Beyond The Silver Threads. Lara Biyuts

      Quietude. If any of imaginative young men and observant readers or mere stargazers of any age wanted to get lost in thought and musings, this apartment looked like the most proper place in the world. More or less dusty, here and there picturesque, the intricate topography of this seven room apartment could be more or less interesting to a whole range of art lovers of the described epoch. All the rooms had equally bizarre decorations of the sort that made one suppose that the apartment was not a peaceful abode of the esteemed celibate clerk, privy councilor of Russian Empire, but a pied-à-terre of a young scapegrace or a den of a British colonialist. A lot of ornate ottomans and carved lockers, motley rugs and draperies, varicolored lanterns, antiquated-looking swords, lusterware, trays, and some nice bric-a-brac and rarities whose origin preceded the rise of Christianity by centuries. All the useful domestic utilities, tables, beds, washstands were carefully covered with the folding screens painted all over with golden dragons --such was the fancy of Uncle Anton Korsak, whose apartment was at his nephew’s disposal for a while, and where the nephew of the name of Vadim felt caged and guarded by some obscure thoughts, dreams and visions. How was his Uncle himself? The Uncle was away, abroad, for more booty of the same bizarre sort.

      Like some natives of this part of the world, Vadim’s uncle withered in springtime, being subjected to seasonal illnesses and indispositions, and he bloomed in autumn, becoming enlivened, and definitely moving counterclockwise or rather counter-year-wise, being strangely oriented to the year’s solstices; moreover, Uncle would say that the winter cold was healthy for him and that every autumn he felt young again with his desires boiling anew. Thus, while Uncle was traveling abroad, his Nephew lived the dreamlike life in the disorderly and flamboyantly decorated rooms.

      The last night’s dreams had not left Vadim’s mind, depressing, in addition to the inquiry letter, this vivid reminder of yesterday’s incident, bright and distinct like someone’s lancet letting blood to his morning hours and making him languid. As the sleep-wearied fifteen-year-old with his disheveled caramel-brown hair read the letter, a little moue of displeasure fleetingly changed the youth’s chubby face with rosy cheeks and cherry lips. A moment more and his eye began wandering round the spacious room that looked both luxuriant and neglected in the scanty light of the northern winter morning. Then, his hand dropped the letter and the heavy mid-Regency paper, golden-coroneted and golden-bordered took a tumble down on the floor like an ill white pigeon. Lying on his back, he looked depressed, with his gray eyes twinkling anxiously, showing some secret alarm. The boring tone of his far cousin Count Felix and the rosy face of his far cousin Annette making eyes at him, next, the spicy talks with his friend Lodie Chartoborsky, seductive and languor-bearing, and then, all of them as well as any images of any curtained pictures, in his mind’s eye, were eclipsed by her smile, the beautiful and sly, whose image remained in the damaged picture in Count Felix’s drawing-room, she who was weirdly alive in Vadim’s restless night dreams, the beautiful witch in white silks, with the eternal loveliness of many faces and with the strange and fatal name “Manon Lescaut.” The beautiful lady in the damaged picture at yesterday’s Twelfthnight soiree had the other name and a type of sofa was named after her, but Vadim preferred to call her Manon Lescaut.

      “Sir, you ought to get up,” the butler Mitrich said, and the old man’s ordinary lean physique and his familiar gruff voice impressed Vadim oddly like a morning phantom who eventually proved to be your home lawyer who came to tell about the lamentable state of your home inheritance. Vadim’s late father, the widowed old man, full privy councillor, left Vadim only his pension, a small house in countryside and six State loan bills --actually, the best the widowed old man did to his only son was the enrollment of Vadim at the Imperial Lyceum which gave Vadim the uniform that let the teenager visit some assemblages and ballet shows, where he could socialize and pal up with students and other people who were much older than him. Now, Vadim got out of his bed and went to the washstand behind the Japanese screen.

      While dressing, he questioned the butler about the current state of his uncle’s simple household which he was in charge of, at present, for the time of the winter season. Now, after poking the fire in the Dutch tile stove, the manservant left, and Vadim finished straightening his uniform of a Lyceum student, his usual everyday clothing --and finally he began combing

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