Self-discovery

Is it possible? Is it dangerous? Will I return from the orbiting capsule, from the experiments? The computer — womb is a complicated thing. We've discovered so many new things in it, and we still don't know everything about it. I'm not too comfortable with the shining prospects of our research.

This is the very time I should get married. The hell with my careful relations with Lena; I need her. I want her to be with me, take care of me, worry about me, yell at me when I come home late, but give me dinner first. And (since everything is clear with the synthesis of doubles) let future Krivosheins appear not from the computer but as a result of good, highly moral relations between parents. And let them complicate our lives — I'm for it. I'm getting married! Why didn't I think of it before?

Of course, to get married now when we're about to do this experiment… well, at least there'll be a permanent reminder of me — a son or daughter. People used to go to war, leaving wives and children behind. Why can't I behave in the same way?

This may not be on the up and up — getting married when there is a possibility of leaving a widow behind me. But let those who have done what I'm doing condemn me. I'll accept it from them.

May 12. “Marry me, Lena. Let's live together. And we'll have children as beautiful as you and as smart as me. Hummmm?”

“Do you really think you're smart?”

“Why not?”

“If you were smart you wouldn't make suggestions like that.”

“I don't understand.”

“There, you see. And you think you'll have smart children.”

“No, tell me. What's wrong? Why won't you marry me?

She stuck the last pin into her hair and turned from the mirror to me.

“I love it when you pout. Darling Val! My lovely red — haired bear. You mean you've developed some honorable intentions? You sweetie!”

“Wait! Are you agreeing to marry me?”

“No, my love.”

“Why not?”

“Because I understand a little more than you do about family life. Because I know nothing good will come of it for us. Just think back. Have we ever talked about anything serious? We just meet, spend time…. Think. Haven't there been times when I come to see you, and you're busy with your thoughts and you're not happy, even angry, that I'm there? Of course, you make believe — you try hard, but I can tell. What will happen if we're together constantly?”

“Do you mean — you don't love me?”

“No, Val,” she looked at me sadly. “And I won't fall in love with you. I don't want to. I used to… to tell the truth, I worked at this relationship. I thought a quiet and unattractive man would love me and appreciate me. You have no idea, Val, how I needed the warmth and comfort of a relationship! But I didn't get warm near you. You don't love me very much either. You don't belong to me, I can see that. You have another love, science!” She laughed angrily. “You've invented all sorts of toys for yourselves: science, technology, politics, war. And women are just something on the side. Well, I don't want to be something on the side. It's well known: women are fools. We take everything seriously. We know no bounds in love and can't do a thing with ourselves….” Her voice trembled and she turned away. “I would have said all this to you anyway. I was wrong again!”

Actually, there's no need for details. I threw her out. I'm sitting here over my diary.

So, it was all planned. Don't love a handsome man, love a crummy one. And I wanted to create a big family….

I feel cold. Oh, so cold!

Lena's not mercenary. Then what is she? Actually, she was right: I knew that myself. And how! But this light relationship suited me before. “Will it do?” — as they ask in the store, offering you margarine instead of butter.

Nothing happens in life to no purpose. I'm the one who changed, who realized things in time, and she's still the same. I fell for a storybook illusion, what a jerk. I wanted to get warm.

And that's it. There will never be anything in my life. I'll never find anyone like Lena. I'm not willing to go in for one — night stands.

Lena didn't want to become my widow.

It's cold….

We've lost spontaneity, the ability to follow our feelings, to believe on faith because we believe, to love because we're in love. It's possible that it happened because everyone got burned more than once, or because in the theater and movies we see how those feelings are manufactured, or because life is so complicated and everything must be thought out and planned — I don't know. “Tenderness, in a Taylor series expansion….” I've been expansive enough.

Now we have to understand with our reason just how important solid, strong feelings are in human life. Who knows, maybe it's good that it has to be proven. And it will be proven. Then people will develop a new naturalness of feeling, strengthened by reason, and they'll understand that without feelings there is no life.

And for now… it's cold.

Ah, Lena, Lena, my poor frightened girl! Now, I think, I really do love you.