She got up, washed, dressed, moved the curtain apart, and everything in the room was fine - the furniture, roughly painted nuts, burned blue trellises. The morning was pink, fresh, with a playing light. Lisa put on a coat, stood in front of the mirror: the coat was old, not fashionable - now worn in the waist, with patch pockets, with wide fur-treated sleeves. She thought about it with annoyance.
At Big Breakthrough, she had breakfast in a cafe and went where she looked - Kostya had to come by at twelve, after a lesson with some rich Muraleevs. This lesson could not be missed in any way.
... Married, what a strange word! Shura got married, she was at her wedding in Simbirsk, and everything was clear to her for ten, twenty years ahead. Everything was clear to her, because she wanted to become a part of her husband, to share his life with him, maybe a miserable one. But she was "married", not alone, but married. And Lisa will not be by herself, but "married". She will become his lessons, his exams, his university, where he is considered the future Lobachevsky. She will be "for", "at", "near", "near". Their closeness will become as every day, every day as the university and the lessons.
She came to the Kremlin and stood at the Suyumbeki Tower, a winter, sadly painted with snow. Then she went down the street, along the path, along the fences, along the hill of Popova. Tatarin, a cloth carrier, wearing a round hat and holding an arshine (old Russian unit of length) in her hands, met her.
- Young lady, she has good goods, velvet, cashmere, satin. Buy it, young lady, you won't regret it.
She shook her head. They barely split up on the path.
And maybe he wouldn't have gone to Petrograd if she hadn't returned his letters, if she hadn't abandoned him forever, as she had written to him. It was a flash - his decision to go to Petrograd and everything that happened there between them. The flash will take place in a year or two. And there will be Kazan and Kazan again. And Anna Ignatievna, who will not let her in. And the Art School, which he yesterday advised her to enroll in, proving that in his own way Feshin is no worse than Matisse.
... Now she was at Rybnoryadskaya, where shops and chests were opened, queues were standing in line and wandered scared, furious, skinny dogs. Someone said, it seems Lavrov, that there were always so many dogs on Rybnoryadskaya Street that one alley was called Doggy.
Somehow she remembered the homemade plaster plates with paper flowers hanging on the wall in the girls' room, wicker tablecloths and capes from circles in the dining room. And somewhere else, a neat, saw jigsawed shelf on which stood the size of the book.
It's not him, it's not him," she thought. - But also plaster plates will be somewhere "about", "near".
They wouldn't have quarreled if she hadn't said that Dmitry offered her money to go to Paris. "Oh, right? And for life? - He asked with the sluggishness that he had to show that he was completely calm. - How do you expect to repay the debt? Or do you hope for a quick success in Paris?
Maybe it's jealousy? With what anger he still said in Petrograd about Dmitriy, that despite all his teachings he feels Russian idler!
And with remorse, which suddenly seized her acutely, Lisa began to think about Dmitry, about his devotion, about his friendly intimacy, which has now become a habit for them. About how much he did for her, what the only, invaluable place he took in her life. How dare she hide from him that she conspired to meet Karnovsky?
But is a strange way to the feeling of remorse, regret mixed with a completely different, unexplained feeling. She did not want Dmitry to wait for her in Petrograd. Not only would she not want to see him now, but she could not imagine when she wanted to see him. She remembered his praying eyes with big eyelashes, narrow, weak hands. Then, in August, when he proposed to her, Lisa asked him to wait. Now she would have refused.
... She stopped with her hands against her chest. Would she refuse? Yes.
Now she was in Tatarskaya Sloboda, some wide street suddenly broke off - and behind the corner opened a minaret arrow with a crescent moon, which suddenly, and as it seemed to her, timidly crowned this height.
"Kostya, I'm leaving to think. This is impossible in Kazan, because I love you too much. - She didn't write the letter, it was in her heart. - I'll be back, I'll be back, or you'll come to me. Maybe it's better for us to stay the same as before. I don't need anything. Only to love.
She cried. An old Tatar, wrapped up, wrapped in a long fur coat, wearing a tall hat, stopped her and asked her something with anxiety, singing.
- No, no," Lisa said. - Thank you. Everything is fine.
Only now does she realize that she's frozen to the bone, that her arms and legs are frozen, and for some reason she's afraid to take a deep breath.
To be continued...