The Second Invasion from Mars

June 2

I itch all over. And above all I can't bring myself to have a talk with Artemis. I can't stand those excessively personal conversations, that intimate tone. Besides, how do I know what shell answer?

The devil knows what to do with daughters like this. If only I had an inkling of what she needs! She's got a husband, not some kind of puny egghead, but a real hunk of a man; he's no slob, no cripple, and no lecher either. Though he could be: the comptroller's niece looks at him suggestively and Thyone makes eyes at him. Everyone knows about it, not to mention the schoolgirls, the summer-cottage girls, or Madam Persephone, the cattiest she-cat of them all - no cat can stand up to her. But actually I do know what Artemis would answer.

"Daddikins," she'd say, "it's boring, it's all so deadly boring around here."

And you can't argue with that! A young, beautiful woman, no children, a model disposition: she ought to be whisked away in a whirlwind of amusements, dances, flirtations, and the like. But Charon, unfortunately, is one of those, what shall we call them, philosophizes. A thinker. Totalitarianism, fascism, managerialism, communism. Dancing is a sexual stimulant, guests are blabbermouths, one's worse than the other. Don't breathe a word about a game of four kings. Yet, when it comes to drinking, he's nobody's fool! Get five of his know-it-all friends around a table and put five bottles of cognac in front of them, and they'll go on deciding the world's affairs till dawn. The lass yawns and yawns, she slams the door and goes to bed. You call that life? I understand, a man needs something manly, but, on the other hand, a woman needs something womanly! No, I love my son-in-law, he's my son-in-law, so I love him. But how long can you go on deciding the world's affairs? And what difference do those discussions make? It's obvious: you can talk about fascism till you're blue in the face and you won't make a dint in it. Before you can take a breath, it'll slap an iron helmet on you and - forward, long live the leader! But stop paying attention to your young wife, and she'll pay you back in spades. No philosophizing will help you then. I understand, a cultured man must discuss abstruse subjects now and then, but you must keep things in proportion, gentlemen.

A wonderful morning today. (Temperature: +19° C, cloud cover: 1, wind from the south at .5 meters per second. I ought to run down to the meteorological bureau and fix my wind gauge, since I dropped it again.) After breakfast I decided that a sleeping dog gets no pension, so I went to the mayor's office to look into it. As I walked along, pleased by the peace and quiet, I suddenly saw a crowd on the corner of Freedom and Juniper streets. It turned out that Minotaur had driven his cistern through a jeweler's front window, and the people had gathered around to watch him, all dirty, puffy and drunk again since early morning, try to explain it to the traffic cop. He made such an unwholesome contrast to the bright and shining morning that I immediately fell in the dumps. Obviously the police shouldn't have let him out so early, they must've known he'd drink himself into a stupor once he got going. But, on the other hand, how could they not let him out, since he's the only honey-dipper in town? Here you have only two options: either you take up the reeducation of Minotaur and drown in filth, or you make a compromise in the name of hygiene.

Because of Minotaur I was held up, and when I got to The Five Spot all the boys had already assembled. I paid my fine, and then one-legged Polyphemus treated me to an excellent cigar in an aluminum case, which his oldest son Polycarpus, a lieutenant in the merchant marines, had sent to him for me. This Polycarpus once studied under me for several years, until he ran away to sea as a cabin boy. He was a lively lad, a playful scamp. When the scamp flew the city, Polyphemus almost took me to court, as if, so to say, the teacher had corrupted the child with his lectures on the vast multiplicity of worlds. Polyphemus is still certain that the sky is firm and satellites run around on it like cyclists in a circus. My demonstrations of the value of astronomy are beyond him: they were beyond him then, and they are just as far beyond him now.

The boys were talking about how the city comptroller had again misused funds allocated for the construction of the stadium. That makes it the seventh time already. We talked of ways to put a stop to it. Silenus shrugged his shoulders and asserted that nothing would do but a trial.

"Enough half-measures," he said. "An open trial. Gather the whole town at the foundation of the stadium and tie the embezzler to a pillory at the scene of his crime. Thank God," he repeated, "that our law is sufficiently flexible that the means of suppression can equal the seriousness of the crime."

"I would even say," remarked grouchy Paralus, "that our law is too flexible. The comptroller has been taken to court twice already, and both times our flexible law bent clean around him. But maybe you think it happened that way because he wasn't tried at the foundation, but in the town hall.^,,

Morpheus, thinking it over carefully, said that from this day forward he'd never give the comptroller another shave and haircut. Let 'im go hairy.

"You're all stupid backsides," said Polyphemus. "You'll never get anywhere. He can just spit on the whole lot of you. He has his own cronies."

"That's exactly it," grouchy Paralus caught on, and he reminded us that in addition to the city comptroller there lived and flourished the city architect who had designed the stadium to the best of his abilities and now had a natural interest in seeing that the stadium, God forbid, not be built.

Calais the stutterer began to sputter and stammer, and having thus gained everyone's attention he recalled that he himself, Calais, had almost come to blows with the architect at the Flower Festival. This statement gave the discussion a decidedly new turn.

One-legged Polyphemus, as a veteran and a man not squeamish about blood, proposed that we jump both of them at the entrance to Madam Persephone's house and take them down a notch. In critical moments like these Polyphemus completely loses a hold on his tongue - the barracks language flows right out of him.

"Take the smelly bastards down a notch," he thundered. "Shovel away all that crap, crush their bones, polish 'em off!"

It's simply amazing how such speeches affect the boys. They all got furious and started waving their hands, and Calais sputtered and stammered more violently than ever, since he couldn't pronounce a word in his great agitation. But here grouchy Paralus, the only one of us to keep cool, noted that besides the comptroller and the architect, there still happened to be living in the city, in his summer residence, the best friend of these two - a certain Mr. Laomedon. At this everyone fell silent and began to puff on the cigars and cigarettes, which had gone out during the discussion, because you couldn't take Mr. Laomedon down a notch or polish him off so easily. And when in the settling silence Calais inadvertently burst out, finally, with his favorite curse - "S-s-sock 'em in the snoot!" - everyone looked at him with displeasure.

I remembered that I should have gone to the mayor's office a long time before, so I inserted the remainder of my cigar into the aluminum case and went up to the second floor, to the reception room of Mr. Mayor. I was struck by the unusual bustle of the office. All the employees were excited somehow. Even Mr. Secretary, instead of examining his fingernails as usual, was busy imprinting wax seals on large envelopes, although, to be sure, with an expression of distaste and obligation. Feeling very out of place, I approached this fashionably slicked-down beauty. Lord, I'd give anything on earth to have nothing to do with him, neither to see him nor to hear him. Even before this I hadn't liked Mr. Nicostratus, just as I didn't like any of our town dandies. To tell the truth, I didn't like him even when he studied under me, because he was lazy, crude and insolent. But after yesterday it makes me sick just to look at him. I had no idea what tone to take with him. But there was no getting out of it, and finally I decided to say "Mr. Nicostratus, have you heard anything concerning my case?"

He didn't even glance at me, didn't even, so to say, favor me with a glance. "Sorry, Mr. Apollo, but the answer hasn't come in yet from the ministry," he said, continuing to press the seals. I hung around a moment and then headed for the exit, feeling rotten, as I always do in official places. However, quite unexpectedly, he stopped me with a surprising piece of news. He said there had been no communication with Marathon since yesterday.

"What are you saying!" said I. "Haven't the maneuvers ended yet?"

"What maneuvers?" he asked in surprise.

Here I lost my composure. I still don't know if I should have done it, but I stared straight at him and said, "What do you mean - 'what maneuvers?' The same ones you happened to see last night."

"So they were maneuvers, were they?" he declared with enviable indifference, again bending over his envelopes. "They were fireworks. Read the morning papers."

I should have, I really should have said a couple of words to him, especially since at that moment we were alone in the room. But can I be like that?

When I returned to The Five Spot, an argument was underway about the nature of last night's phenomenon. Our number had grown: Myrtilus and Pandareus had joined us. Pandareus had the jacket of his uniform unbuttoned; he was unshaven and tired after his night duty. Myrtilus didn't look any better, because he had spent the entire night patrolling the grounds around his house, expecting the worst. Everyone had the morning paper in hand, and they were discussing the column of "our observer," which bore the following heading: holiday in the offing.

"Our observer" reported that Marathon was preparing to commemorate its 153rd anniversary. From his usually well-informed sources he had learned that last night there had been a fireworks practice which residents of the surrounding towns and villages within a radius of up to two hundred kilometers had been able to enjoy.

That's all that was needed! Charon goes away on assignment, and our newspaper falls into catastrophic stupidity. They should at least have tried to figure out what a fireworks display would look like from two hundred kilometers away. And they should at least have asked themselves when fireworks displays began to be accompanied by subterranean tremors. I immediately explained this to the boys, but they answered that they knew perfectly well the time of day and advised me to read The Milesian Herald. In the Herald it was printed black on white that last night "the Milesians could admire the impressive spectacle of military exercises employing the latest devices of war technology."

"What did I tell you!" I burst out, but Myrtilus interrupted me. He related that early this morning an unknown driver from the Long-Distance Transport Company had driven up to his pump, had gotten 150 liters of gas, two cans of motor oil, and a crate of marmalade and had told him, in secret, that last night, for reasons unknown, the underground rocket-fuel factories had exploded. Supposedly the 23 guards and the entire night shift had perished, and 179 more men had vanished without a trace. This news threw us all into a panic, but then grouchy Paralus put forward the question "What then, I'd like to know, did he need the marmalade for?"

This question stumped Myrtilus. "Sure, sure," he said, "you heard it. That's all you're getting out of me."

We also had nothing to say. Really, what has marmalade got to do with it? Calais sputtered, sprayed, but didn't say anything. And then that old horse's ass, Pandareus, took the floor.

"Listen, old boys," says he, "those weren't any rocket factories. They were marmalade factories, obviously. Now, behave yourselves."

We sat down.

"Underground marmalade factories?" says Paralus. "Well, old-timer, you're in superb form today."

We began to slap Pandareus on the back, adding, "Yes, Pan, one can see right away that you slept poorly today, old-timer. Minotaur has run you ragged, Pan, it's a hard life. Time you took your pension, Pan, good old boy!"

"A policeman, and he plants the seeds of panic himself," said Myrtilus, highly offended. He was the only one who had taken Pandareus's words seriously.

"That's why he's Pan - to plant seeds everywhere," quipped Dymus. And Polyphemus also made a successful quip, although a completely indecent one. We went on amusing ourselves in this fashion, while Pandareus stood stock-still, then puffed himself up before our very eyes and tossed his head from side to side like a bull taunted by matadors.

Finally he buttoned his jacket up to the very last button, set his eyes above our heads and bawled: "You've had your say - enough! Dis-s-sperse! In the name of the law." Myrtilus went back to his gas pump, and the rest of us headed for the tavern.

In the tavern we all immediately ordered beer. This is a satisfaction I was denied until I went on my pension! In such a small town as ours, everyone knows the teacher. The parents of your pupils imagine for some reason that you are a wonder-worker and are able by your personal example to keep the children from following in their parents' footsteps. From morning to night the tavern literally swarms with these parents, but if you permit yourself an innocent mug of beer, then the next day without fail you will have a humiliating conversation with the principal. And yet I love the tavern! I love to sit in the company of good men, having leisurely and serious conversations on subjects of your choice, half catching the drone of voices and the clinking of glasses behind your back. I love to tell and to hear a salty little story, to play four kings - for a small amount, but with honor, and when I win I like to order a mug for everyone. Well, enough.

Iapetus served us our beer, and we began talking about the war. One-legged Polyphemus declared that if this were a war, they would already be mobilizing the troops, but grouchy Paralus objected that if it were a war, we wouldn't know anything about it. I don't like conversations about war and would gladly have turned the conversation to pensions, but who am I to do this?

Polyphemus laid his crutch across the table and asked what, in fact, did Paralus know about wars. "Do you know, for example, what a bazooka is?" he asked threateningly.

"Do you know what it means to sit in a trench when the tanks are coming at you and you haven't yet noticed that you've dumped in your drawers?"

Paralus objected that he didn't know anything about tanks and dumping in your drawers and he didn't want to know anything about them, but as for nuclear war we all knew the same thing about it. "You lie down with your feet in the blast and crawl to the nearest graveyard," he said.

"You were born a civvy and you'll die a civvy," said one-legged Polyphemus. "Nuclear war - that's a war of nerves, understand? They do us, we do them, and the first one to dump in his drawers loses." Paralus only shrugged his shoulders, and Polyphemus lost his temper completely. "Bazookas!" he yelled. "Tarzons! Ready, aim - dump in your drawers! Right, Apollo?"

Having shouted to his heart's content, he launched into recollections about how he and our troops had repelled a tank attack in the snow. I can't stand these recollections. Nothing but dump in your drawers. I don't know, maybe it all happened, I don't recall. But still I don't like to return to it. Polyphemus was gung-ho then, and he's gung-ho now. I simply don't know what you must take out of a man to make him stop being a noncommissioned officer. Maybe the problem is that he never happened to get caught in a pocket, as I did. Or is it a matter of character?

We had sat a long time, so I decided to go ahead and have lunch. Usually the fare at Iapetus's place is pretty good, but this time the chef's soup with dumplings gave off a heavy odor of cheap olive oil, and I told him about it. It turned out that Iapetus's teeth had been aching for three days, so unbearably that he couldn't prepare anything properly.

"Don't you remember, Phoebus, how I once knocked your tooth in?" he asked mournfully.

How could I not remember! It was in the seventh grade. We were both courting Iphigenia and we fought every day. My God, how distant are the times when I could have a good scrap! Iphigenia, it happens, is now married to some engineer in the south; she already has grandchildren and angina pectoris.

While on my way to Achilles' place, I passed Mr. Laomedon's house with that terrible red car of his with bulletproof windows standing outside. At the wheel that insolent punk who always makes fun of me was smoking himself silly. And this time he lit into me so viciously that I was obliged to cross the street in a dignified manner and pay not the slightest attention to him. Achilles was presiding over the cash register and looking through his Cosmos, Ever since he obtained that blue triangle with the little silver postage mark, he has made it a rule to take out his album just as I enter, as if by coincidence. I can see right through him, but I don't let on. Although, to tell the truth, every time he does it my heart contracts. My only consolation is that part of his triangle is glued on. I mentioned it to him.

"Yes," said I, "there's no denying it, Achilles, it's a nice item. Too bad, though, that it's glued together."

He squinted all over and mumbled that the grapes, it seemed, were sour.

"What can you do?" I answered him calmly. "Glued together is glued together, you can't get around it. I personally wouldn't have taken the stamp at that price. But some people, of course," said I, "are so broad-minded that they'll take stamps that are canceled and glued together. That's not for me, no kidding. I'd take them only for trading. You can always find some simpleton who doesn't care if they're glued together or not."

That'll teach you to stick your silver postmark under my nose!

But otherwise we had a good time together. He tried to persuade me that yesterday's fireworks were a rare type of northern lights which accidentally coincided with a special type of earthquake, and I informed him of the maneuvers and the explosion at the marmalade factory. It's impossible to argue with Achilles. Because you can see that the man doesn't believe in his own words, but still persists in arguing. He sits there like some Mongolian stone image, looks out the window and repeats the same thing over and over again, that Fm not the only one in town who can interpret the phenomena of nature. You'd think that in their pharmaceutical school they would actually train people in the serious sciences. But no, it's impossible to bring an argument with any one of the boys to a reasonable conclusion. Take Polyphemus, for example. He never argues to the heart of the matter. Truth doesn't interest him, for him only one thing is important: disgracing his opponent. Say that we're arguing about the shape of our planet. Employing the precise arguments known to every educated person, I prove to him that the Earth is, to put it crudely, a ball. He savagely and unsuccessfully attacks every argument in turn, and when we come to the shape of the Earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse, he comes out with something like this: "A shadow, a shadow! You bring in a shadow in the broad daylight. First show the beard under your nose and grow the hair on your bald spot before you start arguing about the world." Or take Paralus. I once argued with him about ways to cure alcoholism. I hadn't had time to bat my eyes before we had turned to the foreign policy of our president, and from there - to the problem of panspermia. And the most surprising thing is that I had and still have nothing to do with either panspermia or foreign policy, it's simply that Hermione's cousin's son suffered from alcoholism and tormented everyone around him. Now he's a medic in the army, but at that time my life was an absolute nightmare. Yes, alcoholism is the scourge of the people.

Our argument ended with Achilles taking out his trusty bottle and our drinking a shot of gin. Achilles' business isn't going very well. I have the impression that he wouldn't even have enough for gin if it weren't for Madam Persephone. Someone came from her place again today.

"I can recommend an antihistamine," said Achilles in a discreet whisper.

"No," answers the messenger girl, "something more reliable was requested, please."

Something more reliable, you see, for her. The little cook from Iapetus's place ran in too, for tooth drops, but no one else came, and we talked our fill. I traded a pink "Monument" for his "Red Cross" series. Actually, I don't need "Red Cross," but the day before yesterday Charon told me that he'd received a personal announcement at the editorial offices, which read:

Will take "Red Cross." Offer any inverted postmark from the standard set.

I must confess that, strange as it seems, Charon is the only person in our house who doesn't giggle at me. In general, if you think about it, he's not such a bad fellow. Artemis is acting not only immorally, but also ignobly. And with the likes of Nicostratus!

Returning home at nine in the evening, I saw them again sitting in my garden, in the shadows. True, they weren't kissing this time, but still they ought to have a sense of decency. I went in the garden, took Artemis by the hand and said to that dandy, "Goodbye, Mr. Nicostratus, pleasant dreams." Artemis yanked her hand away from me^ and walked away without a word. And that rake, very ineptly trying to smooth over the awkward situation, struck up a conversation with me about the municipal recommendations which need to be attached to the request for a pension. And so I stand there and listen to him. I ought to drive him from the garden with a stick, but I listen to him. That damned delicacy of mine. And lack of confidence. I really have an inferiority complex.

And then he gave me a nasty smirk and said, "And how is charming Mrs. Hermione getting along? You didn't miss your mark there, Mr. Apollo. I wouldn't have refused such a housekeeper myself."

My heart sank and I lost the power of speech. But without waiting for an answer (what did he need my answer for?}, he went off, laughing all the way down the street. I remained alone in the dark garden.

No, there's nothing you can do about it. Still, relations between me and Hermione ought to be put in order. I know I won't get anywhere, but peace of mind requires sacrifices.