Цитаты из книги The History of Violets

I remember nightfall and your room’s open door, the door through which neighbors and angels came in. And the clouds—November evening clouds, drifting in circles over the land. The little trees burdened with jasmine, with doves and droplets of water. That joyous pealing, endless chirping—every evening the same. And then…

This is the night of December lilies. Around ten o’clock, the flowers tremble a little. The nocturnal butterflies fly over them, their wings glittering with tiny gems, and make the flowers kiss each other, marry each other. And this occurs purely through desire. If I wish for something, it will appear. I need only let go…

Sometimes in summer, it rains just a little under the trees. Then the great snails appear, always advancing as if immobile, yet advancing just the same, sticking their heads out, scrutinizing everything. Sometimes they retreat so much, withdraw so much inside themselves that they look like pearly yo-yos, crystal tomatoes.…

The mushrooms are born in silence; some of them are born in silence, others with a brief shriek, a soft thunder. Some are white, others pink; that one is gray and looks like a dove, the statue of a dove; still others are gold or purple. Each one bears—and this is what’s awful—the initials of the corpse it comes from. I do…

The gladiolus is a spear, its edge loaded with carnations, a knife of carnations. It jumps through the window, kneels on the table; it’s a vagrant flame, burning up our papers, our dresses. Mother swears that a dead man has risen; she mentions her father and mother and starts to cry. The pink gladiolus opened up in our…

At that hour, the tiny underground creatures were starting their work (those ones that wear heavy coats and work to the rhythm of drums: toc-toc). At that hour the moon had reached the summit of its brilliance, and all the doves scattered over the moon. But from a distance those birds looked like butterflies, great,…

I remember the white, folded cabbages—white roses of the earth, of the gardens—cabbages of marble, of most delicate porcelain; cabbages holding their children inside. And the tall blue chard. And the tomato, a kidney of rubies. And the onions wrapped in silky paper, rolling paper, like bombs of sugar, salt, alcohol. And…

I don’t know where my father had found him—he never went out—perhaps at the very edge of our field; there he was—the new guardian of the potatoes. His face was earth-colored, filled with sprouts and buds; his cloak was also earth-colored, his hands strangely white and moist, tempting you to cut them in slices and fry them.…

They said that the god was coming to visit. The bustling began at dawn. We set out the best tablecloth, the most exquisite eggs in syrup, the little plates filled with ripe olives and pearls. All morning we watched the air and the sky, the trees, the lone clouds. Someone knocked on the door, but we did not answer; we just…

At the age of ten I was that tall blonde girl beneath the potato piles my father lifted beside the rosebushes and the moon. The crops were burning, and the golden hay, and the unknown white horses that came in the evening to visit us, their hair to the ground, the same as mine, their eyes like sapphire medallions their…