It was quiet all around, that living silence you get in the country, with the rustle of the morning wind after it's finally turned cool. Only that didn't make me feel any better. The bed was soaking wet with sweat and my head was splitting. Semyon was snoring monotonously on the bed beside me – three of us had been put in the same room. Tolik was sleeping on the floor, wrapped up in a blanket. He'd turned down the hammock he'd been offered, saying his back was hurting – he'd injured it in some tussle in 1976 – and he'd be better off sleeping on a hard surface. I held the back of my head in my hands to stop the sudden movement shaking it to pieces and sat up on the bed. I looked at the bedside locker and saw two aspirins and a bottle of Borzhomi mineral water. Who was this kind soul? The evening before, we'd drunk two bottles between us. Then Tolik had turned up. Then someone else, and they'd brought some wine. But I hadn't drunk any wine, I still had enough sense left for that. I washed down the aspirins with half a bottle of water and sat there stupidly for a while, waiting for the medicine to take effect.
