(…maybe, Sahtik really has some grounds for criticizing my mixing abilities…)
Arcadic visited the Renderers' to bemoan his defeat in the elections—unshaven and mumbling about some dirty fraud.
Lenic designed a new heading for this paper. Henceforth, it is read THE FREE ARTSAKH.
Araic, an apprentice renderer, presently on his leave, dropped in in quest for his salary.
After the midday break, the usual "no-work" was announced.
I took the heating block-stone home and knocked up another one (though not so powerful) to substitute it at the work place.
Yoga. Supper.
The mother-in-law has gone over to the Underground. Sahtik and the kids are watching a film on TV.
I have just finished reading the bible in Western Armenian. Somehow, I couldn't locate the story of Judith, and I also failed to find the place where He, the Carpenter, says: "Not peace, but sword I have brought unto you."
Anyway, I'm too fed up with it and not ready for a repeat perusal. I'll just put it aside altogether.
Yet, finishing is the start for something else. Whither shall we sail? I opted for restarting the translation of Joyce's ULYSSES—my fits and starts affair for three or four years already.
It's nine in the evening. The electricity has just been cut off. I finish these lines not seeing them—just as the hand goes.
We are setting off for the Underground.
Then I'll be back and alone.
So long, the best of worlds.
January 3
You can whip anyone. Just find out your strong point. I, for one, have by far outdone the great Michelangelo. You bet, I have!
The guy was well over fifty when in one of his verses likened his teeth to the piano's keys. I am considerably younger (at the moment) than him at that reverend age, but one of my incisors is dangling even now all over the mouth like a harness bell.
(…naturally, for giving out such a passage the electricity has to be on and so it is since half-past-five pm…)
But in the morning it was so cold in the Renderers' that I never had got the nerve to take my coat off.
The paper's big cheeses sallied out to the Printing House because the last issue had not been released. Yes, blackouts, bombardments but—among other reasons—the workforce feels dissatisfaction with their wages. Who could ever have imagined we would live to witness such issues being settled by negotiations?
Historically, the Editorial leaders' strolling to the Printing House more forcibly signals the end of the Soviet Empire than its subjects cutting the throats of each other while the Soviet Army troops just keep ticking over.
