And the best remedy against monotony and humdrum of the long flight is this same flight. There is always sufficient work on board a spaceship and you can never do it completely, but it must be done, and the more you work, the more changes the time: it almost disappears and becomes imperceptible.
When all that has been tried out and no longer helps, there is the last and probably the most important method – another person.
-4-
When Svetlana finished her usual duties in the biological compartment, she flew to look for Andrey – he has not been in sight for some time. Well, he is not in the central compartment, not in view of cameras in the corridors between compartments… can he be in the service compartment again, fiddling around with his beloved reactor?
Yes, he was exactly there. However, Andrey was sitting fastened at the working table and reading a thick book… but this was surely better than gloating the reactor.
Instead of saying hello, Svetka asked: Can you tell me how to get to the library?
Well… several million kilometers to Mars… and then it's not far to the Earth – there are libraries on every corner there. If you get lost, ask the first humanoid you meet and he is sure to show you something! – said Andrey, looking at Sveta over his book.
You yourself are a humanoid… And what’s that about – “show you something”? Are you again with your erotic fantasies and platitudes?
No fantasies, no platitudes… how shall I know what he may show you? Maybe he will show you where you get off, – laughed Andrey.
All right there, local wanton. What are you reading there?
I suddenly remembered of Kipling and decided to read him over again.
Are you in your second childhood – decided to read “Mowgli” again? – Sveta started to laugh.
No, it’s not about “Mowgli”… I read it probably when I was 6–7 years old. There was such a cartoon, too – probably the whole country remembers, I remembered the surname of Kipling… And I am ashamed to say that I thought he did not write anything else.
Later I found out that he was a military correspondent in Africa in the times of Anglo-Boer War, wrote articles, sketches and stories about India where he was born and lived, and once also wrote a lot of stories…
I read “Indian Stories”, too, – Sveta put in. They are well written, but there were few of them, I found them in some collection along with other authors.
Just the same – I read them in a collection, Andrey continued:
“English Poetry in Russian Translations, 20th century”, and you see, first there is an English variant, then a Russian translation, and there are even 2–3 variants of translation for the most interesting poems… The poems are stunning, but the main surprise is ahead… – So Kipling was a poet as well? – Yes, and a great one! I still remember some of his lines by heart:
Eyes of grey – a sodden quay,
Driving rain and falling tears,
As the steamer wears to sea
In a parting storm of cheers.
Eyes of black-a throbbing keel,
Milky foam to left and right;
Whispered converse near the wheel
In the brilliant tropic night.
Eyes of blue-the Simla Hills
Silvered with the moonlight hoar;
Pleading of the waltz that thrills,
Dies and echoes round Benmore.
Eyes of brown-a dusty plain
Split and parched with heat of June,
Flying hoof and tightened rein,
Hearts that beat the old, old tune.
Maidens of your charity,
Pity my most luckless state.
Four times Cupid's debtor I —
Bankrupt in quadruplicate.
Yet, despite this evil case,
And a maiden showed me grace,
Four-and-forty times would I
Sing the Lovers' Litany:
"Love like ours can never die!"
Yes, this poem is really great… There are few words and it is even short, but very succinct, said Sveta sadly.
He has a lot of poems, but he received the Nobel Prize in 1907 for stories… and he refused to get it! You know, during his whole life he refused all kinds of titles, – remembered Andrey, now distracted from poems, – even the most prestigious one in England: Poet Laureate.
Yes, people were much more modest before… Remember? It seems that Pushkin wrote: What is glory? – A patch on the poet’s sackcloth, said Sveta thoughtfully.
All right, let’s put aside the materialistic side. The saddest thing is that there are no more such poems, – added Andrey.
Besides the poems themselves, many authors in this collection have interesting and tragic lives, full of events… Many of them went to the First World War, some died, and some died later but from the wounds of war anyway, Andrey continued.
It’s sad but it’s life… You’d better recite something else, asked Sveta.
One of Kipling’s best – “If”. There are a lot of translations, but Lozinsky probably did best of all:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;
If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!
It looks like a motto of the whole generation, said Sveta thoughtfully.
Andrey continued:
The world's a stage. The trifling entrabce fee
Is paid (by proxy) to the registrar.
The Orchestra is very loud and free
But plays not music in particular.
The do not printing programme, that I know.
The cast is large. There isn't any plot.
The acting of the piece is far below
The very worst of modernistic rot
