The Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers Read Online Free PDF Page A

pavements looked like marble or alabaster, with a wavy, white shine. The stones dazzled one in the shade like icy suns and greedily swallowed the shadows of the elegant trees which grew overhead, melting and dissolving them. One had a different feeling walking the streets here, which were light and broad, tree-lined as in Paris, Zhenya would say, parroting her father.
    He had said that the day they arrived. It was a beautiful, clear day. Having breakfasted before coming to the station to meet them, he did not take the midday meal with them. He merely sat down with them, spread out his napkin, and brought them up to date. He unbuttoned his waistcoat, his hero’s breast swelling stiffly and powerfully. He said Yekaterinburg was a beautiful European town, then rang the bell for the course to be taken away and a new one brought in. A girl in white came noiselessly over unknown paths from unknown rooms, a brunette, all stiffly starched pleats and ruffles. Mr. Luvers addressed her in the formal second personal plural. She smiled at the lady and the children as if they were old acquaintances. She was given certain instructions for Ulyasha, who was in the unknown kitchen, where there surely must be a window through which one could see something new: perhaps a bell tower or a street or birds. And having put on her oldest clothes and unpacked, Ulyasha would surely ask this new girl many questions, in order to find her way around the kitchen—such as in which corner the hearth stood, whether the same as in Perm or in another.
    Mr. Luvers told Seryozha that it was only a few steps to the high school, it was quite near by. They had seen it on their way to the house. Their father drank some mineral water, swallowed and continued: “Didn’t I show it to you? You can’t see it from here, perhaps from the kitchen.” He thought it over. “But only the roof.” He took another swallow of mineral water and rang the bell.
    The kitchen was cool and light, just as Zhenya had imagined it in the dining room; the blue-white tiles sparkled, and there were two windows, arranged as she had imagined they would be. Ulyasha threw something over her exposed arms. They heard children’s voices from outside and saw people walking on the roof of the high school and just the top of a scaffolding. “Yes, they are making repairs,” explained their father as they returned noisily, in single file, to the dining room. They passed through the already known but yet unexplored corridor, which Zhenya vowed to explore more thoroughly tomorrow when she had unpacked her schoolbooks, hung up her clothes and attended to a thousand other things.
    â€œExcellent butter,” said their mother as she sat down. The children went into the schoolroom, which they had already briefly inspected on their arrival, caps still on their heads. “What is this Asia?” Zhenya reflected aloud. But Seryozha failed to understand what he surely would have understood at any other time, for until now they had lived in the same world. He ran to the map on the wall, drew his hand up and down the ridge of the Urals and looked at his sister, who he thought should be convinced by this demonstration. “They agreed upon a natural frontier, that’s all.”
    She thought of today’s noon hour, already so far in the past. It was incredible that this day, which already contained so much—the same day that was now in Yekaterinburg and was still here—was not yet over. At thought of all this withdrawing to a certain distance, yet still maintaining its breathless order, she felt a strange weariness in her soul, a feeling that the body has on the evening of a day heavy with work. It was as if she had helped in moving these heavy, beautiful things and had overstrained herself. And somehow convinced that they —the Urals—were there , she turned and ran into the kitchen, passing through the dining room, where there were now fewer