“Well, do you see anything?” whispered the director, stooping close to him, and reeking of lilies in an open grave. Cincinnatus nodded, even though he did not yet see the main attraction; he shifted his gaze to the left, and then really saw something.
Seated on a chair, sideways to the table, as still as if he were made of candy, was a beardless little fat man, about thirty years old, dressed in old-fashioned but clean and freshly ironed prison pajamas; he was all in stripes—in striped socks, and brand-new morocco slippers—and revealed a virgin sole as he sat with one stubby leg crossed over the other and clasped his shin with his plump hands; a limpid aquamarine sparkled on his auricular finger, his honey-blond hair was parted in the middle of his remarkably round head, his long eyelashes cast shadows on his cherubic cheek, and the whiteness of his wonderful, even teeth gleamed between his crimson lips. He seemed to be all frosted with gloss, melting just a little in the shaft of sunlight falling on him from above. There was nothing on the table except an elegant traveling clock encased in a leather case.
“That’ll do now,” whispered the director with a smile, “me want to looky too,” and he again attached himself to the bright hole. Rodion indicated by signs to Cincinnatus that it was time to go home. The shadowy figures of the employees were respectfully approaching in single file: behind the director there was already a whole queue of people waiting to get a look; some had brought along their eldest sons.
“We certainly are spoiling you,” muttered Rodion in conclusion, and for a long time was unable to unlock the door of Cincinnatus’s cell, even honoring it with a potent bit of Russian swearing, which turned the trick.
Everything become quiet. Everything was the same as always.
“No, not everything—tomorrow you will come,” Cincinnatus said aloud, still trembling from his recent swoon. “What shall I say to you,” he continued thinking, murmuring, shuddering. “What will you say to me? In spite of everything I loved you, and will go on loving you—on my knees, with my shoulders drawn back, showing my heels to the headsman and straining my goose neck—even then. And afterwards—perhaps most of all afterwards—I shall love you, and one day we shall have a real, all-embracing explanation, and then perhaps we shall somehow fit together, you and I, and turn ourselves in such a way that we form one pattern, and solve the puzzle: draw a line from point A to point B … without looking, or, without lifting the pencil … or in some other way … we shall connect the points, draw the line, and you and I shall form that unique design for which I yearn. If they do this kind of thing to me every morning, they will get me trained and I shall become quite wooden.”
Cincinnatus had a fit of yawning—the tears streamed down his cheeks, and still hump after hump swelled under his palate. It was nerves—he was not sleepy. He had to find something to keep him busy until tomorrow—fresh books had not yet arrived. He had not returned the catalogue yet … Oh yes, the little drawings! But now, in the light of tomorrow’s interview…
A child’s hand, undoubtedly Emmie’s, had drawn a set of pictures, forming (as it had seemed to Cincinnatus yesterday) a coherent narrative, a promise, a sample of phantasy. First there was a horizontal line—that is, this stone floor; on it was a rudimentary chair somewhat like an insect, and above was a grating made of six squares. Then came the same picture but with the addition of a full moon, the corners of its mouth drooping sourly beyond the grating. Next, a stool composed of three strokes with an eyeless (hence, sleeping) jailer on it and, on the floor, a ring with six keys. Then the same key ring, only a little larger, with a hand, extremely pentadactyl and in a short sleeve, reaching for it. Here it begins to get interesting. The door is ajar in the next drawing, and beyond it something looking like a bird’s spur—all that is visible of the fleeing prisoner. Then he himself, with commas on his head instead of hair, in a dark little robe, represented to the best of the artist’s ability by an isosceles triangle; he is being led by a little girl: prong-like legs, wavy skirt, parallel lines of hair. Then the same again, only in the form of a plan: a square for the cell, an angled line for the corridor, with a dotted line indicating the route and an accordionlike staircase at the end. And finally the epilogue: the dark tower, above it a pleased moon, with the corners of its mouth curling upward.
No—this was only self-deception, nonsense. The child had doodled aimlessly … Let us copy out the titles and lay the catalogue aside. Yes, the child … With the tip of her tongue showing at the right corner of her mouth, tightly holding the stubby pencil, pressing down upon it with a finger white with effort … And then, after connecting a particularly successful line, leaning back, rolling her head this way and that, wriggling her shoulders, and, going back to work on the paper, shifting her tongue to the left corner … so painstakingly.… Nonsense, let’s not dwell on it any more…
Trying to think of a way to enliven the listless hours, Cincinnatus decided to tidy up for tomorrow’s Marthe. Rodion agreed to haul in another tub like the one in which Cincinnatus had splashed on the eve of the trial. While waiting for the water Cincinnatus sat down at the table; today the table was a little wobbly.
“The interview,” wrote Cincinnatus, “signifies, in all probability, that my terrible morning is already nearing. The day after tomorrow, at this very time, my cell will be empty. But I am happy that I shall see you. We used to go up to the workshops by two different staircases, the men by one, the women by the other, but would meet on the penultimate landing. No longer can I conjure Marthe as she was when I first met her, but I can recall having noticed at once that she opens her mouth a little an instant before laughing, and the round hazel eyes, and the coral earrings—oh, how I should like to reproduce her as she was, all new and still solid—and then the gradual softening—the fold between cheek and neck when she turned her head toward me, already grown warm, and almost alive. Her world. Her world consists of simple components, simply joined; I think that the simplest cook-book recipe is more complicated than the world that she bakes as she hums: every day for herself, for me, for everyone. But whence-even then, in the first days—whence the malice and obstinacy that suddenly … So soft, so amusing and warm, and then suddenly … At first I thought she was doing it deliberately, perhaps to show how another in her place might have grown shrewish and stubborn. Can you imagine my amazement when I realized that this was her real self! Because of what trifles—my foolish one, how little your head was, if one feels through all that auburn, thick mass to which she knows how to impart an innocent sleekness with a girlish gloss on the top of her head. ‘Your little wife looks so quiet and gentle, but she bites, I tell you,’ her first unforgettable lover said to me, and the base thing is that the verb was not being used figuratively … because it was true that at a certain moment … one of those memories that one should drive away, or else it will overpower and crush you. Little Marthe did it again.… And once I saw, I saw, I saw—from the balcony I saw—and since that day I would never enter any room without first announcing my approach from afar—by a cough, or a meaningless exclamation. How awful it was to glimpse that contortion, that breathless haste—all that had been mine in the shadowed seclusion of the Tamara Gardens,
