The Second Invasion from Mars

June 7

My eye still hurts. It's all swollen up and I can't see anything out of it. Good thing it's the left eye. Achilles' eyewash only helps a little bit. Achilles says the shiner will be noticeable for no more than a week. Right now it's reddish blue, later it will turn green, then get yellow and disappear completely. Still, what a cruel and uncouth thing to do! To strike an elderly man who was only trying to ask an innocent question. If this is the way the Martians will start, I hate to think how they will end. And there's no one to complain to, I can only wait until the matter is cleared up. My eye hurts so much that it's terrible to remember how pleased I was with the peaceful morning today. (Temperature: +20° C, cloud cover: 0, wind from the south at 1 meter per second.)

When I went up to the attic after breakfast to make some meteorological observations, I noticed with some surprise that the fields beyond the city had acquired a definite bluish tinge. Farther off, the fields blended in so completely with the color of the sky that the line of the horizon was completely effaced, even though visibility was excellent and there was no smoke whatsoever. These new Martian seeds have sprouted up remarkably fast. It's to be expected that in a day or so they will wipe out the wheat altogether,

Arriving at the square, I found that almost all the boys, as well as a huge number of other townspeople, who should have been at work, not to mention farmers and schoolchildren who should have been playing games, were crowding around three large vans painted over with colorful posters and advertisements. I thought at first that this was a traveling circus, especially since the advertisements proclaimed incomparable tight-wire walkers and the other usual heroes of the arena, but Morpheus, who had been standing there a long time, explained to me that this was no circus, but a mobile donor station. Inside were installed special suction pumps with hoses, and next to every pump there sat a big husky guy in a doctor's uniform who offered to draw off the excesses of everybody who entered and to give a remarkable price: five bills per glass.

"What kind of excesses?" I asked. It turned out to be excesses of stomach juice. The whole world is founded on stomach juice. "Are they really Martians?" I asked.

"What do you mean, Martians?" asked Morpheus. "They're big husky hairy guys. That fellow has one eye."

"So what if he does?" I naturally objected. "A member of any race, be he on Earth or on Mars, has one eye, if the other one is injured."

I didn't realize then that these words of mine would prove prophetic. I was simply irritated by Morpheus's presumptuous attitude.

"I've never heard of one-eyed Martians in my life," he declared.

The people around us were listening to our conversation, and so he, in an attack of vanity, deemed it necessary to maintain his dubious reputation as a debater. But he still doesn't know what he's talking about.

"These are no Martians," he states. "Just ordinary guys from the suburbs. You can find a dozen like them in every tavern.''

"Our information about Mars is so scanty," I say calmly, "that to propose that Martians are like ordinary guys in suburban taverns at least doesn't contradict any scientific truth."

"You said it," puts in an unknown farmer standing by. "You said that very convincingly, Mr. What's-Your-Name. The one-eyed guy has his arms tattooed up to his elbows, full of naked women. The way he rolled up his sleeves and the way he came over to me with that hose - no, I thought, we don't need any of this."

"So what does science have to say about tattooing on the Martians?" Morpheus asked spitefully. He wanted to stick me with that one. A cheap trick, it smells of the barber in him. You can't beat me with stunts like that.

"Professor Zephyrus," said I, looking him straight in the eye, "the chief astronomer of the Marathonian observatory, has never denied in any one of his numerous articles such a practice among the Martians."

"That's right," confirmed the farmer. "Professors wear glasses, they see more."

And Morpheus had to swallow all that. He piped down and made his way out of the crowd, saying, "Time for a beer." I stayed to see what would happen next.

For a while nothing happened. Everyone just stood around, staring and talking quietly to one another. Farmers and merchants - they're an indecisive folk. Then a movement occurred in the first rows. Some villager suddenly whipped off his straw hat, stomped on it with all his might and cried out loudly: "Heh! Five bills - that's money too, isn't it?" Uttering these words, he walked decisively up the wooden steps and thrust himself in the door of the van, so that all we could see was the back of his body, all dusty and covered with burrs. What he was saying and what he was asking could not be heard because of the distance. I saw only that at first his stance was stiff, then he sort of went soft, began to shift his weight, stuck his hands in his pockets and backed out, shaking his head. Then, without looking at anyone, he gingerly stepped down to the ground, picked up his hat and, thoroughly knocking the dust off of it, rejoined the crowd.

In the door of the van there appeared a man who was indeed very tall and indeed blind in one eye. If it hadn't been for his white uniform, he would certainly have passed for an inhabitant of some thieves' den, what with the black string of his eye patch across his face, his unshaven stubble and his hairy tattooed arms. Looking us over darkly, he rolled down his sleeves, pulled out a cigarette and, after lighting up, said in a rough voice: " Well, come on! It's worth five bills. Five bills for every little glass. That's real money! On the spot. How much drudging do you have to do for five smackers? But here all you have to do is swallow a hose, and it's over in no time. Well?"

I looked at him and couldn't help but wonder at the shortsightedness of the administration. How could they expect a townsman, or even a farmer, to entrust his organism to such a loud-mouthed thug? I made my way out of the crowd and went over to The Five Spot.

All of the boys were already there, every one of them with his fowling piece, and some of them with white bands around their sleeves. Polyphemus had pulled on his old army cap, and, drenched with sweat, he delivered a speech. According to him, the evil deeds of the Martians had already become unbearable and all patriots were moaning and sweating blood under their yoke and the time had finally come to give them a decisive rebuff. And the ones responsible for it all, Polyphemus asserted, were the deserters and traitors such as those fat-assed, gobbling generals, the druggist Achilles, the coward Myrtilus and that backslider Apollo.

My eyes clouded over when I heard these last words. I completely lost the gift of speech and recovered myself only when I noticed that no one but myself was listening to Polyphemus. All of them, it turned out, were listening not to the one-legged stooge, but to Silenus, who had just returned from the mayor's office and was relating that from now on all the taxes would be levied exclusively in stomach juice and that an order had come from Marathon converting stomach juice into the usual units of money. Supposedly stomach juice would now be transferable, and all banks and savings trusts were ready to change it into cash.

"How can that be?" said Dymus. "I don't understand. What are we going to do, carry some sort of container instead of wallets? And what if I bring them water instead of juice?"

"Listen, Silenus," said Morpheus, "I owe you a tenner. Will you take juice?" He got very excited, since he always lacks money for drinks and has always drunk at another's expense. "Good times are here, buddies!" he exclaimed. "For example, if I feel like a drink, I just go to the bank, discharge my excesses for them and get cash in exchange. Then - off to the tavern!"

Here Polyphemus began to shout again. "They've bought you out!" he shouted. "You've sold yourself to the Martians for stomach juice! Here you've sold yourselves out, and they drive around like they were on their own Mars!"

And at that moment there came across the square, slowly and noiselessly, a very strange black car, which seemed to have no wheels, no windows and no doors. Children were running behind it yelling and whistling; some of them tried to catch hold of it from the back, but it was completely smooth, like a piano, and there was nothing for them to hold onto. A very unusual car.

"Could it really belong to the Martians?" I asked.

"Who else?" said Polyphemus irritably. "Is it yours?"

"No one's saying it's mine," I objected. "There are all sorts of cars in the world. Do they all have to belong to the Martians?"

"I'm not saying they all belong to the Martians, you old hunk of dung!" Polyphemus roared. "I'm saying the Martians are riding around town as if they were at home, the bastards! And all of you here have sold yourselves out."

I only shrugged my shoulders, not wanting to get involved, but Silenus answered him very thoughtfully: "Excuse me, Polyphemus, but your shouting is beginning to wear on me. And not only me. In my opinion, we have all fulfilled our duty. We enlisted in the volunteer squad and we cleaned our weapons - what more do you want, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Patrols! Patrols are needed!" said Polyphemus, choking with emotion. "To cut off the roads! To keep the Martians out of the city!"

"But how are you going to keep them out?"

"Blast you, Silenus! How can you keep them out? Very simple! Halt, who goes? Halt or I'll fire! You asked for it, bang!"

I couldn't stand this. He's not a man, he's a gung-ho.

"Well, maybe we could form patrols," said Dymus. "It's not too hard for us, is it?"

"It's not our job," I said decisively. "Silenus here will tell you that it's against the law. That's the army's job. Let the army worry about patrols and whatever shooting has to be done."

I can't stand these military games, especially when Polyphemus is in command. Some kind of sadism. I remember once when we had civil-defense training in the city in the event of a nuclear attack, and he went around throwing smoke bombs to create a realistic effect, so no one would go without his gas mask. How many people were asphyxiated - well, it's simply a nightmare. He's a noncommissioned officer, you can't trust him with anything. Or the time he barged into the gym class at school, chewed out the instructor in the most vulgar language and took it upon himself to show the kiddies how to march in step. If they put him on patrol, he'd fire his shotgun at everyone until they stopped bringing goods into the city. He'd lash out at the Martians, and they, most likely, would burn the whole city down in retaliation. But our old-timers are like children, honest to God. Patrol they want, patrol they'll get. I spat for all to see and went off to the mayor's office.

Mr. Nicostratus was polishing his nails. He answered my hesitant questions more or less as follows. The government's financial policies will change somewhat under the new conditions. A large role in monetary matters will now be played by the so-called stomach juice. It may be expected that in the near future the aforementioned juice will begin to have the same currency as money. So far there have been no special instructions about pensions, but there are substantial grounds for assuming that once taxes are levied in the so-called stomach juice, pensions will be paid out in the same so-called stomach juice. My heart sank, but I collected myself and asked Mr. Nicostratus directly if it wasn't possible to understand his words to mean that the so-called stomach juice was not actually stomach juice, but some sort of symbol of the new financial policy. Mr. Nicostratus shrugged his shoulders indefinitely and, continuing to examine his fingernails, stated, "Stomach juice, Mr. Apollo, is stomach juice."

"What good is stomach juice to me?" I asked in complete desperation.

He shrugged his shoulders a second time and remarked, "You know perfectly well that every person needs stomach juice."

It was absolutely clear to me that Mr. Nicostratus was either lying or holding something back. I was so desperate that I requested an audience with Mr. Mayor. But I was refused. Then I left the mayor's office and signed up for the patrol.

If a man who has worked flawlessly for thirty years in the fallow field of public education is offered a vial of stomach juice, this man has the right to demonstrate any degree of indignation he so desires. Whether Martians or non-Martians are responsible is beside the point. I cannot abide any anarchic activity, but I am willing to fight for my rights with a rifle in my hands. And even though everyone will know that my protest has a purely symbolic value, let them think about this, let them know that they are not dealing with some dumb animal. Of course, if the donor stations should become our system and the banks and savings trusts should accept stomach juice in exchange for cash, I would take a different stand on the matter. However, so far only Silenus has spoken about banks and savings trusts, so it's only an unconfirmed rumor. As regards the donor stations, Morpheus, after signing up for the patrol, decided to anoint the deal right away and gave himself into the hands of the one-eyed thug. He returned with teary red eyes, showed us a crisp new fiver and reported that the vans were presently leaving. That means there can be no talk about any new system: they came and they left. If you managed to donate your excesses - good for you. If you didn't - blame yourself. In my view, this is outrageous.

Polyphemus appointed me along with Calais the stutterer to patrol Harmony Square and the adjoining streets from 12 to 2 a.m. After giving us our certification made out in Silenus's hand, he slapped me on the back with great emotion and said, "The old guard! What would these crappy civvies do without us, Phoebus? I knew when we got down to brass tacks you'd be with us." We embraced and both shed tears. Actually, Polyphemus is not such a bad guy, he simply likes people to follow his orders without question. A completely understandable desire. I requested his permission for free time and headed for Achilles' place. A patrol's a patrol, but you ought to play it safe.

What sort of a thing is stomach juice? I asked Achilles. Who can benefit from it? What can it be used for? Achilles said it was necessary for the proper digestion of food and most likely nothing else. Fd known that before I'd asked him.

"Soon I will be able to offer you a large batch of the so-called stomach juice," I said. "Will you take it?"

He answered that he would think about it, and right here offered to trade his unserrated air-mail stamp of '28 for my incomplete "zoo park" series. You have to admit, the unserrated beauty is unique, but the one Achilles showed me has two strips glued together and some kind of greasy spot. I don't know, I just don't know.

Coming out of the drugstore, I saw the Martian car again. It might have been the same one, but perhaps another. Breaking all the traffic laws, it floated down the middle of the street, but with the speed of a pedestrian, so I was able to get a good look at it. I was walking to the tavern and it was going the same way. My first impression proved to be correct: the car most resembled a streamlined piano covered with dust. From time to time something underneath it flashed and the car shuddered a bit, but this was apparently not a malfunction because it continued to move steadily forward without stopping for a moment. I couldn't make out any windows or doors even from a close distance, but the absence of wheels struck me most of all. True, my build did not permit me to bend down low enough to look at the bottom. Perhaps there were wheels there after all - it couldn't be that there wasn't even a single wheel.

Suddenly the car stopped. And wouldn't you know it, it stopped right in front of Mr. Laomedon's estate. I recall that I thought bitterly: it seems there are people in the world to whom it makes no difference whether it's a new president, an old president, Martians or anybody else. Every power always pays them respect and attention, I thought, which they don't deserve; in fact they deserve the opposite. But something completely unexpected happened. Assuming with good reason that someone was going to get out of the car and that I would finally see a real live Martian, I stood to the side and watched along with the other townspeople, whose line of thinking apparently coincided with mine. To our amazement and disappointment, there emerged from the car not Martians, but some kind of proper young men in tight coats and identical berets. Three of them went to the grand front entrance, while two of them stayed with the car, sticking their hands deep in their pockets and leaning casually on the car with various parts of their bodies. The front door opened, the three entered and immediately strange but not very loud noises were heard, as if someone were trying to move the furniture around by himself and others were beating a carpet with regular blows. The two standing by the car paid no attention to these sounds. They kept their same positions, one looking carelessly down the street, the other yawning and glancing at the top floor of the estate. They also didn't change their positions when a minute later the front door opened slowly and my insulter, Mr. Laomedon's chauffeur, came out cautiously, like a blind man. His face was pale, his mouth hanging open, his eyes bulging and glassy, and both his hands were pressed to his stomach. Coming out onto the sidewalk, he walked a few paces, dropped with a groan, sat for a while bending over farther and farther, and then toppled over on his side, curled up, kicked his legs and froze stock still. I must confess that at first I understood nothing. Everything proceeded so leisurely, in such a calm businesslike manner, against the background of the usual city noise, that the feeling arose and stuck with me that this was the way it should be. I did not experience any anxiety and did not seek any explanations. I felt such trust in those young men - so proper, so restrained.... Now one of them distractedly glanced at the chauffeur lying there, lit up a cigarette and again began to examine the top floor. It even seemed to me that he was smiling. Then a stamping of feet was heard, and one after another there came out of the entrance the young man in the tight coat, wiping his lips with a handkerchief; Mr. Laomedon in a splendid eastern robe, without a hat and in handcuffs; another young man in a tight coat, taking his gloves off on the way; and finally a third young man in a tight coat, loaded with weapons. With his right hand he held three or four machine guns to his chest, and in the left he carried several pistols, dangling the trigger loops on his fingers, and besides these a tommy gun hung from each shoulder. I glanced at Mr. Laomedon only once, but this was enough for me: I can still see something red, wet and sticky. The whole cavalcade crossed the street leisurely and disappeared into the inner recesses of the car. The two young men remaining outside lazily pushed off from the polished side, walked over to the prostrate chauffeur, carefully took him by the hands and feet and, swaying him slightly, tossed him into the house. One of them then drew a piece of paper out of his pocket and neatly stuck it next to the doorbell, after which the car, without turning around, moved with its former speed in the opposite direction, and the two young men with the most unassuming faces walked through the parting crowd and disappeared around the corner.

When I came out of the stupor into which the unexpectedness and unusualness of this occurrence had thrown me and again recovered the ability to think, I felt something like a psychic shock, as if a turning point in history had been reached right before my eyes. I am sure that the other witnesses experienced and felt something similar. We all crowded in front of the entrance, but no one resolved to go inside. I put on my glasses and over the heads of the crowd read the proclamation stuck below the doorbell.

It read:

Narcotics are a poison and the disgrace of the nation! The time has come to make an end of narcotics. And we shall make an end of them, and you will help us. We shall punish unmercifully those who spread narcotics.

If it had been anyone else, there would have been enough to talk about for two hours or more, but this time everyone only exchanged interjections, not having the strength to fight against their initial timidity: "Aiee-aiee-aiee.... Better do it!... Ehe-he-he.... Egads! Oh, no!"

Someone had called the police and a doctor. The doctor went into the house and attended to the chauffeur. Then Pandareus arrived in the police buggy. He stomped around on the porch, read the proclamation several times, scratched the back of his head and even peeked in the door, but was afraid to go inside, even though the doctor was calling him irritably in the most disrespectful language. He stood in the doorway, spreading his legs, sticking his palms under his strap and puffing up like a turkey.

With the appearance of the police the crowd grew somewhat bolder and began to speak out more definitely:

"So that's the way they do it, huh?"

"Yeah, that's the way, it seems...."

"Interesting, interesting, isn't it, gentlemen?"

"I never would have believed it."

I sensed with alarm that the tongues were becoming untied and decided to leave, although I was eaten up with curiosity, but here Silenus turned to Pandareus with a direct question: "So, Pan, did the law triumph after all? Is this what you finally decided?"

Pandareus pursed his lips significantly and, hesitating a bit, stated, "I assume this was not our decision."

"What do you mean, not yours? Whose, then?"

"I suppose, the gendarmerie in the capital," declared Polyphemus in a thunderous whisper, glancing around on all sides.

"What kind of gendarmerie is that?" people in the crowd objected. "Suddenly the gendarmerie is riding around in a Martian car! No, that's no gendarmerie."

"So what's your opinion, huh? Were they really Martians?"

Polyphemus puffed up even more and bawled: "Hey, who's that talking about Martians? Watch out!"

But they paid no more attention to him. The tongues came completely unhinged: "The car might be Martian, but they themselves are not Martians, that's for sure. Their ways are the same as ours, human."

"Right! What do Martians care about narcotics, I'd like to know."

"Hey, you old-timers, a new broom sweeps clean. But what business of theirs is our stomach juice?"

"No, gentlemen, those were no people. Too calm, you see, too quiet. I think they were Martians. They work like machines."

"Right, machines! Robots! Why should the Martians dirty their hands? They have robots."

Pandareus, unable to hold back, also joined in the guessing game. "No, old fellows," he declared, "they're not robots. That's just the system now. They take only deaf-and-dumb men into the gendarmerie. For reasons of state security."

This hypothesis at first caused confusion, but then brought poisonous retorts, very witty for the most part. I recall only the remark of grouchy Paralus. He delivered himself of the opinion that it wouldn't be a bad thing if the police took only deaf-and-dumb men, only not for reasons of state security, but to protect innocent people from all the rubbish dumped on them by official spokesmen. Polyphemus, who earlier had unbuttoned his jacket, now puffed up, buttoned up again and hollered: "You've had your say - that's all!"

And so we unfortunately had to disperse, although at just that moment the ambulance pulled up. The old horse's ass flew into such a fury that we could only observe from afar how they carried the injured chauffeur out of the entrance-way and afterwards, to our surprise, the bodies of two others. We still don't know who these two were.

All of the boys headed for the tavern, and me too. Those same two young men were standing casually at the bar. As before, they were calm and quiet, they drank gin and looked distractedly over the heads. I ordered myself a complete meal and, eating my fill, watched how the most curious of our group gradually moved closer to the young men. It was fun to watch how ineptly Morpheus tried to start a conversation with them about the weather in Marathon, and Paralus, intending to take the bull by the horns, offered them a drink. The young men, as if seeing no one around them, briskly gulped down the drinks pushed toward them, but maintained an impartial silence. Jokes didn't amuse them, they didn't catch hints and seemed to miss direct questions altogether. I didn't know what to think. I was so taken with their exceptional restraint, their complete indifference to the amusing attempts to draw them into conversation, that I began to incline to the thought that they were indeed Martian robots, that the repulsive appearance of the Martians prevented them from openly showing their true faces. Then I suspected that they were the Martians themselves, about whom we still know nothing, when you get right down to it. The boys, giving themselves away completely, clustered about the young men and made remarks about them without any restraint; some even dared to try touching their coats. All were now convinced that these were robots before them.

Iapetus even began to worry. Serving me brandy, he said nervously, "How can they be robots? They've each had two gins, two brandies, two packs of cigarettes, and who's going to pay?"

I explained to him that the robot's program would have accounted for drinks and cigarettes and therefore would certainly account for some means of payment. Iapetus calmed down, but at this moment a fight started at the bar.

As we learned later, grouchy Paralus had made a bet with that fool Dymus that Dymus could touch a burning cigarette to the robot's hand and nothing would happen. Here is what I saw with my own eyes. From the crowd of people enjoying themselves Dymus suddenly burst like a cork from a bottle. He flew backwards all the way across the room, pumping his feet in tiny circles and knocking down tables and people in his path until he dropped in a corner. Not a second passed before Paralus, in exactly the same manner, found himself in another corner. The boys flung themselves in all directions, and I, without understanding a thing, saw the young men sitting quietly at the bar as before, thoughtfully raising the glasses of alcohol to their lips with identical movements.

Paralus and Dymus were picked up and dragged behind the curtains to be revived. I took my glass and also went behind the curtains. I wanted to find out what had happened. I arrived just as Dymus came around and sat there with the most idiotic expression on his face, feeling his chest. Paralus had not yet recovered consciousness, but was already gulping gin and washing it down with soda. The waitress was standing beside him with a towel ready to bandage up his chin when he came to. Here I learned the version of the incident just described and agreed with the rest that Paralus was a provocateur and Dymus was simply a fool no better than Pandareus.

However, having expressed these reasoned considerations, the boys were by no means satisfied, but took it into their heads to do something about it. Polyphemus, who had kept in the shade up to this point, announced that this would be the first military action of our voluntary patrol. We'd jump the hoodlums when they came out of the tavern, he said, and he began to order who should stand where and when we would attack. I immediately disassociated myself from this venture. First of all, I am an opponent of violence, there's nothing of the noncommissioned officer in me. Second, I didn't see that the young men had been in the wrong. And finally, I planned not to fight with them, but rather to have a talk with them about my own affairs. I quietly came out from behind the curtains, returned to my table and by these very movements initiated another occurrence, one very bitter for me.

But even now, when I look over the events of the day with completely different eyes, I must state that the logic of my actions was and remains faultless. The young men were not from our area, I reasoned. The fact that they had arrived in the Martian car indicated that they most likely came from the capital. Moreover, their participation in the arrest of Mr. Laomedon proved without a doubt that they belonged to the new regime: they would hardly have sent some minor agents against Mr. Laomedon. Therefore, it followed from the logic of things that these young men must certainly be well informed about the new conditions; they would be able to tell me things of interest. Being in the position of a little man who was ridiculed by Mr. Laomedon's chauffeur and refused information by Mr. Mayor's secretary, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to get some true facts. On the other hand, the young men did not raise any fears in me. The fact that they had handled Mr. Laomedon and his bodyguards rather brutally did not alarm me at all. It was their duty and Mr. Laomedon had deserved a good hiding for a long time. As regards the incident with Paralus and Dymus, well, my friends, Dymus is an idiot, it's impossible to deal with him, and Paralus is able to bring out anyone's worst side with his grouchy wisecracks. I won't even mention the fact that I myself would not allow anyone to call me a robot, let alone stick a cigarette on my hand.

Consequently, when I had finished my brandy, I went over to the young men, completely confident of the success of my undertaking. I had thought out the plan of the impending conversation in all its details, having taken into consideration the nature of their occupation, their mood immediately after the incident and their evidently innate taciturnity and restraint. I had intended at first to ask their forgiveness for the thoughtless behavior of my compatriots. Further, I would introduce myself, express the hope that I was not bothering them with my conversation, complain about the quality of the brandy, which lapetus frequently dilutes with cheaper sorts, and offer to treat them from my personal bottle. And only after this and after we had discussed the weather in Marathon and in our town, did I intend very lightly and delicately to pass to the main question. Approaching them, I noticed that one of them was busy smoking his cigarette, while the other, turning away from the bar, observed my approach intently and with some interest, as it seemed to me. I decided therefore to address him directly.

Coming up, I doffed my hat and said, "Good evening." And then this hoodlum made a sort of lazy movement with his shoulder and it suddenly seemed as if a hand grenade had exploded inside of my head. I don't remember anything. I recall only that I was lying for a long time next to Paralus behind the curtains, glugging gin, washing it down with soda, and someone was applying a cold wet napkin to my wounded eye.

And now I ask myself: What more can you expect? No one interceded for me, no one raised a voice of protest. Everything repeats itself. Hoodlums are again spreading terror, beating up citizens in the streets. And when Polyphemus drove me home in his miniature car, my daughter, as unconcerned as everyone else, was kissing Mr. Secretary in the garden. No, even if I had known how it would all turn out, I still had a duty, an obligation to try to engage them in conversation. I would have been more careful, I wouldn't have approached them, but from whom else can I find out anything? I don't want to worry over every copper, I can't force myself to teach anymore, I don't want to sell the house in which I have lived for so many years. This is what I fear, and I want peace and quiet.