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forming a large, tangled ball of threads. Realizing that he was completely lost, Armand looked around, trying to find at least someone to ask, if not about Kristinka and her parents, then at least how to get out of here and get out as soon as possible. The heat wore him down greatly. A hot, blazing, blinding sun hung directly over the crown of his head. Not a single seedy tree, not even a column to drink. Everything seemed to have died out. Small, flattened to the ground, rickety houses coexisted side by side with large, spacious, rich mansions, near which green palm trees and small flowering lawns bloomed with might and main. Unless there were no fountains. But in vain! They would greatly decorate the landscape, creating the impression of a cool, salutary oasis in the middle of the sands… But there, at the end of the street, stood an abandoned, large mansion that did not fit into the general atmosphere at all with the remains of its former grandeur. Dilapidated, with windows completely boarded up, it still attracted attention. The former, once blooming garden near him, was mercilessly burned out by the scorching sun so that only stunted, naked, completely without leaves, trees sticking out from the ground with charred, crooked sticks here and there were left of it. The sultry wind filled him with sand almost right up to the second floor. Driven by irrepressible curiosity, Armand, not knowing how, found himself at the very front door. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) The window, located a meter away from the door, was not boarded up, only covered with half-rotten plywood. Pushing it aside, he climbed inside. Cool twilight in frightening silence added to the picture of crying horror. Once in the spacious hall, Armand, turning on the flashlight, went up to the second floor. Walking down a narrow corridor, he saw a door leading into a room. He touched her, but she did not give in. Having understood. That it was locked with a key, he went to another door, but that one was also locked tightly. Then Armand went downstairs and noticed a small pedestal with a mirror. Digging through it, he found a small key. Taking it, he went up to the second floor again, trying to open the doors. But the key did not fit any of them. – «Strange,» thought Armand. Going downstairs, he again approached the curbstone and began to scour its womb., Hoping to find something else. But I found nothing but a huge black spider with a cross on its back, hiding in one of the boxes. He was about to leave, when one strange object, which could be seen under the curbstone in a heap of sand, attracted his attention. Armand bent down and picked him up. This was a diary page:
«She talks to herself all day and hasn’t left her room for a week. I don’t know what to do… I tried to talk to her, but she doesn’t answer. Maybe call the doctor again? Will it only help? The last time he left with nothing … ”– it was written in diligent, but slightly fluffed, uneven handwriting, showing the excitement of the person who wrote this.
