The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life) - Сергей Николаевич Огольцов

Because there were no streetcars in Nezhyn, the city buses grew too aloof. The tin plates on special posts at every bus stop were telling, with black on yellow, at what exactly time bus number this or that should pull up by, but reading those plates would only aggravate frustration. According to the tin-table, no less than 3 of Bus 5 should have already passed the stop, while you were still waiting for at least a single one… At last! It appeared in the distance instilling a timid hope that… No, it revved by, ignoring the stop because of being jam-packed to the utmost…

However, that night Eera and I were lucky. The moment we reached the bus stop, it was approached by a bus. It was a Saturday night and we walked out because Twoic invited me to play Preferans at his place. He was already a last-year student and did not live in the hostel but rented a flat somewhere, so we arranged to meet in the main square. From Red Partisans Street to the main square there were just 2 bus stops, and we would go on foot but for that bus turned up. Eera would hold on to my arm, so as not to slip in her high-wedge high boots on the firmly trampled snow with rigid circles of white on it drawn by the cones of light beneath the lamp pillars…

When we were dressing in the bedroom, Eera asked me to pass her the belt from her frock – a long strap of fabric. Because the bedroom was so narrow and to skip squeezing between the bed and your carriage, I just threw the belt to her. However, one of its ends I kept pinched with my fingers, in case she did not catch it. Eera, not following my actions after her request, bent forward to zip up her high boots, and the other end of the belt swept over her drooping back.

I was stunned by the striking resemblance of the situation to that scene in "The Gypsy" movie, where Budulie lashed his wife with a whip for goodbye because he was going away to the war, like, gypsies had that sort of tradition. However, Eera had not noticed anything, and I consoled myself with the thought that I was not a gypsy and there was no war anyway…

When the bus pulled up at the stop in the square, there had already accumulated such a crowd that even 2 buses would not be enough. I got off first and stretched out my hand to Eera, helping her to descend. No sooner had she been on the stop than the crowd rushed to storm the bus doors. However, I managed to fence Eera behind my back. And then some girl shrieked loudly because she got almost run over in the stampede. Fortunately, she managed to grab onto the bus side and was not trampled by the crowd pouring up the steps.

As a man not only noble but also gallant, I thought it was absolutely wrong, especially in the presence of my wife, and I shouted to the girl, over the mass streaming between us, apologizing for all that bedlam, "I am sorry!"

Someone in the crowd did not want to be inferior in gallantry to me and, deducting it was I who pushed her, hit me on the cheekbone. Or, maybe, he'd been schooled that a fact of violation must be followed by the fact of punishment.

And then I declared out loud to him and to the crowd which for a moment forgot about the bus and tarried waiting for my response, and even the full moon seemed to turn her face closer to hear the words: "With all my nonresistance this is too much to bear!" And the blow was answered with my blow.

Probably, he was not alone there, or else the guys, united by the frustration from a long wait in the embittered crowd, immediately turned into a close-knit pack but there poured blows at me from all the sides – they found a scapegoat to splash out their rage kindled by inconveniences in life design. All I could do was to cover my face and head with my arms bent at elbows but, in my humble opinion, the self-protection attitude was executed by my body on its own accord, without waiting for my decisions. I, personally, could only hear some unintelligible yells. Who to whom? What about?

When there sounded the growl of the started engine, I somehow was already in the square, off the stop, in the cross-light of the street lamps bounding the place, but still keeping on my feet, although bareheaded. Probably, the wrath-spillers were too many, and they hindered each other to knock me down flat on the trodden snow crust. The pack ran off to catch the door from slamming on the other side of the bus. It left and I returned to the stop where, among a dozen passengers who had not managed to squeeze in, Eera stood with my rabbit fur hat in her hands. Farther aside, in the shadow of the dark news stall there loomed Twoic who had come to meet us…

He led us to his flat which he rented together with Petyunya Rafalofsky, and I played one pool with them there. Then they went out to see off Eera and me. The narrow sidewalk allowed for only two persons to go side by side, and Eera was in the first couple walking along with Twoic. He wore a long sheepskin coat and a furry malakhai headgear giving him a look of a bear next to Eera in her coat of straight cut and a closely fitting woolen hat.

I was walking behind them, alongside Petyunya, and felt unbearable bitterness because she was not with me. Yet, what else could I do? To kick up a scene of jealousy? To pull