“This one’s also too small.”
She calmly handed me another one, which I also rejected, then another and another: dozens of umbrellas, each more beautiful than the last. I could hardly keep from crying, and I was so ashamed that I wanted the earth to swallow me up. But what could I do?
“So, what is it you want?”
“A really big umbrella, for as many people as possible to shelter under. All these are too small. .”
“Okay, but you’re alone.”
“Yes, I’m alone.”
I put the last umbrella down on the counter.
“But I’d still like a bigger umbrella.”
The saleswoman started to put the others back on the racks. She swayed her big heavy hips. I tried hard to smile, looked in vain for an excuse, and respectfully bowed my head almost to the level of the counter. I was more and more embarrassed by my inability to buy anything. More self-abasement, then a sly exit on tiptoe.
It was no longer raining, but the sky was just as gray as before. I dragged my feet over the wet asphalt, passing heedlessly through the puddles that had formed here and there. I walked slowly, without thinking of anything. Close to the walls — water was still trickling from the gutters — always close to the walls. With no aim in mind. The streetlamps came on one after another, although night didn’t seem to have fallen yet. They gave off a sad, pale light. The dark leaden sky grew more oppressive as it came lower and lower. A light but cold wind glided over my forehead. I was tired. I walked hesitantly, unsteadily, my arms heavy by my side. I saw her curled up by a fence. When she noticed me, she got up and rushed at me. She was wiggling her thin, bony hips. Baa! She jumped happily around me, shifting from one foot to the other. Jerking her head in every direction, she swiveled back from the waist, swung her hips, and bleated softly. She was dancing! Moved, I stopped and gave her a nod of encouragement. Then, mustering her courage, she took me by the hand — her fingers were cold and rough — and pulled me after her.
Tall and Distinguished
He finished sharpening the pencil — he always left it until last, as it had hard wood and poor-quality lead — then looked at his watch and smiled. The goddamn sharpener! He knocked it against the serrated edge of the ashtray to remove the shavings. It was in the form of an ice skate: that was why he had bought it. He also had a globe, a whale, a nice white elephant, and — why not say? — a ballerina; but they were all useless, with worn-out blades, and the ballerina — forget it. He looked at his watch and smiled. He arranged the files meticulously in his desk drawers and put the stapler in its place, along with the pencil sharpener and the box of paper clips. All he left outside were the green marble pencil box, the inkstand, and a ream of paper — so that there would be something on his desk. Then, finally, he locked it.
It was hot, too hot even. He patted the edges of the radiator. Soon, in the street, it would be freezing; the sudden change in temperature wasn’t good, of course. Hor
ia was reading Secolul. He kept the magazine in a half-open drawer and sat there reading it avidly, head sunk between his shoulders, so that all you could see was a tuft of hair. So long as the boss didn’t walk in!. . He rested his elbows on the glass top of his desk and stroked his mustache with a hooked finger; he liked to look distinguished. He drummed his carefully groomed fingernails and considered what the boss would say if he saw Horia bent like a kid over that drawer. What would he say? Nothing occurred to him — after all, perhaps the boss wouldn’t even notice. He took the ice skate from his pocket and, holding it between two fingers, slid it along the ice of his desk; he ran it aground in a heap of snow — the paper ream — then pushed it into making a couple of really fine pirouettes. After a brief hesitation, he bent down, opened a drawer, took out the other pencil sharpeners, and put them on the ice too. But now Horia was on his feet, jingling his key chain: it was time to go home. He quickly stuffed the whale, the ballerina, and the others into his pocket. Horia looked at him, squinting slightly: so what, it’s your business! He stood up, forgetting to close his sharpener drawer, took his hat from its peg on the rack, put on his new overcoat, and walked through the door ahead of Horia. He was in no special hurry, but what else could he do? Sometimes that Horia liked to fool around — in short, he liked to wind him up.
It was no longer snowing. Squashed by so many tires, trampled by so many boots, the snow had taken on the color of halva. It had turned to mud on the tramlines, and had probably disappeared altogether toward the city center, where trucks were rolled out to clear it away. Maybe it’ll snow again this evening. . Leaving the office canteen, he set off homeward by force of habit, but then changed his mind. The sky was overcast, and far away, beyond the trolley cables and telephone wires, it had dark-purple hues. Yellowish-green sparks leaped now and then from the trams; the streetlamps would soon light up — how early darkness fell now! He sauntered along, well protected in his fur gloves — real bear’s paws that he held behind his back — and a hat pulled around his ears. The snow was turning a darker shade of gray on the rooftops. He didn’t feel cold at all, so he had no reason to enter the cafeteria on the other side of the street. But he crossed all the same. Two thin men and a woman with a pale, birdlike face and ringed eyes were on their way out. After she had gone a few steps down the street, he felt an urge to look at her again; she bore a striking resemblance to Luci. All the streetlamps suddenly went on at the same time, like that evening in the living room after the old white-bearded man had left with an empty bag slung over his red silk shoulders. Then too all the lights had come on at once — in the chandelier and the wall lamps — and shone on the presents piled up beneath the fir tree. Luci, in a bulging dress, first gave him the box with the skates. She knew her stuff, all right! He stood there bemused, supporting himself against the arm of the chair: he didn’t have the courage. Nor were there only the skates. He stood with the box in his arms, but Luci insisted that he open it, and the steel blades of the skates were cold and icy-sharp.
He twisted his lips and chewed a corner of his mustache. It seemed to be colder now; there was a tingling behind his eyelids, as if he was about to cry. His ears were beginning to feel stiff, even inside the fur flaps. A tram made an infernal racket. He quickened his steps.
He still had the skates. He didn’t put them on for a long time. Luci made fun of his “idyllic love affair,” as she put it. He didn’t understand, but it was true that he loved the cold steel of the gleaming blades. They also intimidated him: Mr. Tassopol (Tasso, as Luci jokingly called him) suggested that he was afraid of spoiling them, but he didn’t say it spitefully, even though he was older than 
tefan. . He stuck his hands inside the skates and ran them violently over the carpet, cutting its flowers and grass. “You’re a skinflint,” tefan said. “You take after your mother, Luci, in that.” That evening Luci quarreled with tefan, and he stopped coming around. Only Tasso used to show up; others too, sometimes, but very rarely, and they weren’t like Tasso, who let him climb on his knees and tickle his bald patch. Luci used to find that very funny, and said his bald patch was like the mirror that girls inspect on New Year’s Eve to catch sight of their intended. In fact, they were all jolly souls, who brought them sweets, chocolate, and toys. But Luci sometimes put her head in her hands and sat staring at a point in the distance. Her eyes would then shrink and become perfectly round: two blue grains, with an evil look in them, darkened by rings, by fear. One day it occurred to him that she was a bird: the sleeves of her kimono hung down like exhausted wings.