The Suitcase / Чемодан

Her living quarters were a horrible sight. A rickety table, a couple of torn mattresses, a stifling stink

Likhachev was grim, severe and taciturn

allowed three suitcases

This happened eighteen years ago, when I was a student at Leningrad University. The university campus was in the old part of town. The combination of water and stone creates a special, majestic atmosphere there. It’s hard to be a slacker under those circumstances, but I managed. Since there is such a thing as the exact sciences, there must also be the inexact sciences. It seems to me that first among the inexact sciences is philology. And so I became a student in the philology department. A week

Churilin took a good look at him and poked me with his elbow. “Listen, he’s no nut! He’s perfectly normal. First he wanted to eat and now he wants a broad. An athlete… A man with taste. I wouldn’t mind one, eit