When I re-read the note, I felt like changing a couple of things, but I heard footsteps in the large room — someone was already up, so I went to put the kettle on.
Quite aside from the previous night’s events and their possible consequences, the female part of my family had plenty of reasons to feel dissatisfied with me. My wife and I met in the ninth class at school and we married when we had only just graduated from college. Soon afterwards I discovered a desire to write that consumed most of my time and my poor wife was obliged to accept all the burdens of the family — she took on two shifts at the clinic and even saw patients at home; the children hadn’t had an easy time of it either, especially recently, during perestroika, and so, although I had never heard a single word of reproa
