If she hadn't smoked so much ... however, who knows what would've happened, if she hadn't smoked so much. Perhaps it would have been nothing and everything would have gone on, or maybe it would have changed completely everything. Still, so much time is spent on this questionable activity...
But the fact is, nevertheless, that Alyona smokes extremely too much. She smokes like a steam train. Or like a pipe of an old boiler. The morning of Alyona happens at lunchtime. Bathrobe, slippers and shower. Kettle is boiling, browned toast bouncing. Bright, shining sun.
Having drunk tea, Alena sits down to draw. And, of course, takes out the cigarettes. She draws with her lips pressed, silently and extraordinarily serious, smoking and plunging deeper and deeper into the blue, stupefying tobacco smoke. I look at it, I look at the gathering heavy, puffy clouds above the Andes behind a wide window, I remember that old boiler and suddenly realize that all the clouds and rains begin here in this room, from this now swirling Alyonka's smoke, and they spill in the city usually only in the afternoon, because she is up only at this hour.