In our discussions, we used to squeeze together, head against head, smelling each other’s breath. Then, we lowered our voices, making them fainter than the buzzing of mosquitoes. It was as if we weren’t talking at all, just moving our lips. We could only guess what others were saying from the movements of their lips. Certain ideas were communicated in a very subtle way. For example, ‘‘spare-time recreation’’ was not completely the same as sex, but neither was it completely the same as ‘‘platonic friendship.’’ These are both extreme interpretations. We couldn’t accept either; but arguing against one view wasn’t the same as advocating the other. We had to distinguish the boundaries. And we distinguished on the basis of barely perceptible lip movements. Only the in-group could understand the profound meaning of these movements. If the lights weren’t on, we reached our conclusions on the basis of buzzing sounds.
This kind of get-together was so interesting. Everyone was left with lasting memories. Today, years later, many still sigh and say they wish time could reverse itself-if only it could stop in that moment filled with mysterious conviviality, if only they could enjoy once more that grand throbbing of body and mind, they wouldn’t mind having their lives cut short by a decade or two. That joy is gone forever. Only bleak melancholy remains. Those get-togethers in pitch-dark rooms, those swaying ghostly silhouettes on the walls, those voiceless furtive whispers, and the excitement of imagining oneself in the leading actor’s role during long sleepless nights: where did all of these things go? Such sweet memories! If a person has the good fortune to reenter that realm once or twice when he is old, he can die without regrets. The writer lost no time joining in. Of course, he didn’t go to hear them ‘‘say something.’’ If he’d been motivated only by this, he would have run into a wall. The old ways were dead. You had to innovate because you couldn’t ‘‘really hear’’ what anybody said. It was a thought movement, highly sentimental and inferential. Comprehending it depended on ‘‘intelligence.’’
The writer had quite a lot of talent and after hard practice gradually grasped certain main points that allowed him to enter that realm and obtain a lot. He transformed his old flamboyant, shallow writing style into one that stressed character and true feelings in a dignified way. He got rid of priggishness and turgid prose; he noted his feelings and embellished them imaginatively to represent reality.
Let’s start our analysis with Mr. Q. As we said, he is a good husband and father with a devoted wife and two sons. They all love the rural life, growing melons and vegetables in their front and back gardens and raising cats, dogs, and rabbits. His only shortcomings are being superstitious and believing in fate. But it’s precisely this that broke up his family. Ever since that lovely afternoon when he went calling and Madam X secretly told his fortune in that stifling room (we have no way of knowing the details), he changed into a person who had lost all reason and common sense. Sometimes, he unexpectedly even acted like a gangster: he was completely different from the simple, honest person he’d been before.
He announced to a friendly colleague: from now on, he would give up his self-restraint and be guided by destiny. This was providence, whose force was overwhelming. He had no way to resist it. All he could do was submit. If in the future this did him in, that was also providence. His eyes were wide open, his pupils unmoving, as he said this, and his teeth ‘‘chattered.’’ His colleague asked what was going on, but he didn’t hear and just spoke vaguely of some intersection, something about Wednesdays. He was agitated and his voice was shaking. Then he crowed like a rooster: his voice was magnificent. He kept crowing. His neck was puffy and his face reddened. His colleagues shouted for help, but he calmed down: ‘‘This is the way I am,’’ he told them. ‘‘All of you can see this. I’ve been a little crazy all along, though I covered it up well. When I sit at my desk in the office, I’m often seized by an impulse to jump up on the desk and crow like a rooster, as you just saw. For years, I’ve kept myself from doing this in public.’’
