Formerly Eero the poet (and his wife) had lived in a small room on the first floor of a private house in the suburbs. The landlord was an enlightener who kept generating new ideas. He tried to grow a new variety of cucumber; he tried to replace the cucumber as such by the aubergine; he created neologisms, invented new names for babies, spoke at secular funerals, wrote pamphlets advocating prohibition, studied the earliest period in Estonian literature, designed new mechanical devices, and led tours. His activity had an addressee: the people.

And he actually managed to do it all. He was like an Icelander. In Iceland, everyone had to be a creator of culture, because there were so few people. Apple-trees blossomed beneath the enlightener's windows. Eero had the feeling that they bloomed all the time, even in winter. He had no inkling where he had got such an idea. He was very young then, and his whole lifetime still lay ahead. Yet in those days, they were busy hunting for a flat day and night. Naturally, his wife wanted them to have a flat of their own, but the enlightener also wanted to give their room to his son who would soon return from the army. How many letters they had sent to every possible office; how many refusals they had received, alternating with affirmative replies which were later denied. How many times they had been to the public housing administration the executive committee, the Party committee and every other place which seemed vested with at least a little authority. In those days, Eero had known all there was to know about the allocation of flats, and he had adapted himself to the situation too much, to the point that he talked about it incessantly in company, and with a certain morbid excitement. Nonetheless, he had been frightened by the letter they had received a year ago in early winter stating that he and his wife would receive flat No 12 of building site No 33.

He started to visit the site every week, sometimes in the company of his wife, sometimes alone, and sometimes inviting his friends. This was to be his home, sweet home. He was not an itinerant any more; he had a place to go. He clambered over slippery fields, was hindered by ditches and lost shoes in the clay. But that was a small price to pay for the progress in the construction he saw before his very eyes. Finally, the house even had a roof on it. Passing some noisy whitewashers on his way, he went up into his flat which was full of echoes like any empty place. Everything was so virginal–pure construction and pure function–with no aesthetics, reminiscences or wall paper. Just bare walls like an open opportunity. Taking his leave in the evening, he would look back at the whitewash-splashed windows of his home, reflecting a promising sunset. The next building had been completed earlier; boisterous men were carrying furniture from the vans parked at its doors; bits of packing paper flew about on the asphalt pavement.

Soon Eero's building was completed, too–the first flat that had ever been his alone.

His friends helped him move; through common effort they coped even with such impossible things as carrying up the fridge and packing the books. It was done in a jiffy, and they all shared Eero's happiness. His wife began furnishing the flat right away. They had to start from the beginning. All they had had before was a couch, some bookshelves, a night stand, a TV set, radio and a fridge. Now, in addition to this, his wife bought a standing kitchen cabinet, four cupboards, a kitchen table, three stools, two convertible armchairs, a settee and a coffee table. Finally she bought what she had long dreamed of: a large wall unit consisting of two bottom sections with drawers, two bookshelves, four cupboard units that fit on top of the rest, a combined bar and secretary unit and a two-door wardrobe. Besides, she bought a small wall unit for the bedroom, consisting of two two-door wardrobes and two low cupboards that fit on the top. They had never had anything decent, after all.

Eero was not a supporter of intentional, simulated asceticism, and the modern resistance to commodities had always been alien to him. But upon seeing this exasperatingly large amount of wood in his flat, he was suddenly seized by fear. He felt the pungent smell of a joiner's workshop. The varnish excited his nostrils. The light of an early winter evening shone on the polished surfaces. It's our furniture, he thought in a philosophical mood, so we'll just have to bear it stoically. He was an intellectual after all, and could never take anything normally. He kept recalling appropriate sentences. Rainer Maria Rilke had had an affection for doors. For cupboards as well. Rilke had spoken of his delight at seeing a well-fitting door close. And Bachelard, a favourite of Eero's, had declared that wardrobes radiated a very soft, communicative light all over the room. In this connection, Bachelard quoted Claude Vigee, and Eero, in turn, as a person who didn't know any foreign language well, could not refrain from parroting the quote when his friends came to help him put the cupboards on top of the rest: Le ref let de l'armoire ancienne sous I La braise du crepuscule d'octobre. They liked the lines, but they weren't so wild about the cupboards. One of his friends even reproached him: haven't you gone a bit too far in your love of cupboards? Cupboards are purchased but once in a lifetime, Eero replied in his aphoristic mood. In becoming inhabitable, the flat lost its virginity. O why can't we live in brand new flats forever! Eero treated his helpers to some beer. A folk singer performed his new ballad about beggars on the church steps. Believing the guests wouldn't notice, Eero secretly stroked the cupboards' shining surfaces and meditated about their capacious interiors.

The next evening they had a housewarming party.

In southeastern Europe (where Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia are now) the sacrifice of the building master's wife had been made at the completion of a building. This was only natural, because to build a house was the same as to build a world. The house builder's feat repeated God's feat of creation, and as such was worth an offering. The consecration of the cosmogonic act of taking up residence has continued even to our day. A housewarming party was incipit vita nova.

About twenty guests had gathered. Some Blues music was being played, and the red lights were on. The drinks sallied forth in flashing bottles from the secure ramparts of the new bar. There was much random conversation. One of the friends, however, sat obstinately outside on the stairs. Eero didn't understand what the matter was with him. He went out several times to take shots of vodka to his friend who silently accepted them but wouldn't answer any questions concerning his peculiar mood. Dancing had commenced in the room. Eero danced, too, noticing that the words "Money, money, money," kept recurring in the song. At twelve some of their friends started to leave. Eero's wife put on her fur coat, too, and called out to him in a very frolicsome voice that she was so happy in her new home, and that Eero was a splendid husband, and that she was going to see her friends off, because it was so nice to walk in the fresh snow. The champagne's gone to her head, Eero thought mildly, and said that of course she should go. She did. Eero sat down with a couple of remaining friends to discuss problems pertaining to the fate of culture. The friends became gradually more and more laconic. They finally left at three, and Eero remained alone. His wife was still not back, and when she was not back at four, Eero began to worry a little. But he couldn't do anything about it. All around there were empty bottles, ashtrays full of cigarette butts; a cosy light was on; distant early morning radio stations buzzed forth their programmes from the forsaken receiver. Another hour passed. For quite some time he'd been hearing a scraping sound, but it took a while to penetrate Eero's consciousness. It was the street sweeper out cleaning the pavements of freshly fallen snow: morning had come. In summer, it would have been light long ago. Eero remembered that it was the morning of Christmas Eve.

Then his wife entered; she had changed and was very sad. Eero was afraid to ask her anything after he saw the look on her face. He felt his heart pound in the mellow light. She said without looking at him that she no longer loved Eero but his friend, the one who'd been sitting out on the stairs. She had loved him for a long time but had been afraid to say so. I don't believe it, Eero said, but she said she had just been to bed with Eero's friend.

Eero's first reactions were absolutely inadequate. He started out by hitting his wife, whereupon she was reconciliatory and said that he had every right to do it. Then he vomited and howled in the toilet, his stomach cramped suddenly from psychological tension. Then, relaxed and sorrowful, he went through the soft Christmas snow to buy a tree at the market, even though it was still dark.

By the time he came back, carrying a carelessly selected tree and silently rehearsing the numerous monologues invented on the way, his wife had gone out.

Later in the day Eero suddenly calmed down. He got his wife on the phone and they agreed to meet in a cafe. Eero ordered her some wine. Then he asked her with a very stiff upper lip if she really loved the other one. She said she did, and there was unfathomable tragedy in her eyes. His lips trembling, but cold inside, Eero suggested they should go out again. They went out into the street together. There, amid hurrying matrons and Christmas-happy children, Eero told her sternly not to come home any more. She could come for her things later. His wife wanted to say something. What? Eero turned round and went away. He passed through a shop elated with holiday mood, to buy a bottle of ordinary vodka, and stopped at a drugstore for some relaxing herbal tea consisting of peppermint, valerian and water-clover.

He walked straight home (all the windows in his building were lit save those of his flat, and the sight of it created in Eero's mind a ready comparison with the hollows in Oedipus's face from which the eyes had been plucked out), locked the door of the flat by turning the key twice, and hooked the chain. He switched on the lights in all the rooms except the bedroom, the door to which he closed altogether, fearing the ghosts which might be lurking there. Now that no one could see him, he began to tremble all over. The tragedy had been too fast. He put the relaxing tea onto boil and opened the vodka bottle. He drank a quarter of the vodka and approached the window. It was Christmas Eve, yet his tree lay in the hall and didn't interest him in the least. An unhappy person has no need for the Christmas babe in our times, has he? Only happy ones do. A wind sprang up. Eero put a Vivaldi record on. He listened, eyes closed. A Renaissance worldview flowed into him. The trembling ceased. The record ended. The sounds of the house appeared in the silence: it was breathing. As a child, Eero had tried to find out who it was who breathed. He never found anybody. All houses breathed like mothers. You could hear their lungs when you were inside them. And there was another sound: water dripping into the sink. He could count to five between the drops. Ramon Gomez de la Serna had said: like nothing else the nocturnal tragedy of water dripping in the bathroom oppresses the human heart. Eero read that sentence a year later and thought how absolutely right it was. Water dripped like nothing else, and the lonely drops oppressed the heart of the utterly lonely Eero. And Eero thought that he was free now. Free temporarily, for the period of mourning. He could do whatever he chose, behave as anti-socially as possible. He would be forgiven everything for the time being. People would say: we must be understanding now, his grief is great, the poor fellow!

As a matter of fact he didn't know how to take advantage of the opportunity. Using this point of leverage he could have moved the earth. But all he did was stay at home, lying down. He kept house. There were lots of house and home words he knew. House ghost. House bar. House snake. House organ. House-book. Housemother. Home, sweet home.

Homeless. Homelessness. Homelike. Homey. Homely. Homeliness. Homelily.

Father's home. Mother's home. Childhood home. Convalescent home. Children's home. Collective farmers' home. Husband's home. Wife's home. Bride's home. Mother-in-law's home. Mental home. Sailors' home. One's own home. Sculptors' home. Maternity home. Vacation home.

From then on Eero lived alone in his Mustamäe flat. He got used to being without a wife much easier than he had feared. What Eero liked about it was the nearness of the shop, of the news stall and the trolleybus stop. It took him about twenty minutes to get to the centre of town. He could sleep quite peacefully at night. There was a pub nearby, but its late-night clientele dispersed by other routes without disturbing Eero's sleep, if he happened to be sleeping at the moment.

Sometimes he was restless toward morning, and he often woke up by five. At such times, he somehow felt ashamed to be up, because everybody else was probably still asleep. And he couldn't get any work done either. Other times he sat up nights, sometimes until five in the morning. Then he slept till noon and felt embarrassed at the thought of all the regular employees who were at work already. Eero worked, too, but the word 'to versify' sounded bad in Estonian, something like 'to tell lies', and telling lies was not considered work–at least not physical work–even if lie detectors estimated the magnitude of a lie by its physical parameters. Somehow, it seemed proper for a poet to be ashamed of his existence and his poetry. Although poetry was appreciated and poetry books were bought, perhaps even read, the general public still maintained that it didn't pay to put down everything that came to mind, and a man was valued in society for his silence. Yet a poet could never hold his tongue; he put down everything at once, transforming it into a poem. Most poems were rather interesting, but it was better to honour dead poets. A dead poet was a pride to every nation. Monuments to various generals were torn down after major coups d'etat, but poets overlooked their squares regardless of the times. Poets were carved into marble larger than life size, and then they were honoured even by tramps. A dead poet filled everyone with the pleasant, sad sensation of the injustices done to the poet, for he had been allowed to die of hunger. Nations who loved living poets later found themselves faced with the necessity of inventing a poet who had died of hunger. A poet was the conscience of the people. But where are my people, where are my readers? asked Eero.

That September afternoon, Eero was reading a newspaper. Suddenly he heard a distant rumble.

The thought of having to multiply and live on through his children was repulsive to August Kask.

I'd have to be crazy to procreate more of the kind, August Kask would say cruelly as he clicked his scissors or sprayed eau de Cologne; naturally, he repeated it to himself as he looked at the skull he was holding, in his hand. August Kask knew that there were too many people anyway. He had heard it on the radio, and there were plenty of newspaper articles to the same effect, yet people kept on breeding like rabbits. Now there were four thousand million of them already, and their number was growing exponentially, by 2.4 per cent a year, and it doubled every thirty years. Detestable creatures, August Kask thought; they hope they'll manage to stop somewhere at twelve thousand million, but that's just a pipe dream! He thought of the all too familiar figures which left no particular hope (1820—one thousand million, 1925—two thousand million, 1958—three thousand million, 1975—four thousand million). August Kask had spent several evenings drawing out a population growth chart. In it he calculated that eventually the world's population would double in a day, then in an hour, and in the end the population would be infinite, or, in other words, the living mass of human beings would fill the whole universe. The thought made August Kask laugh. And yet there were scientists asserting that mankind's future would be happy nevertheless, and that science would invent many means of avoiding hunger. Kask knew that these professional optimists had been bribed by those with the money and the power. But besides them, there were many who were simply insane, who always loved the good and hoped for the good. What good was there to be expected, though! Two people were being born every second! Eight thousand in an hour! Two hundred thousand in a day! Seventy-four million in a year! And half of mankind was in a constant state of hunger; twenty million people died of hunger every year. Yet some people kept on writing that men had to breed, and the more children there were the better. Here mothers (those with more than ten children) were still given all sorts of special privileges. But what awaited those children? Bombs, poison, swill, hunger, cold, torture, eavesdropping. At least in Europe. But in America, too. The blacks and the Chinese would yet show what they could do. Thus ran August Kask's train of thought on demography. Mad and bloodthirsty–this is what he thought of humankind. If everyone at least spoke the same language, that would be one thing, but no! What an enormous number of dialects and languages there was, some four thousand languages all in all! What for? Never any hope of understanding each other. The dumb drudges! They themselves were to blame for everything.

Sometimes August Kask stood at the window, staring up at the sky and getting some air. His nostrils moved erotically. He smelled death–carbon dioxide, sulphurous gases, soot, dust, strontium, pesticides, lead. His nose was sensitive and he knew what he was looking for.

But he also made other observations about people. One day he studied their greeting habits down in the street.

These weren't exotic at all. They didn't fall prone to kiss the dust. They didn't rub noses. They didn't press a hand to their hearts and bow. They didn't strip. They didn't raise an arm in the Roman or Nazi fashion. Some didn't greet at all, although both walked on two legs. Some even grunted or growled threateningly as they passed by. Some made barely noticeable favour-currying gestures, lowering the head submissively. Some bowed, showing an unprotected neck, like those animals in Konrad Lorenz's studies who made a gesture of surrender before the stronger beast in order not to be killed. Or like the tribes who squatted down when greeting, in order to show their good intentions. Upon meeting another, some people even showed the right hand, giving the other an opportunity to see that it didn't hold a knife or pistol. Some even offered the hand to be touched so the other would be quite sure. Some searched each other: they thumped the partner's back, ass or sides. Some drunks kissed each other on the lips, cheeks, or behind the ears. They sniffed each other. Some exchanged verbal banalities: well, how are you, and the other would say, well, so-so. But some spoke at length about their lives. They seemed to have an acute need to confess. They wanted deliverance, indulgences. They dwelt on their sins. They described their life's stories, right from the beginning, quoting the names of their children and grandchildren. They said where they'd bought bananas or carpets. They didn't like buying poor quality things. They thought they were entitled to the best of everything. So they kept tracking down the so-called good things at the back windows of shops, under eaves, in yards and in queues.

Kask eavesdropped on their conversations on bright summer evenings. And again he was seized by rage. He wanted to cut the throats of many of his clients with his razor. He had the ideal opportunity for it; the victim was entirely in his power. A single movement, and there would have been one less of them. Andre Gide would have called it an act without reason. But Kask would have had a reason–he was nurturing the idea of improvement of the race.

In the evening, a haze covered the sky, and a wind sprang up. Dust swirled about the asphalt; there was a strange idle light. Bolder men still lingered on their balconies and smoked ceaselessly, dressed only in undershirts and briefs, of course. It grew darker all the while and the clouds got thicker, the pre-thunderstorm light even entered the room. At long last the whole population hid inside. Some started to cook meals in spite of the thunderstorm, cracking eggs onto grimy frying-pans. They were bolder now. There was electricity, lightning itself, inside the stoves, yet people were less afraid of it than of wood smoke and open flames. Kask remembered how a few decades ago, water was poured on the hearth at the approach of thunder, but now he just stood at the window and waited. Five rowdies appeared shouting at the top of their lungs, shirts unbuttoned down the front; they disappeared around the corner and were gone. A little boy was still making circles on his bicycle, but finally, he, too, was called in. It was even darker now; here and there, lights were kindled, as they used to say in older times, the barn doors were shut and the dogs crawled into their tiny houses. Washing was flapping on the clotheslines. A dry birch bough broke off and dropped to the pavement. No one was hit. There was a rumble of thunder, its sound echoing back from the clouds and the labyrinth of buildings. Kask went to bed with his clothes on. Every object in the dimly lit bedroom had about it a threat, an electric potential. A pair of dangling pants looked like a hanged man; the clock had a human face. Kask heard a roar and a rumble; the patch of sky he could see was tinted purple. Then the rain poured down on the tin windowsill. Outside, flashes of lightning illuminated the dead townscape, purplish props around stunted parks. But Kask didn't get up. He closed his eyes, yet he could see the lightning even through his eyelids. Kask didn't know what lightning struck in towns. Houses, trees or wires? Or lightning-rods? It had to strike something. Or did flashes of lightning in towns fight in the clouds, mostly among themselves? After a clap that made the windowpanes rattle came a strange sudden silence. Kask opened his eyes. The rain had also died away. There was an odd feeling in the room. Then a fireball the size of an electric bulb issued from the plug in the opposite wall. Its shine was cold like that of a fluorescent lamp. It lit up every little bump on the wall. It droned slowly past a high-backed chair, and the back's large shadow moved across the walls and the ceiling. Kask held his breath. He hoped the ball couldn't see, hear or sense him. He didn't want to anger the ball, because he didn't know what it might have against him. He avoided everything that might possibly irritate the ball. Suddenly it shot straight up like a rocket and remained hovering near the ceiling, as if before an air-raid, or like a self-appointed light bulb. It's hard to say how long it lasted. Then a hollow pop was heard, like a cork being pulled out of a bottle or a balloon bursting. The same moment the room was buried in darkness. Everything was just as before. An imprint of the ball remained for several seconds on the retina of August Kask's eye. Then it was gone, too. August Kask continued to lie still, as if afraid of the ball's continuing existence in the darkness. He waited till he sensed a faint smoky smell. Somehow this had a calming effect on him and informed him of the visitor's departure. Kask got up and switched on the light. The room was empty and in order. He went to the wall plug and saw that the plastic had melted into a formless mass. Death had passed through the room. Elsewhere everything was just as it had been before. Kask went to the window and looked out. The rain was over. The asphalt shimmered. An intermittent rumble was heard in the distance. Colossal amounts of energy had been discharged, yet outwardly, nothing had changed. Thousands of volts had been wasted. An individual was again waddling about in the yard, soon followed by another. Both were male. Kask went to bed again. He could still visualize the fireball. The rumble outside grew quieter and quieter, until at last nothing was heard.

Perhaps at that hour of the night, everyone in the neighbourhood was asleep, including the last to doze off and the earliest to rise. One could presume it, because all the windows were dark now. But couldn't thick curtains have been drawn, and lights be on anyway? To know such a thing, one would have to study the consumption of electricity at that hour of the night. But there were a lot of appliances in the flats which functioned on their own: refrigerators chilled, stereos had been left on, dim night-lights guarded the sleep of the sleepless, their glow not reaching far. But even total darkness didn't mean sleep; everyone knew that from his own experience. Someone was bound to be awake from happiness, grief, pain, or enjoyment.

A late home-comer went past. The clicking of her high heels on the asphalt had an erotic effect on August Kask.

That same night, after the thunderstorm had passed, architect Maurer came home from his friend's place. They had emptied a bottle of brandy and talked. Several times, Maurer had wanted to get up and leave, but he had liked it at his friend's, with the thunderstorm raging outside, and he had stayed. They had discussed foreign policy, as is customary in male company; they had discussed China and the Middle Eastern question and exchanged opinions on Israel. The friend had made a few remarks about the president of a foreign country and said how, in the president's place, he would have solved a particular problem. Then it was Maurer's turn to observe what he would do in the president's place. When there was a crash of thunder outside (the same which produced a fireball the size of a light bulb in August Kask's room) they abandoned politics for the weather. Maurer's friend opined that the climate had certainly changed, but the scientists were lying and saying that it hadn't. What else can they do, the friend remarked, they have to earn their keep somehow. Later, they had talked of the approaching ice age and propounded means to avoid it, but then Maurer had decided to rise from his warm armchair and leave, all the more so since it had stopped raining.

Now he was walking in the fresh air, alone, his hands in his pockets, humming to himself. His mood was good as he looked at the torn pieces of cloud rushing over the houses piled up toward the sky. Mustamäe was romantic that night, and Maurer, although not one of the main creators of the neighbourhood, as was pointed out above, was as proud of it as if he were. The moon peeked out from behind the clouds, then disappeared, bringing back days of first love, and the animated landscape, though deserted, possessed for Maurer a sense of rhythm and drama. Maurer remembered the lithographed illustrations by Dore he had seen in childhood. Precipices in rocky mountains, noble robbers, weeping girls, lonely riders with joyous tidings. Yes, Maurer said in a manly voice, cities are our future. How could anyone preach against the birth of children? Life was a great treasure, a treasure in and of itself, and it had to be, multiplied in numbers as large as possible. Every human being was unique, every child left unborn was as terrible as murder. If mankind multiplied tenfold, the number of Beethovens and Tolstoys would also grow tenfold, Maurer thought tenderly. The heady wind inspired heroic thoughts in him. Men were forceful in the dark; all superfluous perceptions had been switched off. The excess of details in the daytime was disturbing. Night was star time both in a direct and an indirect sense. He didn't meet anyone for a long while, and when he finally did it was quite an agreeable person. Then Maurer continued alone again, and the next passer-by he met also turned out to be an agreeable sort, or at least he wasn't disagreeable. Even their glances met. Maurer always felt secure in this neighbourhood. He remembered the old quarters of the city, the nineteen fifties with their disgusting gangs of thieves, the legendary gang leaders, referred to as counts, dukes and kings, and what's more, he remembered the rumours from the early fifties (or were they older still?) of secret sausage factories processing human flesh. Maurer even remembered the places and glades which were said to hide the cellars housing those cannibalistic enterprises. He remembered the words of a reported escaped victim who was said to have been bathed before he was to be slaughtered (after all, the carcass had to be clean!). Later, the victim had been able to say that he had heard the whistle of a locomotive while he was being bathed; consequently, the slaughter-house had to be near the railway station. His escape had been a miracle. It was all rubbish, of course, but even now, recalling those terrifying rumours, Maurer had an uneasy feeling. A rational and clever man, he had to admit that nevertheless there had been moments when he believed the human slaughterhouse had not appeared as the result of, a collective nightmare, but had existed physically, not in an abstract or allegorical sense. My ancestors in the jungle must have eaten their own kind, Maurer would proffer a somewhat strained joke, so that's why these memories keep making me uneasy. But now it was really just a memory, albeit a bad one. Maurer was enthusiastic about the orderliness of the new neighbourhoods and the respectability of their citizens. He had seen a great deal of ugliness in his life; he had even got a glimpse of the war, and it was a long time before he was quite convinced that people had really turned so good (Maurer had always believed that they were good. but now he was afraid of exaggerating).

An amber light was blinking at a crossroads. Daytime saw other colours alternating here, too–red and green, but only the warning light was left on for the night. It looked like the signal of a border zone, or a minefield, or a shoal. But it inspired a peaceful feeling in Maurer. Maurer liked all existing things to function. Am I a primitive, he had asked himself, to feel happy about trifles at a time when one must only complain and weep? Maurer was happy because the trolley-buses ran on their lines; he was glad because dentists filled teeth; he was grateful to cows for the milk they gave: it pleased him that houses stayed put. He kept recalling a poem by Betti Alver: "Beginning day, why are you called a workday? / A miracle you are, I dare to say / With all the beauty of surprise you have in store." And thus, in Maurer's opinion, it was beautiful, and it was wonderful that traffic lights functioned in the dead of night at an empty crossroads, warning everyone, including himself, of possible danger. This was a reflection of people's mutual consideration. How pleasant it was to meet such a point of support in the dark city! Maurer remembered a science-fiction story he had read after the war about a wonder battery which accumulated a colossal amount of energy. And where do we meet that energy? The hero parachuted down above an endless, empty and dark ice field. But then he caught sight of a faint glow in the night. As he waded on through the snow, he saw a lamp post that cast a bright, warm light. In the midst of cold and dark, perhaps even the polar night! In the Arctic! Nearby there was a road, a snow tram was to come soon, etc., etc., and all these miraculous apparatuses were fuelled by the wonder-batteries. And the miracles were worked by men regardless of what the sceptics said.