Accés a les interfícies del component

She gulped it down and threw off her dress. “If,” I thought, “if after that she takes off the rest, the earth will shudder and the stones will sing.”

But she said, “Well, now, Venichka, is it nice here with me?” And, crushed by desire, I awaited the fall, gasping for breath. I said to her, “I’ve lived exactly thirty years in the world… but never before have I seen any place as nice as this.”

What was I to do next? Be tender in an insinuating way or crude in a captivating way? The devil knows, I never really understood how or when to approach a drunken girl. Up to this point – should I tell you? – up to this point I knew little about them, drunken or sober. Of course, I rushed after them in my thoughts, but the moment I would catch up, my heart would stop in fright. I had designs but not intentions. Whenever any intentions appeared my designs disappeared and, though I rushed after them in my heart, my thought stopped in fright. I was contradictory. On the one hand, I liked it that they had waists, while we haven’t any waists at all. This awoke in me – how should I put it? – “bliss.” Yes,

it awoke a feeling of bliss in me. But, on the other hand, they stabbed Marat with a penknife, though Marat was incorruptible and shouldn’t have been stabbed. This thought killed all feelings of bliss. On the other hand, like Karl Marx l liked the weakness in them, that is, for example, how they are compelled to squat down when urinating. This pleased me, this filled me with, well, with what? A feeling of bliss, really? Well, yes, this filled me with a feeling of bliss. But, on the other hand, didn’t one of them shoot at Lenin? This killed the bliss again – squat away, but why shoot at Ilich? It would be strange to speak of bliss after that… Now I’ve gotten distracted.

And so, what was I to do? Be threatening or captivating?

She herself made the choice for me, leaning back and stroking my cheek with her ankle. There was something like encouragement in this, something like the blowing of a kiss. And, then, that turbid, bitchy whiteness of her pupils, whiter than delirium, whiter than seventh heaven. And her stomach that was like the sky and the earth. As soon as I saw it I all but started to weep from inspiration, to tremble and steam all over. And everything got mixed together – roses and lilies and, in little tangles, the whole damp shuddering entrance to Eden and oblivion. Oh, the moist sobbing of those depths. Oh, the shamelessness of those eyes. Oh, harlot with eyes like clouds. Oh, sweet navel.

Everything got mixed together. And I know that today will be the same, the same intoxication and the same slaughter.

You’ll say to me, “What do you think, Venichka, that you are the only slaughterer she’s got?”

“And what is it to me? And to you all the more? Even if she isn’t faithful, let her. Age and fidelity cause wrinkles, and I don’t want her to have a wrinkled mug. Let her be unfaithful… not exactly ‘let her,’ of course, but, no matter, let her. You see, she’s woven all from bliss and aromas. She’s not one to be pawed or beaten… you’ve got to breathe her in. Once I tried to count all her innermost curves, and I couldn’t. I counted up to twenty-seven and got so dizzy from faintness that I drank some Zubrovka and gave up counting.

“But more beautiful than anything are her forearms. Especially when she moves them, laughing ecstatically, and says, ‘Eh, Erofeev, you sinful shitass.’ Oh, the she-devil. Is it possible not to breathe in someone like her?”

She could also be venomous, but that was all nonsense, a form of self-defense and of something feminine – I understand very little about these things. In any case, when I had gotten to the core of her there was no venom left, just strawberries and cream. On one Friday, for instance, when I was really warm from the Zubrovka, I said to her:

“Come on, let’s be together our whole life. I’ll carry you off to Lobnya, clathe you in purple and linen, and make a little extra working on telephone boxes while you’ll sit home sniffing something – lilies, let’s say. Come on.”

But silently she made a fig with her hand. Languidly, I drew it to my nostrils, breathed in, and started to cry:

“But why? Why?”

She made me another fig. I drew it in and frowned and started crying again: “But why?” I implored. “Answer, why???”

And then she started sobbing and flopped onto my neck: “Lunatic, madman, you know exactly why.”

And since then almost every Friday the same thing has been repeated – the tears and the figs. But today, today, something will be decided because today is our thirteenth Friday. And I’m getting closer and closer to Petushki, Heavenly Queen…