Marthe asked her young man something in a low voice;
he was carefully rummaging around, probing all around
himself and under himself on the couch; "no, no, it's all right,"
he answered just as softly, "I must have dropped it on the
way... Don't worry, it'll turn up... But tell me, are you sure you're not cold?"
Shaking her head negatively, Marthe lowered her soft palm onto his wrist;
and, taking her hand away immediately, she straightened her dress
across the knees and in a harsh whisper called her son, who was
bothering his uncles, who in turn kept pushing him away -- he was
preventing them from listening. Diomedon, in a gray blouse with an
elastic at the hips, twisting his whole body in a rhythmic distortion,
nevertheless quite rapidly covered the distance between them and his
mother. His left leg was healthy and rosy; the right one resembled a
rifle in its complicated harness: barrel, straps, sling. His round hazel
eyes and sparse eyebrows were his mother's, but the lower half of
his face, with its bulldog jowls -- this, of course, was someone else's.
"Sit here," whispered Marthe and, with a quick slap arrested the hand
mirror which was trickling off the couch.
...On the couch, Marthe was talking in a whisper with her escort,
who was pleading with her to throw the shawl over herself -- the
prison air waws a little damp. When they spoke they used the formal
second person plural, but with what a cargo of tenderness this second
person plural was laden as it sailed along the horizon of their barely
audible conversation...
Marthe turned to him. The young man very correctly stood up.
"Marthe, just a couple of words, I beg you," said Cincinnatus rapidly;
he tripped over the cushion on the floor and sat down awkwardly on
the edge of the couch, at the same time wrapping his ash-smeared
dressing gown around himself... "Beg pardon, sir," said the voice of
Rodion close to him. Cincinnatus stood up; Rodion and another
employee, looking each other in the eye, grasped the couch on
which Marthe was reclining, grunted, picked it up and carried it
toward the door.
Invitation to a Beheading pp. 101 - 5
Something in this passage gives me a strong feeling that the
narrator (or Cincinnatus; there is a strong feeling of identity
between the two) is a romantic. However I would be hard put
to explain why I think this or what exactly I mean; "romantic"
is for me a vague, fuzzy word with connotations of
Romeo and Faust.