know, I could perform … a short work … a record of verified thoughts … Some day someone would read it and would suddenly feel just as if he had awakened for the first time in a strange country. What I mean to say is that I would make him suddenly burst into tears of joy, his eyes would melt, and, after he experiences this, the world will seem to him cleaner, fresher. But how can I begin writing when I do not know whether I shall have time enough, and the torture comes when you say to yourself, ‘Yesterday there would have been enough time’—and again you think, ‘If only I had begun yesterday …’ And instead of the clear and precise work that is needed, instead of a gradual preparation of the soul for that morning when it will have to get up, when—when you, soul, will be offered the executioner’s pail to wash in—Instead, you involuntarily indulge in banal senseless dreams of escape—alas, of escape … Today, when she came running in, stamping and laughing—that is, I mean—No, I still ought to record, to leave something. I am not an ordinary—I am the one among you who is alive—Not only are my eyes different, and my hearing, and my sense of taste-not only is my sense of smell like a deer’s, my sense of touch like a bat’s—but, most important, I have the capacity to conjoin all of this in one point—No, the secret is not revealed yet—even this is but the flint—and I have not even begun to speak of the kindling, of the fire itself. My life. Once, when I was a child, on a distant school excursion, when I had got separated from the others—although I may have dreamt it—I found myself, under the sultry sun of midday, in a drowsy little town, so drowsy that when a man who had been dozing on a bench beneath a bright whitewashed wall at last got up to help me find my way, his blue shadow on the wall did not immediately follow him. Oh, I know, I know, there must have been some oversight, on my part, and the shadow did not linger at all, but simply, shall we say, it caught on the wall’s unevenness … but here is what I want to express: between his movement and the movement of the laggard shadow—that second, that syncope—there is the rare kind of time in which I live—the pause, the hiatus, when the heart is like a feather … And I would write also about the continual tremor—and about how part of my thoughts is always crowding around the invisible umbilical cord that joins this world to something—to what I shall not say yet … But how can I write about this when I am afraid of not having time to finish and of stirring up all these thoughts in vain? When she came rushing in today—only a child—here is what I want to say—only a child, with certain loopholes for my thoughts—I wondered, to the rhythm of an ancient poem—could she not give the guards a drugged potion, could she not rescue me? If only she would remain the child she is, but at the same time mature and understand—and then it would be feasible: her burning cheeks, a black windy night, salvation, salvation … And I’m wrong when I keep repeating that there is no refuge in the world for me. There is! I’ll find it! A lush ravine in the desert! A patch of snow in the shadow of an alpine crag! This is unhealthy, though—what I am doing: as it is I am weak, and here I am exciting myself, squandering the last of my strength. What anguish, oh, what anguish … And it is obvious to me that I have not yet removed the final film from my fear.”

He became lost in thought. Then he dropped the pencil, got up, began walking. The striking of the clock reached his ears. Using its chimes as a platform, footfalls rose to the surface; the platform floated away, but the footfalls remained and now two persons entered the cell: Rodion with the soup and the Librarian with the catalogue.
The latter was a man of tremendous size but sickly appearance, pale, with shadows under his eyes, with a bald spot encircled by a dark crown of hair, with a long torso in a blue sweater, faded in places and with indigo patches on the elbows. He had his hands in the pockets of his pants, which were narrow as death, and clutched under his arm a large book, bound in black leather. Cincinnatus had already once had the pleasure of seeing him.
“The catalogue,” said the Librarian, whose speech was distinguished by a kind of defiant laconicism.

“Fine, leave it here,” said Cincinnatus, “I shall choose something. If you would like to wait, to sit down for a minute, please do. If, however, you should like to go …”
“To go,” said the Librarian.

“All right. Then I shall return the catalogue through Rodion. Here, you may take these back with you … These magazines of the ancients are wonderfully moving … With this weighty volume I went down, you know, as with a ballast, to the bottom of time. An enchanting sensation.”
“No,” said the Librarian.

“Bring me some more—I’ll copy out the years I want. And some novel, a recent one. You are going already? You have everything?”
Left alone, Cincinnatus went to work on the soup, simultaneously leafing through the catalogue. Its nucleus was carefully and attractively printed; amid the printed text numerous titles were inserted in red ink, in a small but precise hand. It was difficult for someone who was not a specialist to make sense of the catalogue, since the titles were arranged not in alphabetical order, but according to the number of pages in each, with notations as to how many extra sheets (in order to avoid duplication) had been pasted into this or that book. Therefore Cincinnatus searched without any definite goal in mind, picking out whatever happened to seem attractive. The catalogue was kept in a state of exemplary cleanness; this made it all the more surprising that on the white verso of one of the first pages a child’s hand had made a series of pencil drawings, whose meaning at first escaped Cincinnatus.

Chapter Five

“Please accept my sincerest congratulations,” said the director in his unctuous bass as he entered Cincinnatus’s cell next morning. Rodrig Ivanovich seemed even more spruce than usual: the dorsal part of his best frock coat was stuffed with cotton padding like a Russian coachman’s, making his back look broad, smooth, and fat; his wig was glossy as new; the rich dough of his chin seemed to be powdered with flour, while in his buttonhole there was a pink waxy flower with a speckled mouth. From behind his stately figure—he had stopped on the threshold—the prison employees peeked curiously, also decked out in their Sunday best, also with their hair slicked down; Rodion had even put on some little medal.
“I am ready. I shall get dressed at once. I knew it would be today.”

“Congratulations,” repeated the director, paying no attention to Cincinnatus’s jerky agitation. “I have the honor to inform you that henceforth you have a neighbor—yes, yes, he has just moved in. You have grown tired of waiting, I bet? Well, don’t worry—now, with a confidant, with a pal, to play and work with, you won’t find it so dull. And, what is more—but this, of course, must remain strictly between ourselves—I can inform you that permission has come for you to have an interview with your spouse, demain matin.”
Cincinnatus lay back down on the cot and said, “Yes, that’s fine. I thank you, rag doll, coachman, painted swine … Excuse me, I am a little …”

Here the walls of the cell started to bulge and dimple, like reflections in disturbed water; the director began to ripple, the cot became a boat. Cincinnatus grabbed the side in order to keep his balance, but the oarlock came off in his hand, and, neck-deep, among a thousand speckled flowers, he began to swim, got tangled, began sinking. Sleeves rolled up, they started poking at him with punting poles and grappling hooks, in order to snare him and pull him to the shore. They fished him out.
“Nerves, nerves, a regular little woman,” said the prison doctor—alias Rodrig Ivanovich—with a smile. “Breathe freely. You can eat everything. Do you ever have night sweats? Go on as you are, and, if you are very obedient, maybe we shall let you take a quick peek at the new boy … but mind you, only a quick peek …”
“How long … that interview … how much time shall we be given? …” Cincinnatus uttered with difficulty.

“In a minute, in a minute. Do not be in such a hurry, do not get excited. We promised to show him to you, and we will. Put on your slippers, straighten your hair. I think that …” The director looked interrogatively at Rodion, who nodded. “But please observe absolute silence,” he again addressed Cincinnatus, “and don’t grab at anything with your hands. Come, get up, get up. You haven’t deserved this—you, my friend, are behaving badly, but still you have the permission—Now—not a word, quiet as a mouse …”

On tiptoe, balancing with his arms, Rodrig Ivanovich left the cell and with him went Cincinnatus in his oversize shuffling slippers. In the depths of the corridor Rodion was already stooping at a door with imposing bolts: he had pushed aside