... She was carrying yellow flowers! Bad color. She turned from Tverskaya into a side street and then turned around. Well, do you know Tverskaya? Thousands of people walked along Tverskaya, but I can assure you that she saw me alone and looked not only alarmingly, but even as if painfully. And I was struck not so much by her beauty as by the extraordinary, unseen loneliness in her eyes!
Obeying this yellow sign, I also turned into an alley and followed in her footsteps. We walked down the crooked, boring alley in silence, me on one side and she on the other. And there was, imagine, not a soul in the alley. I was tormented because it seemed to me that it was necessary to talk to her, and I was worried that I would not utter a single word, and she would leave, and I would never see her again.
And, imagine, she suddenly spoke:
- Do you like my flowers?
I distinctly remember how her voice sounded, rather low, but with breakdowns, and, stupidly enough, it seemed that an echo struck in the alley and reflected off the yellow dirty wall. I quickly went over to her side and, approaching her, answered:
- No.
She looked at me in surprise, and I suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, realized that I had loved this particular woman all my life!
... Yes, she looked at me in surprise, and then, looking, she asked:
- You don't like flowers at all?
There was, it seemed to me, hostility in her voice. I walked next to her, trying to keep up and, to my surprise, did not feel constrained at all.
“No, I like flowers, just not like that,” I said.
- And what?
- I love roses.
Then I regretted what I said, because she smiled guiltily and threw the flowers into the ditch. A little confused, I nevertheless picked them up and handed them to her, but she smiled and pushed the flowers away, and I carried them in my hands.
So they walked in silence for a while, until she took the flowers out of my hands, threw them onto the pavement, then passed her hand in a black glove with a bell into mine, and we walked side by side ... Love jumped out in front of us as if from under the ground the killer jumps out in the alley, and hit both of us at once! This is how lightning strikes, this is how a Finnish knife strikes!
(Excerpt from the novel "The Master and Margarita")
