“Good-bye.” Alice told the dolphins. “I’ll come by to visit you again.” She held the mielophone carefully so that Bertha did not see it from the window, put it back into its case, said what was necessary to the robot, and headed for the building’s entrance.
When Alice had vanished behind the corner the dolphin they had named Ruslan stuck his turned up snout out the water and said in a low voice to his neighbor in the dolphin language:
“Interesting. What’s going on in Montevideo?”
“I don’t know.” The second dolphin answered. “Pity about the kid; she really was disappointed. Couldn’t we at least have said ‘Hello?’“
“It’s too early.” Ruslan told his companion. “The humans still aren’t smart enough to talk to. There’s too much they don’t understand.”
“Unfortunately, you’re right.” The second dolphin said. “Take those little boys. Really bad upbringing. One of them even threw a stick at me.”
And the dolphins, romping, raced each other around the pool in a circle.
Chapter Three: A Girl of Hithers and Yons
On the first day of their vacation a person typically does nothing. More precisely, there is something to be done and even a great many things to be done, but it is difficult to think which of them is most important, and so one becomes lost among the numerous possibilities and temptations.
Alice said her good-byes to Bertha Maximovna, went out onto the street and looked up at one of the aerial clocks that hung in the sky over the city. The clocks said it was noon. Alice had the entire day in front of her and after that stretched numerous completely free summer days with the underwater trip her father had promised her, the excursion to India, the expedition of the Young Naturalists Society to the desert and even, if her mother had managed to get the tickets, a trip to Paris for the three hundredth anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, which the Parisians had already reconstructed of Styrofoam for the occasion. Life promised to be interesting, but all the interesting things were going to start Tomorrow.
So, for the moment, Alice set off down Gogolevsky Boulevard, the mielophone in her bag. From time to time Alice patted the case with her palm, just to make certain the apparatus really was there. She was telling herself that she was going drop in at her home and put the instrument back in its place, but that was really going to waste a lot of time. Once she went in the door the Robot would make her sit down to eat and, it would tell her that she was really getting thin and I’ll have to tell your mother when she returns, and all sorts of other silly words. The Martian Mantis would want to be taken for its walk, and taking the Martian Mantis for a walk was a real pain; it stopped at every tree and sniffed at every crack and crevice of the pavement.
So it was perfectly reasonable that Alice did not head home as she had told herself she would, but set off down the boulevard.
Gogolevsky Boulevard was wide and shady they said that whole kindergarten classes and their teachers had gotten lost there and had never been found it wound from the Moscow River to Arbat Square and, like a like a long and wide river there were islands in it where green streets and side streets flowed into the main boulevard.
Alice headed toward the old statue of Gogol following a path that twisted and turned back on itself past beautifully flowering orange trees until she found herself facing the statue itself. It was a very sad statue. Gogol just sat there, with his big overcoat wrapped about him. Even though Gogol wrote really funny books he himself was a very morose and gloomy person. On the other side of the monument, on one of the side streets, they were planning to grow early ripening cherries. They had transplanted them only about a month ago. Could the berries have already appeared?
Sitting on the park bench on the other side of the statue facing the cherry plantings was an old man with a long white beard in a very odd straw hat that was pushed down until it rested on his thick eyebrows. The old man seemed to be dreaming, but, when Alice approached him or rather when she ran past he lifted his head and said:
“Whither are you rushing to, pumpkin? You’re raising the dust going from hither to yon!”
Alice stopped.
“I’m not raising dust. The gravel here is too big to be blown in the wind.”
“I say you have!” The old man seemed astonished; he raised his head to look at her and stuck his salt and pepper beard in Alice’s direction. “I say you have! You deny it, do you?”
The old man did not appear to be entirely sane. But, in any case, Alice said:
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t deliberate.” And she wanted to run further away. But the old man wouldn’t let her.
“Come hither.” He said. “People are talking to you!”
“What does ‘hither’ mean?” Alice said. “What a strange way you have of talking.”
“And you talk back to your elders, or I shall take a switch and tan your bottom!”
The old man was totally unexpected. And he spoke very oddly. Alice was not really frightened by him, but he did leave her uneasy. There wasn’t anyone else in the street, and if the old man really did decide to spank her with a switch…
No, I can run away. Alice thought, and walked a little closer to the old man.
“Just what is going on here?” The old man said. “They left me in this god-forsaken spot, and then vanished without a trace! And just what is this place, I ask you?”
“It is terrible, yes.” Agreed Alice.
“And you wouldn’t have any crackers or muffins inside your bag, would you?” The old man asked. “Neither food nor drink has passed my mouth this morning.”
“No,” Alice said. “But I can take you to a caf‚.”
“I would never frequent such a place.” The old man said. “I would go to my execution first. And anyway, I am on duty now.”
Alice started laughing. The old man was not nearly so terrible and even joked. She said:
“There’s a robot run sandwich shop….”
“To be avoided.” The old man said. “I will avoid it without your advice. No, but tell me, pumpkin, what has happened to the world?”
What an odd old man! Alice thought. Wouldn’t he be something to show to the kids in class.
“How old are you, grandfather?” She asked.
“In years, let me see; I still remember the Father Emperor Nikolai Aleksandrovich, he of heavenly memory. And the like. And General Gurko on his white horse. And maybe there was Skobelev there too…”
“You’re very old!” Alice remembered the names from History classes. “You must be the oldest person in the world! Are you from Abkhazia?”
“What are you talking about Abkhazia? What sort of person are you? I’ll show you!” The old man tried to get to his feet from the bench and chase after Alice, but at the last moment seemed to think better of it and stayed sitting down. Alice ran a few paces back and then stopped. She was not yet ready to leave the marvelous old man.
“It’s like I said.” The old man continued, as though he ha entirely forgotten his explosion of rage. “Just what has happened to the world? It’s quite gone off its rocker, hither and yon!”
If the old man remembered a Russian Emperor and the ancient generals he had to be at the very least two hundred years old. But how had he stayed alive for so long, without even a word about him on the NewsNet. Not even Papa knew about him. If Alice’s father had known about any such person he would certainly have told her.
“This place has no order or manners! People are walking hither and yon naked, waving their shameless arms and legs left and right! Oh, lament for them! Close your eyes to the sight!” The old man shuddered and suddenly started to howl in fury in his thin voice:
“It’s the end of the world! Doomsday! The Anti-Christ is drawing near and we shall all pay for our sins…”
Oh no! Alice started to become very worried. Should I call someone? He must be sick.