A NEW YEAR'S FABLE
269
rounded; someone shook my hand. My chief pushed his way
towards me.
"You have managed, after all, to put time in its place,"
he said by way of congratulation. "In antiquity they would
have drawn an owl beside your name! You once suggested the
hypothesis that the hieroglyphic . . . Do you remember . . . ?"
"But do you realize it has been confirmed," I replied. And
I reflected that I had really put time in its place. I had lived a
whole lifetime in a year. And how many years still lay ahead
-a whole ocean of time!
Whom should I thank for this? I glanced at the window–
sill where my owl always used to sit. But it was not there. There
was only an aquarium and, in it, a lotus blossom. But outside
the window, very far away in the pale blue-green sky some large
bird was flying towards the horizon, ponderously flapping its
wings.
The ocean of time splashed at my feet. I stood on the
shore, ready to begin my life anew, and the mysterious waves
of the future fell at my feet, one after another, and then re–
treated beckoning to me. Tomorrow I shall be swimming far
beyond the horizon. I felt somewhat frightened: for a year I
had been accustomed to the constant presence of the owl. Could
I manage to live without its injunctions? Would not this mighty
ocean, which was expecting me, become transformed into a
rivulet I could step over without even noticing?
Here I remembered the watch, the bandit's present. At
once I felt chill with fright: I could not hear the watch.
I grasped the chain . . . Ah, yes! The watch had stopped.
A year, a whole year, had passed. I must wind the watch again!
I pulled out the watch, inserted the ornamented key and
turned it twenty times. Then I felt it resist-the watch was
going. It had started for the New Year.
(Translated from the Russian by George Reavey)
