Chapter 7 Chapter Five Anna Sergeyevna (1)

He had never been to this shop before.It was smaller than he had imagined, low and dark, half below street level.The sign read Yakovlev - Grocer.When he pushed the door, the bell hanging on the door vibrated and jingled a few times.It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the shop. He is the only customer in the store.An old man in a dirty white apron stood behind the counter.He pretended to be inspecting the goods: he opened the sacks of buckwheat, flour, dried beans, and horse feed.It took me a while to get to the counter. "Give me some sugar, please," he said. "Huh?" The old man cleared his throat.He wears glasses so that his eyes are as small as buttons.

"I want to buy some sugar." She came out of the curtained doorway at the back of the shop, and was silently surprised to see him. "I'm here to greet customers, Avram Davidovich," she said quietly, and the old man stepped aside. "I'll buy some sugar," he repeated. "Sugar?" There was a hint of a smile on the corner of her mouth. "Five kopecks." She skillfully rolled a cone-shaped paper tube, squeezed the bottom tightly, filled it with sugar, weighed it, and folded the mouth of the tube.A pair of capable hands. "I just went to the police station. I asked them to send me back Pavel's papers."

"yes?" "I didn't expect it to be that simple." "You can get it back. It will take time. It will take time to do anything." For no reason, he felt that there was something in this sentence.If the old man hadn't been behind her, he would have leaned across the counter and grabbed her hand. "How much---?" "Five kopecks." When he took the paper tube, he touched her fingers intentionally or unintentionally. "You've made me feel better," he whispered, so low she probably didn't hear him.He bowed, towards Avram Davidovich.

Was he imagining it, or had he seen that man in the sheepskin coat and hat somewhere before?The man who had been idle across the street just now, watching the workers unload bricks, turned around and walked towards Candle Street just like him. And sugar.What did he buy Laoshizi's candy for? He wrote a note to Apollon Mykoff. "I was in Petersburg and went to see the cemetery," he wrote. "Thank you for taking care of everything for me. I also want to thank you for taking care of Baba over the years. I will love you for the rest of my life." He signed the letter "Tuo".

Arranging a discreet meeting is not difficult.But he didn't want to hurt his old friend.Mykoff is naturally expansive, he can understand, he thought to himself: I am in mourning, and during mourning I have to avoid contact with people. It's a good excuse, but it doesn't fit the facts.He is not in mourning.He didn't say goodbye to his son, he didn't give up hope.Instead, he wanted his son to be resurrected. He wrote to his wife: "He's still in his room. He's terrified. He's lost his right to be in this world, but the other world is cold, as cold as interstellar space, and uninhabitable." ’” He tore up the letter as soon as he finished writing it.It was ridiculous; and it revealed what remained between himself and his son.

His son was inside him, a dead baby buried in an iron box in the frozen ground.He didn't know how to bring the baby back to life, or the will to do so (which was the same as not knowing).He is paralyzed.Even when walking on the street, he thought he was too paralyzed to move.Every gesture he made was as slow as a frozen man.He has no will; or rather, his will has become a hard stone, dragging him by its dead weight into the silent abyss. He knows what sorrow is.This is not sorrow.It was death, premature death, not to overwhelm or devour him, but to stay with him.He was like a big gray dog, blind and deaf, dull and emotionless.When he sleeps, the dog sleeps; when he wakes, the dog wakes; when he leaves the house, the dog waddles after him.

Slowly and steadily his thoughts revolved around Anna Sergeyevna.When he thought of her, he thought of nimble fingers counting coins.Coins, pins—what do they mean? He remembered the country girl he had once seen at the gate of St. Anne's Monastery in Tver.She was holding a dead baby, and they were trying to wrest the little body from her arms, and she wriggled away, with a holy smile on her face--exactly the same smile as Saint Anne's. Ma'am.A wall of reeds somewhere, gray and fragile, a light and ethereal human figure shuttles between the reeds, a child in white clothes, a small village on the grassland, a stream, two or three trees, a head hanging from the neck Cows ringing bells, smoke rising to the sky.The end of the world, the end of the world.A child walks back and forth among the reeds, restrained and deformed, looking like in purgatory.Visions appear and then disappear, quickly and briefly.He carefully pushed the pen and paper away from him, resting his head on his hands.If I pass out, he thought, let's pass out at work.

Another phantom.Someone at the well holds a dish of water to his lips. It is the traveler who is about to set off; his eyes looking from the side of the dish are already looking elsewhere dreamily.Hand and hand touch.Affectionate touch. "Goodbye, old friend!" Then he left. Why pursue a rumor about a ghost, a rumored ghost, so hard and heavy on the lonely land? Because I am him.Because he is me.There's something I'm trying to understand: what's going on right before death, when the blood is still circulating and the heart is still beating?The heart, like a faithful ox, assiduously kept the mill-wheel turning, did not even cast a puzzled glance when the ax was held aloft, but resignedly took the blow, buckled its knees, and lost its life.Not annihilation, but the moment before annihilation, when I ran out of breath to the well where you were, and we looked at each other for the last time, knowing that we were both alive and sharing one life, our only life.That's all I've been looking for alone: ​​the moment we meet eyes, contains greetings and farewells, beyond all arguments and entreaties: "Hello, old friend. Goodbye, old friend." Dry eyes .Tears have turned into grains.

I hold your head in both hands.I kiss your forehead.I kiss your lips. The condition is to take a look, just a look; you can't look back.But I looked back. You stand by the well, the wind blows your hair, not a soul, but a sublimated body, elevated to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth essence, gazing at me with crystal eyes, Gold lips with a smile. I keep looking back.I am always attracted by your eyes.A piece of beating and twinkling crystal grains, I am one of them.There are stars in the sky, and fire echoes on the ground.The two realms are greeting each other. He fell asleep on the table and didn't wake up all afternoon.Matrona knocked lightly on the door at dinner time, but he did not wake up.They didn't wait for him, and ate on their own.