He still had Irene’s photograph, exactly as he had carried it for years. It lay on his breast. It accompanied him through the streets. He stood there on the Place de la Madeleine, and looked down the Rue Royale.
That was when I met Tunda.
XXXIV
It was August 27th, 1926, at four in the afternoon. The shops were full, women crowded the department stores, models gyrated in the fashion salons, idlers gossiped in the confectioners, the wheels span in the factories, beggars deloused themselves on the banks of the Seine, loving couples embraced in the Bois de Boulogne, children played on the roundabouts in the public gardens. It was at this hour that my friend Tunda, thirty-two years of age, healthy and vigorous, a strong young man of diverse talents, stood on the Place de la Madeleine, in the centre of the capital of the world, without any idea what to do. He had no occupation, no desire, no hope, no ambition, and not even any self-love.
No one in the whole world was as superfluous as he.
NOTES
* Private trading and speculation was allowed for a short period after the Revolution under Lenin’s New Economic Policy. (Tr.)
* One of Vienna’s most elegant shopping and promenading streets. Trs.