Part.3
The cold water turned blue, and the branches at the Corney hut bent down and shaken their yellow leaves into it. The sky was clouded, the river was no longer running as quietly as it had been in the summer, but foamy and noisy; Palaga was waiting for her husband every day, and finally he returned. That day the water was foggy. When Roarney was chatting on his boat near the shore, Palaga did not see him from the window; she only knew that he had arrived when the dog barked and cheered joyfully. His heart stopped beating, his legs bent and Palaga ran towards him, suffocating. But she looked at him and her hands fell. The roots were like a skeleton, with only one long nose sticking out of his overgrown face, his cheeks falling apart, and his chest in his shoulders.
- What's with you?! - She almost shouted and, having crossed her arms with some terrible feeling, stopped at the place. - Nothing," Roarney smiled painfully, "stung a little, so he bowed down! In his words there was a hidden sadness. They entered the hut. He lay down on the bed without taking off his hats and closed his eyes. Palaga lay next to him, her heart beating. Cuddling to him, she understood that she was not doing what she needed to do, but she could not stop herself. Feeling her shiver, Root rose and shook his head with a bitter smile:
- I have no strength, Palaga, I have no pain, you see," and looking at her juicy chest, at her red cheeks, I stroked her shoulders and broken hair. From the days when Roarney was still in bed, Palaga became pale and even purple, her eyes fell deep, two arched wrinkles appeared over her lips, her skin turned yellow. - I'm tired of you," he said, hanging your head from the bed, "and you're all whipped up, so there are no faces on your face. Palaga didn't answer him, but she didn't like the way he could say it. For the love she was saving him, she could bear much more... The roots guessed why her blush went out, why her lips were whitening, and it was awkward and difficult for him. When the river began to surround the suburbs with ice caps and boats, Palaga hired the son of Yushka, the son of the Tenth, to do this. It was time to correct the peaks that had deteriorated during the summer, and Yushka started to fix them. While giving him threads, Palaga touched his hands inadvertently; his hands were hot, burned pleasantly, and Palaga began to worry again. She often sat by the bed on which Roots was lying, and even more often her heart stopped when Yushka, as if accidentally passing through, touched her shoulders with his hand. One night, as Roarney was raving with his longboat, she carefully climbed off the bench where she was lying and crawled to Yushka's corner on the floor. The wind whistled outside the window, and the shirt on her back jumped out of fear. Yushka was asleep; his chest was rising and falling, and his fluffy and young, still childish face smelled as if blossoming mint. When she got close to his bed, she pulled a blanket from him, Yushka was brought in and turned to the other side. She knocked up in her temples. She saw his bare shoulders in the dark. Carefully she climbed onto the bed. Yushka woke up. At the first moment he was surprised, but he understood and jumped up and wrapped himself around her like a loafer. Palaga was not aware of anything, shaking like a fever. When she was lying on the bench again, it seemed to her that everything that had happened a few minutes ago had happened a long time ago, that there was already a lot of time, and she felt sorry for it, it seemed to her that she had lost something. Her foggy memory made her stand up, she lit a lamp and started fumbling under the table, on the stove, and under the stove, but it was empty everywhere.
"It's in my soul empty," she thought at once, and when it was cold, she went down on the floor with the lamp. Until dawn, she sat by the window and looked meaninglessly as if the water had already frozen and the snow was settling down. But as soon as she started to come to her senses, her heart started to fall asleep, she remembered that her life with Corney had come to an end, that they were now knotted in a knot on their joy, and looking at the sleepy Yushka, she wanted to smother her fingernails in his throat and strangle him.