Master of Petersburg by J. M. Coetzee

away.’
    There is a long scuffling and a rustling of paper. ‘You don’t have another light, do you?’ says the man.
    He strikes a match. Hastily the man stuffs things into a bag and stands up.
    Stumbling in the dark like two drunkards, they climb the stairs. At the door of his room he whispers to the man to be quiet and takes his hand to guide him. The hand is unpleasantly pudgy.
    Inside, he lights the lamp. It is hard to judge the stranger’s age. His eyes are youthful; but in his thin ginger hair and freckled scalp there is something tired and old, and his way of holding himself is that of someone worn down by years and by disgrace.
    â€˜Ivanov, Pyotr Alexandrovich,’ says the man, drawing his heels together, making a little bow. ‘Civil servant, retired.’
    He gestures toward the bed. ‘Take it.’
    â€˜You must be wondering,’ says the man, testing the bed, ‘how someone of my background comes to be a watcher (that is what we call it in our line: watching).’ He lies down, stretches out.
    He has a disagreeable presentiment that he has tangled himself with one of those beggars who, unable to juggle or play the violin, feel they must repay alms with the story of their life. ‘Please keep your voice down,’ he says. ‘And take off your shoes.’
    â€˜You are the man whose son was killed, aren’t you? My deepest condolences. I know some of what you are feeling. Not all, but some. I have lost two children myself. Swept away. Meningetic fever, that is the medical term. My wife has never recovered from the blow. They could have been saved if we had had the money to pay for good doctors. A tragedy; but who cares? Tragedy is all around us nowadays. Tragedy has become the way of the world.’ He sits up. ‘If you will heed my advice, Fyodor Mikhailovich (you don’t mind, do you?), if you will take a word of advice from someone who has been, so to speak, through the mill, you will give in to your grief. Cry like a woman. That is the great secret of womankind, that gives them the advantage over fellows like us. They know when to let go and cry. We don’t, you and I. We bottle it up inside us till it becomes like the very devil! And then we go and do something stupid, just to be rid of it for an hour or two. Yes, we do something stupid that we regret forever afterwards. Women aren’t like that because women have the secret of tears. We must learn from the fair sex, Fyodor Mikhailovich, we must learn to cry! See, I’m not ashamed to cry: three years, next month, since tragedy struck, and I’m not ashamed to cry!’
    And indeed, tears are rolling down his cheeks. He wipes them away with his cuff, but more flow. He seems to have no trouble in talking while he cries. In fact, he seems quite cheerful. ‘I believe I will grieve for my lost babies for the rest of my days,’ he says.
    As Ivanov prattles on about his ‘babies,’ his attention wanders. Is it simply because he is known to be a writer that people tell him their stories? Do they think he has no stories of his own? He is exhausted, the headache has not gone away. Sitting on the only chair, with birds already beginning to chirp outside, he is desperate to sleep – desperate, in fact, for the bed he has given up. ‘We can talk later,’ he interrupts testily. ‘Go to sleep now, otherwise what is the point of this . . .’ He hesitates.
    â€˜Of this charity?’ fills in Ivanov slyly. ‘Is that what you wanted to say?’
    He does not reply.
    â€˜Because, let me assure you, you need not be ashamed of charity,’ the fellow continues softly, ‘indeed not. Just as you need not be ashamed of grief. Generous impulses, both of them. They seem to bring us low, these generous impulses of ours, but in truth they exalt us. And He sees them and records each one of them, He who sees into the crevices of our hearts.’
    With a