Страница 45 из 49
19. The fires
The plunge from renewed intimacy to renewed estrangement leaves him baffled and gloomy. He veers between a longing to make his peace with this difficult, touchy woman and an exasperated urge to wash his hands not only of an unrewarding affair but of a city of mourning and intrigue with which he no longer feels a living co
He is tumbling. Pavel! he whispers, trying to recover himself. But Pavel has let go his hand, Pavel will not save him.
All morning he shuts himself up, sitting with his arms locked around his knees, his head bowed. He is not alone. But the presence he feels in the room is not that of his son. It is that of a thousand petty demons, swarming in the air like locusts let out of a jar.
When at last he rouses himself, it is to take down the two pictures of Pavel, the daguerreotype he brought with him from Dresden and the sketch Matryona drew, to wrap them together face to face and pack them away.
He goes out to make his daily report to the police. When he returns, A
'Can we go and see?' calls Matryona from her bed.
'Of course not! It's dangerous. Besides, there's a bitterly cold wind.'
She gives no sign of remembering what passed the night before.
He goes out again, stops at a tea-house. In the newspapers there is nothing about battles in the streets. But there is an a
It is after four o'clock. Despite the icy wind he walks eastward along the river. All the bridges are barred; gendarmes in sky-blue uniforms and plumed helmets stand on guard with fixed bayonets. On the far bank fires glow against the twilight.
He follows the river till he is in sight of the first gutted and smouldering warehouses. It has begun to snow; the snowflakes turn to nothing the instant they touch the charred timbers.
He does not expect A
At first her intensity carries itself over to him. There is a long passage in which he again loses all sense of who he is, who she is. About them is an incandescent sphere of pleasure; inside the sphere they float like twins, gyrating slowly.
He has never known a woman give herself so unreservedly to the erotic. Nevertheless, as she reaches a pitch of frenzy he begins to retreat from her. Something in her seems to be changing. Sensations that on their first night together were taking place deep within her body seem to be migrating toward the surface. She is, in fact, growing 'electric' in the ma
She has insisted that the candle on the dressing-table remain lit. As she approaches her climax her dark eyes search his face more and more intently, even when her eyelids tremble and she begins to shudder.
At one point she whispers a word that he only half-catches. 'What?' he demands. But she only tosses her head from side to side and grits her teeth.
Half-catches. Nevertheless he knows what it is: devil. It is a word he himself uses, though he ca
A second time, and with even more ferocity, she throws herself into coupling with him. But the well is dry, and soon they both know it. 'I can't!' she gasps, and is still. Hands raised, palms open, she lies as if in surrender. 'I can't go on!' Tears begin to roll down her cheeks.
The candle burns brightly. He takes her limp body in his arms. The tears continue to stream and she does nothing to stop them.
'What is wrong?'
'I haven't the strength to go on. I have done all I can, I am exhausted. Please leave us alone now.'
'Us?'
'Yes, we, us, both of us. We are suffocating under your weight. We can't breathe.'
'You should have said so earlier. I understood things quite differently.'
'I am not blaming you. I have been trying to take everything upon myself, but I can't any more. I have been on my feet all day, I got no sleep last night, I am exhausted.'
'You think I have been using you?'
'Not using me in that way. But you use me as a route to my child.'
'To Matryona! What nonsense! You can't believe that!'
'It's the truth, clear for anyone to see! You use me as a route to her, and I ca
'Because of Pavel?'
'Yes, because of Pavel, because of what you said. I was ready to try. But now it is costing me too much. It is wearing me down. I would never have gone so far if I weren't afraid you would use Matryosha in the same way.'
He raises a hand to her lips. 'Keep your voice down. That is a terrible accusation to make. What has she been saying to you? I would not lay a finger on her, I swear.'
'Swear by whom? By what? What do you believe in that you can swear by? Anyway, it has nothing to do with laying fingers, as you well know. And don't tell me to be quiet.' She tosses the bedclothes aside and searches for her gown. 'I must be by myself or I will go mad.'
An hour later, just as he is falling asleep, she is back in his bed, hot-ski
He wakes up once more during the night. Though the curtains are drawn, the room is as bright as if under a full moon. He gets up and looks out of the window. Flames leap into the night sky less than a mile away. The fire across the river rages so hugely that he can swear he feels its heat.
He returns to the bed and to A
An apparition that could very well be a dream. But he knows it is not. She sees all, she knows all.