, I was impatient to wait), I took a few steps in the direction my father was going; then I crossed the alley, came to the end, turned a corner, and stopped.My father was standing with his back to me at an open window of a cabin in the street, about forty paces away, leaning his chest on the window-sill.In the small house sat a woman in a black dress, half of her body was covered by a curtain.She was talking to her father, and this woman was Zinaïda.

I froze.To be honest, I never expected this.My first step was to run away. "Father will come back," I thought, "then I'll be in trouble..." But a strange emotion, stronger than curiosity, stronger even than jealousy, stronger than fear, stopped me. .I began to observe, to listen attentively.Father seems to insist on something.Zinaïda disagreed. Her face is still vivid.It was a melancholy, serious, pretty face, with an expression of devotion, sorrow, love, and a certain disappointment that I can't find other words to describe.She spoke in monosyllabic words, and she didn't raise her eyes, she just smiled -- submissive, obstinate.By that smile alone I recognized my old Zinaida.Father shrugged.Adjusting the hat on his head—movements that have always been characteristic of his extreme impatience... Then I heard these words:

"Vousdeezvousseparerdecette..." Zinaïda straightened up and stretched out an arm...Suddenly an incredible thing happened before my eyes: my father suddenly lifted the The dusty whip on the hem of the gown, and then I heard him lashing her bare arm up to the elbow.I reluctantly held back.She didn't cry out, but Zinaïda shuddered, glanced silently at my father, slowly raised her arm to her lips, and kissed the red welt on it. The father threw aside the short leather whip and hurried up the steps into the cabin... Zinaïda turned around, spread her arms, threw her head back, and also walked away from the window. ...

I was stunned, out of breath, and ran back with bewildered terror in my heart.I walked through the alley (nearly letting Elektrik go) and returned to the river bank.I can't figure out anything.I know that my calm and calm father sometimes loses his temper, but after all, I can't understand the scene I saw... But I still feel at this time that no matter how long I live, I will forget Qi. This movement of Naida, her look and her smile will never be possible again.Her image, this new image, suddenly presented to me, is forever engraved on my mind.I stared blankly at the river, and tears welled up unconsciously. "She's beaten," I thought, "she's beaten...she's beaten..." "Hey, what's the matter with you, bring me the horse!" My father's voice came from behind me.

I handed him the reins mechanically.As soon as he threw himself, he mounted Elektrik... The frozen horse raised its front hooves and jumped forward a foot and a half... But the father quickly subdued it; Stabbed it in the stomach, punched it in the neck with a fist... "Ouch! The short whip is gone," he muttered. I remembered the harsh whipping of the short leather whip just now, and couldn't help shivering. "Where did you put it?" I asked my father after a while. My father didn't answer me, he rode his horse and galloped forward.I catch up.I must see his face.

"I'm not here, are you bored?" The words burst out through his teeth. "Kind of. Where did you lose your short leather whip?" I asked him again. Father shot me a quick look. "I'm not lost," he whispered, "I threw it away." He became pensive and lowered his head... It was the first and almost the last time I saw how much tenderness and pity could be expressed on his serious face. He galloped away again, and I couldn't overtake him anymore.I arrived home a quarter of an hour later than him. "This is love," I said to myself at night, sitting in front of the desk where notebooks and books had begun to be placed, "this is passionate love.

Generally speaking, how can one not be angry, how can one endure being whipped by anyone... or by someone dearest to him!But it seems possible, if you have love... But for me, I just imagine..." In the past month, I have become more sophisticated, and I feel that my love contains all kinds of emotions and pain To another, unknown to me, scarcely conceivable, and which terrifies me like a beautiful and majestic strange face which I try to see clearly in the twilight, but fail to do so, I found that my love is so small, so childish, so pitiful! That night I had a strange and terrible nightmare.I dreamed that I entered a low, dark room... Father stood there with a short leather whip in his hand, stamping his feet from time to time; Zinaïda stood close to the corner—a red whip The scar was not on her arm, but on her forehead... Belovzorov, covered in blood, stood up behind the two of them, and with his pale lips parted, he threatened his father angrily.

In two months I went to college.Another half a year later my father died (of a stroke) in Petersburg, he had just moved there with my mother and me, and a few days before his death he received a letter from Moscow which made him abnormal Excited…… What did he ask of his mother, and it is said that he—my father—even wept!On the morning of his stroke, he still wrote to me in French, just at the beginning: "My child," he wrote to me, "be wary of a woman's love, of this happiness, of this harmful thing..." After his death, my mother sent a sum Considerable money to go to Moscow.