dawn” (Cincinnatus wrote rapidly, illegibly, leaving words unfinished, as a running man leaves an incomplete footprint), “now the air is pale, and I am so frozen that it seems to me that the abstract concept of ‘cold’ must have as its concrete form the shape of my body, and they are going to come for me any time now. It makes me ashamed to be afraid, but I am desperately afraid—fear, never halting, rushes through me with an ominous roar, like a torrent, and my body vibrates like a bridge over a waterfall, and one has to speak very loud to hear oneself above the roar. I am ashamed, my soul has disgraced itself—for this ought not to be, ne dolzhno bïlo bï bït’—only on the bark of the Russian language could such a fungus bunch of verbs have sprouted—oh, how ashamed I am that my attention is occupied, my soul blocked by such dithering details, they push through, with lips wet, to say farewell, all kinds of memories come to say farewell: I, a child, am sitting with a book in the hot sun on the bank of a dinning stream, and the water throws its wavering reflection on the lines of an old, old poem,—‘Love at the sloping of our years’—but I know I should not yield—‘Becomes more tender and superstitious’—neither to memories, nor to fear, nor to this passionate syncope: ‘… and superstitious’—and I had hoped so much that everything would be orderly, all simple and neat. For I know that the horror of death is nothing really, a harmless convulsion—perhaps even healthful for the soul—the choking wail of a newborn child or a furious refusal to release a toy—and that there once lived, in caverns where there is the tinkle of a perpetual stillicide, and stalactites, sages who rejoiced at death and who—blunderers for the most part, it is true—yet who in their own way, mastered—and even though I know all this, and know yet another main, paramount thing that no one here knows—nevertheless, look, dummies, how afraid I am, how everything in me trembles, and dins, and rushes—and any moment now they will come for me, and I am not ready, I am ashamed …”

Cincinnatus got up, made a running start and smashed headlong into the wall—the real Cincinnatus, however, remained sitting at the table, staring at the wall, chewing his pencil, and presently shuffled his feet under the table and continued to write, a little less rapidly:
“Save these jottings—I do not know whom I ask, but save these jottings—I assure you that such a law exists, look it up, you will see!—let them lie around for a while-how can that hurt you?—and I ask you so earnestly—my last wish—how can you not grant it? I must have at least the theoretical possibility of having a reader, otherwise, really, I might as well tear it all up. There, that is what I needed to say. Now it is time to get ready.”
He paused again. It had already grown quite light in the cell, and Cincinnatus knew by the position of the light that half-past five was about to strike. He waited until he heard the distant ringing, and went on writing, but now quite slowly and haltingly, just as if he had spent all his strength on some initial exclamation.

“My words all mill about in one spot,” wrote Cincinnatus. “Envious of poets. How wonderful it must be to speed along a page and, right from the page, where only a shadow continues to run, to take off into the blue. The untidiness, sloppiness of an execution, of all the manipulations, before and after. How cold the blade, how smooth the ax’s grip. With emery paper. I suppose the pain of parting will be red and loud. The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express it, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before. It is hard to imagine that this very morning, in an hour or two …”
But two hours passed, and more, and, just as always, Rodion brought breakfast, tidied the cell, sharpened the pencil, removed the close-stool, fed the spider. Cincinnatus did not ask him anything, but, when Rodion had left, and time dragged on at its customary trot, he realized that once again he had been duped, that he had strained his soul to no purpose, and that everything had remained just as uncertain, viscous and senseless as before.

The clock had just finished striking three or four (he had dozed off and then half awakened, and so had not counted the strokes, but had only retained an approximate impression of their sum of sound) when suddenly the door opened and Marthe came in. Her cheeks were flushed, the comb at the back of her head had worked loose, the tight bodice of her black velvet dress was heaving—and something did not fit right, and this made her appear lopsided, and she kept trying to straighten her dress, tugging at it, or very rapidly wriggling her hips, as if something underneath were wrong and uncomfortable.
“Some cornflowers for you,” she said, tossing a blue posy upon the table, and at the same time, nimbly lifting the hem of her skirt above her knee, she put on the chair a plump little leg in a white stocking, pulling it up to the place where the garter had left its imprint on the tender, quivering fat. “My, how hard it was to get permission! Of course, I had to agree to a little concession—the usual story. Well, how are you, my poor little Cin-Cin?”
“I must confess I was not expecting you,” said Cincinnatus. “Sit down somewhere.”

“I tried yesterday, no luck—and today I said to myself, I’ll get through if it’s the last thing I do. He kept me for an hour, your director. Spoke very highly of you, by the way. Oh, how I hurried today, how I was afraid that I would be too late. What a mob there was in Thriller Square this morning!”
“Why did they call it off?” asked Cincinnatus.

“Well, they said everybody was tired, didn’t get enough sleep. You know, the crowd simply did not want to leave. You ought to be proud.”
Oblong, marvelously burnished tears crept down Marthe’s cheeks and chin, closely following all their contours—one even flowed down her neck as far as the clavicular dimple … Her eyes, however, kept on gazing just as roundly, her short fingers with white spots on the nails kept spreading out, and her thin mobile lips kept emitting words:
“There are some who insist that now it’s been postponed for a long time, but then you can’t really find out from anyone. You simply cannot imagine all the rumors, the confusion …”
“What are you crying about?” asked Cincinnatus with a smile.

“I don’t know myself—I’m just worn out …” (In a low chesty voice): “I’m sick and tired of all of you. Cincinnatus, Cincinnatus, what a mess you have got yourself into! … The things people say about you—it’s dreadful! Oh, listen,” she suddenly began in a different tempo, beaming, smacking her lips, and preening herself. “The other day—when was it?—yes, day before yesterday, there comes to me this little dame, a lady doctor or something—a total stranger, mind you, in an awful raincoat, and begins hawing and hemming. Of course,’ she says, ‘you understand.’ I says, ‘No, so far I don’t understand a thing.’ She says:—‘Oh, I know who you are, you don’t know me’… I says …” (Marthe miming her interlocutress, assumed a fussy and fatuous tone, slowing soberly, however, on the drawn-out “says,” and, now that she was conveying her own words, she depicted herself as being calm as snow). “In a word, she tried to tell me that she was your mother—though I think even her age wouldn’t be right, but we’ll overlook that. She said she was terribly afraid of being persecuted, since, you see, they had questioned her and subjected her to all sorts of things. I says: ‘What do I have to do with all this and why should you want to see me?’ She says: ‘Oh, yes, I know you are terribly kind, you’ll do all you can.’ I says: ‘What makes you think I’m kind?’ She says: ‘Oh, I know’—and asks if I couldn’t give her a paper, a certificate, that I would sign hand and foot, stating that she had never been at our house and had never seen you … This, you know, seemed so funny to Marthe, so funny! I think” (in a drawling, low-pitched voice) “that she must have been some kind of a crank, a nut, don’t you think so? In any case, I of course did not give her anything. Victor and the others said it might compromise me—since it would seem that I knew your every move, if I knew you weren’t acquainted with her—and so she left, very crestfallen, I would say.”
“But it really was my mother,” said Cincinnatus.

“Maybe, maybe. After all, it’s not so important. But tell me, why are you so dull and glum, Cin-Cin? I imagined you would be so happy to see me, but you …”
She glanced at the cot, then at the door.

“I don’t know what the rules are here,” she said under her breath, “but if you need it badly, Cin-Cin, go ahead, only do it quickly.”
“Oh, don’t—what nonsense,” said Cincinnatus.

“Well, as you please. I only wanted to give you a treat because it’s the last interview and all that. Oh, by the way, do you know who wants to