Memoirs of a Space Traveler by Stanislaw Lem

Author:Stanislaw Lem
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-11-12T19:19:42+00:00

IV

One autumn afternoon, as it was growing dark in the streets outside and a fine gray rain fell steadily -- the kind of weather that makes any memory of the sun unreal and that keeps a man glued to his seat by the fireplace -- as I sat engrossed in old volumes (searching not for content -- the content I knew well -- but for myself from years ago), suddenly there was a rapping at my door. A violent rapping, as if my visitor, by not touching the bell, wished to announce at once that his mission was of a desperate nature. Putting aside my book, I went into the corridor and opened the door. I saw a man in a dripping oilskin; his face, twisted in great fatigue, glistened with raindrops. He did not look at me. He leaned with both his wet, reddened hands against a large chest that he had apparently carried up the flight of stairs himself.

"Sir," I began, "what do you. . ." but corrected myself: "Can I help you?"

He made some vague waving gesture and continued panting; I realized then that he intended to bring his burden into my apartment but had not the strength. So I took hold of the soaked rough cords around the package and pulled it into the corridor. When I turned around, he was standing at my heels. I showed him the coatrack; he hung his coat up, put his hat (drenched to a shapeless felt rag) on the shelf, and on none-too-steady legs entered my study.

"What can I do for you?" I asked after a long pause.

It dawned on me that here was yet another of my unusual guests. Still not looking at me -- absorbed, apparently, in his own thoughts -- he mopped his face with a handkerchief and shivered at the touch of his wet shirt cuffs. I said that he should sit by the fireplace, but he did not respond. He seized the dripping crate and pulled, pushed, and turned it this way and that; it left a muddy track on the floor -- an indication that during his journey here he must have put it down on the sidewalk once or twice to catch his breath. Only when it stood in the middle of the room and he could keep a constant eye on it did he take notice of me. He mumbled something, nodded, awkwardly went to an empty chair, and sank into its well-worn depths.

I sat opposite him. We were silent a long time, but somehow this seemed quite natural. He was not young; fifty, perhaps. His face was irregular, strikingly so, the left side smaller, as though it had fallen behind in its growth. The left corner of the mouth, the left half of the nose, and the left eyelid, all pinched, produced a permanent expression of gloomy puzzlement.

"You are Tichy?" he said finally, when I least expected it. I nodded. "Ijon Tichy? The traveler?" He leaned forward and looked at me doubtfully.

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