Dark Avenues / Темные аллеи. Книга для чтения на английском языке

She kissed him on the cheeks in a familiar way, with feigned joy he pressed his lips against her soft, dark hand, quickly thinking: lying like this for three whole days, and not knowing what to do with myself in my free time! Feignedly and hurriedly replying to her feignedly solicitous questions about his mother, he followed her into the large vestibule, glanced with cheerful hatred at the somewhat bent, stuffed brown bear with gleaming glass eyes standing clumsily at full height by the entrance to the wide staircase to the upper floor and obligingly holding a bronze dish for calling cards[87 - calling card – визитная карточка] in its sharp-clawed front paws, and suddenly even came to a halt in gratifying surprise: the wheelchair with the plump, pale, blue-eyed General, was being wheeled steadily towards him by a tall, stately beauty with big grey eyes in a grey gingham dress[88 - gingham dress – холстинковое платье (выполненное из легкой полотняной или бумажной ткани особого переплетения)], a white pinafore and a white headscarf, all aglow with youth, strength, cleanliness, the lustre of her well-groomed hands and the matt whiteness of her face.

Kissing his uncle’s hand, he managed to glance at the extraordinary elegance of her dress and feet. The General joked:

“And this is my Antigone, my good guide, although I’m not even blind, like Oedipus[89 - my Antigone… like Oedipus: In Greek myth, Antigone was the daughter of Oedipus, King of Thebes, who blinded himself after unwittingly killing his own father; the faithful daughter accompanied him into exile.

(прим. перев.)] was, and especially not to good-looking women. Make one another’s acquaintance, youngsters.”

She smiled faintly and replied with only a bow to the bow of the student.

The strapping servant with the half-whiskers and the red waistcoat led him past the bear and up the staircase with its gleaming dark-yellow wood and a red runner down the middle and along a similar corridor, took him into a large bedroom with a marble bathroom alongside – on this occasion a different one to before, and with windows looking onto the park, and not into the yard. But he walked without seeing anything.