The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Susan Sontag, Victor Serge, Willard R. Trask Read Free Book Online Page B

much, only occasionally,” Romachkin answered, blushing. “I recommend intercourse twice a month,” said the doctor dryly. “As to the idea of justice, don’t let it worry you. It is a positive social idea resulting from the sublimation of the primitive ego and the suppression of individualistic instincts; it is called upon to play a great role in the period of transition to Socialism … Macha, call in the next patient. Your number, citizen?” The next patient was already in the room, his number in his fingers — fingers of paper, shaken by an inner storm. A being disfigured by an animal laugh. The man in the white blouse, the doctor, disappeared behind his screen. What did he look like? Romachkin had forgotten his face already. Satisfied with his consultation, Romachkin was in a mood to joke: “The patient is yourself, Citizen Doctor. Primitive sublimation — what nonsense! You have never had the least notion of justice, citizen.”
    He emerged from the crisis strengthened and illuminated. As a result of the doctor’s advice on sexual hygiene he found himself, one cloudy evening, on a bench on the Boulevard Trubnoy, haunt of painted girls who ask you, in soft, alcoholic voices, for a cigarette … Romachkin did not smoke. “I am very sorry, mam’selle,” he said, trying to sound lewd. The prostitute took a cigarette from her pocket, lit it slowly to display her painted nails and her charming profile — then crushed her body against his: “Looking for something?” He nodded. “Come over on the other bench, it’s farther from the light. You’ll see what I can do … Three rubles, right?” Romachkin was overwhelmed by the thought of poverty and injustice; yet what connection was there between such thoughts and this prostitute, and himself, and sexual hygiene? He said nothing. Yet he was half aware of a connection, as tenuous as the silvery rays that on clear nights link star to star. “For five rubles, I’ll take you home,” said the girl. “You pay in advance, darling — that’s the rule.” He was glad that there was a rule for this sort of transaction. The girl led him through the moonlight to a hovel almost indistinguishable in the shadow of an eight-story office building. Discreet knocking on a windowpane brought out a poverty-stricken woman clutching a shawl over her sunken chest. “It’s comfortable inside,” she said, “there’s a little fire. Don’t hurry, Katiuchenka, I’ll be all right here smoking a butt while I wait. Don’t wake the baby — she’s asleep on the far side of the bed.” In order not to wake the baby, they lay down on the floor on a quilt which they took from the bed, in which a little dark-haired girl lay sleeping with her mouth open. A single candle gave the only light. Everything, from the dirty ceiling to the cluttered corners, was sordid. The iniquity of it went through Romachkin like a cold that freezes to the bone. He too was iniquitous, an iniquitous brute. In his person, iniquity itself writhed on the body of a miserable, anemic girl. Iniquity filled the huge silence into which he plunged with bestial fury. At that instant, another idea was born in him. Feeble, faraway, hesitant, not wanting to live, it yet was born. Thus from volcanic soil rises a tiny flame, which, small though it be, yet reveals that the earth will quake and crack and burst with flowing lava.
    Afterwards, they walked back to the boulevard together. She chattered contentedly: “Still got to find one more tonight. It’s not easy. Yesterday I hung around till dawn, and then didn’t get anyone but a drunk who didn’t have quite three rubles left. What do you think of that? Cholera! People are too hungry, men don’t think about making love these days.” Romachkin politely agreed, preoccupied with watching the struggles of the new little flame: