The old woman had gone. The cat Vasily had disappeared. In the well two voices were singing a duet, and the effect was terrifying and dismal. The heavy rain was soon replaced by a dreary drizzle. It got dark.
I went into my room and tried to experiment with the whimsical book, but something in it had gotten jammed. Perhaps I was doing something wrong, or perhaps it was the influence of the weather, but no matter what I tried it stayed the way it was—F. F. Kuzmin’s Practical Exercises in Syntax and Punctuation. Reading a book like that was absolutely out of the question, so I tried my luck with the mirror. But the mirror reflected anything and everything and said nothing. Then I just stretched out on the sofa and lay there. I was on the point of nodding off from the boredom and the sound of the rain when the telephone suddenly started ringing. I went out into the hall and picked up the receiver. “Hello…”
The only sound in the earpiece was crackling.
“Hello,” I said, and blew into the mouthpiece. “Press the button.” There was no reply.
“Give it a bang,” I advised the silence. I blew into the phone again, tugged on the wire, and said. “Try calling again from a different phone.”
Then a voice in the receiver suddenly inquired, “Is that Alexander?”
“Yes,” I said, astonished.
“Why don’t you answer?”
“I am answering. Who’s this?”
“This is Petrovsky calling. Go down to the pickling shop and tell the foreman to give me a call.”
“What foreman?”
“Well, who have you got in today?”
“I don’t know…”
“What d’you mean, you don’t know? Is that Alexander?”
“Listen, citizen,” I said. “What number are you trying to call?”
“Seven two… Is that seven two?”
I didn’t know. “Apparently not,” I said.
“Then why did you say you were Alexander?”
“Because that’s who I am!”
“Pah!… Is this the manufacturing plant?”
“No,” I said. “This is the museum.”
“Ah… Then I beg your pardon. You can’t call the foreman, then…”
I hung up and went on standing there for a while, examining the hallway. There were five doors: the ones leading to my room, the yard, the old woman’s room, and the bathroom, and one covered in metal sheeting with a huge padlock. Boring, I thought. Lonely. And the lamp’s dim and dusty too… Shuffling my feet, I went back to my room and stopped in the doorway.
The sofa was gone.
Everything else was exactly the way it had been: the table, the brick oven, the mirror, the clothes hooks, and the stool. And the book was lying on the windowsill exactly where I’d left it. But where the sofa had been there was nothing now but a rectangle of thick dust on the floor, littered with rubbish. Then I saw the bedsheets lying neatly folded under the set of hooks.
“There was a sofa here a moment ago,” I said out loud. “I was lying on it.”
Something in the house had changed. The room was filled with an unintelligible hubbub—someone holding a conversation, music, people laughing, coughing, and shuffling their feet. For an instant a vague shadow obscured the light of the lamp, and the floorboards creaked loudly. Then suddenly I caught a medicinal smell like a drugstore and felt a puff of cold air in my face. I stepped back. And immediately I distinctly heard a sharp knock at the outside door. The noises instantly disappeared. Casting a glance around at the spot where the sofa had been, I went out into the hallway and opened the door.
Standing in front of me in the drizzle was a short, elegant man wearing a spotlessly clean cream raincoat with the collar turned up. He raised his hat and spoke in a dignified manner: “I’m very sorry to bother you, Alexander Ivanovich, but could you possibly spare me five minutes of your time?”
“Of course,” I said, confused. “Come in.”
It was the first time I’d ever seen this man, and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps he might be connected with the local militia. The stranger stepped into the hallway and set off straight toward my room. I blocked his way. I don’t know why I did it—probably because I didn’t want to answer any questions about the dust and rubbish on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” I babbled, “why don’t we talk here? My room’s a bit of a mess. And there’s nowhere to sit.”
The stranger jerked his head up sharply. “What do you mean?” he asked in a soft voice. “What about the sofa?”
We looked into each other’s eyes without speaking for about a minute. “Mmm… Yes, what about the sofa?” I asked, for some reason speaking in a whisper.
The stranger hooded his eyes. “Ah, so that’s the way it is!” he said slowly. “I understand. What a pity. Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
He nodded politely, put his hat on, and strode resolutely toward the door of the bathroom.
“Where are you going?” I called. “That’s the wrong way.” Without bothering to turn around, the stranger mumbled, “Oh, it makes no difference,” and closed the door behind him. Without thinking, I switched the light on for him and stood there listening for a while, then suddenly jerked the door open. The bathroom was empty.
I gingerly took out a cigarette and lit up. The sofa, I thought. What does this have to do with the sofa? I’d never heard any fairy tales about sofas. There was a flying carpet. There was a magic tablecloth. There were caps of darkness, seven-league boots, and self-playing psalteries. There was a magic talking mirror. But there wasn’t any magic sofa. People sat or lay on sofas; a sofa was a very solid object, very ordinary… Yes, really, what kind of fantasies could be inspired by a sofa?
Going back into my room, I immediately saw the Little Man. He was sitting on the brick oven up by the ceiling, doubled over into a very uncomfortable position. His wrinkled face was unshaven and his gray ears were hairy.
“Hello,” I said wearily.
The Little Man twisted his long lips into a woeful grimace. “Good evening,” he said. “I do beg your pardon, I’m not quite sure how I came to be up here… I’ve come about the sofa.”
“Then you’ve come too late,” I said, sitting down at the table.
“So I see,” the Man said in a quiet voice, shifting awkwardly. Flakes of whitewash showered down.
I smoked and looked him over thoughtfully. The Little Man glanced down uncertainly.
“Would you like me to help?” I asked, making a move toward him.
“No thank you,” the Man said despondently. “I’d better do it myself…”
He crept to the very edge of the sleeping platform, covering himself in white chalk, and launched himself awkwardly into the air, falling headfirst. My heart skipped a beat, but he stopped dead in midair and then began descending slowly, jerking his arms and legs outward. It wasn’t very elegant, but it was amusing. He landed on all fours and immediately stood up and wiped his wet face on his sleeve.
“I’m getting old,” he declared hoarsely. “A hundred years ago, or in Gonzast’s time, they’d have stripped me of my diploma for a descent like that, no two ways about it, Alexander Ivanovich.”
“Where did you graduate from?” I inquired, lighting up another cigarette.
He wasn’t listening. He sat down on the stool opposite me and continued his lament: “There was a time when I used to levitate like Zeks. But now I can’t even get rid of this growth in my ears. It looks so untidy… But what’s to be done if you’ve got no talent? The immense number of temptations there are all around, all sorts of degrees and titles and prizes, but I’ve got no talent. Many of us get rather hirsute as we grow old. Of course, that doesn’t apply to the grand masters. Gian Giacomo, Cristóbal Junta, Giuseppe Balsamo, or comrade Fyodor Simeonovich Kivrin, for instance… Not a trace of superfluous hair there!” He gave me a triumphant look. “Not a trace! Such smooth skin, such elegance, such grace…”