The Librarian

The reader closed the Book and I suddenly saw that the night had turned bright, with a milky moon and white stars that looked like scars.

Our people got to their feet. Timofei Stepanovich stealthily pricked his flabby wrist with his awl and nodded in satisfaction, licking away the drop of blood that oozed out.

Margarita Tikhonovna tugged on my sleeve.

“Alexei, everyone will go running forward, but you stay here. They’ll remember you, and if anything happens they won’t abandon you. Here…” She glanced round, choosing. “Annushka will guard you. No need to be afraid with her.” She beckoned to her. “Anyuta, will you keep an eye on Alexei? All right?”

Anna Vozglyakova shielded me with her mighty shoulder and I felt a little more confident.

Meanwhile on the left flank Margarita Tikhonovna was already conferring with Simonyan’s Garshenin; he agreed with what she said, stroking the metal-bound handle of his scythe.

“Alexei,” the traumatologist Dezhnev whispered in my ear, “what Margarita Tikhonovna told you is quite right…” He hesitated. “But if the situation does get a bit tricky, for God’s sake, don’t just stand there waiting for the wedding… Move about, dodge! If you hit out—don’t follow through after the blow. Whether you hit the target or not, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is to keep moving all the time.” He drew his sabre. “I’ll try not to let you out of my sight.”

Anna, clutching the handle of her spade in her thick, coarse fingers, suddenly spoke to me.

“I wanted to ask…” she said in a voice that proved to be very thick and low. “You studied in an institute, didn’t you? Did you have that subject—psychology? You did? Oh! Explain this situation to me. A long time ago, in fifth year, I planted a birch tree in the school garden. Then suddenly this boy there wanted a thin stick, maybe for a cane to play at horses. Well, he started breaking it off my birch tree, and the tree was no more than a cane anyway, so he snapped almost all of it off. And I shouted at him: ‘Hey, you, get off that!’ And he said to me: ‘Big deal! One little branch… It won’t do your birch tree any harm.’ I said to him: ‘And what if everyone goes breaking off a branch? What then?’ The little boy suddenly started crying and ran away…” Anna wrinkled up her forehead and her fingers tightened their grip on the spade handle. “The thing is, why did he start crying, eh? I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t hit him. Maybe you know why?”

In my previous life I would certainly have mocked this simple-mindedness in my heart of hearts, while outwardly passing some slimy comment like: “I wish I had your problems, darling…”

I understood why Anna had started telling me about the broken birch tree. In her own way she had been impressed by the reading of the Book of Endurance, with its endless descriptions of nature. Anna just wanted to talk about some lofty theme, and there was nothing loftier than Gromov. The story of the birch tree seemed to her a perfectly valid pass to those empyrean regions where brainy people like me probably philosophized about something noble and exalted.

While I was still assembling the circumspect phrase “I rather neglected psychology”, it all began.