A night of work left him with his hair on end, his black
beard rough and disordered; his shirtsleeves were turned up, his arms
stained with blood, and in his white apron he looked like some kingly
butcher. I was tired, the cold headache was upon me. I wished that I
could go, but I knew that both he and I must stay until eight o'clock.
While there was work to do nothing mattered, but now in the silence
the whole world seemed as empty and foul as a drained and stinking
tub.
Nikitin looked at me.
"You're tired," he said.
"No, I'm not tired," I answered. "I shouldn't sleep if I went to bed.
But I've got a headache that is not a headache, I smell a smell that
isn't a smell, I'm going to be sick--and yet I'm not going to be
sick."
"Come outside," he said, "and get rid of this air." We went out and
sat down on a wooden bench that bordered the yard. Before us was the
high-road that ran from the town of S---- into the very heart of the
Carpathians. As the cold grey faded we could catch the thin outline of
those mountains, faint, like pencil-lines upon the sky now washed with
pink, covered in their nearer reaches by thick forests, insubstantial,
although they were close at hand, like water or long clouds.
Pages:
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187