87
HORSEWOMAN FROMTHE FUTURE
from her horse and stood opposite a woman who looked like European and
was carrying a little girl. The little girl was asleep.
The slightly round-shouldered mother, with a pale face and tired eyes,
was having a hard time holding her, trying not to disturb the child’s sleep.
The rider stopped opposite the woman and smiled at her. The two women’s,
the two mothers’ eyes met. You could tell how different the two women’s
inner states were. The despondency of the mother holding her child made
her resemble a fading flower next to the young woman who had approached
her and whose appearance was associated with the indefatigable exuberance
of the flowering of thousands of gardens.
The two woman looked into each other’s eyes silently. And suddenly, as
if roused by some new awareness, the mother holding the sleeping girl stood
up straight and a smile appeared on her face. With smooth, unusually grace-
ful, feminine movements of her hands, the Russian removed the pretty
wreath from her head and put it on the mother’s head. They did not say a
single word to each other. Lightly jumping into the saddle of the horse
standing calmly nearby, the beautiful rider once again rushed forward. For
some reason the people applauded her, and the now smiling, slender woman
holding her now awakened smiling little daughter watched her go, and the
ardent Italian, tearing off an expensive wristwatch, ran after her and
shouted, “A souvenir, mama mia.” But the beauty was already far away.
Her dashing horse turned off the road onto a platform where tourists
were sitting at long tables, drinking kvass and fruit drink, and trying some
other dishes as well, which waiters served to them from a handsome carved
wooden house. Yet another building was being completed nearby. Two men
were laying a handsome carved frame around the window of the new build-
ing, which was probably a store or restaurant. Hearing the clicking of
hooves, one of the men turned toward the approaching rider, said something
to his comrade, and leaped from the scaffolding. The ardent beauty reined
in her horse, jumped to the ground, quickly untied the canvas bag from her
saddle, ran toward the man, and shyly held out the bag to him.
“Turnovers. . . . Apple turnovers, like you like, still warm.”
“You are such a fidgeter, Ekaterinka,” the man said gently, eating a
