Сергей Николаевич Огольцов
The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life)
Fully aware that free medicine alcohol was a means to switch me off so that I did not mess around with the group's cultural program, I lay down on the bed. However, I noticed that the steep roof was in the state of too active swaying, and for that reason, I got up and went downstairs.
They were having a quick dance in the hall with the lights turned off and only colored lamps were blinking rhythmically. I also hopped for a while in their wide circle. Then I moved to the next room. It was lit brightly and along the walls there sat ladies of non-skiing age, probably, the tourists' mothers from the bus.
In the center, there stood a six-pocket billiards table. Dry Talisman was fooling around with rolling the smooth balls before the mothers. He was surprised to see me up but submitted the cue to me when I asked.
Believe it or not, but with just 3 biting strikes, I send 3 different balls into the pockets. Even I myself got stunned because I never was anything but a flounder at billiards. I stopped at that, returned the cue and went out into the yard.
The darkness outside was as dark as in the middle of the forest mingled with the light from the windows and high fire in the barbecue box to make coals for the meat processing. And not a single alive soul was around…
I went up to the fire, looked at the flames and felt blues – everyone was like everyone else and only I was such a slice, forlorn and clearly cut-off. And those blues drove my intoxication away, I went up into the room and fell asleep because of grief…
~ ~ ~
March 8 another red-letter day in the tear-off calendar on your wall, however, it is not a totalitarian holiday. The Day of Spring, the Day of Beauty, the International Women’s Day. Absence of the all-out demonstration saves me a day-long non-stop marching along the vicious circle. Instead, I snugly land at an out-of-the-way table in a kinda detached pub among the blocks of Motor Detail Plant sleeping area. The place is roomy and murky because of the incessant rain outside whose cats and dogs kept festive minded folks home. We’re not numerous yet high-spirited here. In some 10 meters from my unobtrusive table, a company of 8 merrymakers proportionately male-femaled about the long central table on the premises collectively resent yesterday’s TV Morning Post show, a couple of veteran drag queens congratulating each other on the holiday and a 10-year-old pop hit by Leshchenko to all of the fair sex on behalf of all of us, ugly but manly… and equally dull football match today at 5 on channel 2, street teams from League B… Well, and already mentioned me in the corner, certified notoriety, imbalanced and fully unconcerned about their problems with our Central TV. Which is not to say that I am an absolutely care-free individual, yet my problem is more of down-to-earth nature. Being an optimist, I firmly believe that my problem will certainly find its solution, with my help. Namely, how to snack liquid with liquid.
When I came here—and I was the first!—to demonstrate that I was a peace-loving redskin and to emphasize the fact that it’s my maiden visit to the establishment, I made a try at buying a boiled egg from the glazed sarcophagus under the counter. The bartender rejected outright and never gave in, too human paleface. Seems like he remembered me as a part to the Orpheuses. Zop they handled him at those times or, maybe, Zots. Never any close to remember. So I let him play a kind host caring for my priceless health. For which reason there remained nothing to choose from but good ol’ Zhigulevskoye beer, still better than nothing at all.
The company followed after the fruitless trade negotiations were over. Mr. Barmen, does not have much to do today, the young working class couples appeared bringing their refreshment by them. Being natives in this blocks, they know by heart the assortment in the glazed showcase under kinda marbled counter. A month of exposure turned the items for sale into theatrical dummies, bullet-proof waffles, patties for driving nails or derailing trains, depends on your walk in life. So they openly smuggled in hooch and 3 torbas of, supposedly, home-made snacks. I’m too polite to gaze and check but lard is there, betcha. In 5 minutes they were assuring each other already, in turn, it’s the best party in their lifespan.
– Wow, guys! Six minutes already! We’re sitting in a grand style indeed!
I have this whole table to myself, no one to share my admiration at the mighty rain whose gushing curly streams double the thickness of glass in the walls, splash-whip the concrete outside. Pouring beer onto beer inside, even if somewhat monotonous, still goes on, we’re champions for solidarity, Bro.
I tolerantly let their celebration ooze into the arch of my ear. Just for the record, in what time they seconded me? No use asking Zotz or Zop who milks them for more kopecks than for the beer that I’ll consume… even though I could buy, after all, that pensioner of an egg. Yes, I could. Potentially. Anyway, he’s a good boy this here Zotz (or Zop?), potentially. Still hoards an egg or 2. A bit uneducated, doesn’t watch Travelers’ Club on the Central TV. In China, for instance, wise eaters scramble for 50-year-old eggs, gourmet's delight, they see them by color, each decade makes eggs bluer and bluer… Tell me how blue are your…
As always when not having anything potentially good to do, I pick up that same old shoe to chew on under the jingle-splash-claps of our turnkey rain. 10 of us, 4 pairs, pretty soaked already, Zots-or-Zop plus me… no, no, we’re straight, I recalled now, he’s married. Anyway, we’re here to have a good time, to make the day red despite of anything. Or how?
So now, dear Sir, what time are you talking about? Have you ever seen any? I don’t mean clockfaces and other props to this endless sham. All we have here now are these innocent folks, deceived, exploited, and ZopZots over his rotten glazed balls, though possibly not too much, and me in the same space. All we ever have is space and space alone. Well, yes, and this eternal fraud we’re fed, inoculated, wrapped into, from womb to tomb, this ever present Time. You have to annul it to be free. Send it plank-walking… Now, look around, see any change? Surely not! Subtraction of nothing changes nothing… Of course, it will take some time… Fuck!. It’ll take certain efforts to get accustomed to the new world freed from the Biggest Lokhotron Ever. Kiss good-bye your speedometers, chimes, half of the physical formulas, engineering colleges… no mixed tenses whatsoever, no Olympic Games except for, maybe, gymnastics and ice-dancing… it feels scary, Bro… the freedom, the merciless clearance… voidy… no thinkable civilization without underlying Lie… forget of when, there is only where…but wait-wait-wait, you can’t get anywhere without multiplication of speed and time… you won’t last long in the free world…
State Servants (SS) vs. Sehrguey Ogoltsoff (SO)
SO, the defendant, on March 8, this year, in a state of … inebriety demanded of Bartender at the Rip-Randevous blue eggs, the bluer, the better. In the issuing altercation… later, already on the ruins of the demolished bar sang a subversive chant (resembling the Krishnaits’ one), obviously made on the fly “China! China! Uber alles! China! China! Rule the seas!”
–Do you admit perpetuating the aforesaid wrongdoings?
–Who? Whom? How hard? Into which…
Whoa, man! You better stop it now, it’s not the Red Army Day…
– Wow! Eleven minutes! We’re sitting in a great style! I swear!
~ ~ ~
And the following summer I discovered the existence of capitalized Game. The revelation happened at a football match of the plant team and a visiting one played at the "Avangard" stadium in the Central Park of Recreation. The event attracted an audience of about 20 cut-off slices, like me, who hadn't a f-f..er..I mean, frolic to do, and a couple of random drunks.
So, the teams jogged out to the center, the handshake, referee, tossed coin, all as usual. Then they started the game, sort of. But what could you expect, eh? Factory teams, their trade-union committees bought them trunks and leggings, but no outfit would disguise the fact that mujiks were far over their thirties. If some 15 years before, a couple of them attended the Youth Sports School volleyball section, than that's all their training. And the field's a fairly big one – the standard field for playing soccer. After a dogtrot from end to end, the poor bugger turns a sore sight with his tongue hanging out down his backbone, over the shoulder. You couldn't but feel pity for the geezer. Yet, since I came to the match I sat there, what's the difference when you don't have a.. a-anything else to do. No use of carping.
And suddenly the tall Poplars in the dense row behind the empty opposite stands stirred and rustled… Like, the breath of some invisible giant puffed at them. However, all that became at once unimportant because in the field, quite of a sudden, there was unfolding such a game for which you were all leaning forward, clutching the planks of the bench under you, and turning your head from side to side to follow the ball rocketing over the field, dissecting the air in its flight like a white cannonball which was not allowed to ever touch the ground. Midfielder soared up a half-meter above his own height to pass the ball to the right striker who, one-touch, sent it to the center. The center striker cleverly caught the pass, kicked the ball over the defender, easily bypassed him and – what a mighty strike!. Wow!. No way to guess from where and how he popped up, but the left midfielder intercepted the ball and sent it back far away to the center of the field where at once they kick up a skirmish to get it…
We watched spell-bound closely following the ricochets of the ball from one team to another, getting accelerated by each hit of a leg, or a head, or a chest… It was not them who played the game, it was the game who played them. It was Game.
Finally, even the drunks realized that something unprecedented was happening in the field. They roared and whistled like a 100 000 crowd went mad in the stands… Probably, that shooed off the invisible. The players, one by one, began to shrink and shirk and soon they just jogged around in their soaked thru T-shirts… I am not too much of a football fan, yet now I am convinced that there is real Game in existence.
(…five minutes of Game, is it not enough? Fans of renown clubs might have seen more, but in bits, not at a stretch, poor homeopaths.
Yes, that Game was gone, dissolved, raced away like a hasty gust of wind, like a bursting drop of happiness, yet it was there and it still fascinates me…)
The reason for my taciturnity was that I kept my tongue sealed up… At first, I let it enjoy all the freedom of speech it wanted, but a month after my getting a job there was a general meeting of the Construction Shop Floor workmen attended by a representative of the "Motordetail" Management.
There was an unmistakable air of a leader about that block of a representative. You just couldn't imagine such an individual as a child with a balloon, or a youth frustrated about his pimples. Oh, no! He came from his mother's womb ready-made, just like that – half-bold, wearing glasses, with hanging stomach and the well-bred stateliness… In his speech at the meeting, he outlined the tasks facing us in the currently crucial period of the Acceleration. It was time for everyone to work harder at their workplaces, both we, the workmen at different construction sites and they, the Management, at their posts, steering our engagement and activities to achieve the set goals.
He finished and the meeting's chairman asked if there were any questions. I raised my hand.
(…it was a breach of the tacit rules, by which the question about questions was closing any meeting. However, I raised my hand because he really put my back up that nightingale from the plant Management…)
I asked to explain the difference between the "engagement" and "activities" I was really curious. Thank you.
The Management representative whispered something to the meeting's chairman and the latter announced the meeting closed. The participants, with relief, hurried to their homes.
A couple of days later a guy from the village of Bochky, who was coming to work by motorcycle, entered the locker room with his round biker helmet squeezed under his oxter, like an astronaut at the launch pad, and announced his intention to change the lock in his locker because of schizophrenics walking about the room. He addressed no one in particular, but the wide locker room grew silent, mujiks stopped donning their spetzovkas, dropped the start of-the-day exchanges and turned their faces in my directions, a kinda wait-in-the-hushed-expectancy, you know. That's why I started keeping my tongue on a short leash.
(…you can't kick against so mighty levers of power with their arsenal of tacit regulations, elusive omnipresence, and superb pedagogical skills – they even managed to teach the "schizophrenic" word to a moron from Bochky…)
~ ~ ~
"You been to Romny?" Here, in the showers room of the Konotop bathhouse filled with clouds of steam, the noise of water rushing from taps, the clank of tin basins against marble tops of low tables, each of us looked like an "irrevocably free" from the Area of the fifth unit in the regional psychiatric hospital.
"Though having that experience, I still can’t recollect you." Even I myself admired the impeccability of the poetic rhythm in my answer. The neighbors stopped rubbing soap in their respective sponges and, pricking up their ears in attention, moved closer – the Konotopers are marked by their innate propensity for poetry.
I kept staring at the inquirer. The accordion groans over the evening Area… it's getting dark… soon to go up for the night… these eyes… same eyes only without the oily blueness over the irises… "Volodya!"
The neighbors pulled back, some of them grabbing the tin basins moved over to other tables. I love the Konotopers' polite understanding, they never want to be in the way of intimate developments…
How could I not recognize him right away? One of my partners in our trinity sharing 2 beds; he smiles bashfully. The absence of that quirk in his eye put me off track at first…
(…it's not the glassy-eyedness, it's just like a translucent film swimming over the iris, and later exactly the same steely-bluish veil I saw about the eyes of people in the Azeri village of Krkchyan who arrested me on a toomb slope, taking for an Armenian spy though I was just picking blackberry there, aka mosh, aka ozhina, because it was a Sunday…)
By the official version, the Karabakh war lasted for three years, 1992 – 1994, but, in fact, it started much earlier and hasn't ended yet… On the third (in the unofficial estimation) year of the war, when I stopped to like the expression in Sahtic's eyes, I attempted at evacuating her from the theater of war. By a strange coincidence she, together with Ahshaut and Ruzanna, got to 13 Decemberists, Konotop.
Can you imagine my surprise 3 months later when she appalled me with her coming back together with the kids? Anyway, you surely can’t imagine the facial expression of the RMK Supreme Council’s cashier when she was handing me my 2 monthly salaries in advance, as ordered. 600 of Soviet rubles, the devaluated currency of non-existent state, the sum though was enough for me to cut and run from the war zone. That’s why her countenance reflected both disdain and envy, it’s hard to say of which there was more… I had to fly to Yerevan to meet the repatriates at Zvartnots airport for the subsequent airlift from the airport of Erebuni equipped with a heliport, also by a chopper fetching a barrel of diesel fuel and another group of fedayee fighters to Stepanakert.
(…on their arrival day the city had not yet recovered from the shock caused by the death of 25 people killed by a single "Grad" volley…)
Unfamiliar people in Yerevan, learning where we were going to, suggested to at least leave the children, Ahshaut and Ruzanna (in alphabetical order), by them…
When we got to the apartment in Stepanakert which our friends were renting to us for free, I asked about the reason for so quick a return. "I realized that living just so as to live was not worth the while."
Here is a bright example of the unavoidable influence of environmental effects. Take an Armenian woman, brought up in all the strictness of patriarchal-matriarchal way of life, let her live for 3 months in Konotop and she will come back without even asking for permission but philosophizing already, giving out darn wise maxims. Hello! Here you are and sign this receipt, please…
But couldn't that Konotop-acquired wisdom get it that fearing for just yourself is easier to endure than that same amount of fear plus for those who you love? Especially when the air alarm sirens start their wailing, or from the toomb of Camel Back thunder the naval guns brought there from the Caspian flotilla? Not mentioning "Grad" missiles that make no noise at all when on the fly to their final din-bang-crush, and half the block is wiped off. After all, we live in the age of high technologies, you know.
(…and again I got washed off somewhere else…
I was talking about Romny, right? But a madhouse and war are two big differences.
Or are they?..)
All this is to elucidate the fact that I somehow did not have much spare time to update Sahtic as to certain facts in my previous biography, being busy with waiting for a suitable moment. Though her unawareness was not entirely my fault. Had Sahtic asked a direct question, like, “How many times did they lock you up in a madhouse?” then, as a well-trained supporter of righteousness and, generally, man of principle, I would give a direct exhaustive answer. (It’s noteworthy, that handling me is a fairly straightforward and intuitive job.)
Now, because of all that I was curious, to certain extent, what information could she scoop up there during the evacuation period?
None, as a matter of fact. The Konotopers did not rat on their own. The only puncture happened in a conversation with a fellow employee. (Sahtic even got a job at the KEMZ plant when in the evacuation.) Her gossip, having learned that Sahtic’s husband was named Ogoltsoff, said only, "Hmm…"
And that comment, I reckon, exhausts the denigration of my personality leaked to the Transcaucasia from Konotop sources…
~ ~ ~
(…the game of ‘knifelets’ starts as a kiddie fun, yet it goes on all over your lifespan and even from a generation to generation. It’s only that among adults the game acquires a longer name, Securing of Interests, however, remains as fascinating and brings in play lots other playthings besides a primitive knife blade. Consider the following example, if you please.
At the initial, small-fry stage of ‘knifelets’ the player Russia (further in the example named ‘R1’) lost some part of its ‘earth’ sector to the players Armenia and Azerbaijan (further on, ‘A1’ and ‘A2’) because the USSR broke into parts (you can’t avoid sharp downs and outs in so a dynamic game).
A1 and A2 go on unskilled stabbing at the territorial integrity of each other while R1 goes over to the next level in Securing of Interests and assumes the peace-keeper attitude in the eager contest of two A's. As a result, the conflict between A1 and A2 flourishes for 3 (as of yet) decades and very beneficially for R1. To see how a peace-keeper can by Securing of Interests make profit on war, one should watch it from the book-keeping angle. For a starter, let’s try some finger-counting. Suppose that army of each side to the conflict comprises 100 000 servicemen. (Sure enough, none of the A's' General Staffs reports me the quantity of their armed forces, yet adding up the military clerks and other suchlike chmo the numbers would be way higher. Still and all a manly man keeps to his word, if it was said 100 let it remain 100: keep the change!)
Now, every serviceman wears army boots. For the sake of calculus simplicity, imagine that all the warriors, from privates to generals, put on the same, cheapest, ‘kirza’ boots for $12 a pair. The footwear is worth its price and serves for 2 years (The artificial leather plant named after Kirov always was a reputed producer), thus, one year of the conflict secures peace-keepers' revenue for $ 50 000 by ‘kirza’ alone. But camouflage pants, Velcroed jackets, pea-jackets, belts, helmets?! But Kalashnikov assault-rifles, machine-guns, mortars, artillery, both ground and anti-aircraft?! But the ammo for all of the mentioned and still upcoming equipment?! But military trucks, armor vehicles, tanks?! But the land mines, anti-personnel as well as anti-tank ones?! But choppers, jets, radar and missile installations, night-vision devices?! But… (nearing the third decade of the conflict it dawned even on Jews in Israel what a bonanza it is here and they started to supply drones.)
I am running out of my fingers but we haven’t yet reached the military advisers who help each of the A sides to master the delivered weaponry. They also have to be paid for. In full… As they used to say in the besieged Stepanakert in the winter of 1991-92, ‘The Armenians pay Russians to shoot their artillery while the Turks (in Karabakh, Azeries are handled ‘Turks’ for some reason) pay Russians to miss the target’. Which is a jest, of course, because the military advisers never miss when Securing of Interests demands it. So it was in Khojaloo, so it was in Horadiz – the two key moments that did not allow the conflict to untimely die out. That’s the essence of Securing of Interests on the international arena, stick to it and keep it on.
However, the game is so engaging that it goes on at the internal level as well. Let’s take, for instance, R1. One calls it ‘Russia-Mommy’, another one handles it ‘Russastan’, the popular Lubea band sings ‘Russeaaa!’, I call it Russia but all those discrepancies converge in the same mujik who after his working day throws the earned money in with his pals to buy vodka and gulp it from the bottle’s neck and then he comes home to give his kids a stinging example of a reprimand, fuck you, fucking motherfuckers! Then fucking batters his fucking wife for speaking up fucking too much and falls asleep on the floor next to the cooled away Russian oven covering himself with his padded jacket while his petty Czar soigne gives out bon mots from the TV box above his sleeping head. And that’s the way it should be because State is a multi-functional community of people where each person performs their function. Someone is to make decisions which interests should be secured and in what way, another one executes those decisions, still other glorifies in his carols the decision maker and its executors and so on and so forth because I have no fingers enough for each and every one down to this very mujik who’s snoring now on the floor under his padded jacket and is nothing of a functionary but the material for the internal Securing of Interests.
Now, he’s given up his day pay to the treasury exchanging it for vodka distilled from the mixture of sawdust and oil byproducts and later he’ll give up his son so that they format the boy into a law enforcer who will Secure the Interests against his dad and other mujiks. The sleeper’s daughter will, of her own will, choose the career of a prostitute because someone should entertain the other functionaries in the society at their leisure time.
The hardest lot, of course, is that by those from the highest functional layer. Besides Securing the Interests in the outer and internal space, they have to think about their own interests too and that’s where they can’t allow themselves any slacking. Constant alertness and readiness for anything is the pledge of success. Here 'anything' means anything at all – to kill, to betray, to give in, and to lie under (not only metaphorically)… Securing of Interests demands utter dedication.
People! Humans! Countrymen! Do we really need all that?! What do we gain? Power, money, glorification? Be vigilant, O, neighbors, don’t get hooked with that petty scam! Power-money-glory are nothing but a means and not the aim for a sober-headed member to a human society. No! Our aim is the purest, unalloyed envy. Envy from the rest of society members is all we need. That's the apogee, acme and climax of human existence. Mere survival is not the goal for a Robinson Crusoe, what he really needs is finding an envious man Friday. Because neither nanny-goats no billy-goats can stimulate a normal individual. That’s where lies the foundation corner stone to uphold the working model of the human society. Perpetuum Mobile, with your kind permission, checked by the uncountable millennia of usage. At one pole of the society vertical there is Slave in a state of eternal inebriety while at the opposite pole we see Pharaoh – same shit of an animal only Rollex-ornated…
But why have I slid to expressing myself in such an evasively streamlined manner? Am I afraid to unequivocally disclose the scumbags' identity? Well, firstly, I’d rather avoid soiling my letter with the sewage stinkers’ names and, secondly, I’m far from being sure that Listiev, Mkrtchan, Nemtsoff, Sargsian and countless other executed from behind a corner would not start playing Securing the Interests the same shitty way were they to reach the higher levels in the game itself which is so f..er..yes! fucking addictive. You start to feel yourself kinda Almighty, you start to change the rules and draw new laws… Well, not the laws of Physics, or, say, Biology, like, enhancing longevity, juvenilation and stuff… But the works in that direction are underway, yes…
In short, under the current situation in the world, devaluation of information by means of the Internet, there’s no sense in censorship and strict ideology control. Okay, let’s say I’m pouring out the most subversive stuff, so what? (I can’t do that at Facebook or any other popular social net, they purge such things out automatically) About my indie site on the Internet there are millions buzzing Emelyas, each one in their style, I’m buried by evergrowing avalanche of advice on the best practices in fucking, making pizza, enjoying Tick-Tock, buying Perpetuum Mobile for just $49. That’s why I’m not afraid of telling what I know.
And then again, if talking about cowardice, here we all are on the same ground. Let’s take me, for instance, I do know that Algerian Bay has a bump on his nose but keep myself in check and don’t blare about it from the roof-tops. Because you never know when they gonna pop up and fix you with pissed thru pieces of a torn bedsheet…)
~ ~ ~
Yes, life kept rolling along the same rails, where there was the bath, and the beach, and calls from Twoic. And everywhere I acted my rolled-in role, but somehow I got already split from everything, both from the systematically adjusted way of life and from my part in it. I kinda turned that mujik who, leaning against the fenced bounds of the playing grounds, like, watches the kids messing around in the sandbox… Everyone was busily busy with their business in that sand, and Twoic, and bosses, and helpers, and I myself with my streamlined lifestyle, yet I did not really care about all that fuss…
In spring, Twoic proposed to visit Nezhyn for, like, to kick up a party in the old school style at the Hosty. I remember that it was definitely Thursday, my bath day and, apparently, the eve of some holiday, he would not call me in the middle of the week. So I took a towel and underwear for change and went to Nezhyn because even though there was no steam room in the hostel, yet the shower could still be used…
In the hostel lobby, auntie Dina was sitting on duty, she had not changed a single bit and, of course, she didn't let me go any farther. I asked a passer-by student to check the room where, as arranged, Twoic had already been waiting for me to show up, and tell him about the predicament. He went upstairs and I had a discovery.
A young student entered the lobby from the hostel corridor, wearing a crumpled dressing-gown and a sleepy indifferent face. She did not give me the slightest look, ignoring another of casual visitors who pop up in the hostel lobby, and just came over to the window… I waited for Twoic or a message from him about thru which of the back side windows on the first floor I could climb in. So I was not at all prepared that my body, getting no order from me, nor any permission, would unexpectedly throw my right hand up and behind my head, so that my elbow stick out in the air. What a cheeky kink! Was it triggered by the nearness of the common-looking girl with her face of not so well-kneaded dough? Or was it her crumpled dressing gown to turn me on and out of control? In any case, it was outrageous, moreover without any distinct need! That body of mine got really too far! I, for my part, did not intend no gestures… And the cause of the mutiny aboard, a couple of meters off me, was staring at the absolutely void landscape of the two-story canteen behind the gray glass in the window. Some shocking discovery…
The messenger returned and said the door of the indicated room was locked. Apparently, Twoic had already begun a shake-up in the old-days-style of some complaisant chick… I went out of the hostel. To be back in Konotop before the bath closing hour was just unthinkable. But it was a Thursday! Okay, there remained the lake in the Count's Park, I headed there the shortest way.
A group of student lads in their sportswear were coming up along the same shortcut from the park. They reached the pipe from which Fyodor and Yakov once flopped into the water, yet now there was no water anymore, and the moat turned into a wide sod grown ditch. One of them crossed it walking along the shaky pipe. Wow! It seemed to become a student tradition here!
So what? Drumming myself in the chest and shouting "It's me! I'm the legend! It's been started by me!"?. In the sad, elegiac mood I entered the alley of Elms and strolled to the narrower end of the lake by the thicket in the deserted parts of the park. There I undressed and in the altogether entered the water.
