 An incident at Krzysztofka station, by Solzhennitzen, Alexander Solzhennitzen from the book. We never make mistakes and this is the first story. An incident at Krzysztofka station, starting at page, in the middle of page 37. But this was impossible. Although it wasn't really bothering him, he straightened his collar with the red square on the green tab and adjusted his glasses. No, Volia, I won't go anywhere else. However, our work is waiting for us. What are we sitting here talking for? He put his cap back on his head, whereupon the expression on his open, nub-nosed face became very serene. The girl looked at him, solemnly, and agreed, well, all right. Vasily, Vasilych. She sighed with great difficulty. She raised herself from her, her leaning position and holding the list in her hand went out. He blinked, confused, and perplexed. Maybe if she would come back and ask him once more, firmly, he would agree. But she didn't come back. Zoltov couldn't explain to anyone why he lived in a poorly heated, grimy isba with the old woman and her three grandchildren and slept on the short, hard, uncomfortable chest. The enormous, cruel mob in the barracks where he lived in 1941 laughed at him on the few occasions when he said that he loved his wife and would remain true to her during the entire war and that he hadn't completed and he had complete confidence in her too. His practical minded friends all laugh wildly, patted him on the shoulder, and advised him not to waste himself. Since then he had never spoken to anyone about this, but he was very lonely, especially when he woke up in the dark of the night and thought about his wife and about how things were for her there, far, far away, awaiting the birth of his child and under the German occupation. But it was not because of his wife that he refused Volia. It was because of Pauline, not only because of Pauline either, but because of he really didn't know. Pauline, a dark short-haired woman from Kiev, with a dull, lustless face, was the one who lived with Aunt Froshia and worked at the post office. Whenever he had time, Vasily would go to the post office and read the latest newspapers. The bundles were always a few days late. He would frequently read the news in all the papers, not in just one or two. Certainly the post office was not a library and nobody was obligated to allow him to read, but Pauline understood how he felt and always brought the newspapers to the end of the counter where he stood in the cold and red. As with Zoltov, so also was Pauline. The war was not an incessant swing of an ever-moving wheel. Rather, it touched the vital center of her life, now and for all future time. In order to guess what the future might hold, Pauline would open the newspaper anxiously and with trembling hands and would reach for bits of news that would tell her how the war was progressing. They often read together and showed each other the most important places in the news. For both of them, these newspapers replaced the letters which neither ever received. Pauline read carefully through all the reports of military episodes, trying to guess if her husband had been involved. On advice from Zoltov, she even read the articles about machine gun and tank tactics in Red Star, the army newspaper, wrinkling her smooth forehead over them. Vasily read aloud to her, excitedly, articles by Ilya in Rindberg. Sometimes he asked Pauline if he could clip some articles for himself from papers that were not delivered. He fell in love with Pauline, her child and her mother, in a way that people who have never known misfortune cannot understand. He always brought some sugar from his own rations for her little son. During all the times that they read the newspapers together, he never once dared touch her pale hands, not because of her husband, nor because of his wife, but because of the sacred grief that united them. Pauline was the person closest to him in Kretsch, Tovka, No. On this side of the entire front, she represented the eyes of his conscience and his truth. How could he go to live with Valia? What would Pauline think of him? Even without Pauline, he could not have casually consoled himself with any woman when everything he loved was in danger of being lost. It was also not easy to admit to Valia and to the lieutenants on the shift that there were evenings when he read a particular book, the only one which he had taken from some library during his bustling travels that year, and which he always carried with him in his duffel bag. The book was the thick blue first volume of Carl Marx's capital, printed on the rough paper of the 1930s, which had turned dark with age. During all the five years of his student days, he had dreamt of reading this most desirable book. More than once, he got it out of the institute library, and I tried to make a synopsis of it. He kept the book out by the semester, by the year, but there was never any time. There were always meetings to attend, social burdens and examinations. Without having finished the single page of his summary, he returned the book at the time of the June examinations. Even when they were studying political economy, the best time to read capital, the teacher talked him out of it, saying, quote, you'll drown in it, end quote. In instead, he advised him to use lapitos as a textbook and to take notes from the lectures. Really, there was not time for anything else. Now in the autumn of 1941, in the glow of great anxiety, Zoltov could find time here in this hole for capital. So he did, went off duty in hours, spared from his general education, or from district party committee tasks. In his quarters at Avdev's house in the living room, which was filled with phalangerine and aloe, he sat at a rickety little table. He read by the light of a kerosene lamp. A small diesel engine wasn't adequate to provide power for all the houses in the settlement, stroking the rough rough pages with his fingers. He read it the first time his comprehension, the second for mark marketing and underscoring, marking and underscoring, and the third for a rapid summary, trying finally to get it all through his head. The worse the news from the war became, the more he buried himself in the thick blue book. Vasily thought that if he could assimilate everything in just this one volume and memorize all of it in an orderly fashion, he would be invincible, invulnerable, and could not be overcome in any ideological skirmish. But there were few such hours and few such evenings. He made notes on only a few pages because Antonio Ivanovva got in the way. She too was living at Avdeva's house, having come from Lysok and remaining there in Krzhtovakka. She soon became the manager of a dining room. She was very enterprising and such a boxum and strong woman that there wasn't much scandal connected with her dining room. As Zotov later found out, in exchange for one ruble, she covered the bottom of a clay bowl with hot gray, greaseless water in which a few noodles were swimming. For a deposit of another ruble, those who didn't want to drink all this out of the bowl could use a crocked wooden spoon. For herself, Antonio Ivanovva would tell Adyev to set up the Samovar and then would bring bread and fresh butter to her host's table. She couldn't have been more than 25 years old, but had the appearance of a mature woman with her blonde hair combed straight back from her face. She always greeted the lieutenants warmly and cordially. He answered her absentmindedly and for a long time thought she was a near relative of the owner of the house. Leaning over his volume, he didn't hear her returning late from work and didn't notice that she kept walking through his living room, which gave access to her own bedroom, from there to the owner's room and back again to her own. Suddenly, she came up to him and asked, What are you always reading, Comrade Lieutenant? He covered the volume with his notebook and answered her reluctantly. On another occasion, she asked, What do you think? Isn't it dangerous for me to leave my door unlocked at night? Zoltan answered her, What's there to be afraid of? I'm here with my pistol. Again, a few days later, sitting over his book, he realized that the walking back and forth had ceased as if she had left her room. He looked up and was dumbfounded. Right there in his room, she had fixed herself a place to sleep on the davan and was already lying down with her hair falling over the pillow and her bare, white shoulders uncovered. He stared at her and didn't quite know what to do. I'm not disturbing you here, am I? she asked with a little laugh. Vasily got up and his wits end. He had already started to walk rapidly toward her but stopped at the sight of her fat, thievish face. It revolted him. He couldn't speak. His throat tightened with revulsion. He turned, closed the volume of capital, found the time and strength to put it back in his duffel bag and rushed over to get his cap and coat which were hanging on a nail. On the way, he took off his belt which was cumbersome with his pistol on it and carrying it in his hand dashed out the door without a backwards glance. He went out into the pitch black darkness. Not even a glimmer of light could be seen. Neither from the masking paper covered windows nor from the darkly overcast sky and the cold, wet autumn wind still whipped and lashed at as it had all day. Stumbling through puddles, holes and mud, Vasily turned into a side entrance of the station not realizing at first that he was still carrying his belt and pistol. He sieved with such helpless resentment that he almost wept as if carried away by the dark stream of his emotions.