“You're mocking me,” he said. “It's not enough that you've.. you're mocking me too. Go on, citizen, out.”

Krivoshein shrugged and turned to the door.

“Wait!”

“What now?”

“Just a second, citizen… Krivoshein. All right, I don't understand. Perhaps you really have the science for this. I'll accept your version of the story — I have no choice. And you can think what you want of me….” Matvei Apollonovich couldn't get over the insult. Krivoshein frowned: what is he leading up to? “But if we accept your version, a man perished. Who's guilty?”

The graduate student looked at him carefully.

“Everyone a little, Matvei Apollonovich. Himself, and me, and Azarov, and others… and even you are mixed up in it a little, even though you didn't know him, because, without really knowing, you suspected people. But according to the criminal code, no one. That happens.”

“I think that's taken care of,” the student said to himself as he got into the bus.

Tomorrow is the experiment. Actually, not even tomorrow, but tonight, in seven or eight hours. I'm never sleepy before I have an important thing to do, but I need the sleep. That's why I walked and rode around town for over four hours, to get worn out and distract myself.

I was everywhere: midtown, suburbs, by the train station. I looked at people, houses, trees, animals. I watched the parade of Life.

A desiccated old man hobbled toward me with a yellowed mustache and a red, wrinkly face. He had three Saint George crosses and a medal on a striped ribbon dangling from his gray sateen shirt. The old man stopped in the short shadows of the lindens to catch his breath.

Yes, gramps, you had your day too! You've lived through a lot and obviously you want more: you've come out to preen, you cavalier of Saint George! If we filled up your muscles with strength, cleared up your corneas, wiped the sclerosis and fog from your brain, freshened up your nerves — you'd show the young punks a thing or two!

Some boys wandering along, talking about the movies:

“And then he gives it to him — pow — pow — with an atomic gun!”

“And they go: bam — bam — bam!”

“Why an atomic one?”

“What other kind? On Venus — and with a regular gun?”

A cat looks at me with anxious eyes. Why do cats have such anxious eyes? Do they know something? They know, but they won't tell. “Shoo, you cat!” It skulked into a doorway.

A man with a low forehead and gray crewcut walked past: his pants hugged his powerful calves and thighs and his tee shirt barely covered his well — developed chest. His face made it clear that the fellow could handle any of life's problems with a quick uppercut to the jaw or by tossing you over his shoulder.

And we'll make muscles like that for everyone — everyone will know about boxing and judo — and then how will he feel about his ready answer?

In Shevchenko Park a boy and girl walked past me, noticing no one, holding hands.

You lovers don't need our discovery. You're good for each other just the way you are. But… anything can happen in life. And danger threatens your love: life, misunderstandings, good sense, relatives, boredom — lots of things! If you manage on your own, more power to you. But if not, know this: we can repair your love, fix it better than a TV set. It'll be like new — like the day when you first saw each other in the movie ticket line.

And the woman I ran into in front of the department store on the prospect! Her body was squeezed into a brocade dress, a gold brooch, fake amber necklace, with sweat spots the size of plates under her arms and on her back! The blue brocade glistened with all the colors of a stormy sea.

Fie on you, madame! How can you stuff yourself into brocade in this heat. It's not a Saint George Cross, you know! Your husband doesn't love you, does he, madame? He stares in horror at your arms, as thick as his legs, at that fatty hump on your back. You are miserable madame. I don't feel sorry for you, but I understand. Your husband doesn't love you; the children don't appreciate you; the doctors don't sympathize; and the neighbors — oof, the neighbors! All right, madame, we'll figure out something for you as well. After all, you too have the right to an additional portion of happiness in the human line. But, speaking of happiness, madame, your taste worries me. No, no, I understand: you stuffed yourself into the brocade, put on the horrible earrings and necklace that do nothing for you, and decorated your fingers with rings to prove that you are no worse than anyone else, that you have everything. But, forgive me, madame, you don't have a damn thing. And I'm afraid that we'll have to improve your taste along with your body, as well as you mind and feelings. For the same money, madame, don't worry. Otherwise it's not worth it: you'll just waste your new beauty and freshness in restaurants and parties and on lovers. In that case, why should we bother? The true beauty, madame, lies in the harmony of the body, mind, and spirit.

Two pretty girls walked past without giving me a glance. Why should they? The sky is clear. The sun is high. Exams are behind them. And this bus takes them to the beach.

A little kid, who wasn't allowed outside, pressed his nose to the windowpane. He caught my eye and made a face. I made a face at him. Then he did a whole act for me.

I love life, oh, how I love life! I don't need it to be any better. Let it stay just as it is, as long as… as long as what? What? Oh, you!

That's the whole point, it has to be better. There's too much wrong with the world.

And I'll go. I haven't sold you out, people. We'll be able to do so many things with this method: give people looks and wisdom, introduce new abilities, even new qualities in them. Let's say, we could make a man have radio feelings, so that he could see in the dark, hear ultrasounds, sense magnetic waves, count time to the fraction of a second without a chronometer, and even read people's thoughts at a distance — would you like that? Though I suppose, all this is not the important part.

The important part is that I'll go. And then someone else will, if things go wrong now. And then… that's how it will be!

“No one died, damn it!” graduate student Krivoshein muttered to himself in the bus. “No one died!..”

I'm going, Life! Thank you, fate, or whoever you are, for everything that's happened to me so far. It's scary to think that I could have stopped and ended up as a petty coupon — clipping mediocrity! Let the rest of my life be difficult, frightening, confusing, and tormenting — but don't let it be petty. Don't ever let me sink to struggling for security, success, and for worrying about my hide when things get serious!

It's almost night, but I'm not sleepy. What a waste, sleeping. We could probably do away with it, too. They say there's an eccentric in Yugoslavia who hasn't slept in thirty years — and he feels fine.

“Midnight in Madrid. Sleep soundly! Respect the king and queen! And may the devil never cross your path!” In those days they would have burned me at the stake.

Don't sleep soundly, people! Don't respect the king or the queen! And let the devil cross your path; there's nothing too terrible about that.

As a youth I dreamed (about so many things) that when the time would come to undertake something frightening and serious, I would first have a talk with my father. But I didn't have anything serious to talk about and my father couldn't wait forever. Well, I'll give it a try now.

“Well, father, tomorrow I stand on the parapet. Were you scared?”

“What can I say? It was scary, of course. It was only four hundred yards to the German trenches, and I'm highly visible. Fraternization hadn't come into full force; they were still shooting. And they shot at me a couple of times — the Germans had all kinds, too. Maybe they were only trying to scare me.”