Town of the doomed souls

Chapter 5

In the falling shades of evening, the city lit its lights. And the silent houses followed me with its glowing eyes of window frames. Passers-by were wrapped in coats and scarves as fine crumbs of the early snow were falling from the sky. I did not feel the cold. Actually I didn't feel anything at all - neither legs, although the pavement deliberately swam beneath me, nor hands, although I tried to make them out extending them in front of me, and only the strange confidence that it is not in vain that I found myself here now, as a spark of hope and joyful anticipation burned in my ghostly body. I paused in front of a three-storey building with carved balconies, illuminating the old courtyard with squares of electric light. The window next to the balcony on the upper floor also radiated a soft light, inviting. This was what I needed, beyond any doubt. I went up, floating past the windows, mundane lives and other people's beating hearts, to meet the rhythm of the only one young woman's heart and.... Yes, it was her, sitting at the dinner table in the center of a bright living room with a blank look, her thin fingers rolling the napkin ring on the white tablecloth. She didn't raise her eyes, giving me the precious moments of the sweet expectation, and the ability to watch every strand of her soft hair done up, each wave of a flowing fabrics, embracing her slender stature, shades of her skin on pink cheeks, creamy shoulders and pale wrists.

'Oh, my God!' cried a woman, and rushed to shut the balcony doors thrown open behind me.
My angel looked up, starting at the noise, and unleashed the full force of her eyes on me. But the next moment she turned away, not having found any entertainment in a sudden storm.

'It seems, I have a pretty nice way back home ahead of me, the wind increases,' with a smile in his voice, said a man next to her.

Until now I didn't realize that she was not alone in that room.

'It's just the wind,' beamed the woman latching the door, and hastily returned to her place at the table. 'Some more wine, Sergei Ivanovich?' she asked with the same friendly smile on her lips. 'Please help yourself and be sure to try the meat pie. My Katerina is such a good hand at cooking. Everything you see on the table she made herself.' She praised the girl who looked indifferently out of the window, as if this conversation did not concern her at all and she wanted to be anywhere else in this very moment but here.

'Everything is really tasty,' said Sergei Ivanovich, chewing another masterpiece of culinary art the attentive hostess added to his plate.

'And how she sings! You just have to hear her. Knits and loves children so much. She is always ready to spend the whole day long with them romping about. Isn't it so, Katusha?[3]

'Yes, mother,' the girl nodded obediently, took a good sip of her wine and turned away again.

'I'll bring dessert,' hastily added the woman, trying to smooth out the awkwardness, and disappeared into the kitchen, 'You must ask her to play something for you!' she cried from the kitchen breaking the complete silence in the living room, 'She plays violin marvelously'.

'Is that so?' Sergei Ivanovich smiled politely stroking his moustache and trying to catch the girl's gaze at last.

My angel reluctantly turns away from the window, gives her companion a long look, and utters in a velvet voice: 'It is. Would you like to examine the teeth?'

'I beg your pardon?' he asks, choking on his pie.

'Isn't it customary to check the teeth, when buying a brood mare?' she wondered in the same sweet tone.

Coughing Sergei Ivanovich rises awkwardly to his feet, mutters apologies and hastily leaves the room.

I can't hold back the laughter. My fallen angel, my unattainable dream, my immortal beloved!