250
VLADIMIR DUDINTSEV
hour-glass. That woman now lay forgotten and non-existent,
whereas this one was bearing down upon me.
"I have been requested to give you
this
on your birthday,"
she said almost officially, handing over to me the familiar
bulbous watch on the steel chain. "And this also. "
She pulled out an envelope from her hand-bag and
passed it to me.
"It's from him?" I asked.
"From him," the woman replied.
I was about to inquire cautiously whether the man who
was no longer here had succeeded in discovering the true love
of another, the love which it is impossible either to buy or to
steal. But I did not have the time. She read the question on my
face and, with a gesture of her hand, stopped me.
"That came to pass, it did," she whispered. -"It is still
so. And it will be so! But he was not sure ... I played a game.
You understand how it is? ... But when they let me into the
hospital, I shouted to him for a whole hour: 'Yes, yes, yes!'
But he did not hear me."
I lowered my head. My poor friend! I understood it
all.
Having placed the watch in my pocket, I accompanied the
woman downstairs and then returned.
"That's the woman," our smart dresser said in a low voice.
"She used to visit him. She never noticed anyone else. You
might try to stop her, but she kept right on as if she would go
right through you. Love had blinded her."
And then he added, laughing: "She noticed you, though!
Look out!"
I retired to my room and tore open the envelope.
"This letter will be passed on to you if I am killed," wrote
my no longer existing colleague. "You are very talented. I
am
writing you because you know more about me than the others
and because you may, perhaps, set a greater value on time. Life
yields herself to us only once, and we must drink her without
stopping. In great gulps. We must seize what is most precious.
