Destiny's Puppets. Henri Mallet

Tatiana embraced Gleb at once and pressed herself closer to him.

      “No hard feelings. I am not to blame for what happened yesterday. George is my childhood friend, we grew up on the same street, but we haven’t seen each other for ages. I did not expect him to play such a trick on me. This is all a lie. We are childhood friends, and we haven’t got any common children. Do you believe me?” The girl looked into Gleb’s eyes ingratiatingly.

      “Tatiana, this all does not matter. What is important is that our wedding is in only days away,” Svetlov leaned towards Roshin and dropped her a kiss.

      Everything was not as simple as he wanted it to be. Today, in the morning he realized that there are things in this world miraculously changing everything around him. Only yesterday he was determined to do Fedorov a bad turn and marry his lover Roshin. He quite liked her, so he decided they would be able to live together.

      When he woke up today, he felt indecently happy and suddenly realized how beautiful the fallen multicolored leaves under his feet were, how warm the morning autumn sun was, how blue the sky was, and how pleasant the smell of coffee and scones at breakfast was. It dawned upon Gleb that he was not quite ready now to lose something more than a free man’s status by marrying a girl he had never loved. He finally understood that he might lose his appetite for life! And he loved life in all its manifestations. On the other hand, he had promised her to become her husband. Gleb Svetlov considered himself a man of honor, he could not explain what made him think so, but ever since had been a child, he had been going out of his way to keep his promises. So now Gleb was facing a choice: to break his promise to Tatiana or to fulfill it and marry the girl he did not love.

      “We shall get married,” he said firmly. Blue eyes gleaming with steel, and a fine line between his eyebrows. Svetlov stepped back slightly, opened the door and went out into the corridor.

      Fedorov saw Tatiana and Gleb enter the dressing-room together, but Svetlov soon came out alone and he didn’t look happy, one might even say that he was extremely puzzled.

      “Gleb, come in, we need to talk”, Mikhail motioned to the open door of his office.

      “The boss is going to knock some sense into me now”, grumbled Svetlov to himself, but, putting on the most benevolent of smiles, he entered the open door.

      “Gleb, I know I have no right to interfere with your private life, but you are too young and inexperienced. I’m afraid that you are still not familiar with some of life’s copybook maxims. Sit down and listen to what I’m going to say. You are too young; you’ve still got all your life to live. I respect your talent and your intellect, but I’d like to warn you about the consequences of the hasty marriage to the woman you don’t love. Whether you will be able to live together or not is not the most important thing in life. If you get sick of each other you’ll just run apart, it’s no big deal. But, just imagine… if you have a baby. A family is not only a man and a woman who eat and sleep together. The purpose of a family is procreation. And this is the meaning of life, which is still beyond your reach.” Fedorov put all his actor’s talent and soul into this eloquent speech. He was looking at Svetlov, trying to understand whether he had managed to knock some sense into him.

      One had to do justice to Gleb. He was listening very attentively to the speech of his mentor and rival in his fiancee’s bed. Fedorov stopped talking. Gleb was silent for a while, then he turned around with his whole body and began rapping out the words, trying to sound as calm as possible.

      “Don’t you understand that I can’t stand back? I promised to marry her and I will! This is the problem. If she renounces the marriage, it will be her choice, not mine.”

      Gleb shook his head apathetically. His morning elation had gradually melted away, leaving only a bitter regret and a bunch of autumn leaves behind the window, which the warm wind was tossing and throwing around lazily. Svetlov stood up, still looking in Mikhail’s eyes, and abruptly left the room.

      When the door behind the young man closed, Fedorov gave vent to his feelings and even banged his hand on the table, “what am I to do with these stubborn mules? I’ll have to take more radical actions.”

      11

      The old railway platform at Ivanovo station reeked of wet dust, mold and engine oil. The passengers with their baggage were leaving the train cars and heading for the Station Square. The autumn drizzle rippled the puddles, washed the remaining leaves on lime-trees with stale moisture, and smudged gray brown dust on the yellow walls of the old railway station. The water trickling down the building wall made a black crack in the corner of the building come to life. The piece of plastered wall was becoming increasingly wetter and looked ready to crash down onto the people bustling below.

      After a very successful move to Leningrad, Nelly had to return to her mom in Ivanovo, where nothing had changed. The squelching water under the feet of people complimented the melancholy music of the autumn rain. Nelly breathed in the soggy air and felt her shoulders chill under her wet coat. She was freezing; a headache had been torturing her since the night. The girl readjusted the bulky bag on her shoulder, and lifted the heavy suitcase which was standing in the puddle. Her feet were totally wet through and her hands were numb with cold. She cast a furtive look at Victor, her new husband. He was moving fast by her side and seemed to be ignoring her completely, pretending to be a total stranger. Everything had been going so well. They could stay to live in Leningrad in a separate apartment, but Victor was dismissed suddenly due to poor health and Nelly was dismissed with him.

      With great effort the girl limped to the bus stop. An old bus, growling hysterically, stopped and opened the doors with a creak and clang. The passengers jumped out into the rain, opened their umbrellas and rushed to the platform. They were pushing Nelly, and she couldn’t get up the slippery bus steps. Suddenly she received a painful blow on the forehead. The girl lost her balance and collapsed in the nearest puddle under the load of her baggage. When the bus doors were closing, she caught a glimpse of grinning Victor. The next bus to the district of Nezhdanovo on the outskirts of the city was to be expected only in half an hour.

      Nelly got out of the puddle. The muddy water was streaming down her body and the baggage.

      “And now what i can do?” Looking like this, she won’t be allowed on a bus and her mom’s house was nearly an hour’s walking distance from the station, and with her heavy bags…

      The dusk fell from the leaden skies on the wet city. The street lamps lit up, bringing golden hues to the ripples on the puddles. Nelly was wet through to her underwear and absolutely freezing. A beautiful «Volga» stopped a few meters from the bus stop. The driver helped the man in an expensive coat get out onto the wet asphalt and opened an umbrella above his head. The man scurried to the railway station. The driver of the «Volga» was already going to get into the car, but suddenly headed for the bus stop.

      “Nelly? Is that really you?”

      The girl started and stared at the guy in front of her in amazement, “Stanislav?”

      “Yes, that’s me. Are you waiting for a bus?”

      “I missed my bus, could not get into it with all my bags… Now I am waiting for the next one.”

      “I’ll give you a lift. I’m going home all the same.”

      “That would be great. To add to all, I fell into the puddle.”

      His piggy eyes on the square face estimated the scale of the catastrophe. “Not a problem. I’ve got some plastic cover in the trunk. When I go to the market to buy food for my boss, I always protect the seats and the trunk with the plastic cover.”

      The guy lifted up a heavy suitcase, a bag without any effort and returned to the car quickly. “Why are you standing? Come on!”

      The «Volga», splashing floods of water was moving at full speed along the new avenue. Nelly thanked fate for such a generous gift. She was still shaking with cold, and unsuccessfully trying to get warm in her wet clothes. She kept glancing at the blurred spots of light behind the window.

      «Are you back forever?» Stanislav glanced at Nelly and again turned his gaze to the road.

      «Yes,