Laurus

by Eugene Vodolazkin

You know, my love, I had simply grown unaccustomed to beauty in my life, he told Ustina. And it unfolds so unexpectedly when crossing a river that I cannot even find the right words. And so on one side of the river I am wallowing in scabs and lice, but on the other there is this beauty.

Or maybe all the winters had blended into one and no longer had anything to do with time. They just become winter.

Could it be (Ambrogio’s guess) that the discovery of the new continent was the beginning of a lengthy, drawn-out end of the world?

Was nature taking a rest from its own orderliness so it could gather its strength and transform chaos into cosmos once again in the morning?

Lots of Russians are gloomy, said Ambrogio, sharing an observation. It is the climate, nodded Arseny.

I heard you were talking about death, said the merchant. You Russians really love talking about death.

The flow of fresh water into salt water, the pilgrim Friedrich softly said, is something I liken to how the sweetness of this earth ends up turning to salt and bitterness.