Tuesday, February 21, 2006

NWW 13 Vasen'ka


Thursday, February 09, 2006

We are Flying Over the Valley



Translated by Sophie Lund
New Writing and Writers 20. John Calder, London 1983. <> ‘Kovtcheg’, Paris 1982
<> Revised by the author Paris 2005


Black dot: the black hole of a revolver’s barrel. Faced by this degree of foreshortening, even an expert will need time to determine the make of a gun. The dead feast gripped the butt of the revolver: painted, almost real, the isolated fist held the gun, aiming at him through the shop window. It would appear that the gunsmith was no stranger to art, and appreciated rules – at any rate they related to beauty, which on occasion does have a profound effect.
Tearing his gaze away with difficulty, he now perceived something different: the face of the passer-by who was standing beside him, the face of a woman in fact, and dark in the glass, as if the day were not sunlit and transparent. And through the face’s filigree, he saw the navy blue covering of the display shelves in the window, and the interiors of the gun cases, bloodstained in advance, from which the weapons peered: capable of halting a running man, catching him in mid-leap, interrupting his stroll, his lonely reverie, to say nothing of his flight.
He saw a smile. His reflection smiled back at hers. They did not turn towards each other, trying in this way, it wood seem, to avoid the ignominy of a street encounter, for which there can never be any excuse – Well, not unless a preordained second meeting should occur of its own accord, or one of the parties be employed at some public institution where anyone might wander in quite naturally, or unless, let us say, she’d been stuck in a lift and he had come to her rescue.
“What’s caught your eye in there?”
“Who me? What? Well, that little velvet cushion, as a matter of fact…”
(A superb long-barrelled colt reposed upon it).
“Velvet? But it’s paper!”
And he felt vexed, as if reality was now to contain yet another prosaic detail, but then isn’t reality made up of details anyway? If everyone of these details were suddenly – through his hastiness – to turn into paper, what would become of reality itself? How simple it would be to strike a match and to watch as the page became charred at its edges, turned itself into a suffocating little tube, destroying if not everything, then at any rate the middle, the end, and as in the present circumstances, the beginning. But, be that as it may, there is a little something to reality – there is fire, for instance, or water.

Having drunk the water, he stayed with the glass in his hand. It’s so easy to sift through the fragments of your life, without any intention, incidentally, of putting them on public view, and just occasionally to make a hitherto non existent picture emerge. There were times when he would breast the last row of hillocks, laden with grape wines and grapes, the fruit covered in dust, some with crusty sides, others which had even cracked open (how the wasps swarmed above them!), and see the deserted shore, where there was no one, no one – just a black speck over there, a dog in all probability, judging from the speed at which it moved. The strong wind of the region carried it closer to the oncoming wave, and he would follow the black speck with his eyes as it zigzagged to and fro.
Or, hardly out of the sea, he’d feel the heat under his feet, soon the sand would begin to burn – after he had taken his twenty-first step, according to calculation which dated from the time when he used to amuse himself with science. But the palm of his hand would be cold still: he’d touch the hot skin of her shoulder, brushing over the shoulder blades, and a little train of goose pimples would run like lightning down her back, rounding her thighs before disappearing, anticipating the movement of his hand, premonition and guide at one and the same time. The hand, already hot, sets off in pursuit.
Or: how is living, mortal man to avoid that day when he sees a face, absolutely still, no longer able to come close, lips which can no longer speak a single word, not even the name of one who was dear, a friend, or simply pleasing, a companion. What is this? Fear, or pity, or parting? Not yet – after all the body lies here, very close, people still sob aloud or just weep soundlessly. And when the parting does come, oh, the hope for a reunion in another existence: has my touch really had its fill of your hair, your cheeks, your shoulders, your thighs…and even your toes? And had my lips really followed the night long path of my hands, and has the honey of kisses really melted all away? But there comes a dawn with a different face: flowers at the bed head, their scent mingling with another dangerous, frightening, scent – faint no longer, already heavy, edging out the air.
And are these the components of a picture? A deserted shore, the two of them, and death which waits for the setting of the sun. if you put these fragments together – they will merge into each other – how can such a picture not be realized? All that remained would be a little in a café, in a dimly lit corner, a glass, perhaps, of beer, and the mighty neck of the proprietor: he sees me as a feature of the décor. He is Russian, he says to one of his customers. Others turn round to have a look; too late: scraps of the torn page float in the air, together with the death which has not happened.
Theirs heads nod: the mighty purple neck, the other thin necks, so that is what they are like, the Russians, well, well… that is what they are like. The scraps of torn paper sink slowly to the ground, fold themselves up: the shoreline curved like a bow, the hills, the waves. They are walking slowly along the edge of the sea, and if the shore does not come to an end, if there is time to add to it – working feverishly, oblivious to any word let alone gesture – they will go on walking, chatting to each other, or just with their hands touching, and he will see the living seaweed of her eyes, and never the cold reflection of clinical light, and the uninterested pupils. It’s too much! Too much! screeches the head on the mighty neck: waiters mop up the customer, the glass of a beer mug crunches underfoot. Naturally, the won’t let me extend the shoreline on paper.
But they are carefree now, those two, stepping lightly on the sandy shore.
A lunge forward: I could be in time, I could… Too much! Hello! How’s things! screeches the parrot, a feature of the décor. The scraps of paper fall one after the other, together with the parrot, the customers, with death: although not at once, they glide through the air. The sweet, cold, night air.

The day before: a layer of lipstick on her mouth. She came to close to the mirror: in the mist suddenly obscuring her face, she could have seen only a small scarlet ring, a circle, almost a dot, almost an oblong scar. The man – curly headed… just a moment, I can’t quite see… that’s better… curly headed, dark, sluggish – did not get from the bed. He felt a burning sensation on his chest, coming from the surface of his skin, as if from a sting. “It burns”, he said. “What?” “It burns.” “Where?” she turned away from the mirror in such a way as to cause her unbuttoned blouse to fly up around her shoulders and appear quite black in the half light of the closed shutters. The burning sensation was below his left nipple, and she thought that she saw something there… but then calmed down. “It’s all normal.” I think that it was exactly on this spot that yesterday, leaning over him, (she was trying to reach the cheese), she has dropped hot ash from her cigarette. “It burns? Well, that’s strange, isn’t it. Never mind, it’ll go away.” She kissed the place, and saw the imprint: almost a circle, just like a ring. It was because of the extra greasy layer of lipstick on her mouth that a trace appeared on his chest, just under his left nipple, or rather a little below the fifth rib, counting from the bottom. He put his clothes reluctantly, listening with irritation to the sports news, and for some reason, to the rest of the news as well: petrol prices had jumped, and as for coffee, the least said the better. The Russians, as usual, wanted a lasting peace… the experts insisted that this was so… and in any case were still far away.
“We’re off to see the gang”, he said. She took a last look in the mirror – a fleeting, rapid, glance.
The car would not start for a long time. (Well, this isn’t true: they get into the car, the door almost slams on her dress, but no, it’s all right. The engine starts immediately).

Elements we know well: fire, air, water, earth. In their pure form they are rarely present when death and love occur, which are themselves also elements, but, without our participation, of no interest to anyone save perhaps philosophers. Life presents of itself a mixture of elements in equal proportions, but should one prevail over the others, something great is born. For instance, a conflagration is fire prevailing. An ocean: water. Two figures stand high on a hill – a man and a woman, most likely in an embrace – high on that hill air holds dominion since, after all, in motion it becomes wind and causes the sleeves of the young woman’s blouse to fill and billow. Obviously, there is earth too, underfoot – at any rate under their feet – but we are not concerned with it.
Observe well proportioned life: an appetizing dish bubbles on the Prometheus’ fire, strong hands wash a thick neck under a jet of water. A fan turns. Love and death conform: a woman, full of energy, gazes despairingly at her husband’s back, and at the same time glances with impatience at the telephone. A cat enters with a mouse in its teeth – probably it’s a toy mouse made of rubber. Of course there can be no death here: these people are immortal.
There is one element which has not been mentioned, and this is unjust: it muddles all the others, changes them in places, its name is madness. It does not know love, hides it, forces you to see an instrument of death in a kiss, and transforms each gesture into danger. It is a powerful element, I tell myself as I walk down the stony path from the top of the hill: the deserted shore, the absence of any human being and, from the deserted sea, the road which stretches at the base of the pine trees, between the hillocks, towards the deserted little town. Steep cobbled streets, dusty café windows, a half opened door, and looking as if it has been newly washed, the window of the gun shop. The collar of an unbuttoned blouse is reflected in the glass. “Do you like it?” “Who me?” “Look at that beautiful dagger – it comes from Spain.” The knife rested upon the velvet paper, a little apart, not very broad, but with an ornate handle and a distinctly visible narrow groove on the thick side of the blade. Childhood friends used to tell me that the groove was there to drain the blood. And for a long time I believed this explanation, until they laughed at me, those friends of my youth. It’s the hard rib, they told me, which stops the knife from bending even when it meets bone, and enables it to do its work.
The half opened door of the café: the sound of a song wafting through. “Do you know that song? No? Why not, I rather like it”. He listens to the words. “We’re flying over the valley, where we were born, where we walked beside the stream, and loved, and died… not so fast, don’t fly over it so fast.”
“You have a strange accent. Are you from the south?” Am I from the south? From the north more like.
“From the north.”
“But you were born in the south?”
Where was I born? Must I remember? Isn’t enough that one is born at all on this earth, that, somewhere, one cries out for the first time – from fear of course, at the sight of all those yellows circles in the dark shifting mass, of that sun piercing the crown of the tree beneath the window.
“Well you know, you see… I was, well I was a deaf mute. I began to speak, as it were, when I was thirty years old, and so probably…”
“But you’re much younger than thirty! I would never had thought you were thirty!”
He was already planning to develop this deaf and dumb theme.
“Incredible! I thought you were twenty – oh, say – twenty five at the most!”

Past the little hills, the vines – yellow and deserted on the red earth – along the stony, whitish road: they climb to the crest of the hill, and already only their silhouettes can be seen, as if they are climbing up to the sky, to the little cloud with a rosy rim. Navy blue wedges of evening shadow slice into the hillocks, the greenery is going darker. The sea appears, and the islands: the distant ones scarcely defined against the fog which is drowning the area. There is no sound of birds, and only gusts of wind bring the sudden sound of waves: taut white long-bows advancing towards the shore. There is just a solitary black speck moving, probably a dog bowled along by the wind – it runs in zigzag.
With every step the sea grows louder – already there is the din of rollers beating against the breakwater. Night. Fog. Moon. The sharp silent flashing of the lighthouse. The ruins of a little summer shack – in all probability the kiosk of a newspaper vendor, or some other – but wait, ice creams were sold here, and cold drinks! Of course, that’s what it was – there’s the head on the mighty neck raising itself from the deckchair, the woman, not yet devoid of all attraction, in the next chair. Summer flesh under the awnings, radios, music, fruit, and the mighty neck supporting the steady head, folds hanging down from the body like some insignia of prosperity, the armour of wealth.
He buys an ice cream, a packet of nuts – almonds to begin with – and then peanuts, a can of Coca Cola, and six cans of beer. Pausing for thought, he adds a ham sandwich, a pâté sandwich, a little carton of cold meat salad, and some chocolate. Strong fingers undo the purse, take out a hundred frank note (bearing the portrait of Corneille), but then discover something smaller: fifty francs (with Voltaire: oh, philosopher of Ferney, can your wisdom really be exactly twice as cheap as literature?) The wife feigns sleep, hiding her face beneath a magazine: the cover shows Russians marching. She sees standing beside her a pair of hairy calves, her gaze travels upwards along the pale blue veins which stand out in abundance on the thighs, (that is the nature of the job, all your life on your feet, you understand, behind the counter), her gaze travels higher still to the pendulous belly: she pretends to be asleep. Meanwhile, a mountain of emerald blue water grows on the horizon, until those who are lying down can no longer see the sky. It crashes down on the sand, washing away bodies, garbage, disintegrating the wooden walls of the stall with a cracking sound, splintering the shards of broken boards, and in receding carries away a shoal of white sandwiches.
The ruins are covered in sand. Night. Fog. Moon. Lips whisper a name. The hot palm of a hand touches cheeks, hair: the face is paler than the surrounding night. He sees the lids twitch, suddenly laying bare the eyes: she would see the moon, or rather a pale blotch in the fog; she sees his face.

Night. Buildings line the railway tracks, but they leave room enough for waste land: waste land. A man’s silhouette beside the motor car, the little flame of a cigarette. Wires hang down like staves: you can just hear music. If you strain your ears, there is a rhythmical crunch of gravel beneath the feet of an approaching man, even several men, perhaps there are three of them with but a single thought. The lone figure beside the motor car feels the tension of waiting, detaches itself from the car, becoming barely visible; the black patch has moved away from the pale patch of the motor car, and dissolved. They halted in a semi circle a short distance away, but the crunch of the gravel did not cease: skirting them from the side, a fourth man was coming towards him, a stranger, and yet here was something about the contour of the head that reminded him of someone he knew, and was waiting to meet that night.
He felt as if he had been stung on the breast, a sudden burning sensation, which having begun on the surface, was now penetrating deep inside. Last night, leaning against his stomach to sip wine out of a glass, she had spilled hot cigarette ash: music, warmth, alcohol. The music of an old record, with the hum of a needle, the ash breaking off, falling, falling, burning: the place marked, and the burning sensation growing more and more acute with every step of the man who was coming towards him. The burn, starting at one point on his skin, and then penetrating deep was the reason why he didn’t feel it: the blow, as if something had snagged his ribs, bent the bone, and entered. There was only something hot, running down over his belly under his clothes, down into the groin and lower still, spilling over his naked legs, his feet which became numb immediately, and his toes – gathering between them, soaking the leather of his shoes, and the gravel, and the earth beneath them.
Arms flung wide, a man motionless. The torn strap of a raincoat. The lamp aims its pools of light, the giant button shines.
It is too late to tear up the used page.

“I want to tell you something… but you mustn’t laugh, all right?”
What exactly, he wondered. The seaside café was deserted. The proprietor stood behind the counter, wiry, with swift eyes which saw everything at once: a blouse, seemingly violet in colour, showed beneath the woman’s jacket. A man in a peaked car drew up in a rickety motor car and carried in a bundle: the newspapers.
What, exactly, does she want to tell me? Does she – he sipped his coffee, feeling the warmth flow downwards inside his body. Probably – it’s not to be excluded – she’ll tell me that she is married, and how sorry that makes her. That she is only going to be here for another day or two – three at the most. Four perhaps. No, it’s unlikely to be four, two days at the very outside.
”But look, you aren’t going to laugh are you?”
With what speed I gain this sort of reputation! – he said to himself. Everywhere and always, not without foundation of course, but it’s getting to be too much. she leaned towards him, holding back the hair which cascaded down all the same, hiding her face, and he could just catch: “I am happy… I am well.” He parted her hair, and met her gaze: it held an explanation, the reason why, and he could already read, as if he were deaf, those same words on the scarce moving lips. Her pink cheeks were lit by the sun: warmth spilled through the air, and the sun threw its rays further and higher: the shelves which held hundreds of bottles flared like a collar of northern lights, green and dark blue and ruby red, blood red – the colour of blood predominated on the shelves. The proprietor’s face was yellow in the sunlight. He screwed up his eyes, a grimace of displeasure froze on his face for the remainder of the day.
Does he see that the man with the young woman is agitated, (is he happy or the reverse?) His forehead, cheeks, nose have reddened: he uncurls the palm of her hand, and lays it against his face: the sent of waterside willow, bitter bark, damp grass – where does it come from? He breathes in the freshness of the cool palm, and the sounds of his native tongue fill his hearing, he even says something, and only then realizes that he is speaking an abracadabra to her, the language spoken there, in a far away corner of the earth where people have quite other pursuits, distinctly other – to be precise, they study the science of death and madness, where morning and evening gravel crunches beneath the feet; where it is always: Night. Moon. Wasteland.
Her hair covers his face: “With you I am so, I don’t know, do you understand…”
The jacket slipped from her shoulders and he could see them portrayed in the mist of the sun drenched blouse. He saw the face in the mist, and the white chairs on the terrace, beaded with dew. He pulled himself together, asked the proprietor for a newspaper, and unfolded it with deliberate slowness. Morning. In bold type: The Russian in Africa, and a photograph with a caption which said: ‘Russians Marching’. In smaller type: squaring of accounts. In the vicinity of Debussy Parade… identity not established… lipstick… according to police opinion, drug traffickers…
The page of the newspaper bent back to itself. She was smoking another cigarette, gazing absent-mindedly at the photograph of the murdered man. And then he saw interest, and attentiveness, and a look of pain suddenly gripping her face. She got up and rushed to the counter: “L’horaire de bus, please!” She said ‘horror’ instead of ‘timetable’. But they are accustomed to accents here.

Hello! It’s too much! how’s things! screeches the parrot, and at the same time whistles a little in surprise. This, of course, is not all the proprietor says – nearly, but not all. The parrot is in clover: the proprietor has gone to the bank, while his comely, still attractive wife is on the telephone, smiling an uncertain smile, as if listening to something agreeable, and as if she can be seen by her interlocutor. She is talking, without any doubt, to a man – playing with the salt cellar, the pepper and mustard pots which she has taken from their stand: forming a triangle out of these powerful seasoning, pepper, mustard, salt. Absentmindedly, she pushes the untidy mustard pot to the side – so far to the side that it almost falls behind the counter. Pepper and salt are left: the well-groomed little fingers move them around, as if performing some strange dance, foretelling something, and then suddenly squeeze the neck of the pepper pot: the knuckles grow white. It’s too much! How’s things! screeches the parrot: the proprietor is away, he’s at the bank, there are few customers. The parrot’s conversational gifts are unrivalled.
But to this vaguely grubby café in the capital, I prefer the one in the far provinces: descending from the hill along the stony road, past the houses shut up until summer, past the trees which step further and further back from the sea. A grey day, wind, rain. Pieces of wood on the shore, washed white – heavy, naked – resemble the bones of some dinosaur. In front, a dog runs in zigzag, bowled along by the wind, its paw prints are already blurred at the edges, half erased.
Good morning, we say almost in unison, the proprietor and I. Hastily, he produces a cup of coffee: he is reading a fresh copy of Morning. I open the page. Her face, which yesterday morning was beside me, and the evening before, and the night, is now a different face: it shows sorrow, silence, peace, as if it belonged to a runner who has stopped running, and has had time to catch his breath. ‘Last night … made an appearance … aware of the identity … on Diu(misprint)bessy Parade … 19 years of age, member of an engineer’s family…’
A penetrating gaze: the wiry proprietor studies the face of yesterday customer, gathering himself, holding himself taut and at the ready, meeting the customer’s eye: beads of sweat break out above the thick eyebrows, as if dispensed from a dropper beneath the skin, the words freeze upon lips which have turned blue: You were here yesterday, and so was she…
He could say no: to the end, everywhere and at all times he would deny, as he practised it from infancy. Would he deny the lips whispering his name, the heavy beat of the waves in the distance, and the earth shuddering beneath the assault of the water.
‘Yes.’ Along the road to the top of the hill, covered in crooked trees and bushes bearing berries the colour of dried blood.
Going out, he can already hear the whirr of the telephone dial, and begins to run through the sea shore scrub, his choice of route totally devoid of logic: he’ll slip in the rain. Here and there, his wet clothing is wreathed in steam, he is gasping for breath. A car catches up with him on the rise to the highway: How to get to … – I’ll go with you, it’s on my way to Toulon, I’ll show you.
He sees a face in the rear-view mirror: plastered hair, panting mouth, can that be him? It is, also.

A double row of slightly murky walls, with a narrow passage between them, half-filled by a broad back. Her face is far away, at a distance of two or three paces, and her voice is unrecognisable: a distorted telephone voice masked by a fine wire mesh. She kisses him – he sees the lips part a little, the lids close. He watches, pushing with his hands against the glass which nothing, not even a heavy calibre bullet, will puncture. ‘My darling,’ he hears, ‘my darling, kiss me, come closer, touch me…’ He kisses her, as if the transparent wall, with its black spot, a squashed dead fly, does not exist, and he hears: ‘I don’t know why, how nor what… tell me: didn’t we stay together…’
‘Look: black cliffs, and the sea beneath them, and the waves which lose their strength and their shape upon the shore. The music of the reeds, bending like waves beneath the wind which fills your blouse – I see a triangle of sunburn skin, smooth and shiny. Little snakes of sand slither round our feet, the faded sun sinks lower, clouds stand in a semi-circle, echoing the line of the shore. Further away, the dark green hills are etched against the dark blue sky, and the silhouettes of those walking along the stony white road merge when they reached the highest point, and even if you were to hurry after them, you would not reach them in time: night advances upon the hills, covering them in shadow, and only the moon lights the path – white, running with chalk, like a belt thrown in the thick grass, like arms flung wide.
The moon shines through the window: a gold earring glitters on the table, elongated like a drop of water flying trough space, and the glitter of the gold is repeated by the shimmering skin, and the paths left by the moist palm which rounds a thigh, trembling, and the rapid pulsation of his blood in his swelling veins, and the breath which burns his face as if the air were on fire: as if their breathing filled the room, the hills and the valley…’
‘My darling’, he hears. He cannot make out the face, hidden by the oval of misted glass, but he sees, rising from the depth, an expression almost of pain.
‘Get it over!’, the policeman says, bending towards his ear, but it’s no use: the surge of manhood leaves him.
‘Your visit is over.’
Two white patches: her hands, pressed to the transparent wall opposite, separated from his wall by the corridor. The broad back tears their gaze apart, the well cut uniform, the layers of muscle, but he manages to hear: my darling…
‘ Allow me to express the hope that your influence will prove beneficial,’ someone in nicely tailored civilian clothes tells him.

A sunny day. Absentmindedly, he buys a newspaper, unfolds it. The black patch of a headline: DEBUSSY. But no, it’s nothing, nothing, some concert or other, it’ll pass, it happens and then it passes, the main thing is to shut your eyes and not see, not hear, sit it out, nothing, nothing.
It’s completely unimportant who – who, by the way? – is guilty, whether it is she or others, but in fact he forgot to tell her so, has only just thought of it: I will always be on your side, together with the hills, the valley, the road, the moon, together with warmth which comes from some unknown corner on the earth, with that drop of gold – he opens the palm of his hand: as if caught in flight, an elongated form pierces his skin with its sharp end: the gold earring, dulled by blood.

He notices another reader of newspaper leaning almost right up against the kiosk opposite the entrance to the railway station. A light coloured belted raincoat. The feeling forgotten since he left his motherland, rises slowly within him. His muscles fill with strength. Walking lightly, he embarks on the circle of the approaching chase.
A far corner of the station lavatory. And the reader of newspaper, damn it, suddenly feels the need, but stops, goes no further. He, meanwhile, takes cover behind the little structure of the urinal, as if intending to go in, but then chooses another course of action: after all the decorative concrete fence is only a little taller than he is himself.

Street. Evening. He is alone.

The parrot’s cage is covered by a black cloth: it’s time, my friend, you’ve talked enough all this long day, for you night has come, as it has for us too: the time of the late drink, of unrealized meetings, of indolent imaginings. The mighty neck above the cash register: the proprietor is vague, gazing out like a Buddha. Further away, at the little tables, conversations are drawing to a close. The cold cigar clamped between the teeth of the customer standing in a some picturesque pose at the counter. The lamb, frozen in its niche below the arch of the sign which says ‘ Restaurant’, eyes glittering as if alive, but alas quite lifeless, stuffed, or worse still, a waxwork. Upon the mirror, the length and breadth of the entire wall, blooms an enormous bouquet, blooms one year, two, three, and longer: the painted artificial flowers have faded.
For a moment the street sounds grow louder: probably the door has opened, probably someone has come in. A woman’s voice requests a glass of lemonade. Silence. The woman voice requests again a glass of lemonade. The popping of a cork. The rattle of change. The click of the juke box, set in motion. The steel claw moves along the row of black discs. Slowly the needle begins its approach… nearer and nearer to the edge of the shining black disc, nearer and nearer – I find I am even shaking, I am even… Among the artificial flowers I see a dark head.

“We are flying over the valley… we are flying over the valley… we are flying …”

‘BESTSELLER’, or “Omozolelov’s Passions”


© Nicolas Bokov
[translated by Sophie Lund.
New Writing and Writers 17, John Calder, London 1980~Samizdat, Moscow 1973
<>Revised by the author, Paris 2005]

In Memory of Wladimir Polikarpov

The First Half

‘But, Dimitri Petrovitch, can it be that you... Please understand.’
The man to whom this remark was addressed did not look up at his interlocutor. He stared at the pavement, at the scrap of newspaper resting against his left shoe. His head was bent low, his interlocutor could see only his forehead.
‘So how about it, Dimitri Petrovitch?’
He tried to make out the remains of a word on the scrap of paper. ‘Pro…’
‘I’m waiting for your reply.’
‘Pro…’ mused D.P. ‘Probable. Proto. Proteus. Of course.’
‘I need time to think,’ he announced heavily, and looked around. He had long ago forgotten what that impatient individual wanted from him. He lifted his head. His interlocutor peered into his eyes.
Let us peer with him. Black pupils on a field of grey. A well)shaped brow, just the tiniest bit socratean. The nose, slightly Roman, but the cheeks, oh the cheeks! The cheeks are fully in keeping with nose, and the smooth, almost non existent, chin. If you were to make a friendly caricature of Dimitri Petrovitch, you would end up with a straight horizontal line. But where, the millions of prototypes (pro, here it is!) of this friendly caricature might suddenly ask, where are the nose, mouth, (incidentally, his mouth is large, the lips, we might as well mention while we are about it, fleshy, the teeth of middling size and widely spaced which predicts, they say, a happy destiny, the tongue yellowish and only just about able to fit into the afore-mentioned mouth, the palate rough, the larynx not too bad at all, the tonsils – spell r, please! somewhat reddish, the throat… but let us stay on the threshold of Dimitri Petrovitch’s interior world, partly because we are not surgeons, and partly because he is still alive), where are the eyes, dammit, where is the forehead, in the disquieting flatness of the horizontal line?
We shall immediately shinny up a tree and yell: ‘That’s the way we see it!’
D.P.’s interlocutor had already glanced at his watch, not once but twice.
Meanwhile, D.P. wrestled with his thoughts, which had flung themselves in two opposing directions: eastwards – what word begins with PRO? Westwards – what question had the man standing before him asked? A third direction appeared: who in fact was this man who had asked him whatever it was that he had asked him. And then, to his horror, a northerly direction presented itself: what, the devil take, was the meaning of life?
Salvation came in the guise of a random phrase. He pronounced it.
‘Ring me tomorrow evening. But let’s be clear about this. If I say yes, then I’m agreed. If I say no, then it’ll more likely than not mean that I’ve no objection.’
‘Very well. Goodbye.’ His interlocutor ran off to where the tram car stopped.
Harlamov fled after him.
Dimitri Petrovitch hurried to the trolley bus.
Caught up in the crowd, his interlocutor lost control of his actions. All of a sudden he began to fight his way out. Maybe he had remembered that he did not know D.P.’s telephone number, or that D.P. did not in fact possess a telephone. It would seem that this was the reason why he turned his head and shouted:
‘Omozolelov!’[1]
The cry sounded unconvincing. Shuffling and cursing, the crowd swept the man into the tram. His name is lost to us. He is irrelevant because he did not managed to telephone Dimitri Petrovitch Omozolelov. And not only for the reason that he did not know the number to dial.
Not one single stroke exists of the interlocutor’s likeness. He can be recognized, of course, by the caricature, but what if he possessed of a different nose? Or mouth? Or chin? Or something else? But no, the components of his physiognomy are the same. His coat? However, is new, and his briefcase made of the real skin of a real imported pig. Clearly, the non-existence of any written description, (in any case in our narrative; there are others where the lack of sketch – at the very least in words – constitutes not only a disadvantage, but a veritable sabotage), is occasioned by another circumstance, which the astute reader will already have guessed for himself, and the inattentive, since we shall forbear to chastise him, will now learn from us.
On December 17th, Dimitri Petrovitch Omozolelov’s interlocutor was killed by an automobile. That’s why he did not ring, and why we have not set down his description.
Speak well of the dead, or say nothing.
Why all this lengthy discussion, the foreigner asks. And here, we’ll exchange glances, you and I, and nod our heads. The poor foreigner! He’ll never be able to understand in what cause so many words have been expended. He’ll translate them into his native tongue, will try to work them out, will call on psychoanalysis for help. He’ll smash his car, blow up his cottage, vote for the best party in the land, (which in our case is the only one). He’ll slaughter his pet dog and then pit his cat!
So that none of this should occur, we will smile and tell the truth. It is not for the sake of the narrative itself that so many words have so lavishly been squandered. Not for the sake of a bigger fee – after all, this story will never appear in print because… but enough, we are not writing for the foreigner.
Thanks to the above superfluous but wide-ranging material we have learned the surname of Dimitri Petrovitch.
And how much time and money is spent nowadays in tracking down a person’s surname. How much paper is used up, and how many pairs of boots. How much cloth is made. How much wire manufactured, and how much, dammit, employed.
And all because of the surname. The address is nothing.
The address even you and I can uncover. Not every address of course.
But the surname! It can be compared to a hall-mark.
It can be compared to the number on a cloakroom ticket, or to any other number. After all, should you require to take your coat off the hanger, you must first submit your number. Omozolelov’s coat, for instance, which, after jumping out of the trolley bus and rushing into the building, he had handed in at the cloakroom, spent the entire day as number 953.
By announcing a man’s name, you enable them to give him the same treatment that the cloakroom attendant metes out to your coat – and no matter how old, worn, fit only at times for the rubbish heap, it may be, it will still protect you against winds and frosts.

Omozolelov pushed the ticket into his pocket, and went up to the department.
His colleagues glanced at him reproachfully – he was fifteen minutes late. They too would have like to have arrived late, but had not dared to do so. He had dared, however, or rather it had so happened that an interesting conversation had prolonged itself, and made him late.
D.P. sensed their animosity and hurried to his work station.
This was by the window, a fact which occasioned the just envy of his fellow workers. The rest, in its monotony and tedium, elicited no feelings of any kind6 a square drawn on the floor with white paint, a red box for the finished product, a black one for that which was half-finished.
D.P. chose several suitable half-finished items, and started to work on them. It seemed as if he intended to fulfil his daily norm before lunch, and afterwards to double it.
This conclusion was reached by his workmates who had noticed the energy with which Omozolelov applied himself to his task. Their surprise gave way to an unspoken vexation.
‘Did Peredreev buy those trousers?’ asked Pavel Andreevitch, irritably.
‘Yes, yes, he did!’ Larissa Ilinichna confirmed, thinking of Dimitri Petrovitch with revulsion.
‘He says if it’s cold this winter, he’ll put them on’, said Pavel A., concluding his train of thought.
‘I just don’t understand it – did you see his wife the night of the Navy party? Buying trousers when your wife’s back is all bare!’ said Anna Ivanovna.
‘Oh! All bare!’ repeated little Lisa, and was instantly covered in confusion.
‘That’s the fashion’, began Pavel A., trying his shoelaces.
‘Where are you going for dinner, Larissa Ilinichna?’ asked Ivan Sergeevitch. His eyes grew oily.
‘Fashion should be not carried too far’.
‘Don’t argue. A naked woman is not exiting. Go to the museum and see for yourself.’
‘Why don’t we go to the spaghetti place.’
‘Before our time, people went around naked, and thought nothing of it.’
‘Archimedes,’ said Pavel A., and spat with skill.
‘Euclid,’ said Omozolelov, butting in.
‘As for you, Dimitri Petrovitch, you’ve got yourself into a pretty funny sort of situation.’
‘Little Lisa, you look like a sweet little fish!’
‘Did Archimedes really go about in the nude?’
‘You bet!’
D.P.O. looked out of the window. Snow was falling, there even appeared to be something of a blizzard. He remembered that when evening came there would be a meeting. With whom exactly? Could it be with little Lisa? No, not with her. He thought of where this meeting was to take place, and decided that whoever it was would have no difficulty to recognize him, and would make themselves known.
D.P. look out of the window, and saw the following. To all intents and purposes, a young woman was running along the slippery path. It’s difficult to determine gender at such a distance, especially as even close up it’s not always apparent. O. remembered one occasion when someone in the uniform of a major had run past him. It would seem safe to assume that a major needs to be a man. D.P. had judged accordingly. Yet, on closer inspection, the major had turned out to be a pretty redhead in an advanced state of pregnancy.
Under the window, a woman was running. To begin with, she was dressed only in her shift, and secondly, her mouth was held open in the manner of someone who is showing their tongue to the doctor, and saying a-a-a. behind the woman, ran a man with some kind of, it would seem, since he was dressed in an overcoat, non-amorous intent. And in any case the freezing weather was not conducive to dalliance.
Having, in so far as one could make her out, caught up with woman, the pursuer took hold of her shift, and pulled hard. The woman rocked back on her heels. The stuff, too delicate to hold, split. At which point, the man hit the woman on the nape of her neck, and then, for some reason, in the back. She fell onto her side in the cold snowdrift, its white peak assumed a rosy tinge. To D.P.’s amazement, the man was breathing heavily. He stepped back a pace, pulled something out of the – it goes without saying – woman’s back, and ran away in the direction from which he had come. D.P. placed the finished paper disc in the box, and picked up a fresh, half-finished one.
But suddenly everyone began to shout, to run about: it was the lunch break. Claudia came up to the window and took a pocket mirror, a lipstick, and a little brush for her eyelashes out of her bag. She destroyed the expression of innocence on her face, and all of a sudden gave a frown. She noticed a spot on the bridge of her nose. She examined it closely, although there were spots on her forehead which merited the same attention. There were spots, pimples even, on her cheeks as well. And were she to remove her little jacket…! But that is not the point. The spot on the bridge of her nose was a new one, ripe and juicy as an apple.
Claudia was upset and glanced out of the window.
‘Look, look!’ she shouted, with such a lack of affectation that her colleagues all rushed up and pressed themselves against Omozolelov. They gazed at the almost naked body of the woman lying below with concentration, and for a considerable length of time, as if in anticipation of further developments.
‘And you didn’t say anything!’ Larissa Ilinichna pronounced with gentle reproach.
‘Did you see?’ asked Dobrolubov.
‘From the very beginning,’ D.P. answered, and was immediately conscious of having misled his colleague. The very beginning he had not seen, he had managed to see only the start of that which was now before their eyes, and even then only in part.
‘So! You saw it, and not a word. While your workmates toil, life exists solely for your benefit, comrade Omozolelov. That is something my mind cannot encompass!’
‘Because you’re as stupid as a bunch of radishes,’ D.P. thought to himself, daringly.
‘We’ll ask them to transfer him behind the cupboard,’ said Guivy.
‘Right! And by the window we’ll place a comrade who is happy to share all there is to be seen!’
D.P. went to lunch alone.
When he came back, the head of the department took him by the hand, and led him to the semi-obscurity of the corner behind the cupboard.
‘I am delighted, Dimitri Petrovitch,’ said the chief, wiggling his ears. ‘I am delighted to be able to comply with your request. You’ll be more comfortable here.’
D.P. raised his head in order to say thank you, but did not see the face of his chief, because his chief has already gone. Next to him laboured a colleague by the name of Ivan Sergeevitch who had come, some two months ago, of his own free will, from Smolensk.

At home, D.P. lay down on the sofa, and studied the torn off page of the calendar for that day, the eighth of the month. He found nothing particularly surprising in the information pertaining to the moon, or even to the rising and setting of the sun. He read the poem written by someone or other by the name of Marshak – birds, tiny birds, they sing so sweetly – only because he was about to throw out the page. But he was intrigued by a recipe for preparing pike. He went to the kitchen to make sure that in the shopping bag which dangled outside the window, in order to preserve the freshness of the provisions it contained, there was no such fish. There was no fish of any kind. Be that as it may, the recipe began with the words: ‘Slice the pike evenly and lay the slice in a casserole together with…’ The rest was meaningless. However, D.P. was in a position to accomplish the second part of the receipt: ‘…cover with water, and set in the oven.’
He placed a saucepan beneath the tap, which hr then proceeded to turn on.
The tap wheezed and snorted. There was no water.
Only then did D.P. catch sight of the message pinned to the kitchen door, and recognized the hand of the pensioner, Castikoff. ‘There will be no water. The electrician has been.’ He understood why all his neighbours’ tables were covered by an assortment of vessels filled with water – jars, bottles, saucepans, jugs, vases, buckets and jerricans, cups and ladles. D.P. sighed and made as if to settle the saucepan back on its shelf, but here he caught sight of a luminous sparkle at its enamelled base. He held the saucepan up to the light. His heart sank: there was a perfect round hole the size of a farting in the bottom. And it was not the only one. The sides and bottom were entirely covered in holes.
‘It’s Harlamov,’ D.P. said, out loud. ‘He fetched back a drill from the factory, and spent the whole night drilling away at something or other.’
He decided that he could not actually swear on his life that Harlamov had spent the entire night drilling, because, being a heavy sleeper, he had only heard the appropriate buzzing noise towards early morning. He resolved to save up and bye a new saucepan§ and to employ the transfigured one in the capacity of a colander.
He was, nevertheless, keen to have a bite of something to eat. D.P. made up his mind to boil up some coffee in the tin mug given to him by Claudia, at the time of their mutual passion. The passion had died on the subsequent day. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing how their relationship might have developed had D.P. been made aware of the mug’s origins.
Claudia had taken it away from a blind man begging for alms at the station. Having spent the small change, collected in this parasitic manner, on a new purse for herself, she had, in one of those bursts of love which come so naturally to a woman, presented D.P. with the mug.
In order to make coffee, you need water, and indeed, the coffee itself will be found to be necessary. D.P. prepared to borrow some water from Harlamov. He dilated his nostrils, stepping softly and silently, like a leopard in the jungle. None of this was lost on the sharp eye which glittered at the keyhole of the built-in cupboard.
He poured some water from Harlamov’s bottle. It had an unpleasant smell, and was rusty in colour. He knew that this was the way water always went just before the supply was disconnected.
In the jar, where only yesterday there had been D.P.’s cache of Brazilian coffee, lay some wood shavings, too large and to moist to be other than pine. He made some tea, and carried it off to his room. There he allowed himself to weaken. He stretched out on the divan. Retrieved a paper bag full of white bonbons from beneath of it, and, with enjoyment, drank his fill of the tea.
Oh, if only he had known of the conspiracy against him! Alas, how much misery humanity has had to bear through ignorance. What grief and pain still lie ahead. When they built their walls, men knew nothing of gunpowder. With the appearance of wire, walls lost their meaning. But the labour, the cosmic labour, expended on the making, the firing, and, dammit, on the laying, of those bricks, can never be truly repaid.
Knowledge is apparently strength, but then so is ignorance, with the difference that knowledge does not lessen ignorance, but perhaps, to the contrary, increases it.
Omozolelov knew nothing about the conspiracy. He most probably guessed, but a guess is not knowledge. The bottles, jars, saucepans, jugs, pitchers, vases, buckets, jerricans, cups, ladles, and the bath-tub, were all filled with urine.

The neighbours had miscalculated. They had not foreseen that D.P. would drink his tea with a bonbon in his mouth, and one which was not a creamy, aromatic, melting-on-the-tongue, bonbon at that, where the contrast might have alerted Omozolelov. Luckily, the sweetmeat was a good match for the tea.
He glanced at the clock and, as if he had been hit in the eye by an awl, leapt to his feet. His meeting was to take place in twenty minutes time.
He threw on his coat, and dashed off in his stockinged feet. The cold of the marble floor quenched our ageing Lovelace’s fire. He returned to his flat and spent a long time searching for his shoes, and then trying to mend a broken shoelace. Six minutes were lost in this way. At any other time this would be a mere nothing, the eight hundredth part of a working day, but if a man’s destiny is being decided, then even a few minutes will sometimes constitute a fatal loss.
He remembered that a delay of six minutes in arriving at theatre could cost him two months in hospital. His colleague, Givy, had, by six minutes, missed the aeroplane which was to have taken him on holiday to the Crimea with his parents – the powerful engine crashed right there in front of him. Fortunately, Givy managed, in searching among the corpses, to uncover his father’s wallet containing the promissory notes of a three percent loan.
Times passes quicker, for some reason, if one is engaged in thought. D.P., standing beside the statue of some renowned personality of the past, was unaware of beginning to wait for some rendezvous.
Someone was coming towards him.
He looked into the face of the approaching woman, and tried to remember who she was. She was smiling. Dimples played in her rosy cheeks. She came nearer, eyes shining, completely unblinking.
D.P. began to tremble. To begin with, he was being approached with such love! He felt that any moment his life would change, would become filled with the tender melancholy of a lavender spring evening.
He took a step forward, clenching her thin fists, gloved in suede against the freezing weather. He felt the living warmth of gentle hands, and pressed his lips to the silken lips of, surely, Zenaïde.
The blow to the back of his head deafened him slightly. D.P. seemed to lose his balance, and then was shoved forward. Zenaïde stood beside him, but there was also a man in a leather coat, and with a felt on his head, a fact which astonished D.P.: fancy wearing a felt hat in this degree of frost!
‘Swine!’ said the man. ‘Who is he, Nadine?’
‘My little Zenaïde!’ screeched the gallant. ‘It’s me, Dimitri Petrovitch Omozolelov!’
‘Before my very eyes. You sod, ’ he was informed harshly, and received a slap across the face from a superlative pair of gloves.
The officer’s code of honour, abolished, alas, by the revolution, would have come in handy here. To wash away the insult by the blood of the offender! To the barricades, whispered D.P., recalling a film about bygone days. He couldn’t unfortunately, bring to mind its name. He rocked back and forth, as if he were an actor, or worse, a clown performing his role on the deck of a destroyer.
‘Dimitri’, he heard someone say.
The meeting came to pass.

‘Dimitri, ’ repeated the girl, with cheeks so sunken that she might well have spent all her nights with two billiards balls strapped to her face. She did not have much forehead, but unhappily this was not the case with her nose.
D.P. was taken into a bony embrace, teeth clattered against teeth. He could not have sworn that he was acquainted with this young lady. It’s not easy to recognize people, especially in the times we live in.
Omozolelov could not remember her name.
They exchanged passionate kisses, and gazed into each others’ eyes. Well, actually, O. gazed over his lady friend’s shoulder at the drunk who lay in a puddle, struggling to slide a sheet of newspaper under his back. The girl was contemplating a taxi driver who was making covert signs of a very specific nature in her direction.
‘Which way shall we walk?’ asked D.P. with the emphasis on the word walk, as if they could just as easily have flown. He was trying to resolve a most difficult question which had arisen at the moment of their disturbing meeting: which direction? And, in truth, one cannot approach it topographically. There is direction and direction. The road, for example, to good, may indeed sometimes lead to it, and a man may find himself in possession of quite a decent flat and first rate furniture.
‘Let’s go to my place, Dimitri. There’re showing Persian carpets on television, and? In the second programme, meat!’
‘Fresh meat?’
‘No, stewed pork.’
‘We’ll go to your place, ’ D.P. said, slightly disappointed.
‘You know, Dimitri, comrade Pavel Andreevitch came up to me today, and said, ‘‘Irene…’’ ’
‘Irene!’ exclaimed Omozolelov D.P. with satisfaction, remembering the girl’s name.
‘Yes, ‘‘Irene’’ he says, ‘‘I should like to come and see you’’.’
‘‘Why, Pavel Andreevitch?’’ asked Irene, and looked at her watch.
‘‘Oh!’’ said P.A., surprised, ‘‘Just in case. But you mustn’t think, Irene…’’
‘‘Don’t think that just anyone can come up to my place. You won’t think that will you?’’
‘‘Never!’’
‘‘You’re an honest man, Pavel Andreevitch, but I love another. Let go of my hand. Let me go, I want to get up.’’
‘Do you live alone?’ asked D.P.
‘Alone.’
‘Swear.’
‘I swear. Only there’s Elisabeth. And Larissa Ilinitchna.’
‘What about Ivan Sergeevitch?’
‘He lives alone.’
‘And that other one, what’s his name…’
‘Dimitri, on my word of honour.’
It took Omozolelov a moment to realize that they were no longer moving, that they were standing still. A puddle lay before them, spreading out from beneath a gate, and running into a snowdrift. The outline of the puddle recalled that of the Mediterranean sea. The snowdrift formed a barrier between the pavement and the street, and it took D.P. only a few seconds to grasp the situation: there was no way of climbing over. From the puddle, which did not seem to have a natural cause, rose a cloud of steam. It may be that someone had emptied out a large quantity of warm water, or that the pipes had burst.
O D.P.! We are willing you not to take that step. O D.P., go back the way you came, and spend another fifteen minutes or so avoiding the snowdrift. Don’t do that which you have done. Is it really necessary to expose yourself to such risks in order to surmount a puddle?

He took a step into the clear, pure, stream. Carefully, in his arms, he carried the beautiful Lydia. She clung to Arthur, encircling his neck with her arms, there was a softness under the palms of his hands. He paused halfway across the stream, and marvelled at her tender knees: their rosiness, their voluptuousness, belonged to him, to Arthur. The greensward on the opposite bank awaited Lydia, as it awaited Arthur too, no doubt. She gave a little cry, and trustingly pressed herself against her beloved: beneath the water lay comrade Harlamov, eaten by crabs. He was prevented from floating to the surface by an oblong object attached round his neck. Arthur contrived to give Harlamov a kick, but regretted his action immediately; his foot had disturbed a large crab which had fastened itself to the massive Harlamovian nose.
Arthur stepped onto the sandy shore.

Stumbling, he almost dropped (one must assume) Irene.
His breathing was laboured. His legs were shaking. The flabbergasted Irene noticed none of this and remained in anticipation of further events. Within her was awakened a quaintly out-moded opinion of men.
D.P. did not resist when his lady friend pulled him up the stairs by the hand. He did not resist when they all but ran into the hall: the little hatch opened noisily, Ukikov looked out, and saw (we swear on the head of Dobrolubov) Irene accompanied by Omozolelov slipping into the hallway. The gallant swain understood the necessity of attaining the fourth floor as soon as possible. Unfortunately, his understanding was governed by reason, by his head, so with each step his strength was rather decreased than otherwise.
‘Faster, Dimitri!’ the woman whispered with agitation, opening the door to the flat, and waiting for the puffing friend. He made the last dash: from the top of the stairs, through the lobby, into the room. The locks clicked. Neither one of them heard the quick steps of Ivan Sergeevitch as he ran to the kitchen to tell Harlamov the news.
Omozolelov lay down on an old settee, which had a wooden back enriched by inlaid brass snakes in the grip of a Hercules with features resembling those of Field Marshal Kutuzov, Napoleon’s victor.
One corner of the room was screened of by a curtain: this was for changing your clothes, or performing other functions which are best veiled from the public gaze. A pre-revolutionary table, big enough to seat twenty, stood by the window.
‘I’d quite like to make some coffee,’ said Irene, and grew shy at the rapid glance thrown her way by Omozolelov.
‘Of course, do,’ he murmured.
‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Irene, hastily, and lit a small spirit-lamp.
Discomfited, D.P. stared out of the window: the street light was almost touching the glass, as if it had been placed there on purpose. Close by, the snow covered roof of a neighbouring house drew the warmth out of the room. Irene panicked when she saw that her guest’s attention was fixed on a small navy box with tiny perforations along its upper edge. The colour was so dark that the box appeared to be almost black.
However, she was wrong to worry, because her beloved was looking out of the window and not at the curious object. Nonchalantly, Irene threw a towel over the little black box, and carried it off to the hidden corner of the room.
D.P. felt the cold creeping up his legs from his sodden footwear. He unlaced his shoes and placed his feet on the floor, which turned out to be colder still. He climbed up on to the sofa, and tucked his legs under him.
‘Irene, it’s not very warm in your place,’ he said, gazing about him, teeth chattering.
‘Why, what is it,’ said Irene.
She unfolded a semi-decomposed cotton quilt and threw it over D.P. After a moment’s reflection, she covered him with his own overcoat, and a runner from the floor. Omozolelov sat in the dark, in a warm burrow, shivering. In despair, Irene added an old frock and a hat to his coverings. She tore the extensively moth-eaten lace curtains down from the window, and these too she flung over the freezing man.
‘Cold, fifteen… cold, sixteen!’ spoke Omozolelov from the depths.
Irene grew afraid: could he be dying? Should your beloved be dying, it is imperative to shepherd him out into the street, or at the very least, to the front door. Were little Dimitri to pass away in her room all kinds of endless complications might ensue.
‘Dimitri!’ said Irene into the heap of rags.
‘Eighteen!’ cried Omozolelov.
‘Quiet, Dimitri, Harlamov will hear. And Anna Ivanovna too, she has perfect hearing.’
‘Cold,’ came a voice from under the blanket.
Irene took off her dress, and threw it over him. She searched for the entrance to the burrow.
‘Twenty,’ croaked the man.
‘I’m here, Dimitri.’ Irene slithered like a snake towards him. He suddenly felt the warmth and softness of the belly pressed against him. He no longer shivered so violently. With amazement, he discovered that Irene’s breast was also warm, to say nothing of the little animal which arched its furry back at the root of her thighs.
‘Mousey,’ whispered Omozolelov, stroking it.
Irene gave a start and remained silent. This may seem strange for darkness encourages conversation, but, plainly, Irene had her reasons for keeping quite. Omozolelov said nothing further, because he had nothing further to say. He was half asleep.
A normal man should sleep lightly, and awaken at the slightest danger. For the slightest danger, remaining unperceived, soon becomes a big, even an enormous, one. Added to which, a man’s nervous system could be damaged were he to be aroused by danger out of a deep, healthy sleep. Deep sleep nurtures frightening dreams. Now, take note: a man has a nightmare, he opens his eyes with relief, and thinks that it was all a bad dream. Then he realizes that he is awake, and sees before him reality from which there can be no further awakening. Sweet sleep, it would appear, leads to disillusion, and from that point it’s but a short step to nihilism.
Knowing all that, D.P. fell asleep as if smothered. He did not respond to the caressings and pushings of Irene’s hand, and eventually, her foot. She grew uneasy, fearing that Omozolelov had died, but concluded that were that the case he would be growing colder, not warmer, by the minute. She dozed off. By his side, it was hot. Irene poked out a foot from beneath the downy rubble, or to be more exact, she exhibited her foot, so as to tempt Ukikov. He had been waiting a whole hour for a suitable moment.
The toes, misshapen by her shoes, could not seduce the neighbour. Neither could her deformed sole, or the instep covered by coarse hair. But the heel…! The little heel was perfection: tiny, round, as if carved out of ivory, but unlike ivory, soft and pink. When Fate dipped Irene in the waters of life, it had held her up by the heel.
Neighbour Ukikov crept up to this little heel, and kissed it. It immediately darted back under the blanket. Ukikov had to wait until the foot, peering round cautiously, crawled out again, into the cool night of the room.
Ukikov waved to Harlamov, who was standing in the doorway. Harlamov alerted Anna Ivanovna who, in her turn, informed Larissa Ilinichna, and awakened Dobrolubov.
Ukikov took hold of Irene’s foot, and jerked her out of the burrow.
Omozolelov sensed an empty space beside him, and resettled himself more comfortably.
At first, Irene did not understand what had happened. Recognizing Ukikov, she wanted to scream, but decided against it, because her mouth was stopped by the gag, which on the second of January, had been fashioned out of a waffle-weave towel. This towel, purchased out of voluntary contributions, had been designated community property.
They managed to drag Irene into the corridor with only minimal damage to her head against the doorstep. Harlamov then lifted her by the shoulders, but was forced to surrender her to the newly awakened Dobrolubov. Running, they carried Irene off to the kitchen, where the gas rings on the stove were burning brightly. The rings had been lit solely for heat, because, earlier that evening, the central heating radiators had been turned off, on account of the burst pipes.
Ukikov and Dobrolubov darted into the wall cupboard, situated rather inconveniently between the toilet and the bathroom. Harlamov’s wish not to be excluded made it something of a tight squeeze in there for the three of them.
The cupboard was called the cupboard of justice.
Last Wednesday the little Irene had been sentenced to a sojourn in the cupboard of justice, in order that this might triumph. The guilt of the malefactress was so plain that the pensioner Hliastikov all but died of indignation, a fact which only served to increase Irene’s culpability.
Thus, the seemingly rather audacious step taken by Ukikov and the others may be explained. As soon as Pavel Andreevitch had also entered the cupboard, it became difficult to accomplish any kind of movement at all. Ukikov, in attempting to push him out with his rear, dropped the guilty party, or rather, let go of her. Irene slithered down to their feet, where naturally it was easier to breathe. There’s always more room at the foot, as one who has spent his entire life sleeping on camp beds can testify.
Irene slid into the corridor and began to crawl towards her room. She would have reached it too, had she not been spotted by Givy, who was distinguished by a pathological indifference to the legalities. Givy apprehended the fugitive and decided not to take her back to the cupboard, but to accomplish everything on the spot, on the spur of the moment as it were.
Ukikov and Dobrolubov vanquished Harlamov and Pavel Andreevich. And no wonder: Harlamov was the only one who came any where near Ukikov in intelligence, Dobrolubov was patently superior to Pavel Andreevich.
Having seen off their stupid adversaries, Ukikov and Dobrolubov searched for the little Irene. She was not, it became apparent, in the cupboard. She was, in fact standing in the corridor listening not without a certain sympathy, to the outraged squawks of Pavel Andreevich. Ukikov grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her back to the cupboard so as to carry out the sentence.
‘What are you doing, Ukikov!’ squealed Irene with the voice of Larissa Illinitchna.
‘The gag!’ shouted Ukikov, marvelling at the cunning of the jade. The towel silenced her.
We should like to explain to the foreigner why the gag is so effective. The point is that a surplus of cloth or wadding in the mouth, immediately paralyses the tongue, cuts off the air supply, and rubs against the vocal cords. The larynx can emit a sound, in other words, you can hear an interior voice. This artificial pressure on the cords occasions a fairly loud, but in some circumstances, totally inadequate, mooing sound. And it’s only fair to say that this mooing lacks that resonance and power, which impresses itself so agreeably upon audiences in opera houses.
Ukikov and Dobrolubov shut themselves up with Irene in the cupboard of justice, as we have known it since childhood.
They left it at dawn, carrying a long heavy object wrapped in a rough blanket, and took this mysterious thing off to the kitchen.
Let the heavens fall, but justice will be done!

Before daybreak, Irene returned to her room. She managed to lock the door, and then suddenly sank to the floor, shivering with cold.
She tried to say ‘Dimitri!’, but nothing happened because her mouth was gagged. Are you familiar with the workings of the gag? Well, you see… but hasn’t this question already been dealt with? A moment’s thought…
…Yes, as it happens, we have discussed it.
Irene, snake-like, crawled up to the divan and squeezed herself, writhing, into the burrow of the over-heated Omozolelov. She wondered if she mightn’t be dying, because her hands and feet were cooling more and more. Her death could lead to dreadful consequences, since Omozolelov was registered in quite a different house, and his presence here could not be justified in any way. He would convicted and she evicted.
‘Little Dimitri!’ she tried, but failed, to say. With her numbed hand, she located the foreign object in her mouth, and pulled it out.
‘Dimitri!’ she whispered, and came to the conclusion that, since she appeared to be capable of speech, she was not as yet dead.
Moreover, the name which she had pronounced dispelled the cold, and she even felt warmer. She pressed herself against Omozolelov, and he, muttering ‘Forty-seven’, embraced her.
‘Dimitri, it’s time for you to go,’ Irene said, softly.
‘Fifty-three,’ announced D.P. ‘Why did I say that number?’ he thought in his sleep, and began to wake up. ‘Fifty-three!’ someone yelled in his right ear.
‘Get up, fifty-three!’ said Claudia’s voice.
And it really was not eleven, not seventeen, not forty – dammit – eight, but exactly fifty-three. It goes without saying that D.P. Omozolelov instantly woke up.
‘Dimitri, you must go,’ said the woman. She was warm now, but still a little apprehensive in case she should die suddenly, in D.P.’s presence.
This was the very time to leave, any child would have known that. Dawn had crept into the right-hand side of the window, the left-hand side having had a plywood sheet fitted in place of the broken pane of glass. D.P. leapt to his feet and, urgently, like a soldier, tore into his clothes.
Thus transformed, he fled silently to the door, and slipped through the hallway onto the landing. The extent of his skill in this was measured by Claudia who stood watch behind the staircase.

Had Omozolelov walked briskly ahead, along the alley and across the square, he would have come to his place of work. And had he looked back, he would have seen something of importance which it would have been as well to have anticipated and, if possible, forestalled. But he did not look back, and we shall do so either: we are too frightened for Dimitri Petrovitch.
He hurried home to his quarters – he could not remember whether he had locked the door of his room or not. But, to all intents and purposes, this has ceased to be of any significance, since whether the door of your room, or even that of your apartment, is locked, has long since become immaterial. In any case, honest folk have nothing to fear should their rooms remain unlocked, let alone, if they have, in fact, been secured. So why, then, did D.P. go home? After all, it was surely not to verify whether he had indeed locked his door or not – that has no importance. On the contrary, a locked door can elicit displeasure in those who, quite naturally, wish to enter a room. A locked door can in some, or rather, in all, circumstances arouse sentiments of revenge, which do not disappear even when the door opens quite easily, which, as a matter of course, it always does. No, that was not why Omozolelov dashed home. The alert reader will have, by now, understood the reason, and the scatter-brained will soon learn it from us, although we find it embarrassing to have to explain the patently obvious. Truly, one is beside oneself when one thinks how much paper has been wasted in the past just to clarify the obvious. And these days too, what quantities are wasted! One would have thought that obvious things would become more obvious still, after having been elucidated, but a paradox lies hidden here: can the patently obvious become more obvious, the definitive more definite, the absolute more absolute? Clearly, the obvious, whether you explain it or not, does not become more obvious.
In our case the obvious lies in the reason why Omozolelov, instead of taking a walk in the fresh air, chose to hurry home. It’s obvious why he did not go to work: it was five o’clock in the morning. And now we’ll explain why he went home and nowhere else, although it is a trifle awkward to have to do so. Will we not be offending the astute reader by these excessive indications, as if we did not trust in his intelligence, or as we say – or indeed even write – nowadays, his intellectuals capacities?!
Well, leaving that aside, Omozolelov hurried home to change his clothes.
‘What?’ millions will ask us, ‘Did he have two coats ?’ No, naturally, he only had one. ‘How about suits?’ One. ‘Shoes, then. He surely didn’t go out in his stockinged feet?’ He had one pair of shoes, and one pair of socks. ‘So what was there to change, and for what reason? Was he a corps perhaps?’ and only the attentive reader will remember: shoelaces! Omozolelov’s shoelaces were broken. That is what he decided to change – or rather to mend, because he only had one pair of shoelaces.
He entered the flat, (a fact which was not hidden from Ivan Sergeevitch), went into his room, (‘So!’ whispered Dobrolubov), and made his way to the sofa. The sofa was not there because it had been replaced by a table. D.P. was perplexed by this rearrangement. He tried to remember if he had moved the furniture around the day before, for some reason or other. He could bring to mind neither a reason, nor even an intention: there probably, had not been one, since the table had ended up in a dark corner, and the sofa under the draughty window. To begin with, Omozolelov doubted that he really had moved the furniture around, but the rearrangement was there before his eyes. And then he realized that this was how the table and sofa had always stood, and that any other positioning of these items of furniture arose out of alien images which had, in his memory, distorted the real location of things.
He stole into the kitchen, and took the shopping bag from outside the window. His hope for a tasty breakfast soon dwindled. The sausage and the butter, saved from the evening before, had disappeared overnight. There was no cheese in the bag, either. All that remained was a little tin of… what exactly? He could not remember. Sprats, possibly, or most likely of all, whale meat with peas. He wavered: it might be pilchards, or even sausage meat, if not herrings in wine sauce. Oh, how exquisite, those herrings! Neat little fillets, smooth and tender, without a single bone. Actually, a good salted herring is equal to one in a wine sauce any day. There’s one brand, for instance: evenly salted, on the mild, rather that the strong, side, oily, juicy when you cut into it … Pile it onto your plate, foreigner, and we’ll read a fresh newspaper, the while.
‘Fish cakes!’ D.P. recollected. He looked at his watch, and realized, instantly, that he was late for work. The sound of his running footsteps along the corridor disturbed Angelina Sergeevna. Banging on the central heating pipes with a fork, she asked Dobrolubov what the matter was. The answering signal came: time for work.
Everybody began to run, as if war had been declared. Omozolelov raced along, trying his shoelaces as he went. Ivan Sergeevitch and Elisabeth trotted by, as did the rest of the neighbours, in a tight little knot. Even Hliastikov, the pensioner, broke into run, tapping his skinny little feet, with the sound of hoof-beats. He was hurrying to the shop: during the night he had spotted a nice leg of lamb in the window, and was afraid lest gourmets should get there first.

Omozolelov’s colleagues noticed with irritation that he had arrived on time. The real reason of such unusual behaviour, had one existed, would have made Pavel Andreevich uneasy. The actions of D.P. and of the little Elisabeth were explained by the events of the day. They had clearly been aware of the changes in store, and had, therefore, come to work early.
No changes took place before lunch. Let us describe the usual course of the day, because after lunch it receded into history, and no longer belongs to the likes if us.
Behind the cupboard, where Omozolelov had been transferred at his own request, and in dangerous proximity to it, it was dark and damp. After five years of employment he heard learnt his work so well that he could now manage his given dark in complete darkness. Without looking, D.P. took the raw material – a little beaker made of waxed paper – and stood it upside down inside the white painted square on the floor. After which he a second thing and put it next to the first, so that they should be not too close and yet not too far from each other. He took a third beaker and placed it a little apart from the others. A triangle was thus obtained, which was easily turned into a rectangle by the addition of a fourth paper cup. The fifth, sixth, and even seventh, cup, were positioned with exceptional speed, which could not be said the eighth, ninth, tenth thin gummy, let alone the eleventh, but then with the twelfth and thirteenth he got his second wind, and this took him up to the twenty-first. The preparatory stage of the operation was, in this way, completed. Now came the most difficult and responsible part, on which so many novices, in spite of being well meaning and not at all stupid, come a cropper.
D.P. took aim and deftly placed his heel on the thing nearest to the centre of the square. A light report! – and the completed item came into being: a splendid flat round of waxed paper of a slightly creamy colour. Omozolelov placed the finished product in the box for finished products.
Lost in thought, he sometimes exceeded his norm: the understandable hostility of his workmates swelled and grew like a cactus.
As luck would have it, Omozolelov achieved his full day’s quota before lunch, oblivious of the withering glances of Givy, and the contemptuous snorts of Dobrolubov. Fortunately, a late return from the lunch-break, and the unexpected changes which took place, spared Omozolelov the reckoning which was near at hand.
The arrival of the director accompanied by engineering and secretaries, prompted a spate of genuine activity. But the information that the director had to impart was of a nature that no human mind could encompass. The little Elisabeth babbled something quite out of place. Pavel Andreevitch went scarlet and feigned an attack of asthma. Dobrolubov stayed firm. Omozolelov showed no feelings of any kind, and met with approval. Ivan Sergeevich whispered out loud some French saying and found that a note had been made of his name. The director announced that within the department there would be, this very minute, a reform. Angelina Sergeevna let out an ear-splitting, ill-considered, shriek, and was instantaneously removed.
The director informed them that the manufacture of the previous product would cease. The department would familiarized itself with a new form of production. The granite Dobrolubov went soft and black like a mushroom which has remained too long in the ground.
The new manufacture§ said a deputy director, continuing the director’s train of thought, was of the utmost importance; they were waiting upon it.
The chief engineer came to grips with the matter just as soon the director, the deputy directors, the secretaries, not to mention the lift operators and the red cross staff, had left the room. The thief engineer inserted two fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. A nice little trolley was trundled into the room, loaded with sheets of stiff green paper. The sheets of paper were lined. An expert took out a pair of long narrow scissors, and cut a sheet of paper into immaculate strips, and handed them round to the workers in the department – one strip each, so that they could compare their own efforts with the sample.
The chief engineer, his deputies, ordinary engineers, experts and lift operators, red cross staff and anonymous gentlemen in business suits, all went out. The little Elisabeth burst into sobs. The others maintained a dejected silence.
‘It’s quite clear, comrades, let’s get to work,’ said Omozolelov unwisely. They looked at him with hatred which quickly turned into suspicion: today he had come to work on time, there must be a connection with the drastic changes which had taken place. That Elisabeth, too, had arrived early somehow slipped their minds. It’s difficult to see a malicious intent in this, that is how people are made: if they wish to fly they will see the wings at their backs, if they do not wish to fly they will deny their existence.

Omozolelov was already a long way off. He was walking along the bustling evening street.
A normal man will accomplish the journey from the institution where Omozolelov worked, to the street along which he was now making his progress, in the space of one hour. He took, if we are to be as always precise, fifty-five minutes. He spent a quarter of an hour in the purchase of a newspaper, its subsequent misplacement, and in a fruitless search for the same.
Then he thought, should he not, perhaps, buy an illustrated magazine? He made his decision. He joined the queue. At the end of thirty minutes, doubt assailed him: was he in the right line, or was he standing there by fault?
‘What have they got, comrades?’ he enquired in a loud voice. The millions gazed at him with such wonder that D.P. might just as well have spread a three rouble bill (about three dollars) with jam, and swallowed it whole. He was puzzled by this amazement, whilst the millions were positively flabbergasted by his puzzlement. He would have liked to have heightened the degree of his surprise, but thought better of it, in as much as undisguised astonishment leads, as a rule, to the rough justice of the lynch mob. Of course, there are no rules without exceptions, but D.P. had no wish to speed matters along.
He reserved himself a place behind a lady in a black hat, and went off in search of the head of the queue. He walked the length of the street, and turned right into an alley. The breathing of the head was as yet not audible. No one moved, all were standing.
At the same time, the queue turned into an opening. Conditions became so cramped that D.P. had difficulty in squeezing himself into the crowd. He managed to deflect suspicious inquiries, as to why he wished to pass out of turn, by lying that he had been queuing up since six o’clock that morning.
Through the other side of the opening, the queue widened and turned to the right. D.P. also turned to the right. It became necessary to turn once more. A lady’s black hat, which Omozolelov seemed to recognize, hove into view. Larissa Illinitchna peered out and, totally incomprehensively, Dobrolubov appeared.
Omozolelov hurried up the street, along the side of the queue, which turned right round a corner into an alley, where it turned again, and disappeared through an opening.
Omozolelov, the consumer, pondered, and arrived at the conclusion that it was unlikely that they were all queuing for magazines, however well illustrated. It became clear that he had no business here.
He continued straight ahead, and entered an insignificant side street. There was no one coming towards him. Perhaps, there was somebody behind him, but Omozolelov did not look round. And quite rightly. There is that which is disagreeable about an honest man looking over his shoulder, as if he’s afraid of something, as if he’s secreting something in his bosom, under his mantle of skin, there where… but let us not be tactless.
A thousand times no! An honest man will never look back, even if he hears footsteps behind him. Or the hiss of motor car tyres.
Or a shrill whistle of a locomotive.
Omozolelov paused before the window of a small shop. A splendid lock hung on the door, whilst inside it was almost dark because the lamps which lit the displayed wares were all beamed at the long counter.
It is hard for an ignorant man to recognize objects in a shop window. Gardening implements perhaps, they could have been. Or possibly fishing tackle, but then why the display of bundles of spokes from, more likely than not, bicycle wheels?
Why go on guessing when Omozolelov paid no attention to this merchandise? His eyes were riveted by a small square box, dark blue in colour, a deep blue-black. In its lid were small perforations. They formed a shape: a modestly sized circle, measuring the same as the cardboard round which Hliastikoff… sorry, Hliastikov had at one time cut out.
It seemed to Omozolelov that he had met its like before. Yes, fate kept throwing that little box across his path, but he could not remember where exactly or whether the colour had been exactly the same. Possibly the shape, too, could have been the tiniest bit different, oval even.
He came to the conclusion that Ukikov or Dobrolubov was mixed up in the business. An affair which, in the first place, had nothing to do with either of them, but more to do with the little Elisabeth, or if the worst came to the worst, with Larissa Illinitchna.
D.P. gazed into the depths of the premises, and saw, or to be exact, thought that he saw, a white face glimmer and vanish in the half light. He had time to catch a grimace of hate, but could not decide whether this was really the way that someone had looked at him, or whether he had seen a different expression – one of love, say. Of one thing Omozolelov was absolutely convinced: the face belonged to a representative of the white race, since it would have been unlikely that he could have glimpsed a Negro in such dark surrounding.

Having scrupulously locked the door, Omozolelov D.P. took a roll of paper out from beneath the sofa, and smoothed it out on the table. He saw that there were also four drawing pins under the sofa, and resolved to secure the sheet, but while he was feeling for the pins, the rolled itself up again into a tube. He spread it out once more, and fell upon the table breast first. Unfortunately he brushed the drawing pins off with his sleeve.
He pondered on how difficult it was to live alone. Had he not been so solitary, somebody would picked up the pins – the first, the second, and the remaining ones – and handed them to him. Maybe they would have brought him all four pins at once! Or four drawing pins and then a fifth. But he had no need of the fifth. It would have been a different matter had the second or, for instance, the third pin been damaged.
Omozolelov retrieved the drawing pins and took a different course. First, he pinned the top right hand corner, and then, unrolling the paper, unexpectedly drove a pin in with such accuracy, that the left hand corner too was secured. He was half way there. He fixed the bottom corners and would have liked to have put a drawing pin through the middle of each side, but as there were no more pins he decided against it.
He fished around under the sofa and pulled out a case of drawing instruments.
This had been given to him by Rita, who had blessed Dimitri Petrovitch with other things as well. The instruments had been presented to Rita by a drunken engineer, beset by sentimental recollections, while on night duty on the boulevard. The case was of rear beauty. The engineer had picked it up in the street whilst marching in a column during May Day demonstration. It had been lost by Harlamoff… sorry, Harlamov. The latter had not been unduly sorry since he had hardly any need of the instruments and, having found them free of charge in the kitchen, had not had to pay a penny kopeck piece for them. Omozolelov had forgotten the set that very same day on the kitchen table, and been unable to find it again. D.P. had been so upset that he only dreamed of saving enough money to buy another case. And then, on an impulse of tenderness, Rita had made him a present of these instruments. Oh, how a woman is renewed and made more lovely by such impulses!
Omozolelov opened the case of drawing instruments, and took out a key. The little lock, fitted into the table, – if we are to speak freely, avoiding suppression and tedious mysteries – locked absolutely nothing at all, since the table was a dining table and bereft of drawers, or even of anything approaching them. Omozolelov D.P. clicked the little lock open and shut, and assured himself of its perfect working. How pleasant to engage and disengaged your own little lock! Under other circumstances, and in another epoch, he could have locked something away.
Without further ado, he picked a pair of compasses off the window sill and approached the table.
Before him was spread the cleverly pinned map of the world.
Opening the compasses just a little he measured the distance between his native town and the town of Samara. It turned out that there were eleven segments. But he only had to increase the space between its slender steel legs, and the compass took just eight steps to reach Samara and fourteen to reach Karaganda.
Well done, Omozolelov!

If you open the compass to twice its original span, then the distance to the town of Chita is also fourteen segments. One must assume that fourteen equals fourteen, anyway in this case. It follows, therefore, that the distance to Chita and to Karaganda is the same. But if you apply the measure to the Siberian town of Krasnoyarsk, it will turn out to be the same as the distance to Warsaw. There is a different distance to London. It is equal to two distances to the polar Norilsk, and three to the town of the Latin name Magadan, the capital of the dead. Actually D.P. only measured the distance to London one little time, before realizing that he had committed an indiscretion. Harlamov, who chose that moment to rush into the room, and straight out again, probably noticed it.
An indiscretion perceived becomes effrontery. Effrontery, should it be set down on paper in the vigorous handwriting of the pensioner Hliastikov, takes on the colour of villainy, and in certain circumstances turns into crime.
Another thing – the distance, for example, to the town of Peking. The distance between Moscow and Peking measures one segment, and only sometimes two. Speaking in moral terms the space between the capital cities is a good one, nay, paradisiacal. We will not go so far as to state, of course, that Muscovites live in Peking – that would be stretching it, but if we are to be truthful, the distance between here and Peking does not exist.
Opening the compass half way, Omozolelov traced eleven segments to the town of Smolensk. He must have pressed down too hard on the compass. Or perhaps he positioned its leg with insufficient care, forgetting to allow for the weight of the marvellous instrument. Sadly, the point of the compass went through the town of Smolensk. Went through with the light, but unmistakable, sound of a prick. Its consequences would not delay.



[1] The name alludes to omozolelost’, callosity.

The Second Half

[‘Bestseller’, or “Omozolelov’s passions”]

‘Dimitri Petrovitch!’ someone hailed him, early in the morning, when having narrowly missed banging Dobrolubov with the door, he rushed out into the street.
He looked round and saw Dobrolubov hurrying towards him.
‘Good morning,’ said Omozolelov.
‘That’s just what I was about to say, good morning, and you’ve already said it!’
‘Where are you off to?’
‘Me?’ marvelled Dobrolubov, ‘Oh! Well Elisabeth the Little and I might go to the museum. And you?’
‘Ah, well I… yes…’
‘Yes, yes,’ agreed Dobrolubov, and ran off to the trolley bus stop.
Omozolelov went on foot to the side-street where, the day before, he had noticed the little shop. Had he driven – in a taxi, say – he would not have been able to find the place6 to the right of the wide street, through the courtyard and on the left. The pedestrian might well not be able to identify streets from the windows of buses or cars – landscapes are quite unrecognisable, especially if viewed perched above or behind a wheel.
He went out on to the boulevard, and suddenly realized: yesterday the boulevard had not existed.
Pavel Andreevich and Claudia were sitting on a bench. On seeing Omozolelov, Pavel Andreevich quickly closed his brief-case, but then, seemingly ashamed of his cowardice, not only opened it again, but called out:
‘Dimitri Petrovich,’ and made an expansive welcoming gesture with his hand;
He came up to them. He understood at once that he had made an error: it was not Claudia sitting with the man, it was not even the little Elisabeth – Angelina Sergeevna sat side by side with Pavel Andreevich.
‘Have a look, comrade Omozolelov,’ said the latter. Omozolelov peered into the brief-case. It was empty.
‘Excuse me, I’m in a rush,’ he said. And he clambered over the boulevard railings, at the exact spot where, three years before, a big lilac tree had been planted, and had, alas, withered rapidly away.
Hard though he was hurrying, he saw Harlamov swiftly overtake him, and dart into a chemists.
It came to D.P. that he had been diverted from his path, and he therefore continued straight ahead. But this is not always the out of a rising, not to speak of an already risen, predicament. Omozolelov came to an immediate halt, and barely had time to cross a small courtyard before coming face to face with a high brick wall.

Low clouds obscured the top, although it was possible to see that exceedingly prickly barbed wire was strung across the iron bars which jutted out of the brickwork. Here and there, caught on the wire, were hanging torn shirts, a jacket, and even, slightly to the side, an overcoat, rotted, regrettably, almost away.
There were no windows in the wall, no doors, not even a hint, however oblique, of a door or a window.
Omozolelov D.P. saw at the base of the wall a small bench, and sat down to rest himself. He looked down, almost at his feet lay a heap of interesting rubbish. Here was a derelict armchair, the rusted carcass of a lampshade with the well preserved tatters of a pink fabric, which had almost lost its colour, clinging to it, an old-fashion umbrella sporting a heavy handle, and other junk – the beauty and variety of the forms it contained were beyond description.
He examined the rubbish and thought: could it be that these things were really of no further use?
Turn away, Dimitri Petrovich! Stop inventing! These things are useless – nay, dangerous – you know that as well as we do, you know it better. We shall stop you, we, thank God, are not butchers.
Stop, Omozolelov!
But D.P. had already seated himself in the old wing chair.

The chair was standing on an open veranda, from which you could see a bed filled with flowering asters. The cool of the evening had sharpened the outlines of the crowns of the lime trees and lilacs.
Dimitri Petrovich felt snug: a downy scarf covered his shoulders. He was resting. In his thoughts he wandered the paths of the garden: the fallen leaves, yellow, red, and brown, brought him warm and peace. Below, far below, deep in the ravine, a river ran, blue-black in the evening light. On the river with its black water, floated the deep yellow oval of the reflected sun. Dimitri Petrovich glanced up at the sky: there, high above, reposed the moon. Slowly the evening crept up onto the veranda.
He rose, and without letting go of the chair, switched on the light.
The glorious orange lampshade transformed the glow of the not very bright lamp: the corners of the veranda grew cosy and warm. Hearing footsteps, he smiled and leant with his hands against the back of the chair.
Swinging an umbrella, a young girl was walking along the path towards the house. Dimitri Petrovich had been waiting for her a long time – all day. That morning, too, he had waited for her, when having drunk her fill of cold milk, she had gone headlong along the garden path, towards the bus stop. In the morning she had cried out:
‘See you later!’
Dimitri Petrovich had begun his vigil. And now he heard the steps, the rapid steps of youthful feet, sun-burnt… were they sun-burnt? Oh, sun-burnt feet!
‘Good evening, papa!’ the girl says. Brushes his shoulder with her cheek. He kisses her on the head, catching her hair with his dry lips. He whispers:
‘Hallo, Marina.’
‘Wait a minute, I’ll hang up my umbrella.’
‘Your umbrella?’
‘Yes, this one. It’s torn as a matter of fact. It’s a bit heavy, you see Papa. If you don’t mind, I’ll…’
‘Marina, you…’
‘Papa.’
‘Marina, the fate of the umbrella… it’s roundabout, in a manner of speaking, indirect… Who is that coming, Marina?’
‘There’s no one there, Papa.’
It was us. We were walking up the path to the veranda, in order to take Dimitri Petrovich by the hand and lead him away. We were about to demolish the false situation into which he had fallen.
‘Can’t you see? Ask him not to come up onto the veranda.’
‘But… Papa!’
‘No – don’t let him up. I beg you, Marina.’
We won’t go up onto the veranda, Dimitri Petrovich. We’ll breath the cool air in the garden, where our footsteps are all but silent on the fallen leaves.
‘And the lampshade, Papa! Glass is in fashion now.’
‘No, we must have the lampshade. Without it…? No, Marina.’
‘Look Papa, the white asters are shining in the darkness. But we’ll throw out the umbrella and the lampshade, won’t we…’
‘And old thing, Marina…’
‘Old! Junk!’
Dimitri Petrovich went into the house. He put the kettle on the kerosene stove, and began to prepare sandwiches. The knife slipped. The knife slid, clumsily somehow, across the forearm.
The knife was too sharp for kitchen matters. It clamed new sensations.
‘Marina!’ Dimitri Petrovich shouted.
‘Oh, Papa, oh!’
He went to bed with a bandaged arm. Already ready for sleep, he attempted to read two or three pages of a novel, the name of which ha had long ago forgotten. At the end of eleven lines, he became sleepy and put out the light.
We bent over the slumbering man, and said, gently.
‘We thought to take you away, Dimitri Petrovich.’
‘It’s late,’ he mumbled.
It’s not easy for us to go on. But we must speak. We must, of course, be brave, but it’s hard. We peer into the gloom, and discern, with difficulty, the silhouette of the slumberer. He won’t hear us, so we’ll tell ourselves instead of telling him.
We peer into the gloom, and see nothing, but speak in a voice so distorted as to be virtually unrecognisable, squeezing it out with our hands at our throat.
It’s because we have given no word picture of Marina.

Dimitri Petrovich dreamed a dream. He was sitting on a bench, at the base of an unfamiliar brick wall. The sun shone on him. His hands rested in the lap. He gazed straight ahead. His hat, fallen from his head, lay on the ground.
Harlamov glanced into the courtyard and vanished again. Dobrolubov glanced in, and forbore to hide himself. He even entered the courtyard, and behind him, as if they were late for an appointment, ran Ukikov and Elisabeth the Little. At their backs appeared Pavel Andreevich and, only later, Givy and Claudia.
Harlamov, the scout, strolled in with an air of nonchalance.
‘Harlamov,’ Omozolelov said.
‘He said: Ukikov,’ proclaimed Larissa Ilinichna.
‘Did you go to the museum, comrade Dobrolubov?’ asked D.P., boldly.
They all grew agitated.
‘Harlamov went to the museum, not Dobrolubov,’ countered Ukikov, and added a whispered command. The chain of colleagues closed up, and covered the only way out of the courtyard. Behind Omozolelov rose a magnificent brick wall. He was forced to resolve an important tactical question. This he had almost done when, suddenly, in Larissa Ilinichna he recognized Irene, and grew confused. As a matter of fact she was the weak link in the advancing chain. What is more, the little Irene herself, had a weak spot.
Omozolelov rose, put his hat on his head, and advanced upon them. He badly wanted to lay back his ears, and switch his tail, but unfortunately had no tail to switch.
Ukikov and Dobrolubov took one pace forward in his direction.
Omozolelov’s first action was to take his last five rouble bill from his pocket, and tear it into shreds. Givy lost consciousness and crashed to the ground.
The second blow delivered by D.P. came with the speed of lightning.
‘Your opinions, Ivan Sergeevich, have been noted down on paper by Hliastikov.’
Ivan Sergeevich would have fallen, but that fool Dobrolubov caught him, and shielded D.P. from Ukikov, buffoon that he was.
Omozolelov leapt like a young elk. One or two among them, flung themselves in pursuit, but he dashed into a moving bus and, turning for an instant, kicked Ukikov in the stomach. The doors closed with a bang.

Well, Omozolelov saw at once that on his tiny kitchen table there was an envelope. D.P. surmised that Dobrolubov had decided on a fresh tactic. There was no knowing what the envelope might contain, it could even be an ultimatum. By destroying the envelope without further delay, D.P. could deflect that same ultimatum, and in consequence, whatever the circumstances – each and every one familiar to any reasonable man – consign himself to ignorance.
Dobrolubov watched him through the half opened door.
Omozolelov took the envelope and prepared to unseal it. As it happened, the letter already was unsealed. Apparently it had already been perused, and not just the one time, judging by the way the was completely worn at the folds. The letter had not only been read, but probably, committed to memory and copied. Most likely, the original had been confiscated, and a copy had been inserted into the envelope: he recognized the hand of Hliastikov or, perhaps, Hliastikoff. The note ‘item 48’ had clearly been made by Ukikov.

‘Good day, Arthur Vasilevich!’, D.P. read.
‘On the 8th of June we had a curious happening take place in Smolensk. Nosodeva, the neighbour of Gebelson the prosecutor, went to market to see what there was available. Noting that there was nothing to buy for dinner, she purchased a broom and a loofah. According to her, she then remembered that she already had a broom, and tried and tried to sell the one that she had newly acquired to Panfilow, the investigator, but he refused to buy it, and instead offered to take the loofah of her hands. However Rosodeva decided to keep it for herself as her old, but nevertheless perfectly serviceable, loofah had been removed by her neighbour, investigator Y.
‘Nosodeva prepared to go home, to eat whatever there was to eat, and then to spend some time standing in line. at this moment a spear began to fall from the sky. It was too large not to be noticeable. What is more, the very sky appeared to be pierced. Everyone stopped, as if war had been declared, although it was only the 8th of June. Investigators Hundov, Harlamov and Powderson dropped their mugs in their astonishment, and the beer, regrettably, was spilled. Further, the mugs themselves would have been smashed had they not landed on Bloodovski who was lying asleep on the wooden slats. But that is not the point.
‘The spear having pierced the sky, at one point only for some reason, skewered a cloud, and dragged it towards the earth, which was why everyone seemed to have gone blind. The fog lifted sooner than expected. They all saw that the spear had disappeared, leaving a gap in the sky. During the time of the fog, investigator Panfilow lost his shoes and his briefcase, filled with costly produce. On the ground lay Rosodeva, fatally wounded from head to toe. She had to be taken to the hospital where (since all the beds, of which there were many, seemed to be filled) she was placed on a folding cot.
‘For reasons unknown, she did not die. She even recovered and went off to work, in spite of the pension which had been – if at all possible – promised to her. Soon Kosodeva gave birth to a daughter. A fine child. Black eyes like coal or, to be precise, dark brown. From time to time they shave her small scalp’.
All the best, comrades.
Mimasow (Head Psychiatrist)’
‘The little girl has been called Natasha, although Pauline would have been a more suitable name. Dobrolubov came to see us, and ask me to say that he blames no one.’

Omozolelov sensed that someone was breathing into his ear. He turned round. Licking his chapped lips, Givy was reading to the end of the letter. Their eyes met, and then gazed at each other for a long moment, for such a long moment in fact, that Omozolelov had time to put a kettle on to boil, and sauté a potato croquette.
Only then did he understand why his neighbour’s eyes appeared to be milky white in colour. Ripples spread along the thin film which covered the eyeballs as if on water beneath gusts of wind. And it was not to be wondered at: the eyes were teeming with white maggots.


That evening, Ukikov came smiling into Omozolelov’s room. His smile vanished instantly, as if erased by a damp sponge: D.P. was not in the room! Ukikov rushed to Dobrolubov; the last-named knocked on P. Andreevich’s door. His comrade-in-arms awakened Larissa I. and Elisabeth the Little. She banged on the central heating pipes, and Harlamov immediately appeared in the kitchen. Even Givy, the last person to have seen him, could not explain D.P.’s disappearance.
It was established that Claudia had popped out of the hall for a few minutes. Omozolelov must have left the apartment during that time. Clearly Elisabeth must have made a deal with the renegade. However she tried to exonerate herself, her excuses sounded naïve, to put it mildly, and satisfied no one. She had absented herself – absurd though it is to have to say it, and sillier still to hear it told – in answer to a call of nature. This criminal carelessness masquerading as one of nature’s needs, matured into treachery. The little Elisabeth screamed and scratched with her nails, but she was installed without delay in the cupboard of justice.
Yes, she had drunk not two cups of tea, as was her wont, but six, which was extremely unlike her. D.P. had slipped away.
He understood the full gravity of the ultimatum. He could have done, truth be told, with some advice, but was not going to seek from us. It was, of course, the encounter with Marina which had complicated matters. An encounter which we had not been able to avert.
And now Omozolelov D.P. was riding in the trolley bus along the boulevard.
He gazed with a curious feeling of pleasure at the slender legs of the girl sitting opposite. He raised his eyes and saw, on the polished knees, an object which he seemed to recognize. The girl was sitting up very straight, and held on her knees a rectangular box, black in colour. The lid of the box was sprinkled with tiny perforations.
‘What’s that?’ asked Omozolelov.
‘Musquash,’ replied the girl politely, stroking the tip of her fur collar.
‘A very beautiful fur,’ he agreed. ‘And what’s that?’ He stretched out his hand towards the little box.
The girl’s behaviour was strange. She blushed and made for the exit. Her travelling companion leapt after her, but was too late: the doors banged shut. He spun round. Almost everyone of the women, and even one of the men, was holding a little black box. Or rather, three of the women were in possession of these objects, and – if we are to be truthful – one lady passenger was travelling with a similar box, tied round and round with twine.
Omozolelov understood: it was stupid to enquire about things which had entered common usage. To show an interest in the meaning of the box, or in heavy rope of a certain length, or in a sharpened knitting needle, made him look insane or foreign in the eyes of the fleeing girl, or of Givy, or that self-same Irene.
No wonder Omozolelov had a need to consult Marina. Or at least, to talk to her. To hear just two or three words, or perhaps even a sentence. To see her! If not close up, then from afar, if not in flesh, then at least in his mind.

The old wing chair stood on the boulevard in a snow-bound cul-de-sac. Omozolelov grew uneasy, sensing that a meeting in the open would be dangerous: they could identify him, and more. Actually the meeting was dangerous not so much in itself, but in the consequences. Obviously, if the consequences of a meeting are undesirable, then one can affirm that the meeting itself is not exactly harmless, specifically as the source of fearful consequences.
‘Dimitri Petrovich!’ we shouted, climbing over the boulevard railings. Unfortunately we caught our britches on a piece of ornamental iron work, while he flung himself full-tilt into the chair, virtually vaulted into it, having executed a neat turn in mid air.
Removing his hat, he placed it on the damp and fallen leaves. He sat in front of the bed filled with white asters: the petals, bitten by the frost were covered by little black spots.
Looking round, he saw that in seven days important changes had taken place. The house had gone. In its place were the remains of the brick foundations, overgrown with weeds. And this was not all. The river had gone, there were no longer any trees, or even shrubs. An area of mown grass stretched before him: yellow stubble in the grip of decay.
He sat in the middle of the dead lawn in the old wing chair, facing the flowerbed filled with dying asters. He asked himself whether it was possible that the past should truly perish, and gave himself no answer. He sat bolt upright, hands on knees, and gazed far into the distance to where, on the horizon, mighty clouds were gathering. If asked, D.P. would have, at first, been unable to say which direction was north, which south, which east and which – dammit – was west. Luckily no one, not even he himself, asked him anything at all.
The dot grew larger. D.P. would have liked to raise himself a little, in order to see better, but to abandon the chair was risky. As it was, all soon became clear: someone was walking, or, so it appeared, even running towards him. He worried lest this person should fall and break a leg or hip. To walk with a broken leg was difficult, to run almost impossible.
The figure was making its way towards Omozolelov D.P. it made better progress than the clouds which were sinking lower and lower, and already crept along the ground.
To the right of him, D.P. saw Harlamov, climbing into his overcoat. His neighbour also picked up the hat and handed it to Dobrolubov, who had jumped out from behind the chair. They ran off to meet the advancing figure, which it was now entirely possible to recognize as that of a woman. Omozolelov watched: they the person by the arms and led her off into a thick rust coloured cloud. He leapt up out of the chair, and rushed after them, but Ukikov gave him a blow in the back.
D.P. fell face down into a drift of snow. Ukikov jumped on to his back, pulling out a towel. We lunged, hitting Ukikov with a piece of iron. He ran at us. We hit him again, one must assume on the head. The neighbour uttered a profanity.
D.P. ran along the boulevard, hatless, clad only in his jacket, brandishing a pencil – on other occasions, this is the way that a youthful investigator might run, having just signed his first ever death warrant.
Never mind, it will all shake down in the end.

The second coming of the director seemed, to Pavel Andreevich and Dobrolubov, like a hallucination.
The others saw it as the realization of far reaching intentions. Omozolelov invested it with no particular significance – or rather, he did not immediately realize the importance of the event.
The manufacture of the strips was being abolished. The director had come to sow the seeds of something entirely new and complicated. To Larissa Illinichna, the explanation given by the chief expert sounded like a terrifying fairy tale, or like the dreadful truth, which are often – in fact almost always – one and the same.
That which henceforth would provide the raw material, presented itself as a black cardboard rectangle. The proposal was to apply a length of faceted steel piping, and to bang this on the head with a hammer. The blow resulted in a marvellous hole.
They were required to make fifty three of these holes, which then, taken altogether, had to form a design: a circle intersected by diameters.
Particularly stringent rules were applied to the distance between the holes, equal to one seventh of a match stick or small pencil. The design, the director warned, had to be positioned exactly in the centre of the piece of cardboard, or at any rate, a fraction to the left, or maybe to the right, of centre. It was advisable to have a pair of compasses in order to trace the circumference before drilling the holes.
‘I have a pair.’ Said Omozolelov, evenly.
Givy turned milky white eyes in his direction. D.P. noticed that the eyes were no longer seething, but seemed rather to be stagnant. This was not surprising: beneath the thin film covering the eyeballs lay oval grains.
‘What’s the matter with your eyes Givy?’ asked Omozolelov, with unexpected solicitude, and gave a mocking smile. Harlamov giggled approvingly. Givy groaned, as if they’d shut him in the cupboard of justice, and released, into the air about him, an aroma of mothballs. Luckily for Omozolelov, Pavel Andreevich had that day, Thursday, been dismissed by reason of the fact that, liberal that he was, he had thought to drill not fifty-three, but forty-nine, holes, and had thereby brought into question the reliability of the department. And the department had received not just the one thank you for its superlative strips, but two.
The first has come from Smolensk. Here it is.
‘Thank you, dear comrades, for the excellent strips. They are of the highest value to our people. They make one want to work even harder. Investigator Panfilov, Investigator of Interesting Matters Harlamov, Investigator of Matters Pertaining to Reading Prikonov, Veterinary Surgeon Luntz, Honoured Veterinary Surgeon In Charge Particularly Important Matters Drinov, and others – in all seven thousand nine hundred and sixty-four signatories.’
The second thank you was sent from Germany, from – as it happens – the better half. Unfortunately no one knew any French, so they were unable to read the letter. It contained a criticism of the strip: the meticulous Germans considered that it should have measured not five, but six or even seven, centimetres or, the devil take it, inches.
Having completed fifty-three holes, Omozolelov imagined that he had already come across a similar object. To be honest, he could not recall where and in what circumstances, but decided that one morning he had seen its like. Memories engulfed D.P. He sat at the table, work set aside, and this did not go unperceived by his workmates.
Time came for a break.

‘Good day, Tamara,’ said Omozolelov to the shop assistant, when he popped into the haberdashers for a pair of shoelaces.
‘Good day, Gennadi Semenovitch!’ The cheeks of the young woman burst into flames, quite as if Captain Cook had just presented her with a telescope. Meanwhile Dimitri Petrovitch was suffering certain difficulties in reconciling the discrepancies between his name, his patronymic, and his person.
It turned out that he did not have enough money for the shoelaces. He bought a button. Slipping somehow, he managed, clumsily, to drop it. The purchase perished beneath the iron heel of an anonymous customer.
‘Be careful,’ Omozolelov said, crossly, trying to fit the broken pieces of the button together. The customer turned round. It was Givy.
Dully, he glanced at D.P., and taking a step forward, disappeared into the crowd.
‘Well, how about it, Tamara?’ asked Omozolelov.
‘Of course!’ she exclaimed. Her face was, on balance, attractive. A long nose like a knitting needle, and flat almost board-like lips, gave an expression of naïve rapture.
‘And you…’
‘Yes, of course! I live alone, if you don’t count my friends… they come to see me, but not often.’
‘I see.’
Tamara belonged to him.
They went by tram to the snowy crossroads. The extraordinarily high drifts forced one to speculate. And, sure enough, the which had fallen two years previously, had disappeared under the snow.
They had not descended at the stop before, but right here. Omozolelov did not notice Dobrolubov jump out after them, and make off, keeping out of sight for the time being. Soon he let them overtake him, and hid in a doorway.
Stepping over the threshold of the apartment, D.P. went straight to a dark green box, which stood on a piece of linen on the window sill. Its top, peppered with tiny holes, intrigued him. He wanted to count the perforations, had already counted twenty-nine, but at this point his activities came to the attention of Tamara. She rushed over, and snatched the box from his hands.
His hostess was embarrassed, but also, for some reason, happy. There was in her demeanour something of the young mother – pleased and shy.
‘What’s that?’
‘That’s a sofa,’ said Tamara pointing at the sofa. ‘Would you like some tea, Gennadi?’
‘What sort?’
‘Strong, sweet…’
Dimitri Petrovitch looked at his watch, and experienced a desire to embrace Tamara. To embrace her immediately. To ask her one question. But should he not have some tea first? Haste always gives rise to suspicion. Suspicion leads to checks. Checks are at times, quit simply, essential. For instance, a man is walking along the street, and it becomes imperative to check up on him. Obviously, there’s no managing without a search.
‘Shall I have some tea, Tamara?’
‘Dear one, will you stir it with a spoon…?’
‘With a spoon?’
Tamara blushed deeply, and went out.
Omozolelov realized that he was alone in the room, and ran to the window. He looked behind the cupboard which obscured the left half of the window, and saw a big round box. With trembling hands, he tore off the lid. Of course, there was nothing in the box. He should have examined the cupboard as well, but the guest could not bring himself to do so. He heard rustling under the sofa, and went down on his hands and knees in order to peer beneath a small sideboard on crooked legs. A large white worm slid behind the wallpaper.
There was something glinting in the half-light. He stretched out a hand, and caught hold of it. His finger was pierced with a sudden pain, but he pulled out the object: it was a Christmas tree bauble. A glass chip glittered where it had entered his finger. The warm poked its small sturdy head out from behind the wallpaper, but pull it in again, quickly, frightened by Omozolelov’s gaze.
‘What are you doing there, in the dust, in the dirt, like some kind of prince, eh?’
The guest to his feet. It is possible that, as a result of this sudden movement everything swam before his eyes, but he managed to catch of a figure backing out of the door.
‘Come and have some tea, Gennadi!’
The voice reached him from the kitchen. Where else can a voice reach you from, in a present day flat, consisting of one room and a kitchen? Of course, even in a such an apartment people can talk in various places, but it’s rare.
Standing in the doorway, Omozolelov gazed straight into the kitchen, but he saw almost nothing, or rather, he did not see at once. He was obliged to enter.
Tamara was pouring out the tea. To all intents and purposes not the first cup, but the fourth or even the fifth. On the table, a gateau was raised in a pleasing parallelepiped: a basket of cakes stood close by, beyond it, a little glass jar filled with jam, and yet another – big this time, enormous in fact – containing candied fruit. Of the sweets, tarts, sugared buns, syrups, chocolate fancies, preserved cranberries and iced bananas, there is really no need to make any mention.
Ukikov and Dobrolubov were sitting at the table. Next to them sat Harlamov and Elisabeth the Little. Pavel Andreevich was there too. Anna Illinichna was, for some reason, not present.
‘Hallo, Gennadi,’ said Elisabeth. ‘Tamara has told me all about you. You’re so strong!’
Dobrolubov nodded his head, and began to tuck into the gateau, covering himself immediately in chocolate, and smearing his cheeks with syrup. Pavel Andreevich, too, was eating the gateau, but Elisabeth, quite understandably, preferred one of the little cakes. There was this, too, which it was difficult to fathom: Ukikov cut a slice of gateau and offered it to Harlamov.
‘Well, I am here as Tamara’s guest,’ D.P. explained.
Harlamov froze.
‘Tamara?’ he cried, and discretely pushed the morsel offered him by Ukikov towards Pavel Andreevich.
‘This is Claudia, Gennadi Petrovich.’
Omozolelov looked at Tamara, and decided that Harlamov had made an error, as he himself had done in mistaking Dobrolubov for Harlamov, and Harlamov for Pavel Andreevich. Peering into the face of Tamara, he recognized Claudia.
‘Have you just come from the theatre, Dobrolubov?’
‘Oh, really? Have you just come from the theatre, Dobrolubov?’ echoed Ukikov, and screwed up his eyes as if shielding them from cigarette smoke, although no one there was smoking.
Dobrolubov grew pale.
‘But no, not at all. I came straight here – as soon as I’d finished, straight here!’
‘And so, Dimitri Petrovich…’ said Ukikov, with mockery in his voice, and noisily ingested a chocolate truffle.
‘Drink your tea, Gennadi,’ said the hostess.
‘Dimitri Petrovich,’ corrected Harlamov, and downed a fondant rose.
A cup broke, but no one even looked round, although they all exchanged glances. Pavel Andreevich consumed a chocolate puppy dog, and attacked a chocolate Napoleon.
‘So, you are Dimitri Petrovich?’ whispered Claudia, and dropped her cup.
It is a merry, easy, thing to tell the truth. And it must be told, although not always. In some situations the truth, spoken aloud, is fatal, whereas falsehood can be a life-saver. In this case, falsehood constitutes honour towards oneself, and what could be put higher than that, under the circumstances familiar to us since childhood?
‘I am Dimitri Petrovich,’ said Dimitri Petrovitch in a hollow voice, sounding like Gennadi obliged to tell a lie. But Omozolelov was speaking, one must assume, the pure and unimagined truth.
‘You tricked me. You lied. You took advantage of my lack of experience.’ Claudia burst into tears, and disposed of an éclair.
It appeared to Omozolelov that her manner had something of the uncertain about it, which is inclined to happen when a manner is studied.
‘Oh dear, Dimitri Petrovich! And Claudia, what about Claudia!’ said Pavel Andreevich sternly, laying a number of little marzipan mushrooms with chocolate hats on to his plate.
‘You’re a swine,’ said Claudia, weeping, or more precisely, trying with difficulty to restrain her laughter.
‘I did not mean, I just somehow… and then, the dictates of the heart…’ said Omozolelov, gazing round, and trying to plan his escape route. Harlamov stood in the lobby munching rapidly on a cake. Dobrolubov was positioned in the corridor, in such a way as to have immediately access to both the kitchen and the lobby.
‘Why don’t you, comrade Omozolelov, try a little of this?’ said Ukikov with venom, and cut himself a slice of gateau which he then enriched lavishly with raspberry syrup, and a dexterous sprinkling of castor sugar.
Holding the saucer which contained this delicacy, he appeared to squeeze himself out into the hall, and then to change his mind, and come and stand behind Omozolelov.
Dimitri Petrovich and Claudia were alone. Claudia threw open the window, and look at him expectantly.
How pleasant the breath of a frosty night! Inhaling deeply, the honoured guest glanced out of the window, and did not see the street. He looked at Claudia: she was making tentative movements with her arms, as if caressing a spirit lover. Omozolelov took her by the shoulders and made as if to kiss her on the lips or, one would prefer to believe, on the brow, but thought better of it, and peered into her eyes. He could see no pupils there: filling the eye sockets, lay a white fibrous mass.

Suspended from the ceiling, the black sinuous flex terminated in a dusty lamp bulb. This bulb had gone out when the light, deemed unnecessary, had been disconnected. An unambiguous statement to this effect had issued forth from the office of the superintendant of the building, but this idiot Dobrolubov, had forgotten.
In the first moment of darkness, Omozolelov fell under the table, and played dead. In the second moment, Ukikov was at the window, and had seized Claudia. D.P. tugged at his foot, Ukikov came crashing down like a felled tree, and Dobrolubov and Harlamov charged in and joined in the mêlée, having convinced themselves that Ukikov would not be able to deal with Omozolelov D.P. alone. The latter inched his way along under the table, and crawled out into the corridor. Grabbing a raincoat, he rushed out onto the stairs, and spent so long running down them, that he began to worry in case he was on the wrong stair-case.
Pelting along between the snowdrifts, he heard a squeal come from the sky. A human shadow fell, accompanied by that disagreeable gibbering which so readily betrays a victim of fright. The squealer almost ran into D.P., but he, luckily, managed to dodge by. Caught between the walls of the houses, the echoed fragment of heavy laughter hung at an unseen level, like the tolling of the bell.

For a long time, Omozolelov tapped at the window of the Universal Stores with a coin. He worried lest the crisp ringing sound made on the glass be heard by someone in the street, sooner than inside the premises. At last, a figure appeared in the half light of the deserted rooms, and went to open up.
Omozolelov ran up to the glass door, and saw at once that it was Tamara. They embraced, but not immediately. D.P. waited until the girl had driven home the bolt, and yawning sweetly, locked the second door, which was also made of glass or more accurately, locked the black metal carcass of the door: the glass had been knocked out the Wednesday before last by some asinine customer.
They embraced. His hand slid inside her coat, and recognized that beneath it there was nothing, or rather, what we are in fact trying to say and do say, is that beneath the coat Tamara was naked. She shuddered, feeling Omozolelov’s cold palms. And this is not to be wondered at: every woman in her position would shudder, and, perhaps, even squirm a little.
‘Are you alone?’ asked the gallant.
‘Who me?’ answered the girl. ‘How about you?’
‘Well, I am with you,’ he joked, and smiled a pitiful smile, which luckily no one could see in the dark.
They passed through a narrow door behind the counter. In the quiet stock room the man became a little weary. He sat down in a soft chair, rested his elbows on its arms, and stretched out his feet.
There was a smell of moth balls. Bolts of dark blue cloth lay in rolls right up to the ceiling.
Tamara lay down on these rolls, and fell asleep. She breathed quietly, like a child, giving the occasional little snore, and now and then scratching herself.
D.P. retreated inside himself, and did not immediately notice that Givy stood in the doorway, examining him attentively, and with what seemed to be indifference rather than surprise. They glanced at one another, and then turned towards the snoring Tamara. Her legs protruded from beneath the coat, and would have frozen had it not been for the strong curly black hair, which covered her shins, right down to her very feet. Only the little toe on her right foot was free from hair, and D.P. gazed upon it with compassion, as if upon his own brother. Givy approached the sleeping girl unhurriedly, with relish, ignoring the fact that Omozolelov was sitting close by.
An invisible force flung D.P. out of the chair, like a shot from a catapult.
The shot struck Givy, and carried him through the door into the actual shop premises. D.P. landed in the spot. They collided. Givy contrived to tear his adversary’s, or to be exact, the girl’s defender’s, shirt. Omozolelov stepped back towards the counter.
They weighed in as follows: Omozolelov the taller, but inclined to run to fat rather than muscle. Givy well muscled, but shorter in height. Givy endowed with a strong crop of hair, but ten roubles lighter in salary than Omozolelov. Age! Age was against D.P., but he had experience, gleaned over tens of years of fighting, on his side. Givy armed himself with a wooden measure, D.P. did not even have a pen knife.
Ululating, Givy launched himself at his opponent and hit him with the measure. Hit him, the fool, with flat of his weapon, but pinned him nevertheless with his back against the counter. Omozolelov played dead. Givy was already tugging at the waffle-weave towel in his pocket, when D.P.’s right hand, fumbling on the counter, found a metal object with two rings. Twisting the gag in his hands, Givy released the pressure, and was just about to deploy the towel when Omozolelov braced himself, and without difficulty threw off his colleague.
Givy’s second attack proved to be less successful, or rather, it proved to be disastrous: Omozolelov held out in front of him the object which turned out to be a long pair of cutting shears. His neighbour ran full tilt upon their points, stomach first, and occasioned himself internal injuries. The roars of a wild boar shook the emporium. So as to restore silence, Omozolelov made use of the towel and gave the full a push. Givy hit the floor with such force, that the perfumery department resounded with the melodic tinkle of scented bottles, vials, glass boxes, jars, and droppers. Oh, it was a long time since Omozolelov had hearkened to celestial music!
He saw Givy move, and held his breath. Then he gave the idiot a kick. The thin film covering the eyes balls broke, and released streams of living, fluttering, dust. Moths hovered over the dead man’s face in two little clouds, shaped like mushrooms on thin curly legs.
Omozolelov rushed into the stock room. Tamara was no longer under the coat, which was still warm. He ran out and, with relief, saw the girl trying on a fur coat in the glass enclosure of the shop window. The gallant dashed up to Tamara, and put his arms around her: his teeth were chattering with cold and joy.
‘Tamara, I have just… I love you!’ he whispered, feverishly, unbuttoning the buttons on the coat, and numerous other buttons, breaking his nails in his hurry. But Tamara had no intention of giving in. she resisted his efforts to persuade her to lower herself on to the beautiful sea-side shingle, which was strewn over the floor of the shop window, and in fact, to lie down there. He essayed a little force, never doubting that Tamara would find it enjoyable, as, in point of fact, does any woman under specific circumstances.
He had fond his heart’s desire! He was so overwhelmed by rapture that he hardly remembered himself, and at one point, remembered nothing at all. Omozolelov kissed her, like a man possessed. He rubbed his face against her flat, boyish chest. He caressed her cool, smooth shoulders.
Flinging out her extraordinarily long arms, Tamara did not respond to his caresses, fatigued, apparently, by D.P.’s onslaught.
‘My beloved!’ cried he, ecstatically. ‘You will be always with me! Put your arms around me!’
She did not budge, and he thought that, perhaps, Tamara was hard of hearing. Pulling her strong arms towards him, he joined them around his neck. The extremities came together with difficulty, giving way suddenly, and even with a strange cracking sound, showering his heated neck with abrasive particles.
‘Embrace me!’ shrieked the gallant. He noticed that the arms of his beloved had, in one instant, grown so thin that they seemed more like thick wire than smooth slender limbs. Furthermore, he saw that her arms lay on the shingle, as if she were about to put them under her head. However, their hold was becoming tighter and more resolute – he contributed to this himself.
‘Be more tender, for Christ’s sake, my joy!’ said Omozolelov, in what was more of a croak than a whisper, pressed in a cold and unyielding embrace. He suddenly felt a lack of air, and attempted to get up. He was no allowed to do so.
‘Let go!’ he croaked. Pushing with his hands against the shingle, he tried to raise himself, but the shingle slid away under him, and as for Tamara! Tamara clung about D.P.’s neck. He was forced to brace himself against the beloved face, and strain to get away. Her neck snapped, suddenly, and her head bent back at an angle, but for some reason it did not fall off.
Painfully, the man extricated his own head from the encircling arms, scraping the skin on his neck and nape. Having freed himself, his strength left him. A man fighting for his life can show amazing strength or, conversely, amazing feebleness. Quite another thing, once the life has been saved: the man is then useless, or to be more precise, harmful, since his weakness can infect those who still have their own lives to save.
Happily, such people did not come to the Universal Stores in the dead of night, and did not see Dimitri Petrovich Omozolelov prostrate in the window. In any case, even if they had, they would have noticed nothing in the murk and gloom.
He descended from the window, reeling.
Slowly, he approached the rails which supported an abundance of nice new coats. He flung one of these coats over his shoulders, and lingered a long moment in front of the looking glass, trying to determine whether the colour of this new apparel harmonized with that of his dullish eyes. There was not enough light in the premises to be sure. The fact that he was unable to see either the colour of the material or the colour of his irises produced a certain equilibrium in his thoughts: he decided that a better coat was not to be found. He tore the sales ticket from the sleeve, and went out of the shop.
On reaching the cross-roads he glanced back and saw the stern features of Dobrolubov behind the glass. Omozolelov began to run.


53 53 53 53 53 53 53 53 53 53 53 53 52 + 1 equals, dammit, fifty-three.
Omozolelov was the first to leave work. He was slightly preceded only by Ukikov, if you don’t count Harlamov. The security scout ran off at the sound of the bell which announced the end. To give him his due, he was also always the first to run in when the starting bell was rung. Between these two signals, Harlamov sojourned in regions unknown, but was most often to be seen at home.
Dimitri Petrovich wished to buy a little something for supper, but it came to him that the day before, and the day before that, Thursday, he had returned home with copious provisions. Actually, in the time which had elapsed, Omozolelov decided, the stocks might well have run out, and he made his way to the grocers. This, alas, was shut, as was the greengrocers. True, the chemist was open, but he was in perfect health, indeed! He bought a bun in a bread shop and went home.
Today he would have consented joyfully to a conversation with someone or other.
He looked in on Irene. Harlamov opened the door and said that no one of that name had ever lived there. He even advised a visit to the house superintendant’s office, where the accuracy of his information might be verified from the records. Harlamov clearly did not recognize D.P. Perhaps he thought that it was Dobrolubov who had called. Had Omozolelov indeed been Dobrolubov, Harlamov would have still given the same answer. It follows, therefore, that his mistake was not only forgivable, but might be better termed immaterial. And immaterial error is one that has never taken place, even if it has, since it has no bearing on anything. Errors of this kind have to occur a million times before anyone notices them. Ignite, for instance, one granule of gun powder. No one will even hear it explode – an immaterial error is the same. But if you were to throw a match into a bucket of gunpowder – a lighted match, obviously – things would go differently, although perhaps, not quite so fast.
While we’ve been chatting, D.P. has gone a long way. We’ll run to catch him up.

We only succeeded in catching Omozolelov up in his room, from whence, naturally, there was nowhere much he could go. Divesting himself of his new little coat, he sat down on the table which had taken place of the sofa. He then tried to sew a button to the coat. The needle arched and pricked his finger. He yelled, as if his nostrils had been torn out, and shoved the finger in his mouth.
‘My little Dimitri!’ he heard, in tender accents.
He gave a start, and listened attentively. The voice must have coming from behind him, because he was standing facing the door – which he did not dare open – and there was no one in front of him. The voice undoubtedly belonged to a member of the fair sex, since that of a man, be he investigator or prisoner, has little of the tender about it.
‘Little Dimitri, my dear!’
Omozolelov, forgetting to pull his finger out of his mouth, began to turn slowly round. In doing so, he closed his eyes so as to open them only when he had completed his turn, and thereby heighten the surprise which can, in one out of fifty-three cases, be pleasurable. He opened his eyes, and saw the wallpaper, familiar to the point of spitting blood – it is not easy, eyes shut, to turn round to the precise degree necessary! Burning with curiosity, he decided to sacrifice something of the delight of sweet surprise, and turned abruptly towards the window.
There, on the sofa, sat a woman with her back to him. Omozolelov knew her at once: the nape and the crown of the head hairless, a little hair over the ears – this, of course, was the unforgettable image of Claudia.
Like a lion stalking through tropical forests, he neared the woman Claudia. Eyes closed, he rubbed his cheek against her ear, coarsened by the meetings it had attended, bristly like the chin of an unshaven man. He kissed her neck and her shoulder. The glance of our tenant fell upon the window sill, and he saw a navy blue box. The lid with its tiny perforation lay beside it.
Omozolelov threw himself upon it, and snatched it up. Greedily, he counted the holes, and assured himself that there were exactly fifty-three. He peered into the box and saw a morsel of cheese, disfigured by sharp teeth-marks, and even a little round of sausage. D.P. resolved to ask Claudia to explain the meaning of the little box, and spun round to face her.
He at once understood everything.
It was the little Irene who sat, smiling happily, on the sofa. Actually, it had always been difficult to tell Irene from Claudia from the back, and indeed, it was not all that easy from the front.
Her little jacket, which was almost always hermetically sealed right up to the neck, was unbuttoned.
At her breast, her rosy, spurting, firm young breast, she suckled a living being.
D.P. stretched out a hand, and stroked the warm little hide. Reluctant, probably, to be distracted from its tasty and nutritious feast, the infant gave a resentful growl.
An appalling doubt pierced his heart.
‘Where did you get the milk?’ he asked in a sibilant whisper.
Irene’s features took on a disapproving expression.
‘Is that really the point, Dimitri?’ she enquired, trying to remain polite.
‘Where were you the evening of the 4th of January ?’ shrieked Omozolelov, purple with rage.
‘You’re not Harlamov, you have no right to question me,’ answered Irene calmly, and with dignity, but also with exasperation in her voice.
‘Speak!’ D.P., who on the whole had a trusting rather than a jealous nature, squeezed the throat of the woman Irene. He squeezed it with his hands. The newborn hissed and plunged its teeth into his wrist. The little Irene gave a strange hiccup like one receiving extreme unction, and went limp.
Fortunately for the young mother, D.P. regained his calm, and turned away to the window.
He was conscious of sighs, a series of quiet weeping and lulling noises, accompanied by blissful lip smackings and suckings.
‘What did you call him?’ he asked, leaning against the glass with his burning forehead.
‘Zoë,’ replied Irene, willingly.
‘Dario would have been better.’
‘There already is a Dario.’
‘Dolores, then.’
‘Dolores? Raïsse, Nathalie, Catherine – I went through them all, and then I thought: Zoë!’
Omozolelov was genuinely wounded by his beloved’s inconstancy. And who had taken his place? Ukikov? Or Pavel Andreevich. He, D.P., exchanged for some kind of Harlamov, for Omozolelov?
Why, why, why – asked his grieving heart. They didn’t earn more than he did, did they? True, Ukikov’s room was six metres larger than his own. Well honestly, six metres! Given time, Hliastikov the pensioner would die – who knows who would inherit his two metre room. D.P., of course, that’s who!
The door was flung open. Strange as it may seem no one came in. Instead, Irene bedded her little Zoë down in the little box, and ran out of the room. D.P. stood ready. It’s always wise to be on the alert, especially for a man who has been abandoned by everybody. At first he thought he would charge out into the corridor, unexpectedly, thus foiling Ukikov’s plan. But Ukikov and Dobrolubov had, of course, foreseen this unexpectedness, had made provision for it in the plan, and consequently, it had lost its identity. From a wise and true remedy it changed into a tactical stupidity.
Omozolelov tried to think things through to the final detail. He was not sure, as it happens, where to begin. And indeed, the circumstances were so novel, that he was unable to avail himself of mankind’s store of knowledge. He attempted to apply his own experience, but it so contradicted that thousands of years, that it resembled the ravings of a lunatic. How do you – the blush of shame flooding your white or even slightly yellow cheek – apply your own knowledge? He was, after all, intending to harness knowledge which is never harnessed by anyone!
D.P. stroked the leather bolster on the sofa and remember the precious roll of paper. He pulled it out, unrolled it, and went to pin it to the table, only to find that all the drawing pins were spoilt. All of a sudden he was struck by a happy thought. He half lifted the table and lodged the top two corners of the map under the first and second table legs, and the lower corners under the third and fourth. Naturally, there is much, or in any case, a fair amount, that escapes you, absent-minded reader. Were you, in summoning up this scene by using your imagination or some other device, to start counting the table legs in a different sequence, then it might easily fall out that the fourth leg of our table would turn out to be your first, the third – your second, the second – your third, and the first, your fourth leg. Well never mind. Don’t allow yourself to be put off by this perfectly valid line of reasoning.
Having crawled under the table, D.P. was now able to examine the map. It goes without saying that it is always a little dark under tables, unless they’re made of glass (this does occur somewhere), and the table belonging to our geographer was made of oak.
With difficulty, he distinguished the Baltic sea from the Caspian. It was worse when it came to the towns: he could not make out at all, for example, which was Moscow, and which Peking, or which that self-same Paris. He did however, locate London without too much trouble. With Prague, it was a melancholy state of affairs: at the end of assiduous searches, Omozolelov still could not come up with it. He reasoned that they had forgotten to include on the map, small as it was, even though very beautiful and not without significance.
His astonishment knew no bounds, when he was unable to find Smolensk on the map. Here, one would have thought, was Norilsk, and here – dammit – Magadan[1], but where was Smolensk? He lit a match and would have searched for it until his dying day, had he not caught sight of something white emerging from under the door. He crawled towards it, and found a white sheet of paper, which had obviously been pushed through by someone.
On the paper was written: ‘Greetings from Smolensk’.
Omozolelov handed the paper to Dimitri Petrovich and began to read. Right away, he recognized the handwriting of Hliastikov the pensioner, which flowed or even flew across the page, as if hurrying to reach some destination where it would be read with equal haste, where arrangements would be made to leave, to knock on doors, to enter without formality, to engage in friendly chat, and to issue a courteous invitation to – if you would be so good – the theatre, forever.
You could swear on Ukikov’s head, that the letter, or, doubtless, copy, was accurate.
Dimitri Petrovich unfolded the sheet of paper, and read it. He read it a second time, and already knew it by heart – to the very last dot. Thus are committed to memory songs of paradise at the very first hearing, thus a glance filled with love, thus is remembered a snowy expanse of land tinged with blue in the dying rays of the sun, and a little light flickering at the window of a faraway house standing on the edge of life.
Dimitri Petrovich carefully kissed the crumbling sheet of paper, and closed his eyes. He repeated that which was written, lips moving silently, unwilling to entrust the words to the walls, floor, and ceiling.
‘Papa! I arrived this morning.
I’ll be waiting for you this evening at the theatre.
Many kisses, my dearest.
Marina’
Wednesday, February 12th.

Ukikov’s subtle calculations were bearing fruits. He had been waiting twenty-two years for this moment, and was rubbing his hands. Dobrolubov, standing beside him, was also rubbing his hands, and Harlamov, too, rubbed his hands with glee. Under the stern gaze of Dobrolubov, the little Elisabeth even jumped for joy, while rubbing her hands.
Dimitri Petrovich looked at his watch, and saw that it had stopped.
Ha glanced out of the window, and grew anxious: evening was drawing near.
He went up to the calendar and tore off the page on which was marked: February 12th, Wednesday. He kissed the month and the date. After a moment’s thought, he kissed the day of the week, and carefully folded the page from the calendar. There was nowhere to hide it. There was nowhere to hide the letter, either. He lit a match, and consigned the paper to the flames.
‘It’s all quite obvious,’ said Omozolelov.
‘I’m off to the theatre, right away,’ uttered Dimitri Petrovich out loud, and became frightened. The laughter which came from behind the wall was so distinct that it gave Omozolelov pause for thought. Larissa Illinichna merriment was such that Dobrolubov was forced to topple her to the floor and cover her face with a pillow, upon which Harlamov promptly sat. The woman laughed once more, and then stopped.
Dimitri Petrovich donned a clean white shirt. He even waved a clothes brush over his jacket, and gave his britches a good shake.
‘How do I look?’ he asked.
‘Not bad, really,’ said Omozolelov, approvingly.
‘You mustn’t go out tonight,’ we said, getting up from the sofa.
‘What do you mean!’ cried Dimitri Petrovich. ‘My daughter, Marina, will be waiting for me.’
‘Why not to go out?’ Omozolelov enquired, curious.
‘Because…’
‘Look, I’m getting my things together,’ said Dimitri Petrovich, shouting. ‘I’m putting them in a suitcase, I have on you see! I’ll not come back here tonight. I’ll not come back tomorrow, either. I’ll go away with Marina, dammit. Out of here! Ukikov’s your toady! No, it’s you who are his toady, and all the others – toadies!’
We rushed out into the corridor.
Dobrolubov stood in the hall, clutching an awl in his sweaty palm. Givy was twisting the waffle-weave towel. Harlamov was spreading out the volley ball net. Zenaïde the little was climbing into her May Day shoes on high, sharp, heels made of steel. Ukikov fussed around with leggings but ended up in metal-tipped boots. Pavel Andreevich was warming up a little bundle of bicycle wheel spokes on the gas stove. Givy tore out Claudia’s last but one hair. Throwing it in the air, he had at it with a thin long knife, and cut the hair in two. And sniggered contentedly. Hliastikov emerged with his offering: he was sacrificing a little bottle full of greenish urine.
We rushed back into the room.
Dimitri Petrovich was standing, suitcase in hand, ironed out and tidy, like a laid-out corpse. He stood in the very centre of the room, motionless and solemn, in the attitude of one of those large scale figures which are sometimes depicted standing beside some wonder of nature, in the drawing of the same. The suitcase interfered with accuracy of this image, and we tried to take it from him, but did not succeed in doing so. Dimitri Petrovich hung on to its handle, with an iron grip.
No, Dimitri Petrovich, the main thing is to wait. The main thing is not to surrender to the first impulse.
But, surrendering he was. A smile played on the face, his eyes were closed. In this thoughts, he went the whole way to the theatre, but did not enter. A tear slid slowly down his cheek, because Marina had thrown herself into his arms and kissed him, kissed him and said ‘Papa!’
‘Come to your senses, Dimitri Petrovich!’ we cried.
He glanced at us, unsmiling. The intelligent grey eyes gazed out with sadness. His manly features, the firm line of his thin, amazed us: we had never noticed them before.
We’ll tell him a truth of which he, probably, knows nothing. It’s like this: the letter, copied by Hliastikov, was, to all intents and purposes, sent by Marina. The date, month and day of the week were shown correctly: Ukikov had not ordered the distortion of the date. What matters is this: between the posting of the letter and the delivery of its copy, seven years had elapsed.
Ukikov needs to triumph. Hliastikov craves the role of conqueror. And that is how it will end if we allow you to leave this room today.
But we shall not allow it. We do not want you to take a step nearer the door. We will not survive your opening of it.
You shall not open the door, and go into the corridor. Harlamov shall not jerk the net, you shall not fall, the suitcase shall not burst open to reveal that there is nothing in it. Dobrolubov shall not run up and strike you in the eye with his awl, you shall not scream, shall not attempt to rise, Zenaïde the little shall not leap on to your stomach in her high heeled shoes, nor Ukikov in his boots. Pavel Andreevich shall not come with the molten bicycle wheel spokes and drive home the first, you shall not cry out, shall not feel the second or third, endure the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eleventh. Hliastikov shall not bring his little bottle, shall not sprinkle you, and triumph over you, your daughter’s image shall not rise before your mind’s eye, you shall not rasp out lovingly: ‘Marina…’
‘Marina,’ Dimitri Petrovich said tenderly, with suffering.
‘Before each departure, it is customary to…’
And Omozolelov sat down on his suitcase.

Everything grew still and spacious.
Dimitri Petrovich Omozolelov rose, took up his suitcase, and stepped forward.
He went up to the door, and sighing deeply, flung it open.


Near Moscow 1973

[1] During Stalin’s era Magadan was a sort of capital of his empire of the concentration camps.