238
VLADIMIR DUDINTSEV
"Perhaps this hieroglyphic denotes a man who best knew
how to utilize his time," I ventured to suggest.
"Possibly. But that would have to be verified."
"But an age-span of nine hundred years!" I could not
restrain myself from exclaiming. "Was such longevity ever
possible?"
"Everything is possible!" snapped my broad-shouldered,
forever concentrating neighbor, without stopping his work.
"What do you mean?" the chief politely inquired.
"Time is an enigma," he replied even more enigmatically.
"Yes, time is an enigma," the chief said, echoing this
interesting idea. He took the hour-glass from the wall, turned
it upside down and set it before him on his desk. "It's running!"
he commented, watching the sand. "And look at the result.
Every instant of our life may be compared to a minute grain
of sand, to an infinitely tiny speck . . . one that vanishes
instantly...."
I suddenly felt a spasm of pain in my chest. I had once
experienced several months of unexpected and extraordinary
love, and now that I looked back with pain upon those months,
they emerged into one single instant, into a mere grain of sand
dropping to the bottom of the hour-glass. Not a trace remained
in my hands. It was as though nothing had even been! I sighed.
If
I could only turn the hour-glass again!
"Excuse me, chief," our personnel manager said, inter–
rupting my reflections. "Where does your theory-if I may call
it that-lead us: if time is a mere speck, then we have no heroic
past? No sunny future?"
He was fond of loudly posing very blunt questions as if
implicating a man in some horrible crime.
"My apologies if I said something amiss," our peace-loving
chief replied. "But, in my view, I did not have time to formulate
any theory. It's all a joke, a fantasy
"
"A strange fantasy that. Mter all, we have a certain
framework . . ."
