Russian is spoken here.

Martin Martini's tobacco shop is on the corner of a building. No wonder the tobacconists are on the corner. Martin's business is booming. The window is not big, but it is well arranged. The little mirror brought to life what was displayed in the window. The bottom of the window is lined with sky-blue flanges, which rise and fall in a gully, and inside are colorful cigarette boxes, brands glittering in the international lingua franca. The building is a hotel, and the name is glittery international lingua franca. Near the top of the window were rows of cigaretteboxes, the cigarettes inside of which were exposed like smiles and teeth.

Martin was a wealthy landowner in his youth. In my childhood memory he was famous for owning a magnificent tractor, and his son Petya and I were reading the adventures of Mayne Reed at the same time as we were suffering from scarlet fever. Now, after fifteen years of ups and downs, I still like to visit Martin's tobacco shop in that busy corner.

The other thing is, since last year we've done more than just reminisce. Martin had a secret, and I was a conspirator in that secret. "So everything goes on as usual?" I asked him in a low voice, and he glanced back and answered, just as quietly, "Yes, thank God." That secret is no ordinary secret. I remember when I went to Paris, I had stayed in Martin's shop the day before, and had stayed there until the evening. The human soul can be compared to a department store, and the eyes to a pair of display Windows. A glance at Martin's eyes showed that they were warm tawny. Judging by such eyes, the goods deep in his soul are also quality products. A big beard, flashing the characteristic Russian strong gray. Tall, big-chested, graceful... There was a time when it was said that he could break pars with a sword -- that was one of the abilities of Richard the Lionheart in old England. Now fellow exiles often say with envy, "This man never concedes defeat!"

His wife was a quiet, fat old lady with a birthmark near her left nostril. Her face had spasmodic since the trial of the revolution, and it was a sympathetic sight. As long as a disease, always quickly squint at the sky. Petya was as tall and imposing as his father. He had a melancholy expression, but he was gentle and had a touch of humor, which I liked. He had a big face, so limp and lifeless that his father used to joke about it, saying, "What a big face -- it wouldn't take three days to sail round it." Her hair was red and brown, and she was always a mess. Petya had a small cinema in a sparsely populated part of the city, and was earning quite well. We've covered the whole family.

I had been sitting in the shop all day, sitting at the counter, watching Martin greet the customers. He leaned forward gently, leaned two index fingers against the counter, walked to the shelf, pulled out an ornate pack of cigarettes, opened it with his thumbnail and asked, "Einen Rauchen(2)?" I remember that day for a particular reason: Petya suddenly came back from the street with her hair down and her face lithe with anger. Martin's niece decided to go back to Moscow to her mother, and Petya went to the foreign affairs office. A diplomat in the foreign affairs department explained the procedure to him, and another diplomat, apparently from the official political agency, said in a barely audible voice: "The neighborhood is full of White Army remnants."

"I'd like to cut him to pieces," said Petya, hitting him in the heart, "but unfortunately I can't forget that my aunt is still in Moscow."

"You have sinned once or twice in your conscience." Martin whispered kindly of him. When he said something wrong, he meant something very funny. Not long ago, on the anniversary of his naming, Petya went to a Soviet bookstore. This bookstore is a blot on a busy Berlin street. They sell not only books, but also all kinds of small hand-made antiques. Petya picked out a small hammer with a poppy motif and a special inscription indicating that it was a Bolshevik hammer. When the clerk asked him if he wanted anything else, Petya said "yes," nodding toward a plaster bust of Mr. Ulyanov. Fifteen marks was paid for the bust and the hammer, and then on the counter, without saying a word, he struck the bust with the hammer he had just bought with such force that Mr. Ulyanov was reduced to a heap of pieces.