Chapter 44 Chapter 19 Fire Fire

From new intimacy to new strangeness, he was quite confused and frustrated.He vacillates between two emotions.He longed to reconcile with this stubborn and sensitive woman; he longed even more to quit, to get away from some troublesome things.Not just from things that weren't worth his while, but from a city of sorrow and intrigue.The city no longer had any connection with his life. He is breaking down.Pavel!he whispered, trying to pull himself together.But Pavel let go of his hand.Pavel would not save him. All morning he shut himself in his room, sitting with his hands folded and his head bowed.He is not alone.He had the feeling that not only Pavel was present in the room but also a thousand imps, floating in swarms in the air like locusts released from a jar.

Eventually he pulled himself together.He brought down two portraits of Pavel.One is a photo he brought from Dresden, and the other is a portrait of Pavel painted by Matrona.Facing Pavel, he packed the two things and packed them up. He went out to the police station to make his daily report.On returning she found Anna Sergeyevna also at home earlier than usual.She looked restless. "We have to keep our doors closed," she said. "Students and police are at it, and it looks like it's going to last all day. Mainly on the Petrograd Island side, but there's also clashes on the river side. All business is down—it's too much to go out into the streets. It's dangerous. Yakovlev's nephew was walking back from the market in a carriage when a pebble was thrown for no reason. The pebble hit his wrist and he was so badly injured that he couldn't move his fingers. He Thinking maybe a broken bone. He said the workers had started joining in and the students started setting fires again."

"Can we go and see?" Matrona yelled from the bed. "Of course not! It's too dangerous. It's very cold outside." There is no trace that she still remembers what happened last night. He went out again and stopped at a teahouse.Nowhere in the newspaper was there any mention of the clashes in the street, but there was an announcement.The announcement stated that in view of the fact that "students have generally failed to observe discipline", the university will close its doors and suspend classes until further notice. It was past four o'clock.Regardless of the biting cold wind, he walked east along the river.All bridges are blocked.Gendarmes in sky-blue uniforms, helmets with feathers on their heads, bayonets fixed, stood guard on the bridge.On the dikes and dams in the distance, one can vaguely see the burning flames.

He continued walking along the river.Until he saw the almost burnt warehouses.Snow started to fall.Snowflakes fell on the charred wood, still smoldering, fleeting. He did not expect Anna Sergeyevna to reconnect with him again.But she would, and she would explain as little as ever why she did it.Assuming Matrona was in the next room, he was surprised by her reckless sex.She just half-hid her screams and gasps.Her voices were not, and had never been, the sounds of animal pleasure, he realized, but she went her own way.This is her usual method in a state of ecstasy. At first, the intensity of her sexuality almost overwhelmed him.For a long time, he again lost all sense of who he was and who she was.They are luminous spheres in bliss; within are entangled twin-like floating spheres, spinning slowly and ceaselessly.

He had never known that a woman could give herself so unreservedly to sex.Not only that, but whenever she reached the point of ecstasy, he began to decline, but something in her seemed to change his state.The first night they were together, the sensations deep inside her seemed to shift from the inside out.In fact, she acted like many other women he knew, and she was generating "electric" currents. She insisted that the candle on the dresser was always lit.As she reached orgasm, her dark eyes searched his face more and more intensely, even when her eyelids quivered and she trembled.

The moment she reaches the apex, she mutters a word under his breath, and he can only catch half of it. "What?" he asked eagerly.But she just shook her head this way and that, her teeth chattering. Grab half.But he still knew what she said: the devil.It's a word he uses to describe himself.He didn't quite believe that she felt the same way.The devil: once the climax of orgasm is reached, the soul is grasped out of the body by it, spinning downward, and falling into the void.She shook her head back and forth, pressed her chin, and muttered.It is not difficult to see how she looks like a madman after being seized by the devil.

The second time, she acted crazier.She bites him tightly.However, her vagina was very dry, and soon both of them knew it. "I can't!" she gasped and cried out, motionless.Hands straight, palms spread.She lay there as if surrendered. "I can't do this!" Her tears started to flow, rolling down her cheeks. The candle burned brightly.He took her soft body in his arms.She let her tears flow without stopping, without wiping them. "What's wrong?" "I don't have the strength to go on anymore. I'm doing my best. I'm so tired. Now please leave us alone."

"us?" "Yes, we, we, both of us. We're suffocating under your weight. We can't breathe." "You could have said no sooner. I got it all wrong." "I'm not blaming you. I've been trying to take it all on myself, but I can't take it anymore. I've been stretched all day, I didn't sleep at all last night, I'm so tired." "You think I've been using you?" "Not this kind of use. You're using me to get close to my kids." "Closer to Matrona! Nonsense! You don't even believe it yourself!"

"It's true, everyone can see clearly! You're using me to get close to her, and I can't stand that!" She sat on the bed with her bare breasts in her arms, rocking back and forth in despair. "You are bewitched, I can't tell. You seem to be here, but you don't seem to be here. I am willing to help you because..." She raised her shoulders helplessly. "I can't take it anymore now." "Because of Pavel?" "Yes, because of Pavel, because of what you said. I would love to try it, but now I'm spending too much energy on it, and I'm exhausted. If it weren't for my fear that you would use Matryo in the same way." If Na, I would never let myself go so far."

He raised a hand and put it on her lips. "Keep your voice down, your accusations against me are horrible. Did she say anything to you? I didn't touch her, I swear." "Swear in whose name? Swear what? Do you believe what you swear? Anyway, you know very well that it doesn't matter whether you touch it or not. Don't tell me to keep me quiet." She pulled the quilt aside and found her dressing gown. "I have to be alone or I'll go crazy." An hour later, just as he was falling asleep, she was back in his bed.Her skin was hot, and she hugged him tightly, her legs bent over him. "Don't pay attention to what I just said," she said. "Sometimes I'm often not myself, you just have to get used to it."

In the night, he woke up again.Although the curtains were drawn, the room was still bright, as if under the light of a full moon.He got up and looked out the window. Not a mile away, the flames danced in the night sky.The fire spread across the bridge, burning so vigorously that he was sure he could feel the heat of its light. He went back to bed, to Anna.That was how he and she lay together in the morning when Matrona found them.Matrona's mother, with tousled hair, was fast asleep in his arms.She was snoring lightly.And as soon as he opened his eyes, he found a serious child at the door. What a dreamlike phantom.But he knew it wasn't.She saw it all, she knew it all.