We / Мы. Книга для чтения на английском языке

And behind the shades… What was behind the shades within her? Why had she called me today, and what was all this for?

I opened a heavy, creaking, opaque door, and we stepped into a gloomy, disorderly place (they called it an “apartment”). The same strange “royal” musical instrument – and again the wild, disorganized, mad music, like the other time – a jumble of colors and forms. A white flat area above; dark blue walls; red, green, and orange bindings of ancient books; yellow bronze – chandeliers, a statue of Buddha; furniture built along lines convulsed in epilepsy, incapable of being fitted into an equation.

I could barely endure all that chaos. But my companion evidently had a stronger organism.

“This is my favorite…” and suddenly she seemed to catch herself. A bite-smile, white sharp teeth. “I mean, to be exact, the most absurd of all these �apartments.’ ”

“Or, to be even more exact,” I corrected her, “their states. Thousands of microscopic, eternally warring states, as ruthless as…”

“Of course, that’s clear…” she said, apparently with utmost seriousness.

We crossed a room with small children’s beds (the children at that time were also private property). Then more rooms, glimmering mirrors, somber wardrobes, intolerably gaudy sofas, a huge “fireplace,” a large mahogany bed. Our modern-beautiful, transparent, eternal – glass was there only in the pathetic, fragile little window squares.

“And then, imagine! Here they all loved �just like that,’ burning, suffering…” (Again the dropped shades of the eyes.) “What stupid, reckless waste of human energy – don’t you think?”

She seemed to speak somehow out of myself; she spoke my thoughts. But in her smile there was that constant, irritating X. Behind the shades, something was going on within her – I don’t know what – that made me lose my patience. I wanted to argue with her, to shout at her (yes, shout), but I had to agree – it was not possible to disagree.

She stopped before a mirror. At that moment I saw only her eyes. I thought: A human being is made as absurdly as these preposterous “apartments”; human heads are opaque, with only tiny windows in them – the eyes. As though guessing, she turned. “Well, here are my eyes. Well?” (Silently, of course.)

Before me, two eerily dark windows, and within, such a mysterious, alien life.