Behind the high windows, a cloudy day, and the clouds hang low, and the rain occasionally knocks on the glass, but here, inside, it's warm and cozy, and for me there are only shabby bindings and dusty pages, which sometimes dry up so much and hurt the fingertips...
Our library is the best place in the whole house. Servants here almost never look, it's quiet here, and the treasure is apparently invisible! Old-old books, scrolls scattered in the hands, if you touch them without due care, a notebook with notes of prophecy and observations of wise men... Sometimes I find things so entertaining that I can spend hours studying them, not noticing fatigue, inconvenience and hunger . So now I'm so engrossed in reading that I do not hear the quiet footsteps behind my back.
"My child," a cool palm rests on my head, delicate fingers gently ruffle my hair loose, "your craving for learning makes us happy, but are not you too greedy in your pursuit?" It is good that in trying to increase knowledge you are as hot as in Ashe prayers, but if you saw yourself now! Tired his eyes, exhausted the body, and your mind needs a time to learn what has been read. Why do not you take a walk and give an hour to calm contemplation?
I rise, bow and kiss the thin pale hand:
"You are right, my lady, my beloved." And I will do it.
"Throw a cloak, my son, quite damp, then look again, it will rain." And do not wander too long, so that your dinner is not cold.
All the surrounding hills and swamps I know by heart for a long time, like my favorite books, and among all the roads I choose one - one that leads to an old abandoned cemetery. For some reason I like to be there, amid raw grass and broken gravestones, where unusual inscriptions are sometimes found, sometimes even joking. It happens, I come here with a book to read in silence with the dead, or with a notebook in which I write down the most interesting of what I see, sketch the mysterious symbols that have been knocked out on tombstones.
I was always curious who lies there, under these ancient stones, slimy and mossy, and I wholeheartedly regret that the deceased can not speak, they will not tell me anything that their names mean nothing to me - reading them out loud , over and over again I try to penetrate into the secret of the buried here, to feel what they felt while living and dying ... Today I came here, deep down I wanted to try again. However, studied in the morning does not go out of my head, and even though I concentrate diligently, the spoken name simply melts in the silence of the old cemetery. That's right, my mother is right, I really did not get to sit behind books ...
Suddenly I realize that I'm very tired, so tired that there is no more strength in my legs. Fainting, I somehow manage to lean my back against the nearest grave stone, so as not to collapse into stunted wet grass. I can not understand what's wrong with me. From somewhere below the back, strange heat begins to rise, then it seizes the entire lower body. I feel an incredible tide of what I already know, as well as all my peers, and that I suppress with varying success in myself, considering shameful and immodest. In addition to the strongest excitement, I feel an acute hunger and excruciating thirst, but, being weak, can only watch with trepidation. Never before have I experienced this - it's too strong even for me to be scared.
Warm pulsating waves continue to roll over my body, rising higher and higher, my heart beating violently, I can hardly breathe, and I think I'm about to suffocate. This painful and at the same time, for some reason, a wonderful feeling - in my body with a frenzied fury some force grows, which does not have a name, it seems, even a second - and it will tear me apart. I cease to see everything around me, everything is as if in a fog, and with all the clarity and horror I understand that I can not stand it - I am too aware of my weaknesses, both carnal and spiritual: the fear of being left without food and water, youthful lust, fatigue, pain and the fragility of the body, and most of all its insignificance, which does not allow me to fully accept what has come to me, all the damned features of my inexperienced nature - fear, uncertainty, ignorance, desire for praise, vanity, fear of failure ... All this leans on me and suffocates, and I'm ready to throw myself out of myself Hb her, just to get rid of it.
"I am not worthy, unworthy, weak", - he knocks at my temples. At this time, although my eyes are closed from unbearable torment, I again see gravestones before me and notice how a white substance separates from one of the stones, how a human figure is formed from it. Behind her I see and others - they manifest themselves and stand up in a dense wall, looking at me, lying without strength. Shaken, but for some reason triumphant, I can not even move, and the first person before me approaches, without touching the ground, stretches out his hand to me, nods, exactly agrees with my desire, and whispers:
"Die."
To be continued
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