slowly
Having recalled intrigues of former years,
having recalled a former love.
— Pushkin
‘Lev Glevo. Lev Glebovich? A name like that’s enough to twist your tongue off, my dear fellow.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Ganin agreed somewhat coldly, trying to make out the face of his interlocutor in the unexpected darkness. He was annoyed by the absurd situation in which they both found themselves and by this enforced conversation with a stranger.
‘I didn’t ask for your name and patronymic just out of idle curiosity, you know,’ the voice went on undismayed. ‘I think every name —’
‘Let me press the button again,’ Ganin interrupted him.
‘Do press it. I’m afraid it won’t do any good. As I was saying every name has its responsibilities. Lev and Gleb, now — that’s a rare combination, and very demanding. It means you’ve got to be terse, firm and rather eccentric.
My name is a more modest one and my wife’s name is just plain Mary.
By the way, let me introduce myself: Aleksey Ivanovich Alfyorov. Sorry, I think I trod on your foot —’
‘How do you do,’ said Ganin, feeling in the dark for the hand that poked at his cuff.
‘Do you think we are going to be stuck here for long? It’s time somebody did something. Hell.’
‘Let’s just sit down on the seat and wait,’ the tiresome, cheerful voice rang out again just above his ear. ‘Yesterday when I arrived we bumped into each other in the passage. Then in the evening, through the wall, I heard you clearing your throat and I knew at once from the sound of your cough that you were a fellow countryman. Tell me, have you been boarding here for long?’
‘Ages. Got a match?’
‘No. I don’t smoke. Grubby place, this pension — even though it is Russian. I’m a very lucky man, you know — my wife’s coming from Russia. Four years, that’s no joke. Yes, sir. Not long now. It’s Sunday today.’
‘Damned darkness,’ muttered Ganin, and cracked his fingers. ‘I wonder what time it is.’
Alfyorov sighed noisily, giving off the warm, stale smell of an elderly man not in the best of health. There is something sad about that smell.
‘Only six more days now. I assume she’s coming on Saturday. I had a letter from her yesterday.
She wrote the address in a very funny way. Pity it’s so dark, or I’d show it to you. What are you fumbling for, my dear fellow? Those little vents don’t open, you know.’
‘For two pins I’d smash them,’ said Ganin.
‘Come, come, Lev Glebovich. Wouldn’t it be better to play some party game? I know some splendid ones, I make them up myself. For instance: think of a two-figure number. Ready?’
‘Count me out,’ said Ganin, and thumped twice on the wall with his fist.
