The traffic light kept blinking and Maurer was about to blink back at it. He had the feeling that whatever happened to him that night would end well in any case. He bent down to tie his shoestring. That very moment a militia car stopped beside him, the brakes creaking. Two peace officers (they were sometimes called that, weren't they?) jumped out and came up to Maurer. Maurer straightened up and looked at them calmly, with slightly glassy eyes. Neither did the approaching militiaman look away. Good evening, the militiaman said politely, please be so kind as to present your documents. Why, Maurer asked in return. Please don't argue, just show us your documents, the militiaman repeated. Maurer searched his pockets but failed to find his passport. His wallet was there, but he had left his passport on the table at home. He remembered for sure that he had left it. Yet he searched again, he searched his pockets a second and a third time. He was overwhelmed by a sort of self-pity. He wanted to make an impression of loyalty, to show that the absence of his documents really concerned him. I don't have my passport, Maurer sighed from the bottom of his heart. He was really sad he didn't have it. Today, after the thunderstorm, more than ever before he wanted to show he was an orderly citizen. How come the crooks always got away clean, and honest citizens got caught? I don't have my passport, Maurer repeated with lips trembling; it's probably the first time in my life I've left home without any identification card. I always remember to take my passport, he persuaded the militiaman, the way I remember my money, my hat, and my trousers. Perhaps you have some other papers, the militiaman asked mildly, any document with your photograph on it? I'm sorry, but I don't have a photo-I.D., Maurer said despondently. Maurer's legal status grew worse still, but the militiaman obviously felt sorry for him. I have to take you down to the station if you can't prove your identity, he said without malice, can't you understand that? Maurer was silent. He couldn't argue with him, after all. Don't you have some document with a photograph in it, the militiaman persisted stubbornly. Maurer thrust his hand into his pocket absent-mindedly. Then he realized what he had in his breast pocket. I have my pictures, he said hopefully. Pictures? the militiaman said with relief, show them to me. Maurer pulled out the pictures he had had taken for his new I.D. at work and which he had received from the photographer's the very same day. The militiaman put out his hand, encouraging Maurer with a smile. Maurer handed him the pictures. He wanted to say that they were just pictures, but didn't, just in case. There was no need to interfere with the course of events. The militiaman compared Maurer to the photographs. He did it very thoroughly, comparing him with each picture separately, although all the pictures were exactly alike. The other militiaman took a look at the pictures, too, and compared them with Maurer. It looks like him, said the first militiaman, heaving a sigh. Yes, it does, nodded the other one, and both shifted their weight from foot to foot. Maurer nodded, too, because he knew that he was the man in the pictures. Then the militiaman handed back the pictures. Maurer waited. Looks like him for sure, said the militiaman in a very mild tone now. The militiaman's eyes were wide open; the spell of the moment had captivated even him. Maurer replaced the pictures in his pocket. The militiaman saluted. Then they left for their car, shooting several glances back at Maurer as they went, as though seeing a vampire or a ghost. The car pulled off with a screech of rubber and soon disappeared around the corner.

Maurer, however, did not move from the spot. From there it was four hundred and forty-six kilometres to Riga, three hundred and sixty-nine to Leningrad, one thousand and fifteen to Moscow, eighty-seven to Helsinki, and four hundred and one to Stockholm. He was surrounded by a neighbourhood the population of which was twice as large as that of Greenland and almost twice as large as that of Bermuda. Paris was about the same size in the Middle Ages, but London and Rome were half that size. The area of the neighbourhood was twice as large as New York's Central Park (Central Park had to be enormous indeed, Maurer sometimes thought with a surprise; no wonder people were always getting killed there, as the papers wrote every day; it's no park–it's a primeval forest). But the renowned town of Troy which the Greeks captured by climbing into a wooden horse was reported to have been six hundred times smaller than Mustamäe, a mere hectare in size! Could that possibly be true? My, how the world has changed! Maurer thought. In antiquity as many slaves had lived in Athens as there were now inhabitants in Mustamäe. In the thirteenth century, only twice the number of inhabitants of present-day Mustamäe lived in the whole of Estonia. One could probably walk days before one saw another soul, Maurer thought. It was back in those times that people were strangers to each other, because they never met. Nowadays, on the contrary, they were not strangers but experienced some strange, exciting and encouraging feeling of constant support.

Maurer's building came into sight. He reached home before the rain. He locked the front door. Then he locked the door of his flat. There was something ambiguous about doors. They were smooth but mysterious. Maurer flinched whenever he saw a glass door. He had been afraid of them for a long time, but after the Vancouver Congress he couldn't tolerate them at all. One night, with a blizzard raging outside, there had been a little party at the residence of a leading Canadian architect. It was past midnight; the international party was in high spirits, but a fifty-year-old Jamaican architect proved to be particularly tireless. He had thrown off his jacket and danced with all the ladies one by one. His strong lean body kept bossa-novaing about in the glow of the fireplace. Maurer, a little lonely, was sitting in an armchair. He watched the snowstorm beyond the glass door, and thought about the congress. He couldn't help envying the Jamaican's physique. The Jamaican noticed his gaze. Come and dance, why are you just sitting the whole night away, the man shot back at him, see what a nice samba. Oh, I don't feel like it, Maurer said indifferently, I'm not much of a dancer. The room was dim, with a dry smell of whisky; birch logs crackled in the fire and there was just a trace of controversy among the men. The Jamaican abandoned his lady and came over to Maurer. You're an Estonian to my knowledge, aren't you? he asked. Maurer, nodded helplessly. The Estonians aren't great dancers, are they? the Jamaican continued, they say you have cold blood. Yes, that's so, Maurer stumbled. Yes, but you must have a pretty hot thing over there, too, the Jamaican wouldn't let up–your saunas. Is the sauna Estonian? Maurer nodded. But I know what an Estonian sauna is, his colleague boasted, his dark forehead beaded with sweat; there's nothing special about it: you go sit in it for a while and then jump naked into a snowdrift, splash! Don't you? Maurer nodded obediently. The other architects had also gathered around by then. See, there's snow outside, the Jamaican went on bragging, so I'm going to strip naked and jump into the snowdrift. Maurer didn't dare stop him. And the Jamaican began to peel off his pants. The ladies screamed. Soon the man was stark naked, like a big black cat in the glow of the fireplace. He opened the French window to the terrace. Snow began to blow inside. I'm going to jump, said the Jamaican. He got ready to take a flying leap. Look, Estonian! Maurer thought the man was getting a trifle too vulgar. He shouted: You have to be hot first! Well, if you insist, the Jamaican said promptly and shoved his ass into the fireplace. Everybody laughed. The host shut the French window. But the poor Jamaican chose that very moment for plunging into the snowdrift in a genuinely Estonian manner. Needless to say he flew right through the glass. You must remember that he was naked. Yelling, blood, screaming, an ambulance. No one understood why the Jamaican had acted in such a strange way. Perhaps he had some disease? Only Maurer knew how it had started.

The party was drained of its spirit, and the guests soon left. A snowdrift gathered on the floor in front of the dying fire. Then Maurer left, too, first the house, then Vancouver. Ever since that time he couldn't stand glass doors. He was afraid to walk through them. He even wrote an article against them.

His wife was asleep already. His wife never went to sleep until Maurer was safe at home. Maurer was seldom out late, yet she had always been overwhelmed by an incomprehensible anxiety. Four years passed before she was convinced that nothing bad ever happened to Maurer. In this respect Maurer was a perfect individual.

As he brushed his teeth in the bathroom, he remembered what his friend had told him. A locomotive with no one in it had driven out of a railway station near the city to meet another oncoming train. Fortunately the other train's engineer had managed to stop his train in time and reverse it. His mouth full of lather, Maurer looked into the mirror. He inspected himself and put on the face he would have made in that engineer's place. He grasped the edge of the sink and made believe he was holding the control levers. He hooted quietly. Then he spat the blood-mixed water into the sink and put some eau de Cologne on his cheeks.

Nature was raging; lightning flashed time and again, but the television outdid it. The picture jerked just once, reacting for a moment to the discharge of electricity, but remained firm in the end and showed what it had to show.

Laura sipped her sherry, nibbled some chocolate and took in the events in Bristol.

There lived a middle-aged man. He was an Englishman, with a slightly pained mien and an introverted character. A man whom no one understood very well. He had a job somewhere–it wasn't clear where, at any rate he had money, but in films people always have money and no one bothers to ask where it comes from. The man's name was Cunningham. He had had a respectable family life, but now it was a mess. Some of the blame for the mess might have been laid on Anna, his own attractive, well-preserved wife. Some hints were given, but Laura wasn't sure whether she got them right. In any event, Cunningham now found himself a young lover of French descent, Barbara. (Or did Barbara find him? The beginnings of films are always made confusing deliberately so you'll be intrigued.) Because of Barbara, Cunningham left his faithful Anna, as well as his beautiful grown-up daughter, Plurabelle. True, he maintained a sporadic relationship with the family, mainly because of his fatherly solicitude for his daughter, since the daughter's (Plurabelle's) life was now getting messed up in turn. It was with pain that Cunningham watched Plurabelle flirt with young Jim, a brute of a student. Plurabelle's future was the single topic he spoke about with Anna. Otherwise Anna bore her fate courageously, never reproaching Cunningham about anything. She never meddled when she saw Cunningham was speeding about in Barbara's posh car and frequented disco joints and other places where a man like Cunningham struck a somewhat absurd note. Anna waited, for she knew Cunningham's subtle inner nature. She knew Cunningham just had to get it out of his system, nothing else would make an introvert like Cunningham give up his affections. Memories of their former happiness also kept Anna's hopes aglow under the embers. It can't die altogether, she thought, and tactfully avoided Cunningham on his weekly visits home. Was Cunningham happy with Barbara? No doubt he was, because it was a great change from Anna to Barbara. Anna was a mother, a housewife, a quiet and faithful fairy, though in her mild and slightly old-fashioned manner she was still attractive as a woman. Barbara, on the contrary, was a fashionable young lady with long unkempt hair, independent, rich, well-read, and unprejudiced. Cunningham never spoke to Anna about Barbara, and Anna asked him no questions. So why then did Cunningham bother to come home at all? Why did the echo of his shy, sneaking footsteps on the garden path keep ringing out like clockwork every weekend? The cause of their mutual worry, despite their separation, was clear–Plurabelle and her boyfriend! First, a few details about Plurabelle. Dark, beautiful, hopelessly optimistic, always ready to laugh, briefly–a child of the sun, perfection of a sort, perhaps something which united Anna's motherliness and Barbara's emancipatedness; and obviously that was why old Cunningham was so attached to his daughter, perhaps even more than to Anna, and surely even more than to Barbara, of whom he was actually a little afraid, although he didn't quite have the courage to admit it. Undoubtedly, Plurabelle was the film's brightest and most sympathetic character. Marriage with Jim now threatened her. Jim aroused two kinds of feelings. At first glance he was simply a nice chap of liberal upbringing, extremely sincere and entirely free of bourgeois prejudice, utterly straightforward, and cordial in a way. True, he fought against bourgeois luxury and pseudo-values, but this shouldn't have troubled the bourgeois Cunningham so much, because, after all, who doesn't fight against bourgeois society in a bourgeois society? What made Cunningham's delicate brow wrinkle in worry, what made him refuse a drink with Jim, what kept him casting obstinate though delicate reproaches in the direction of Plurabelle? He must have smelt something bad; his father's heart must have seen through the appearances in good time. That day, with Laura sipping from her tiny glass of sherry in front of the TV set, there was some momentous news: Jim demanded Plurabelle's hand, doing it in a rather rude manner–rude with respect to Anna above all, because she'd never said a bad word to Jim. In the wooing scene Jim was wearing an old dark work jacket, unbuttoned down the front. To Cunningham's dry announcement that Plurabelle would become Jim's wife only over his, Cunningham's, dead body, Jim gave an ironic snort. He said that their bourgeois melodrama was no concern of his; Plurabelle, however, pressed her head on her mother's breast and confessed that she was pregnant by Jim. Both parents had thought that what they were dealing with was a common flirt; they never dreamed the irresponsible student would dare to go that far, yet they were now faced with the accomplished fact. Bowed with defeat, Cunningham didn't begin to discuss the matter with his ex-wife but drove off to Barbara instead. The Frenchwoman didn't understand. Cunningham's anguish at all. What of it, she asked, pouring out her usual drink, good heavens, she's not the first girl to have got knocked up, let them get married if that's what they're after. Cunningham grew sadder still: his Barbara didn't understand him. I can't permit it, Cunningham groaned as he sank down onto Barbara's circular sofa, I can't, don't you understand this, Barbara? No, I don't, said the blonde Barbara drily, scrutinizing Cunningham more attentively for a moment, and added that Cunningham was probably suffering from the Oedipus complex–he wanted to sleep with Plurabelle himself, and why didn't Cunningham just go ahead and do it, because incest wasn't such a big, crime nowadays. And on top of that Barbara added that only in the light of that complex did she understand why Cunningham was to a certain extent restrained, inhibited . in his relationship with her–with Barbara. Tears welled into Cunningham's eyes. He jumped up with a sob and drove off–where? At the same time Plurabelle and Jim were giving vent to their youthful happiness in their tiny student room. They were in bed–Plurabelle's unpretentious young laughter, Jim's beatnicky rasp–when the car horn sounded. Plurabelle wrapped a dressing-gown around her and went to the window. Her father's black limousine stood below in the street. Beside it stood Cunningham, his imploring gaze fixed at the first-floor window, from where Plurabelle's face, in a frame of tousled hair, glowed down. Father was on the point of taking the first step to cross the street and rush up the stairs to his daughter when another face appeared beside hers, a face young and angry, a face manifesting another style, a different attitude toward life, and finally, different aesthetic and, the Devil knows, perhaps different moral standards, too. So the father's urge to go to his daughter died; he turned round, got into his car and disappeared from his young one's sight.

Laura sat motionless for a moment; she watched the captions run upwards across the screen, popped the last crumb of chocolate into her mouth, sipped the last drop of sherry, corked the bottle, put it away in the cupboard, rinsed the glass with warm water from the kitchen tap, pulled the curtain aside a little and cast a look down at Mustamäe, at the asphalt wet with rain. Later she brushed her teeth and lay down. Then she put out the light. It was quite dark at first, then the glow of the town appeared. Her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. So did her cars. An after thunderstorm coolness came in from the window. Someone was screaming for help. A car stopped. A bunch of young people were singing a popular song. But gradually everything grew peaceful. The town was silent at night.

Laura thought of the men who had invented Cunningham. They were artists. They had certainly experienced something of the kind themselves. But art was not created by copying from life. Frequently feelings, ideas, and memories blended to form a new whole, so that even the artist didn't understand how he had come up with the end result. This must also have been the case with Cunningham's inventors. They blended reality and fantasy. And while doing so, they smoked. They drummed their fingers on the table. They took off their jackets and loosened their ties. That's how Laura pictured them, those Cunningham men, those writers.

Doorman Theo's job was advantageous from the point of view of getting to know people. From time to time, people intimated to him that he obviously knew lots of interesting things about man in general. To this Theo would reply that man was an ordinary creature and it was difficult to say anything about him. Men were only superficially influenced by social hierarchies. The shell soon disintegrated. There were some who looked damn important coming into the pub, who steered in belly first to make sure everyone saw what big shots they were. But behold–a couple of hours passed, it was getting close to midnight, and there was the big shot misanthrope staggering down the stairs, all nicely soused, his heart swelling with the warmest of feelings. Oh, how he blabbered and patted Theo; oh, how he toadied and promised to do this or that if Theo only so much as asked! What pleasant jokes he told, and reminiscences of an adventurous life, what racy language he used! Even invitations were showered upon the doorman, but Theo was no fool. He couldn't stand those men of the people who wouldn't so much as say hello when they were sober. They double-crossed you the moment they'd slept off their hangover. He did accept their money though. Once those misers were set on squandering, he didn't want to prevent them in any way.

Theo liked simple, ordinary people better. They were more natural. They didn't change so much. They were drunk before and after. They could be trusted, because their souls were pure and sincere, unsophisticated. Theo also recognized the big names in culture. He did appreciate some of them, although they were still second in his line of preferences. But these figures were not very famous in culture either. As for the very distinguished people, they didn't frequent Theo's establishment. If they had time to go to a pub at all, they preferred more refined places.

Once there was a male visitor whom Theo couldn't class in any known category of people at first. To begin with, he thought he was faced with a drunken bookkeeper. The man had a briefcase under his arm–an old briefcase; he had probably lost his glasses, and his talk was confused although authoritative. Theo let him in just in case. It was about half past ten. The man spent quite some time looking for the hall; he'd probably never been to the joint before, and Theo didn't remember him either. Maybe he wanted to puke. Theo ushered the strange man who kept mumbling to himself into the loo. But he was back almost at once and went into the hall. A short while passed, then the waiters pushed the man into the vestibule. Take him back now, they told Theo carelessly. I can do it, yes I can, yes I can, stammered the man and tried to open his briefcase. Watch out, Theo warned, and the gaze of his yellow eyes froze on the client. He had seen the likes of him before, and heard such threats. I can shoot you, continued the man, searching his briefcase–for a pistol? That was impossible, Theo knew quite well: briefcases like that didn't contain pistols, excluding the exceptional case that he was confronted with a lunatic. He took a step toward the man. Another client was just corning from the hall. He heard Theo say to the trigger-happy fellow: get going now, will you! Damn it, said the stranger, and Theo grabbed him mutely by the arm, without hurting him particularly. The man yelled out loud. Don't treat him like that, the other customer who was standing at a distance accosted Theo. Is he a friend of yours? asked Theo. No, he's not, but I know he's a great actor and director. How great? asked Theo. Quite well known, the Good Samaritan said earnestly. Theo applied a painful grip and dragged the man to the door where he shoved him down the stairs. The man lay motionless on the gravel wet from a recent thunderstorm. When he returned, Theo asked the man's protector if he wanted to say anything. The latter shook his head politely and went back into the hall. Doorman Theo knew all about those actors and directors. He'd had lots of experience with them.

When he was still a young man, he'd once gone through the centre of town in the middle of the night. There was a light burning in a window; music was blaring out and several people were, looking out into the, night and talking in loud voices. Theo stopped since he had nothing better to do. As a matter of fact, that wasn't the only reason. Sometimes when there was a party going on somewhere, he had concentrated on the guests a little (he had been practising thought transference for years) and he'd been invited in right away. He'd get a few drinks at least, and sometimes even something else. It was the same now. He was standing in the white night, his gaze fixed on the first-floor window where two girls and two guys were leaning out. Before long, one of the girls shouted: come on in! One of the guys asked him: have you got any vodka? The girl reproached him, we have plenty of vodka, let him come as he is. That the girl wanted him was plain to Theo already. But he had the vodka, too. He used to carry a bottle at night. He often chanced upon some chick who wanted him but who needed a drink before. Women were downright crazy for Theo. There were mornings when Theo was afraid to go out onto the street. Especially when he had a pimple or there was something else the matter with him, or when his member felt painful again. Where to was he to escape from the women? There was such a multitude of them hanging about in the streets. But that night everything was OK with Theo. He walked boldly up the stairs. The flat he came into was large and full of books. The table was laden with half-empty bottles. Music was playing loudly. One of the guys was big and strong like a boxer. The other was quick and dark. The girls were both dark and rather vain. An instant love for the shorter one sprang up in Theo and he decided to fuck her–that's how Theo used to think of it in his mind, this lent the thing a special radiance. The girls grew awfully enthusiastic when they heard that he was a doorman at a pub. We've never seen such a young doorman, the girls said. They referred to themselves as actresses, and the guys also said they were actors. One of the actors asked Theo if he could gulp a glass of vodka at a draught. The girls screamed to prompt him, no he can't. Theo downed a glassful. He was asked to repeat the trick. Theo took the bait and gulped another one down. He began to grow slightly drunk and decided he wouldn't drink much more; otherwise it would be a lousy fuck. His biorhythms indicated anyway that his bad days were on, with the physical curve at zero. The actors grew quite frolicsome. They stopped dancing and got to throwing books out of the window. Theo looked on in bewilderment as the expensive volumes landed on the asphalt. He managed to read the title of one of them in time–it was Joseph Gregor's Weltgeschichte des Theaters. That's a lot of money, Theo thought angrily, since the books were worth about fifty roubles apiece on the black market. He stared enviously into the night, at lonely passers-by browsing in perplexity among the expensive volumes and tossing them back onto the asphalt. I'll bring them back up for you, he said helpfully, but the taller actor burst out laughing. The smaller, quicker one patted Theo on the shoulder and grinned: let them be, we've grown out of them. Theo gave up and sat down next to the shorter girl. He spoke to her a little about astrology and threw in an account of his last dream, as if by chance. He had dreamed of a corpse lying face down on the beach that had given Theo a black flower. Theo had been moved to tears, but he had given back the flower. No, the flower doesn't really suit you, the corpse had said and taken the flower back; then and there it had been transformed into a black glove. The girl laughed shrilly and offered Theo a drink. She drank, too. Then she whispered that Theo could go out into the street if he wanted to bring the books back, only he had to go naked. Theo refused, noting that they were in the centre of town. Then maybe you'd like to be naked right here in this room? the girl asked. Group sex wasn't exactly Theo's cup of tea, but at any rate it was getting exciting. The girl offered Theo some more vodka to drink. What will I get for it? Theo asked, his voice quite slurred already, although he was unaware of it himself. Everything, my dear Cerberus, whispered the girl and rubbed Theo's knee. The music was awfully loud: "Black Magic Woman". One of the guys, the shorter one, lit some candles and said to the other guy in passing: this one will never strip. Just you wait, Theo threatened. He was offered some more vodka. He began to brag. He actually took something off. They cheered him on, but then his memory failed him. In the morning, he came to in the park, dressed in a ladies see-through nylon nightie and a turban. Beside him was a bundle of clothes. It appeared he had walked nearly a kilometre through town at dawn in early summer. Where had he been? He didn't even remember the house any more. It had been in a dark alley. He had gone to search for it once to get revenge and thrown a pebble at the pane where he thought he had been, but a strange old man had appeared at the window. In such a way, innocent Theo had been made a fool of by those blackguards of actors. Had they really been actors? Theo couldn't swear to it, because he worked at night and never made it to the theatre. He had never run across the actors in the street.

But now he had finally managed to pay back the old score he had to settle with an actor. His heart was content. Once some actors had treated him like a bumpkin; now it was an actor who had turned out to be the bumpkin. He'd come to a pub drunk, which was an act prohibited by law. State and public authorities would have considered Theo absolutely in the right. Let him lie out there in the street. He'll sleep it off and clamber up on the stage. Some people would pay good money to get up on a stage, and he gets paid for it! Tomorrow he'll dress up in epaulettes and play a general. This is life, thought Theo.

That night he met a girl for whom he felt a love of medium intensity. But he noted down the girl's zodiac data all the same so he could make some generalizations later on. It was a sad evening. Theo was quite sober himself. It was pretty hard on him. Theo was seized by the traditional distress, the common spleen. Uniting with the girl in a flame of love Theo wanted to escape from reality; he wanted to unite with the cosmos. It was a good fuck, but the cosmos remained as remote as ever. The girl fell asleep. Theo walked home sadder still. He shuffled through yellow leaves like millions had done before him. He felt redundant. A full moon glared into his yellow eyes. He smelled the odour of autumn, nature's periodic decay. He thought about his mission. He had traded a few pairs of Finnish pantihose. How petty it was! But to fulfil his mission he needed money. Until money existed, you couldn't afford to do without it.

As a child, Theo had wanted to become a singer. American music and guitars weren't yet popular. Italian tenors were appreciated, as were their white teeth and the way they said bella, which means beautiful. Theo had struck poses in front of the mirror to suit his voice and the word bella. There was no television then. Imitation was out of the question. Theo had to invent his own image. He struggled on.

Back at home he took a bath. Soaking in the lather, Theo studied himself. Why didn't people have a protective covering? he thought sadly. A creature with such complicated tasks, and yet so poorly constructed. The tortoise and the crocodile were creatures whose protective coverings Theo was envious of.

Peeter wasn't afraid of the thunderstorm after he had done everything required. He had closed the window and moved away from it onto the sofa in the corner. There he was also away from the TV set. There were no iron things near him, and it was several metres to the wall plug. If he had been at his grandfather's place in the country, he would have made sure he wasn't standing under a tree or near water, that the fire was not lit in the stove, that the damper was shut. Peeter knew that in a city of stone the houses did not go up in flames. That's why he sat gladly and expectantly in his sofa corner when he saw the thunderclouds drawing near, grumbling and rumbling. He decided to sit still just in case, because running or even walking slowly weren't good either, his grandfather had said.

That moment a mauve flash of lightning illuminated the clouds, it lit up the whole sky for a fleeting instance. Peeter began to count and reached three before the rumble came. The result of the count of seconds had to be divided by three, then one learnt how many kilometres away the lightning had been this one, for example, was one kilometre away. After the rumble it rained quietly. Peeter listened and waited. Another flash of lightning was certainly getting ready to strike; it gathered strength and force, it grew and swelled ... more and more ... now! But the lightning wouldn't come, just rain, and only after Peeter had stopped waiting did a large blinding tree light up in the sky–the lightning in all its nakedness. The town had never been as brightly lit in the sunshine as it was now at night for a fraction of a second. Everything was visible, if there were only time enough to see. Peeter came out of his corner. He couldn't endure it there any longer. He opened the balcony door. There was a wind blowing; rain flew in. He went out on the balcony, but the rain soaked his clothes at once. He took off his shirt and stood in the rain. Again the lightning illuminated the sky and he saw the reflection of his thin body on the windowpanes of his flat. He was shiny with rainwater. A shining, radiant wreath framed him. It looked as though he was made of silver. Lightning flashes came one after the other, illuminating the terrified town; lunar landscapes appeared and vanished, but the boy was not afraid; he looked down into the deserted streets where muddy rivulets of water from the sky flowed. He caught raindrops on his tongue. Then he went back inside, dried himself, and dressed. The thunderstorm was passing. The rain subsided. The flashes of lightning grew weaker. Then Peeter returned to the window. He examined everything. There were no fires anywhere in sight. If there had been, he'd have called the fire department. He looked out all the windows. There wasn't anything to worry about. Nothing bad had happened. He drew the curtains.

When Mother came home, Peeter was already asleep. The lights were on in all the rooms. Mother knew that Peeter hadn't forgotten to turn off the lights but had left them on intentionally. She switched them off now, but Peeter didn't see it any more.

He had a dream about being a very old man and going into a pit to dig something up. He went down in a lift with a torch in his hand. The pit's walls were gleaming with moisture; water dripped past him into the deep, and the fail of the drop resounded from down below. Snakes disappeared into cracks in the wall as he went by, and frogs' eyes gleamed at him from the ledges. Down and down he went, holding on tightly to the struts of the swaying cabin. The patch of sky overhead kept diminishing. Then the lift stopped: he had come down into the mine. The floor was muddy, and the air wet and oppressive. The tunnel disappeared behind a corner, in the light of the torch, moisture scintillated on all the stones he could see. Only now did he realize how deep he was, how alone he was. Yet he plucked up his courage and started to walk along the tunnel. He walked a minute, or he walked an hour, but there was darkness before and behind, and treasures were hidden in the darkness. All of a sudden, there was a little child beside him with precious stones in his hands. See, you came only now, the child said reproachfully to the old man Peeter, you came only now when you are already old. How long I've had to wait for you! But now I can help you at last. I don't need your help, old Peeter said, I'll try to manage on my own. You needn't do anything any more, the child of the underground said smiling, now you can rest in peace. How shall I rest, then? Peeter asked, and who will do this work? You needn't worry any more, the child answered, you can stay here and rest. I'll go up in your place and take them what they're looking for. And the child stepped into the lift, leaving old Peeter standing in the mud, the miner's torch in his hand. Don't go, old Peeter said and grasped hold of the lift, but the machinery was already in motion. With great difficulty Peeter managed to pull the lift cabin back; the cables suddenly stretched like rubber, and in the end he had to loosen his hold. Then the rubber cables flung the child with the precious stones up into the sky as if shot from a catapult.