# After divorce. После развода

Людмила Николаевна Ансельм

Монолог шестидесятилетней женщины после развода с мужем. The monologue of a sixty-year-old woman after the divorce from her husband.

the opposite... At the beginning he came at home angry, more silent, at the table sat the dark, didn't give me any money... Then he started to order:

-- Prepare the potatoes as in the restaurants.

-- But I don"t know, what the potatoes in the restaurant... In the restaurant I never was...

And he started to mock:

-- Where you in a restaurant? With you on the street ashamed to go out. She wants to go to the restaurant! Look at yourself, who you look like?

Mr. judge, to tell the truth, I has changed, the figure has spread in different directions, I wear glasses, are wrinkles on my face... This truth... I got hurt, almost cried...

But he abusing me, calling roughly different animals; cow unfinished, smelly goat... And I have no money to buying perfumes; barely enough to eat.

He began to upbraid:

-- I've dressed you with clothes, bought you boots..

I got indignant :

-- So you used my money! I bought everything...

Once I heard in passing, someone say:

-- Tomorrow I'll file for divorce...

I just flop in the armchair, my legs went from under me...

(Pause)

-- Mr. judge, I did not think, did not expect that we will get to a divorce.

Judge asks:

-- Do you have children?

I answer:

-- No, no kids. I don't even know who"s to blame!

He shouts:

-- It's all her fault!

The judge addresses him:

-- Why did you filed for divorce? What are the reasons?

-- Our reasons are very simple: quarrels and fights, - he answers.

I corrected him:

-- Mr. judge, we've never fought. But we quarreled, quarreled as other normal people do.

Then the judge asks me:

-- O'key, then tell me: how it happen that after thirty years of living together your husband filed for divorce?

-- Yes, it's my fault, it turned out that I didn't know my husband.

I see the judge feels sorry for me.

-- Maybe you have to divorce him before, when you were younger? I see, you"re in pain to get a divorce in sixty years.

-- Mr. judge, I"m not only painful, but also embarrassing and hurtful, I can't understand why he could forget it all. Forgot, that I fed him with a spoon when he was sick, served him coffee in bed...

And he shouts:

-- It wasn't coffee that you gave me! It was real dregs!

Of course I saved, after all we lived only on my salary.

- Mr. judge, all of our misunderstandings started when I retired, and my husband went to the work... Against his work I didn't mind, I thought: let him work a little. I didn't think that it can someone be flattered: he is worthless male...

I wanted to explain to the judge that he is a man absolutely worthless man, ... the nail into the wall never drove.

And here he cried out:

-- I"m with you worthless, but with the other I"m a beast shaped.


-- But I do not talk about,...

I tried too calm him down... to explain what I mean, it"s about the nail... But I couldn"t ...

-- And I, what about that! - he screams even louder,- Namely about that!

As a result, I was quite disgraced in front of the whole court. In the end I said:

-- Mr. judge, shoot me in the forehead, cut me, but I want you to explain I'm not guilty. There wasn't any reason for that divorce on my part.

I wanted to explain to the judge that I don"t want to get divorced... But no doubt, my husband insisted and we parted...

After the divorce, I said everything that I think about him...

-- We have lived together 30 years, and how did it happen that I mean noting for you? Can you explain me how I ended up on the beans? Where is my money?

-- All the money you have gobbled and drunk, -- was his answer...

I wanted to appeal to his conscience, to make him ashamed, but a result, I cried...

Soon he began to separate. Took a big room with balcony; dragged our couch into his room. We began to sleep separately. And nevertheless, I did everything for him: cook breakfast, dinner... I thought: a sick man maybe come to his senses, everything will be all right, as before...

Then he began to divide the property. TV, kettle, plates and forks -- he got all these things, the sewing-machine left for me. I feel sorry for the floor lamp. Many evenings we spent together under that lamp when sitting on our couch and watched TV. My neighbors - good people, sympathetic , pitying me, gave me their old TV. And when they helping to change the lock in the door of my room, he ran the room, grabbed an arm-chair and wanted to drag it away. I quickly sat down in the arm-chair and shouted:

-- With me you can"t carry!

He pulled, tugged at the back of the chair, and left with nothing, and I remained sitting...

Now after work he washes himself and leaves home for the whole evening and I sit, waiting... When the door bangs, he came back, then I'm quietly go to sleep.

The other day, suddenly I hear talking with stranger... It means, he inviting someone to inspect the room, looking for the inhabitant, and he apparently wants somewhere to move out. But he won"t be able to intimidate me, let him settles even a beast, I"ll get along even with a beast. The neighbors, compassionate people, come to calm me down:

- Nothing... a little patience. He isn"t a young man, you"ll see, hurts his back or anything else, quickly come running back.

But I"ll never forgive him, the earth will bite, wolf howling, but won"t forgive. I know, I should stay and stay... I"m getting to be alone, and my pension is enough for me. I"ll live, not complaining... only the resentment gnaws me especially on holidays when he leaves the house for the whole day...

All women I suggest:

- Dear women, young, old, all sorts, I"m addressing you: learn from me: be vigilant, be smart, not to go to the divorce in the old age... it hurts very much...

And I only wonder: why Russians usually say:

- Gray hair in a beard - a demon in a rib. Why the rib? It"s a lie... Not into a rib. The ribs has nothing to do with it ...