Taken aback, Alexe'i remained perplexed for a moment, not believing his ears, unable even to grasp what he had just heard. Then he rushed after the old man, caught up with him near a crossroads. But before he could ask him for an explanation, the neighbor, still avoiding his eye, whispered, "Don't go back. Run for it. Things are bad over there." And, with the red light against him, the old man scuttled across in front of a car, which honked its horn. Alexeï did not follow him. In the face turned away from him he had just caught sight of the long-nosed mask.

Pulling himself together, he realized to what extent the old man's words were absurd. "Things are bad over there." Sheer madness. An accident? An illness? He thought of his parents. But then why not say so clearly?

He hesitated, then, instead of going directly into the courtyard, walked around the whole block of dwellings, went up into the building where the windows in the staircase well had a view across to the façade of their house. On the top landing there were no apartments, just the exit leading out under the roofs. He knew this observation post, as it was where he had smoked his first cigarette. There was even a lingering presence of that vaguely criminal feeling. Through a narrow semicircular window he could see the whole courtyard, the bench where the retired folk read their newspapers or played chess, and, if he pressed his brow against the panes of glass, he could also make out the windows to his parents' bedroom and the kitchen. And as he peered across, the taste of the first puffs of tobacco came floating back.

He spent a long time with his face pressed to the glass.