Part.1
The summer was quiet and buckety, the sky was white instead of blue, and the lake that looked up into the sky also seemed white; only at the shore the water was shaking in the shade of the branch and the hut of Budarka Kornei. Sometimes the wind raised a cloud of dust over the sand, giving it to the water and the hut of Corney, and then, when it subsided, stones protruded from the sand, black, sticking out on the eroded place; but there was no shadow from them. Budarka's roots were fishing down the river, and his wife Palaga was sitting on the porch day after day looking at the "direction where," black, stones were sticking out on the weathered me-stalk, then on the mbilk sky. The lonely branch under the window dropped down, the water hugged the shore even quieter, and not just because of the heat of the water, or because it was as if the milk was poured out in her body, Palaga thought of her husband, thought how well they spent the time when both of them, pressed against each other, slept in the hayloft, what blue eyes he had, and generally everything that worried her blood. The fishermen sailed down the river from Petrov for the day until the winter cold. Palaga counted the days when the Root had to return, prayed to St. Magdalene to get cold sooner, and felt that the blood in it was starting to boil more and more every day. Her lips turned red like a kalina, her breasts poured out, and when she caressed herself gently, she felt her head spinning, her legs shaking and her cheeks burning. Palaga loved Corney. She loved his healthy breasts, the arms he was bending his arcs with, and especially his lips. Going through the past, Palaga merged so much with Corney's mind that she even felt his hot breath, warm lip moisture, and her body began to whine even harder, and that it was possible that this was a crime for her. She remembered how she swore to Corney that even though you'd cut it off once, you couldn't pull it off without a knot, and yet, hiding it inside, she was throwing herself from side to side like a tied one, and tried to find a way out. With her head on her knees, she watched the sun sink behind the high mountain. It was glowing, and a duckling little boat slipped onto a sandy island covered with brushwood on white water. The man was sitting in a boat, climbing out and crawling on the sand. In Palaga, she woke up with a strange decision... She untied the pier from the boat, her hands trembled, her legs were shaking, but still she went to the islet. She waved her oars almost three times around the islet and, standing on her nose, noticed that the man on the sand was collecting shells. She looked at him and, just like the first time, trembled. When the man turned around and looked at her with his cold fish eyes, snidely squinting at her, Palaga got cold, sorry, her passion seemed to have fallen to the bottom of the boat. "She whispered, "Condemned to embarrass me! And, having crossed, she turned the boat back and, not throwing off her dresses, threw herself into the water at the shore. It was Ilyin's eve of the day. The sarafan was dripping water when it entered the hut and the lips seemed blue. She took out the match with wet hands, flooded the lamp, and knelt down and began to pray. But at night, when she lay in a wet shirt on the bed, her body felt warm again and got caught under her bare knees again. She got up, ran to the river, doused her hot head in water, and to forget, began to listen to the wind. She thought, she thought. The wind was spinning sand, the water was crumbling, cold, and looking at the river, Palaga was whispering: "Oh, my God, I wish I could get frozen soon!
In the morning, she went to the village for the massacre. The village was six versts away from the white water, the road hovered between the rye, and it was easy and cool to walk at dawn. Her legs were tired, she took off her shoes, hung them on a ribbon over her shoulder, and intentionally cut them up, sparkling with white caviar, to walk on the dew, and the fire that tormented her body subsided. She prayed in the church for only one thing, and looking at the icon of Mary of Egypt covered with a rubble, she asked her to overcome her lust, but her prayerful thoughts were mixed up with her memories of burning love, she caught herself on it, and, falling on her knees, knocking her forehead against the stone floor in pain.