“But afterwards I won back 250 rubles, and yet Dzerzhinski refuses to give them to me, even though I had paid him readily enough when he won. That is why I permit myself the indelicacy of throwing myself on Your Grace’s mercy, and beg you to compel the highly esteemed Mr. Dzerzhinski to pay me at least half the sum he owes me, so that I may leave Russia and no longer eat your bread for naught.”

Much water flowed under the bridge and many carp and quail were caught by Imbs before the count replied. Toward the end of July the Pole came into Imbs’ room, sat down on his bed, and began rattling off every curse he knew in the German language.

“What a royal ass the count is!” he said. “He writes that he is about to leave for Italy, but doesn’t give any instructions about you! What am I supposed to do with you? Chop you up and eat you for dinner? And I don’t know what got into him with that damned coal! He needs it as much as I need to have you hovering around here all day! And you’re a fine one too! A blithering fool talks big to you out of sheer boredom and you fall for it!”

“The count is leaving for Italy?” Imbs asked, turning pale. “But did he send me any money? No? How am I supposed to leave if I don’t have a kopeck to my name? I beg you, my dear Mr. Dzerzhinski, if you cannot give me the money I won from you, at least let me sell you my books and charts. Here in Russia you can get a lot of money for them!”

“Who needs your books and charts in Russia?”

Imbs sat down and thought. While the Pole filled the air with his curses, the German tried to figure out how to save his hide, and with all his German feelings felt his blood turning sour. His body shrank and sagged, and his air of haughty scholarliness yielded to hopelessness and pain. The realization of inescapable captivity far from the gentle waves of the Rhine and the convivial company of other mining engineers reduced him to tears. At night he sat by the window, gazing at the moon. There was silence all around. Somewhere in the distance a harmonica moaned a plaintive Russian song. The sound tore at his heart; he was overcome by such a powerful longing for his homeland and for fairness and justice, that he would have given his life to find himself back in Germany that very night.

“The same moon shines there as it does here—but what a difference!” he thought.

All night Imbs lay steeped in melancholy. Toward morning he could stand it no longer and decided to leave. He packed the books and charts that nobody in Russia needed into his knapsack, filled his empty stomach with water, and at precisely four in the morning left the estate and began walking north. He decided to head for Kharkov, over which the count’s pink finger had darted not too long ago. Imbs was hoping to find Germans there who would lend him money for the journey home.

“And would you believe it, they even stole the boots off my feet as I lay sleeping by the roadside!” Imbs told a friend a month later as he sat on the deck of the same boat traveling down the Rhine. “So much for Russian honesty! But one thing I will say for Russian honesty: I slipped the train conductor forty kopecks I had gotten for my pipe, and he looked the other way and let me ride without a ticket all the way from Slavianska to Kharkov! Perhaps no honesty there, but what a bargain!”

THE ECLIPSE

Memorandum No. 1032

There is to be an eclipse of the planet moon on September the twenty-second at ten o’clock at night. This phenomenon, far from being unlawful, is in fact of some possible educational benefit (if seen from the point of view that even planets must frequently subject themselves to the laws of nature), I propose that Your Excellencies order that on said evening all street lanterns in your districts shall be lit so that the darkness of night will not prevent officials and townsfolk from seeing the eclipse. I also urge Your Excellencies to ensure that every precaution be taken to hinder any gathering of crowds in the streets, shouts of joy, and other such behavior that said eclipse might occasion. I ask you to inform me of all persons who might interpret this natural phenomenon subversively, should there be such persons (which I doubt, as I know how sensible townsfolk generally are).

Gnilodushin

Witnessed by: Secretary Tryasunov

Re: Memorandum No. 1032

In response to document no. 1032 circulated by Your Excellency, I have the honor to inform you that in my district we have no street lanterns, for which reason the eclipse of the planet moon took place in full darkness of the air, which, however, did not prevent many of the people assembled from perceiving said eclipse with fitting clarity. No infringement of the general peace and quiet or subversive interpretations or expressions of dissatisfaction were ascertained, except for one instance when the son of Deacon Amfiloch Babelmandebsky, a tutor, in response to a question from one of the townsfolk as to the cause of said eclipse of the planet moon, launched into a lengthy explanation clearly subversive for healthy minds. I did, however, not understand the gist of his explanation, as he spoke in scientific terms using many foreign expressions.