They say you can never have too much of a woman's body- and they're right. Olenka expanded sideways, forward, and backward. You couldn't have asked for anything more beautiful. Where once she had a dimpled chin there were now eight. She had six rows of tits. She had to sit on five stools, three weren't enough. Not long ago they widened the doorway, but they'd been stingy: it needed to be widened again. Any other husband would have been proud. But Benedikt looked at all this splendor without any excitement. He didn't feel like playing goats, or tickling and pinching her.
"Benedikt, you don't understand anything about female beauty. Terenty Petrovich, now, he appreciates… Go sleep in another room."
To hell with her, then. She might squash him at night, smother him. Benedikt made himself a pallet in the library. From there you could hardly hear her snoring. And that way the signal would come quicker.
He slept fully dressed, and stopped bathing: what a bore. Dirt collected behind his ears, all kinds of garbage. Creatures of some kind settled in: slow, with lots of legs; at night they moved from place to place, uneasy. Maybe they were lugging their nests somewhere, but you couldn't see who they were-they were behind the ears. His feet were sweaty and stuck together. It didn't matter. You lie there like a warm corpse: your ears don't hear, your eyes don't see. True, he did wash his hands; but he had to for his work.
… And where is that clearest of fires, and why does it not burn?
You get up, go to the kitchen, pluck a meat pattie out of a bowl with two fingers, with a third you scoop the jelly out of the bowl.
You eat it. No emotion. You eat it-that's all. Now what? Start dancing a jig?
You open the window bladder-a fine rain drizzles, needling the puddles; the clouds are low, the whole sky is covered, it's dark during the day, as if the sun had never risen. A serf crosses the yard-he covers his head from the rain and goes around the puddles, carrying a sack of hay to the Degenerators. A long time ago, oh, how long ago it was, in a former life!-you would have tried to guess: Will he slip or not? Will he fall? And now you look on sort of dumbly: Yeah, the serf slipped. Yeah, he fell. But there's no joy in it anymore.
… The lamplighter should have lit them, but sleeps. He sleeps, and I'm not to blame, my sweet…
From the bedroom came a clicking and clattering: Olenka and Terenty Petrovich were playing dominoes and laughing. Another time he would have burst into the room like a tornado and beat Terenty's mug black and blue, loosened a few teeth for him, and kicked him out of the family quarters! Olenka would have got what was coming to her as well: he'd have grabbed her by the hair, by those bobbins of hers, and smashed her sour-creamed face against the wall. Again! Once more! Another time for good measure! He'd have stomped on her and given her a few in the ribs, in the ribs!
But now it didn't matter; they're playing and let them play.
You lie there. Just lie and lie there. "Ne'er a drop of divinity, nor single sigh of inspiration." No tears, no life, no love. For a month, perhaps a half a year. Suddenly: hark! Something blows in on the breeze. This is a signal.
You perk up right away, on guard. Has it come, or did you just imagine it? Seems like you imagined… No! There it is again! Clear as clear can be! You rise up on your elbow, cock your ear to one side, listening.
There's a faint light in your head-like a candle behind a door cracked open… Careful not to scare it off…
It's gotten a bit stronger now, that light, and you can see the room. In the middle there's nothing, and on that nothing- there's a book. The pages are turning… It seems to be coming closer and closer, you can almost make out what's written…
Then your mouth goes dry, your heart pounds, your eyes go blind: you just saw the book, and the pages were turning, they were turning! But you can't see what's going on around you, and if you do see it, it doesn't mean anything at all. The meaning is over there, in the book; the book is the only real, living thing. Your bed, stool, room, father- and mother-in-law, your wife and her lover-they aren't alive, they're like drawings! Moving shadows, like the cloud shadows running across the earth-and they're gone!
But what kind of book it is, where it is, why its pages are turning-and is someone turning them or is it moving on its own? That is a mystery.
One time he felt the pull-and rushed to check Konstantin Leontich. He was driving by, and suddenly he felt the pull: What if he's got one? There wasn't anything there, just a string of worrums. Now that was a false signal.
There are true signals and then sometimes there are false ones: if the signal is for real, then the vision you see in your head gets stronger, thicker, so to speak; the book you see in your vision gets heavier and heavier. At first it's clear and watery, and then it thickens; you see its paper, white, oh, so white, or yellowed and rough, you can see every freckle and spot and scratch on it, like you were looking at skin close up. You look and you laugh from the joy of it, just like you were about to make love.
The letters too: at first they slip and jump around. Then they settle into even rows, nice and black, all whispering. Some are open wide like they were inviting you: Come on in!
Take the letter O for instance. It's a round window, like you're looking down from the attic at a burbling, chirping spring forest: you can see streams and fields far away, and if you're lucky and you squint your eyes, you might see the White Bird- tiny, distant, like a white speck. Or the letter [*], Pokoi. Well it's just a doorframe! And what's beyond that door? Who knows, maybe a completely new life no one ever imagined! One that's never happened before!
X, Kher, or [*], Zhivete, they block the way, they won't let you in, they crisscross and close off the passage: Stay out! Forget it!
[*], Tsi, and [*], Shcha, have tails, like Benedikt before his wedding.
[*], Cherv, is like an upside-down chair.
[*], Glagol, is shaped like a hook.
Now if the signal is really true, then it all comes together: the paper, the letters, the picture you can see through them, the whispering, and the hum, the wind from the turning pages-a dusty, warm wind-it all thickens in front of your eyes, floods you, washes over you in a kind of airy wave. Then you know. Yes! That's it! I'm coming!
And in a flash it falls away and leaves you, all the heaviness stays on the bed, all the dull daze, the thick, bodily, meaty heaving from side to side. Suddenly there's no confusion, no laziness, no sticky, slurping swampy bog in you. You rise in a single surge, taut like a thread pulled tight, light and resonant; there's a goal in your head, you know what to do, you're collected and cheerful!
All that sticky weight falls away-there's only the surge! The soul!
The robe wrapped itself around his shoulders like a magic skin. The hood, his reliable protector, leapt onto his head: I may not be seen, but I see through everyone! His strong weapon seemed to grow into his hand-his trusty hook, bent like the letter [*], Glagol! "With words to burn the hearts of men!" With a birdlike, lilting cry, with one sweep of the hand, I call my comrades. Always prepared!
Wondrous comrades, a flying division! You call from the yard or from the gallery-and there they are, as if they neither sleep nor eat, each dozen in harmony like a single being! Ready. Onward! Stern, shining warriors, we rise and fly, neither snow nor rain nor sleet shall stop us-we know no obstacle, and the people part like the sea before us.
We tear them away and take them; we save them. If the signal was really true, we take them and save them, because then there really was a Book there. It called, beckoned, cried out, came in a vision.
But if the signal is false-well, then there isn't anything. That's the way it was at Konstantin Leontich's. Nothing but garbage.
But it turned out all wrong at Konstantin Leontich's. Why? Well, because Benedikt was riding along in his sleigh, darker than a thundercloud, lost in his thoughts, and his thoughts were grim and tearful like autumn clouds-clouds in the sky, clouds in the breast, it's all the same, feelosophy has got that part right. Without seeing, he knew that his eyes were red with blood, that he had dark, deep rings under his eyes, that his face and curls had darkened, stuck together-uncombed, unwashed, his head had become flat, like a spoon. His throat was sticky from smoking, as though he'd swallowed clay. He turned the corner and suddenly he felt the pull: over there. In that izba.
And then he allowed himself some Freethinking, or what you might call a violation of procedure. He went alone, right then, without his comrades. Whoa! he cried to Nikolai. He pulled on the reins and stopped him: Wait here; he threw on his hood and kicked the gate open with his foot.
They teach you: never go out on a confiscation alone-it's Freethinking, and they're absolutely right: you wouldn't go alone for firelings, now, would you? The fireling might guess that there's a human walking around, and cry out, and put out its light to warn the others, mightn't it? And what if it turns out to be a fake fireling? Well, in our business it's the same thing: science is the same everywhere.
Konstantin Leontich screamed and resisted. He hit Benedikt on the arm so hard it really really hurt. In professional terms: he complicated the confiscation.
He let out a blood-curdling yell and called his neighbors. They didn't come, they'd hidden. Then he tore the hood off and recognized Benedikt. He squealed and hit him in the face when he recognized him.
He scratched him furiously; he even knocked him over.
But he made a mistake when he grabbed the hook with his hands; the hook is double-edged, you shouldn't grab it with your hands.
That's not what it's for.
The hook is to grab the book with, to catch it, drag it to you, to pull it toward you; it's not a spear. Why is it so sharp? So that it's dangerous for a Golubchik to hold on to the book when it's confiscated. They all clutch the book tight, so the hook is sharpened. That way, if you get out of hand, you won't be able to hold on, you'll slice your hands off in an instant, and every single last one of your fingers!
On the outside and the inside it's sharpened really sharp, that's why you need practice grabbing and turning with it; that's why every confiscated book has cuts from the hook, like little wounds. A clumsy Saniturion could carelessly slice through a book, and that must never happen, you can't ruin art. If the work is good and clean, you can pull in a book with one flick, and there'll only be a little scar.
So they work in groups or brigades: one comrade confiscates the book, the others use their hooks to catch the Golubchiks in the izba by their clothes, or by the collar, they wind him up, in rags.
And another thing the hook is useful for: if the Golubchik is rambunctious, the hook is good for knocking him off his feet, so he falls down right away, and for that there's always a set of horns handy. It's a professional instrument too, but simpler, it looks like the letter Y, or a set of tongs. When someone falls, you can hold his neck down to the floor to make sure he doesn't get back up.
Saniturions used to be given spears. One poke, and that was the end of the Golubchik. But we don't do that anymore, now we're humane.
And a Saniturion should also watch himself, his hands always have to be clean. The hook will always be dirty from the Golubchik: with blood or vomit, whatever; but the hands have to be clean. That's why Benedikt always washes his hands.
Because otherwise how are you going to hold the book after the confiscation? In the sleigh when you're on your way back?
So there you have it, that's the technique, the tricks, or the scientific organization of labor. It seems simple, but it's not so simple. It's crowded in the izba, and dark; you bump into each other-a lot of people complain.
Freethinking is out of place here, but Benedikt let it happen, as always. So he went and got wounded by Konstantin Leontich: on his hands, and on his face, and on his chest too; and he sprained his ankle. And all in vain: it was a false signal, there weren't any books.
It was the day of the October Holiday, Konstantin Leontich was getting ready for the yearly recount, he was washing rags out in the tub-pants, a shirt. Well, so there'll be one Golubchik missing, the Murzas won't count Konstantin Leontich. They'll write down in the official lists: taken for treatment.
After all, you can't count everyone, can you, Murza?
In December, at the darkest time of the year, Olenka delivered triplets. Mother-in-law came by and called Benedikt in to come look at the brood. She congratulated him. He lay there, empty and heavy-hearted, waiting for the signal; and there wasn't any. All right then, he'd go take a look.
There were three kids: one appeared to be female, she was tiny and cried. Another seemed to be a boy, but it was hard to tell right off. The third-well, you couldn't figure out what it was- to look at, it was a fuzzy, scary-looking ball. All round-like, but with eyes. They picked it up in their arms to rock it, and started singing: "Bye Baby Bunting, Daddy's gone a-hunting…" and with a shove it pushed away, jumped on the floor, rolled off, and disappeared into a crack in the floor. They all rushed to catch it, their hands outstretched. They moved stools and benches-but no luck.
Benedikt stood around awhile, watched, as though through a fog, congratulated Olenka on a successful delivery. Then he went back to his room. Mother-in-law ran to call Terenty Petro-vich to take a look so she could brag about her grandchildren.
He lay down on the bed that had seen so many sighs and groans. He had made himself a serious rut, lying there during all those empty years, those countless, joyless nights. He frowned and thought: If the thing just stayed under the floor that wouldn't be so bad, but what if it comes out and starts chewing up books? Maybe he should spackle the cracks closed? The floor boards had gotten quite thin. The family could scrape up a big heap in a day. Sometimes you'd walk by and it looked like there was a whole head of hair fallen on the floor! You could never tell, that thing might come out from under the floor and head straight for the book room. It would gnaw on the bindings, the spines… There's glue in there. Leather sometimes.
As if he didn't have enough worries, and here… It would eat them up, it would definitely eat them! It needs to eat, right? There are threats to art all around: from people, rodents, the damp! How stupid and blind Benedikt used to be, blind as the blind men at the market: they sing, sing their hearts out, but they live in darkness, for them it's dark at midday! He didn't understand anything back then, like he was a worrum! He asked all kinds of silly questions, frowned, and opened his mouth wide so it was easier to think, but he didn't understand anything.
How come we don't have mice? How come we don't need them? Well, we don't need them because we live a spiritual life: we've got books preserved here, and art, and mice would come out and eat up our treasures! With their tiny, sharp teeth, crunch crunch, nibble nibble, they'd chew them up, ruin them!
But Golubchiks have a different life, they depend on mice. They can't do anything without mice. They need them for soup, of course, and stew, and if you want to sew yourself a coat, or trade at the market, pay taxes, that is, pay the tithe. There's the house tax, the pillow tax, the stove tax-you need mice for all of them. So that means they can't keep books at home, no, no, no! It's either one or the other.
And why is it that spiritual life is called a higher life? It's because you put books up as high as you can, on the top floor, on a shelf, so that if misfortune strikes and the vermin get into the house, the treasure will be safer. That's why!
And why do Father-in-law, Mother-in-law, and Olenka have claws on their feet?-for the same reason, of course! To protect spirituality! To be on the watch for mice! You won't slip by them. That's why there are three fences wrapped around the terem! That's why the guards are so strict! That's why they search you when you come in! Because no matter who you are, even the fanciest suitor or some other very important person, you could still bring a mouse in with you and you wouldn't even notice.
If you have a rat's nest in your hair a mouse could make its own nest there too.
It could hide in your pockets, that happens sometimes.
Or in a boot.
It couldn't have been clearer, but he hadn't understood. And he hadn't understood Illness, goodness knows what he thought. But Illness is in people's heads, Illness is human ignorance, stupidity, Freethinking, dimwittedness, it's when they think "Oh, well, who cares, it doesn't matter, mice and books can live in the same izba." Jeez! A book in the same izba with a mouse! Horrible even to think about.
And how stubborn the scum are: you'd think no one let them read, that someone took away poems and essays! And just why did the government hire Scribes, why did it build the Work Izba, teach people letters, hand out writing sticks, scrape bark clean, sew bark booklets? It's a lot of extra work for the government, extra effort, fuss and bother! It's all for the people, that's who it's for. Catch all the mice you like, go on, be my guest-then trade them for booklets and read to your heart's content!
He clenched his fists in anger, tossed and turned on the bed, and in his head everything grew clearer and clearer, like a great space was opening up! Good Lord! That's how it always was, in ancient times too! "But is the world not all alike… Throughout the ages, now and ever more?" It is! It is!
Beneath a canopy of fetid thatch, In valleys far below the mountain's crest, A web has bound both kith and kin, Nearby, an earthly mouse now builds its nest.
Now kith and kin crowd round the valley,
They clamor, yet each one is still alone, And each conceals in his own desert A frozen knot, an ever precious stone.
There you go! In the Oldener days people did the same thing: they made mischief, had a spell of Freethinking, hid books in the cold somewhere, in the damp, all frozen in a knotted bundle. Now he got it!
In the stony cracks between the tiles
The faces of the mice squeezed through,
They looked like triangles of chalk,
With mournful eyes on either side-one, two.
That's right, there's no holding a mouse back! It can get through any crack or crevice!
… Life, you're but a mouse's scurry, Why do you trouble me?
Ah, brother pushkin! Aha! You also tried to protect your writing from rodents! He'd write-and they'd eat, he'd write some more, and they'd eat again! No wonder he was troubled! That's why he kept riding back and forth across the snow, across the icy desert! The sleigh bells jangle ting-a-ling! He'd hitch up a Degenerator and it was off to the steppes! He was hiding his work, looking for a place to keep it safe!
Neither fire nor darkened huts, Just woods and snow to greet me, The whitened stripes of frosty ruts Are all that here do meet me.
He was looking for a place to bury… Suddenly, everything became so clear that Benedikt sat up and put his feet on the floor. Why didn't he realize it earlier…? How could he have missed the instructions?… A long time ago! What did they sing with Lev Lvovich?
Steppe and nothing else, As far as the eye can see…
Out on that lonesome steppe A coachman called to me.
Well! Why did he go racing off to the steppes, if not to hide books?-"in his own desert / a frozen knot, an ever precious stone…"
Please do tell my wife, That on the steppe I froze, And that I took with me Her undying love!
What love is he talking about? It was a book! What else could you love but a book? Huh?
"Tell my wife… that I took with me." He asks his pal to tell his wife so that she doesn't keep looking, otherwise she'll be missing them… Now there's a poem for you! Not a poem but a regular fable! Governing instructions rendered in a simplified, popular form!
That's why Lev Lvovich was crying. He probably buried some books too, and now he can't find them. That's enough to make you cry. But he started singing and remembered!
How did they hint to Benedikt? Benedikt asked them: Are there any books around to read? And they answered: You don't know your ABCs. And he said: What do you mean I don't know them, I know them! And they said: "Steppe and nothing else, as far as the eye can see…" It was a hint. A fable. That's where the books are buried, they were telling him. We don't keep them at home.
All right. Where is the steppe? The steppe is in the south… But why did he keep saying: the west will help us?… And Nikita Ivanich kept telling him: No way, it won't help, we have to do it ourselves. So which is it? Where are they?
Mother-in-law knocked on the door: "Time to bathe the children! Are you going to watch?"
"Don't bother me!" screamed Benedikt, pounding his fist. "Close the door!"
"Should we bathe them?"
"Shut the door!"
She broke his train of thought, dammit!… Benedikt dressed hurriedly, throwing on his coat, the robe, and the hood. He dashed down the stairs and whistled to a lethargic Nikolai to hitch up.
He drove him impatiently, tapping his boot in the sleigh. He had to check the horizon. He absolutely had to. Before the faint winter light was gone, he had to survey the horizon in all four directions.
Benedikt was driving to the watchtower, that's where. He'd never been up in the watchtower before. Who would have let a Golubchik up there, anyway? It was forbidden, it belonged to the government, only guards and Murzas are allowed on the tower. And why is that? Because you can see far and wide from there, and that's governmental business, it's not meant for just anyone! An ordinary Golubchik has no call to be looking off far and wide: it's not fitting. Maybe there are warriors approaching off in the distance! Maybe a ferocious enemy wants to take a bite out of our bright homeland, so he's sharpened his sticks and marched off toward us. That's governmental business! It's forbidden! But no one would ever stop Benedikt, since he was a Saniturion.
No one stopped him. Naturally.
The watchtower was higher than the highest terem, higher than the trees, higher than the Alexander column. There was a room on the very top. In the room, set in the walls, were four small windows, four slits facing the four sides of the world. Above it sat a slanted four-sided roof, like a hat. Like the one the Murzas wear. When you look up from below-way, way up, under the clouds, the government workers and guards swarm like little ants. They crawl from one place to another, fiddling around with something. Down on the ground the guards have poleaxes. Benedikt rose heavily from the sleigh, one part of him at a time, his awful eyes looking through the crimson slits. He raised his hood-and the guards fell prostrate onto the hard, frozen snow crust. He stepped into the tower. There was a strong doggy smell from dirty coats and the acrid odor of cheap rusht: they were smoking damp, uncleaned rusht with twigs and straw. The wood steps clunked and clattered under his feet. There was a spiral staircase covered with yellow ice-this was where they relieved themselves and stamped out butts. On the walkways, sparkling with frost, someone had scratched curse words, the usual stuff. Not a whiff of spirituality… He climbed slowly, leaning on the hook, stopping on the landings to rest. Steam came out of his mouth and hung there, hovering in clouds in the foul, frosty air.
On the top landing the guards jumped in surprise when they saw the red robe of a government worker.
"Out!" ordered Benedikt.
The workers took off, tearing down the stairs, pushing one another, all eight legs thundering down.
From the tower you could see far away. Far away… There wasn't even a word in the language to say how far you could see from the tower! And if there was a word like that, you'd be scared to say it out loud. Ooooh, so far away! To the farthest of far, the edge of the edge, to the limit of limits, all the way to death! The round pancake of the earth, the whole heavenly vault, the entire cold December, the whole city with all its settlements, with its dark, lopsided izbas-empty and wide open, gone over with the fine-tooth comb of the Saniturions' hooks and still inhabited, still swarming with scared, senseless, stubborn life!
O world, roll up into a single block, A cracked and broken sidewalk, A fouled and filthy warehouse, The burrow of a mouse!
A thin strip of horrible yellow sunset filled the western window, and the evening star Alatyr twinkled in the sunset. The pushkin stuck out like a small black stick in the confusion of streets, and from that height the rope looped around the poet's neck and hung with laundry looked like a fine thread.
The sunrise lay hidden in a dark-blue blanket in the other window, covering the woods, rivers, more woods, and secret fields where red tulips sleep under the snow, where Benedikt's eternal bride hibernates, dressed in frosty lace, inside an icy, decorated egg, with a smile on her luminous face, my unfound love, the Princess Bird, and she dreams of kisses, of silky grass, golden flies, and mirrored waters where her unspeakable beauty is reflected, shimmers, ruffles, multiplies. In her sleep the Princess Bird sighs a happy sigh and dreams of her beautiful self.
To the south, lit by a terrible double light-the yellow from the west and the dark blue from the sunrise side-in the south, blocking the impassable snowy steppe with its whistling whirlwinds and stormy columns, in the south, which runs, runs ever onward toward the dark blue, windy Ocean-Sea, in the south, beyond the ravine, beyond the triple moat, covering the whole width of the window, spread the red, adorned, embellished, ornamented, painted, many-towered, many-storied terem of Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, the Greatest Murza, Long May He Live.
"Ha!" laughed Benedikt.
Joy spurted from him like foamy, sparkling kvas.
Joy, thou beauteous godly lightning, Daughter of Elysium.
Suddenly, everything became as limpid as a spring brook. It was all right in front of him, clear as day. That's what it was! There!… There, right before him, unspoiled, unspent, a treasure trove full to the brim, a magical garden blooming and fruitful in its pink-white froth, a garden flowing with the sweetest juice, like a billion blind firelings! There, packed tight from its sonorous cellars to its aromatic attics, was the pleasure palace! Ali Baba's cave! The Taj Mahal, for cryin' out loud!
Of course! In the south, that's right! So the west did help! The light was from the west, the star was a beacon. It illuminated everything! He guessed, he figured it out, he understood the clues, he understood the fable-and everything fit together!
He squinted from happiness, squeezed his eyelids tight, and shook his head. He stuck his head through the window slit to feel it better; he inhaled the aroma of frost and wood, the sweet smoke curling up from the chimneys of the Red Terem. He seemed to see things better with his eyelids closed, he heard more clearly, and felt more acutely; there, there, right nearby, very close, just beyond the gully, beyond the ditch, behind the triple wall, beyond the high pike fence-but you can jump over a wall and slip under a pike fence. If only he could jump from the tower right this minute, softly softly, unheard and unseen, and be swept away in the blizzard's whirlwind, carried like weightless dust across the gully, like a snowspout right into the attic window! Crawling and leaping, limber and long, but just so he didn't miss it, didn't lose the trail; closer, still closer to the terem, without leaving traces on the snow, scaring dogs in the yard, or disturbing any creatures in the house!
And then to drink, drink his fill, drink in the letters, words, and pages with their sweet, dusty, acrid, inimitable smell! O my beauteous poppies! O my imperishable, ever-shining gold!
"Oooooooh!" Benedikt squealed blissfully.
"So, son, are you ready now?" came a quiet laugh behind him, just above his ear. Benedikt started and opened his eyes.
"Goodness gracious, Papa! You scared me!"
Father-in-law stole up quietly, the floorboards didn't even tremble. You could tell he'd pulled his claws in. He, too, wore a red robe and hood over his head, but by the voice and the smell you could tell that yes, it was Father-in-law, Kudeyar Kudeyarich.
"So what now?" whispered Father-in-law. "Shall we do a bit of tumbling?"
"I don't understand."
"Feel like doing a bit of overturning? Fyodor Kuzmich, that is, Glorybe? Ready to knock off the evil tormentor? That damned dwarf?"
"I'm ready," Benedikt whispered with conviction. "Papa! I'd do it with my own hands!"
"Oh, heart of mine!…" said Father-in-law joyfully. "Well? Finally!… Finally! Let me hug you!"
Benedikt and Kudeyar Kudeyarich embraced and stood looking down on the city from the heights. Bluish lights began to flicker in the izbas, the sunset went out, the stars emerged.
"Let's swear an oath to each other," said Kudeyar Kudeyarich.
"An oath?"
"Yep. For eternal friendship."
"Well… all right."
"I gave you everything. I gave you my daughter-if you want, I'll let you have my wife."
"Uh, that won't be n-n-n-necessary. We need Kant in our hearts and a peaceful sky above our heads. There's a law like that," Benedikt remembered.
"True enough. And it's us against the tyrants. Agreed?"
"Of course."
"We'll ravage the oppressor's nest, okey dokey?"
"Oh, Papa, he's got books piled high as the snow!"
"Aaah, my dear, even higher. And he tears pictures out of them."
"Quiet, I don't want to know," said Benedikt, gritting his teeth.
"I can't be quiet! Art is in peril!" Father-in-law exclaimed sternly. "There is no worse enemy than indifference! All evil in fact comes from the silent acquiescence of the indifferent. You read Mumu, didn't you? Did you understand the moral? How he kept silent all the time, and the dog died."
"Papa, but how-"
"Know-how, that's how. I've thought the whole thing through. We'll make a revolution. I've just been waiting for you. We'll go in at night, he doesn't sleep at night, but the guards will be tired. Okey-dokey?"
"At night, how can we do it at night? It's dark!"
"And what am I here for? Aren't I a torch-bearer?"
Father-in-law's eyes gave off a ray of light, and he laughed contentedly.
Clear and simple. The soul was icy clean. No neuroses now.