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

The student lay for a while in the darkness and had already decided to turn his face to the wall and go to sleep, but suddenly he lifted his head and half-rose: while getting undressed, he had seen a small door in the wall by the head of the bed, had turned the key in it out of curiosity, had found behind it a second door and had tried it, but it had proved to be locked from the other side – now someone was walking about softly behind those doors, was doing something mysterious – and he held his breath, slipped off the bed, opened the first door, listened intently: something made a quiet ringing noise on the floor behind the second door… He turned cold: could it really be her room? He pressed up against the keyhole – fortunately there was no key in it – and saw light, the edge of a woman’s dressing table, then something white which suddenly rose and covered everything up… There was no doubt that it was her room – who ever else’s? They wouldn’t put the maid here, and Maria Ilyinishna, his aunt’s old maidservant, slept downstairs next to his aunt’s bedroom.

And it was as though he were immediately taken ill[98 - to be taken ill – заболеть] with her nocturnal proximity, here, behind the wall, and her inaccessibility. He did not sleep for a long time, woke up late and immediately sensed again, mentally pictured, imagined to himself her transparent nightdress, bare feet in slippers…

“This very day would be the time to leave!” he thought, lighting a cigarette.

In the morning they all had coffee in their own rooms. He drank, sitting in his uncle’s loose-fitting nightshirt, in his silk dressing gown, and with the dressing gown thrown open he examined himself with the sorrow of uselessness.

Lunch in the dining room was gloomy and dull. He had lunch only with his aunt, the weather was bad – outside the windows the trees were rocking in the wind, above them the clouds both light and dark were thickening…

“Well, my dear, I’m abandoning you,” said his aunt, getting up and crossing herself.

“Entertain yourself as best you can, and do excuse your uncle and me with our illnesses, we sit in our own corners until tea. There’ll probably be rain, otherwise you could have gone out riding…”

He replied brightly:

“Don’t worry, Aunt, I’ll do some reading…”

And he set off for the divan room, where every wall was covered with shelves of books.