Chapter 24 Chapter 10 Bomb Tower (2)

The two were silent for a moment. "Some people's feelings are not formed by natural means," he finally said peacefully. "Sergey Nechayev made me feel like that at first—for example, a man who couldn't have normal relations with women. I don't know if that's the reason for all his resentment. Maybe it will be like that in the future : Feelings are no longer formed through the old ways. The old ways are running out. I mean love. Love is running out. So other ways have to be found." She spoke. "That's enough. I don't want to talk any more. It's past nine. If you're going—"

He stood up, bowed, and left. At ten o'clock, he came to the fountain as promised.Gusts of wind carried raindrops, stirring up the black water in the canal.On the empty embankment, lampposts jingled.The sound of gurgling water came from the roof and gutters. He was sheltering from the rain at the door of a house, feeling more and more irritable.If I catch a cold, that's the immediate cause.He catches cold easily.Pavel was like that from a young age.Had Pavel ever had a cold while staying with her?Was it she who nursed him herself, or Matrona?He imagined Matrona holding a cup of steaming lemon tea, cautiously entering the room for fear of spilling it; he imagined Pavel's dark-haired head smiling against the white cloth cover of the pillow. "Thank you, little sister," he seemed to hear Pavel's husky boy's voice.A very ordinary boy's life!There was no one around anyway, so he lowered his head and moaned like a sick cow.

Now she stood before him and looked at him curiously—not Matrona, but the Finn. "Are you unwell, Fyodor Mikhailovich?" He shook his head sheepishly. "Since you're not sick, come with me," she said. As he feared, she led him along the canal, toward the joinery docks and the old bomb towers.Because of the strong wind, she raised her voice and chatted with him in a friendly way. "You know, Fyodor Mikhailovich," she said, "you won't get any points for what you said this afternoon about the people. From your experience, you let us Disappointed. Anyway, you went to Siberia for your faith. We respect you for that. Even Pavel Alexandrovitch respects you. You must not relax now."

"Even Pavel?" "Yes, even Pavel. Your generation has suffered, and now Pavel has sacrificed. You have no reason not to hold your head up proudly." She seemed to have a knack for chatting while trotting.But he had a pain in his flank and was out of breath. "Slow down," he said breathlessly. "What about you?" he said finally. "What happened to you?" "what's wrong with me?" "What's the matter with yourself? Will you hold your head up in the future?" She stopped under a wildly shaking street lamp.Light and shadow crossed and swayed on her face.In the past, he regarded her as a child playing with disguise, and he didn't take her seriously, but now it seems that he was wrong.Despite her disfigured figure, he now found in her a calm womanly quality.

"I won't be here long, Fyodor Mikhailovich," she said. "Sergei Gennadevich is the same. We are all like that. What happened to Pavel could happen to any of us at any time. So stop kidding. If you make fun of us, remember you Also kidding Pavel." Today he felt the urge to hit her for the second time.She obviously felt his anger, too: in fact, she looked up to see if he dared to hit her.Why is he so irritable?What's the matter with him?Has he become one of those old men who can't control his temper?Or worse: now extinct, he's not only old, but also bad-tempered like an angry ghost.

As early as the beginning of the founding of Petersburg, there was the bullet-making tower on the joinery dock, but it had been abandoned for a long time.Despite a no-idle sign, the more adventurous boys of the neighborhood used it as a playground, climbing up the furnace chamber a hundred feet above the ground through protective spiral hoops mounted on the wall, and even into the Taller brick chimneys. The great door, studded with studs, was bolted, but the little door behind it had long since been kicked open by vandals.A man waited for them in the shadow of the wicket.He greeted the Finn vaguely, and she followed him in.

There was a smell of shit and mold in the air.A series of low-pitched curse words came from behind the scenes.The man who was waiting for them struck a match and lit the lantern.Almost at their feet, three men lay huddled together on a sackcloth cushion.He turned his head and looked away. The lantern was carried by Nechayev, dressed in the long black overcoat of a grenadier officer, and unnaturally pale.Did he forget to wash off the makeup powder? "I'm going to get dizzy when I climb up, so I'll wait below," said the Finnish girl. "Let him lead you there." The inner wall of the tower has spiral steps.Nechayev raised the lantern high and began to climb.In the enclosed space, their footsteps were loud.

"They took your stepson up from here," Nechayev said. "Maybe he's been drunk beforehand, and it's easy to do." Pavel.here. They climb up step by step.The pool below them had been swallowed up by darkness.Day by day he went back to the day of Pavel's death, counted to twenty and lost count, counted again, counted to twenty and lost count again.Had Pavel climbed these same rungs so many days ago?Why can't he count them?The number of steps, the number of days --- there seems to be a connection between them.Subtract one day from Pavel's number for each flight of stairs.Simultaneously counting up and counting down—wouldn't he be confused by this?

They ascended the top of the stairs to a wide steel platform outside."This way," said his guide, waving his lantern around. He caught a glimpse of the rusty machinery. They were outside the tower on a platform with a waist-high fence, high above the docks.On one side of the wall, there are pulleys and chain lifting devices. They began to feel the thrust of the wind.He took off his hat and gripped the armrest, trying not to look down.All this, he said to himself, is just a metaphor—another word for lost consciousness, alibi, absent-mindedness.Nothing new.The epileptic knows it all: approaching the edge, looking down, the trembling of the soul, the thoughts ringing like crazy bells in the head: there will be an end to time, there will be no more hope.

He gripped the armrest tighter, shaking his head to beat the dizziness.metaphor!How ridiculous!There is death, just death.Death is death.Not a metaphor for anything.I should never have agreed to come here.I will never again see such ghostly sights: the roofs of St. Petersburg glistening in the rain, a row of small lights on the edge of the pier. He gritted his teeth and kept repeating to himself: I shouldn't have come.But the "no"s start to crumble, as in Ivanov's case.I shouldn't be here, so I should be here.I can't see anything, so I see everything.What is this fault, what is the fault of reasoning?