“Well, let me tell you something! Has any man ever brought you carrots or a lump of lard? It’s always the women. They’re all the same in Irivka. They dominate the men and tell them what to do. And they treat you like a child, Zhenia!”
They probably treated the late General as a child as well. His marriage to the district librarian, a Muscovite at that, was something of a rebellion by a scolded child against a bevy of ferocious nannies. Nothing good came of it either, and the nannies howled in chorus: “See what you get when you don’t do what sensible women tell you!”
So Eugene, as best he could, began to contest the child status which he had unexpectedly acquired in this village, and it wasn’t an easy struggle. One day he locked the door, and in the morning his delivery women yanked at th
