Chapter 8 Chapter 5 Anna Sergeyevna (2)

After a long time, the child went to bed, and he came out of the room in street clothes.Anna Sergeyevna, who was sitting with her back to him, turned around. "Are you going out?" she said. "Would you like some tea before you go?" She's a little nervous.But the hand that handed him the teacup was steady. She didn't ask him to sit down.He stood in front of her and drank tea silently. He had something to say, but he was afraid of not being able to say it, and even afraid of breaking down again in front of her.He can't help himself now. He put down the empty teacup and put his hand on her shoulder. "No," she said, shaking her head, pushing his hand away, "I wouldn't do that."

Her hair was pulled back with a heavy enamel clip.He removed the clip and set it on the table.This time she didn't refuse, but shook her hair so that it fell loosely. "It's just going to take its course, I promise," he said.He was aware of his age; there was no note of lust in his voice that sometimes makes women respond.Instead, there was something in the voice that he could bluntly say.Cracked instruments, voices with a second mutation. "Everything," he said again. She stared into his face with a seriousness and eagerness that he couldn't possibly misunderstand.Then she put aside her sewing.She slipped past him into the curtained alcove.

He waited uncertainly.Nothing happened.He followed and lifted the curtain. Matrona was fast asleep, her mouth was open, and her blond hair spread like a halo on the pillow.Anna Sergeyevna had just been half undressed.She waved her hand and let him go out. Although she was a little unhappy, there was a bit of naughtiness in her unhappy expression. He sat down and waited.She came out in a shift shirt and bare feet.The blue veins on the feet are prominent.This woman can't be considered young, and she can't be said to be unsophisticated and committed.But when he pulled her, he found that her hands were cold and still shaking.She always avoided his gaze. "Fyodor Mikhailovich," she whispered, "you know, I've never done anything like this before."

She is wearing a silver necklace.He ran his fingers down the loops of the necklace and came across a small cross.He lifted the cross to her lips; she immediately kissed it passionately.But when he was about to kiss her, she turned her head away. "Not now," she said softly. They spent the night in his son's room.Things between the two of them happened in the dark from beginning to end.What particularly surprised him when they made love was her hot body.It was hotter than he expected.It was as if she was burning from the core of her body.This excites him immensely, and what excites him additionally is that the children are sleeping in the next room while they are in full swing doing something so dangerous.

He fell asleep.Sometimes when I woke up in the middle of the night, I found that she was still lying on the narrow bed next to him.Although exhausted, he still tried to arouse her lust.She didn't respond; she died in his arms when he forced it on her. There was nothing in the whole lovemaking that he could call pleasure or even excitement.It was as if they were making love through a sheet—his sad gray ragged sheet.At the climax, he fell back into sleep as if he had plunged into a lake.As he sank, Pavel rose to meet him.His son's face was contorted in despair: his lungs were bursting, he knew he was dying, he knew there was no hope, and he called for his father, because there was only one thing he could do, the world One last thing.He desperately wanted to yell out the words stuck in his throat.He descended into the dark vortex in the woman's body, and out of the vortex emerged this vision of extreme hideousness.Explodes on him, takes hold of him, and continues to spin rapidly.

When he awoke again, it was broad daylight.There is no one in the house. He passed the day restlessly.The thought of her made him tremble with youthful excitement.But it wasn't the throat-tightening sweetness that held him back twenty years ago.He felt himself like a leaf or a samara, carried by an indomitable force, carried to the highest air currents, and crossed dizzily across the great sea. At dinner, Anna Sergeyevna seemed nonchalant and distant, she concentrated her attention on the child, and listened intently to her gossip about the day's school affairs.When she had to speak to him, she was cold and polite.Her indifference aroused his enthusiasm instead.Had the child not at all noticed his longing glances at her mother's throat, lips, and arms?

He waited for the silence in the room to indicate that Matrona had gone to bed.At nine o'clock the lights in the next room went out.He waited half an hour, and another half hour.Then, blocking the candlelight with the palm of his hand, and wearing only socks on his feet, he tiptoed out of the room.Candlelight casts huge moving shadows.He put the candle on the floor and walked toward the alcove. In the dim light he could make out Anna Sergeyevna lying at the far end of the bed, her back turned to him, her arms gliding gracefully over her head like a dancing girl, her black hair shaggy.Matrona was curled up near the end of the bed with her thumb in her mouth and one arm loosely around her mother.His first impression was that she was awake, protecting her mother, and looking at him coldly; but when he bent down, he heard her deep and even breathing.

He called softly: "Anna!" She didn't move. He went back to his room and tried to calm down.She had every reason to be alone tonight, he thought.But he couldn't convince himself no matter what. He tiptoed across the room again.Neither woman moved.Again he had that eerie feeling that Matrona was looking at him.He moved closer. He was right.What he saw were two wide, unblinking eyes.A chill ran down his spine.She slept with her eyes open, he said to himself.But impossible.She was only awake and hadn't slept; with her thumb in her mouth, she watched his every move with great vigilance.He held his breath and stared, only to see that the corners of her mouth were slightly upturned, like a bat's triumphant smile.That arm, loosely wrapped around her mother, was also like a bat's wing.

They spent another night together, after which the gates were closed.That night, she came to his room very late without prior notice.Through her he entered again into the darkness and the waters where his son was floating with other drowned. "Don't be afraid," he tried to whisper to his son, "I am with you, and I share your pain." He awoke to find himself sprawled on top of her, with his mouth next to her ear. "Do you know where I went?" he asked softly. She pulled herself out from under him. "Do you know where you took me?" he whispered. He was anxious to show off the boy to her, to show his youthful vigor, his bright eyes, his fair chin, and his fine mouth.He wanted the child to put on the white suit again, and there was a deep voice in the child's chest. "Look, what a treasure is missing from the world!" He will cry out, "Look, what we have lost!"

She turned over, her back to him.He couldn't wait to stroke her long thighs up and down.She stopped him. "I have to go," she said, getting out of bed. She did not come the next night, but stayed with her daughter.He wrote her a letter and put it on the table.When he got up in the morning, the room was empty, and the letter was still in its usual place, unopened. He goes to the shop.She was behind the counter; but as soon as she saw him she slipped into the back room and let old Yakovlev receive him. In the evening, he waited in the street, following her like a highwayman to the door of the house.He grabs her in the doorway.

"Why are you avoiding me?" "I didn't hide from you." He grabbed her arm.The doorway was very dark, and she couldn't get out with the basket on her shoulders.He leaned against her and smelled the walnut scent of her hair.He wanted to kiss her, but she turned her head and his lips brushed against her ear.Her body held against him showed no sign of responding.Shame on me, he thought to himself: I'm bringing shame on myself.He stepped back, but caught up with her on the stairs again. "One more word," he said. "Why is that?" She turned to face him. "Isn't that obvious? Must I say it?" "What's obvious? There's nothing obvious." "You're suffering. You're pleading." He winces. "Nothing!" "You asked. That's nothing to be ashamed of. But it's over now. It doesn't do you any good to go on like this, and it doesn't do me any good to be used like this." "Use? I'm not using you! I don't have any other thoughts in my mind!" "You're using me to get to another person. Don't be upset. I'm just explaining my thoughts and not accusing you. But I don't want to get dragged any further. You have a wife yourself. You should wait until you have sex with her." When we get along." own wife.Why did she bring his wife into it?He wanted to say: My wife is too young!In my current situation, too young!But how could he speak it?