The Foundation Pit (Fragment)

The roofers each took from the saucer a salty cracker into their mouths and went their way. Voshchev was left alone in the beer parlor.

“Citizen! You ordered only one mug and you keep sitting here indefinitely! You paid for the beer not for housing!”

Voshchev picked up his bag and went off into the night. Up above Voshchev the questioning heavens shone with the poignant strength of the stars, but in the city the lights had already been extinguished: whoever had the possibility to do so was sleeping after having eaten dinner. Voshchev descended the crumbly earth into the ravine and there lay down with his stomach to the ground so as to go to sleep and bid farewell to self. But for sleep it was necessary to possess peace of mind, confidence in life, and forgiveness of experienced grief, and Voshchev lay there in the dry tension of consciousness and did not know whether he was useful in the world or whether everything could do quite well without him. The wind began to blow from an unknown place so that people would not suffocate, and a dog on the outskirts of the city gave notice of his service with a weak and doubtful voice.

“It’s boring for the dog. He lives only because he was born, just like me!”

Voshchev’s body grew pale from fatigue; he felt cold on his eyelids and closed them over his warm eyes.

In the morning the barman had already freshened up his establishment, the wind and the grass had already been aroused all around by the sun, when Voshchev regretfully opened his eyes into which moist strength poured. Once again he had ahead of him the prospect of living and getting nourishment, and therefore he went to the trade union headquarters—in order to defend his unnecessary labor.

“The administration says that you kept standing there thinking in the midst of work,” they told him in the trade union office. “What were you thinking about, Comrade Voshchev?”

“About a plan for life.”

“The factory works on the basis of the assigned plan from the trust. And you should have worked out your plan for your personal life in the club or in the Red Reading Room.”

“I was thinking about the plan of life as a whole. I don’t worry about my own life. It is not a riddle to me.”

“Well, and what could you do indeed?”

“I could think up something like happiness, and as a result of emotional meaning labor productivity would improve.”

“Happiness results from materialism. Comrade Voshchev, and not from meaning. We are unable to defend you. You are an irresponsible person and we have no desire to turn up at the tail end of the masses.”