Which is all fine, except that she did this by shouting at the poor Internet Lad, who I've grown to very much admire because he is so nice and looks so very much like the least-bright but industrious and earnest youngest son in a fairy tale. Not that he is in actuality not bright. And Internet Lad chewed his lower lip sweetly and fingered his belt loop, as if too embarrassed to tell the American Lady that in Russia most Russians still speak Russian, which he of course could easily have done, since all Russians speak at least two languages, but Internet Lad, being so often abused by this father for trading their only cow for a mop, only sweetly chewed his lip, puzzling and puzzling, as if he had just been tricked into a witch's cooking pot and he was trying to figure a Creative Way Out. Leaving the house, we slip the key under the rug. We buy our food at the little street market grapes, tomatoes, white cheese.
Wine is cheap.
Bread is dark. The level of local life is low, The ruble falls every day, and the same can be said about the sourdough of the clouds with the yeast of a long Russian rain. A door yawns. Clear Pond, when it frowns, distorts our faces. Now we look from the bank at a crow that chases its white shadow below in the wrinkled copper mirror.