Chapter 1 In which Mrs Milica gains ingress to the Colonel's house ...

ancestry, while others were of the opinion that he had a “gland complaint”. One
evening, shortly after the Colonel’s house had been endowed with contents that would
not even have found room in the House of the People in Bucharest, gaffer Petric[, after
three or four beers, began meticulously to turn over the problem on all sides, “just like
at those Party meetings to denounce people” (old man Hrib). He was of the opinion that
Milica could have called (in fact, should have called!) from the Geamba§us’ or the
Stegarus’ telephone. They were long-standing families on the street, who had on no
few occasions made their telephones available in cases of emergency. And here he
brought up the time when Mrs Matilda the seamstress had fainted, or the bout of
epilepsy suffered by the ±tefanovicis’ youngest lad. There was no need to go precisely
to the Colonel for a matter that could have been solved much more simply. Why did
she choose the more complicated instead of the simpler route? She had her reasons…
After all, the Geamba§us and the Stegarus might take offence: their telephones were
there on the spot long before the Colonel’s and they had been used to call – God
preserve us – the ambulance before, so there was no well-founded reason to bypass
them. They might take offence, quite rightly, and the next time they might deny access
in case of an emergency, saying quite simply “Go and use the Colonel’s telephone!
What do you want from me!” Undoubtedly, gaffer Petric[ knew very well that the
Geamba§us were away on holiday at the time, whence Veronica had returned, probably,
with the shameful embryo, and that the Stegarus, at that hour, were visiting their
wedding godparents, at the other end of town, whence Nelu had returned well-oiled,
reeling left and right, and that Milica would have knocked on their gate in vain, but that
didn’t change, at least not for him, the fundamentals of the problem, as long as Milica
had not even tried their door. It was as if they had been at home, and Milica had
bypassed their doors, without taking any notice of them, hurrying off to the Colonel’s
telephone. In his opinion, Milica had gone like a shot to the Colonel’s house, not so
much worried about the child’s fever, or, more precisely, not just about the fever, but
rather egged on by her curiosity to see the “castle” from inside, as well as by the desire
to be the first to cross the threshold, an opportunity to tell them, the fools, all about it.
In the second place, enumerated gaffer Petric[, if Milica was so frightened about
Marius’ temperature, why did she choose to go to the “castle”, which was further away,
and why didn’t she stop first of all at the Geamba§us or the Stegarus, who were on the
way? Those around the table assented somewhat bewildered, especially since quite a
few of them had lost the thread, but were impatiently waiting for the conclusion. Well,