I barely got out of it. We agreed that I would finish my work, and Irina, since she had absolutely nothing else to do and was stir-crazy—she was incapable of just soaking in the tub and reading the latest issue of Foreign Literature—well, Irina would sort the laundry and take care of Bobchik’s room. And I promised to do our room, but not today, tomorrow. Morgen, morgen, nur nicht heute. But it would sparkle spotlessly. I settled in at my desk, and for a while everything was quiet and peaceful. I worked, and worked with pleasure, but it was an unusual sort of pleasure. I’d never experienced anything like it. I felt a strange, serious satisfaction, I was proud of myself and respected myself. I thought that a soldier who remains at the machine gun to cover his retreating comrades must feel like that. He knows he will be here forever, that he will never see anything other than the muddy field, the running figures in the enemy uniform, and the low, grim sky. And he also knows that it’s right, that it can be no other way, and is proud of it.
