Chapter 12 - -12 : The Crow gentlemen
When he moved the stylus needle, music began to flow out.
The aria of an opera carried by the phonograph placed on top of the mahogany cabinet instantly defeated the silence that was filling the reception room of the annex.
Matthias changed the frequency a few times to let a different music genre, the waltz, to flow out and then sat back on the sofa. The melody was bright and cheerful. His long fingertips, lightly touching the armrest, slowly tapped along to the beat. The desk clock on the opposite console table indicated it was currently five o'clock.
Matthias's gaze briefly focused on the lousy arranged rose vase next to the clock and soon turned his head towards the window. The wind got cooler as evening approached. The wind from the river shook his gown before it headed out into the forest.
Matthias reached out and opened a small silver box placed at the end of the drawing table. While he picked up a cigarette from the box and lit it up, the waltz song was over. Matthias slowly smoked, listening to the raucous string music that followed. The late afternoon of the summer was boring and still.
When the song stopped, Matthias picked up Leyla's glasses, which he had carelessly thrown in the tray next to him. Matthias held up the glasses to his face. Her eyes seemed to be pretty bad because the world he saw over the lenses was dizzy.
Is that why she always frowned?
He suddenly thought of the little child staring at him with a sulky frown. The scrawny, unpretentious girl whose eyes were glistening despite her appearance.
The child who was supposed to stay for a brief time had grown in Matthias's world and matured into a woman.
The woman's slender face with the thin gold-rimmed glasses overlapped the scrawny girl's face. The woman with the glistening eyes still had that fresh, sweet smell. It was the fragrance of a rose, the flower that filled up Arvis's summer garden.
Having let out a long stream of cigarette smoke, Matthias went out to the balcony that stretched towards the river while loosely holding Leyla's glasses. His shadow lengthened as he playfully threw up and caught the glasses several times.