Primeval and Other Times Read Online Free PDF

have touched you here,” he said, pointing to a spot on his neck.
    Genowefa ran her hand down her neck, feeling the warm skin and blood pulsing beneath her fingers. She closed her eyes.
    “And then?”
    “Then I would have touched your breasts …”
    She sighed deeply and threw her head back.
    “Tell me where exactly.”
    “Where they are softest and hottest … Please … let me …”
    “No,” she said.
    Eli got up and stood in front of her. She could smell the scent of sweet bun and milk on his breath, like the breath of a child.
    “You’re not allowed to touch me. Swear to your God you won’t touch me.”
    “You whore,” he croaked, and threw his crumpled cap to the floor. The door slammed behind him.
    Eli came back that night. He knocked gently, and Genowefa knew it was him.
    “I forgot my cap,” he whispered. “I love you. I swear I won’t touch you until you want me to.”
    They sat down on the floor in the kitchen. Streams of red heat lit up their faces.
    “It has to become clear if Michał is alive. I am still his wife.”
    “I’ll wait, but tell me, how long?”
    “I don’t know. You can look at me.”
    “Show me your breasts.”
    Genowefa slipped her nightdress off her shoulders. Her naked breasts and belly shone red. She could hear Eli catch his breath.
    “Show me how much you want me,” she whispered.
    He unbuttoned his trousers and Genowefa saw his swollen member. She felt the bliss from her dream, which was the crowning moment of all her efforts, glances and rapid breathing. This bliss was beyond all control, it could not be restrained. What had appeared now was terrifying, because nothing could ever be any more. It had already come true, flowed over, ended and begun, and from then on everything that happened would be dull and loathsome, and the hunger that would awaken would be even more powerful than ever before.
     
     
    THE TIME OF SQUIRE POPIELSKI
     
    Squire Popielski was losing his faith. He hadn’t stopped believing in God, but God and all the rest of it were becoming rather flat and expressionless, like the etchings in his Bible.
    For the squire, everything seemed to be all right when the Pelskis came by from Kotuszów, when he played whist in the evenings, when he had conversations about art, when he visited his cellars and pruned the roses. Everything was all right when the wardrobes smelled of lavender, when he sat at his oak desk with his pen with the gold holder in his hand, and in the evening his wife massaged his tired shoulders. But as soon as he went out, drove away from home somewhere, even to the dirty marketplace in Jeszkotle or the local villages, he entirely lost his physical immunity to the world.
    He saw the crumbling houses, rotting fences, and time-worn stones cobbling the main street, and thought: “I was born too late, the world is coming to an end. It’s all over.” His head ached and his sight was growing weak – to the squire it all seemed darker, his feet were frozen and an indeterminate pain ran right through him. Everything was empty and hopeless. And there was no helping it. He would go home to his manor house and hide in his study – that stopped the world from collapsing for a while.
    But the world collapsed anyway. The squire discovered this for himself when he saw his cellars on returning after his hasty escape from the Cossacks. Everything in them had been destroyed, smashed, chopped, burned, trampled, and spilled. He surveyed the losses as he waded up to his ankles in wine.
    “Chaos and destruction, chaos and destruction,” he whispered.
    Then he lay down on the bed in his plundered home and wondered: “Where does evil come from in this world? Why does God allow evil to happen, if He is so good? Or maybe God is not good?”
    The changes taking place in the country provided a remedy for the squire’s depression.
    In 1918 there was a great deal to do, and nothing is as good a cure for grief as activity. For the whole of October the squire