Creació de taules en el’SGBD

“So what’s so astonishing about it? And what boundaries, anyway? And what boundaries, anyway? A boundary is necessary in order not to get nations confused. With us, for example, a border guard stands there and he knows absolutely that the boundary isn’t a fiction or an emblem, because on one side of it people speak Russian and drink more and on the other they speak non-Russian and drink less.

“But over there what kind of boundaries could exist, if they all drink and speak non-Russian in the same way? Over there, they might like to set out a border guard, but there’d be no place to set him. So over there the border guards hang around without anything to do, grieving and bumming cigarettes. In this sense, things are completely free. If you want, for example, to stay in Eboli, please, stay in Eboli. If you want to go to Canosa, nobody’ll interfere with you, go to Canosa. If you want to cross the Rubicon, go ahead.

“So there’s nothing astonishing about it… At twelve-zero-zero Greenwich time I had already been introduced to the Director of the British Museum, whose euphonious and idiotic name was something like Sir Silage Corn. ‘What do you want from us?’ the Director of the British Museum asked. ‘I want to become engage here. More likely, I want you to engager me, that’s what I want.’

“’You want me to engager you in those pants?’ said the Director of the British Museum. ‘What about these pants?’ I asked him with concealed vexation. And he, as if he hadn’t heard, got in front of me on all fours and started smelling my socks. Having smelled them, he got up, frowned, spat, and then asked: ‘In those socks, you want me to engager you?’

“ ‘What about these socks?’ I started to say, not concealing my vexation anymore. “What about them? Take the socks I dragged around in my Homeland;

they really smelled, yes. But before departure I changed them, because everything in man ought to be beautiful – his soul and his thoughts and his…’ “But he didn’t even want to listen. Went into the Chamber of Lords and said to them, ‘Lords, I’ve got a bum here behind the door. He’s from snow-covered Russia but, it would seem, not terribly drunk. What am I to do with this miserable wretch, engager him, the scarecrow, or not give the straw man any engagement at all?’ And the Lords looked me over through their monocles and said, ‘Give it a try, Si, give it a try. Put him up for review. This dusty bastard would fit in in any interior.’ Here, the Queen of England took the floor. She raised her hand and cried…”

“Watch it, Ticket Control!” The cry rang out, exploding through the length of the train. “Ticket Control!”

My story was interrupted in the most interesting of places. But not only was my story interrupted: the drunken half-daze that the man with the black moustache was in, the Decembrist’s sleep – everything was interrupted in midstream. Old Mitrich came to, all it tears. Only the woman of the complicated story, who had covered her missing teeth with her beret, slept, like a Fata Morgana.

Strictly speaking, on the Petushki branch line no one was afraid of ticket inspectors, since no one ever had a ticket. If some crazy boozer or other broke the rule and bought a ticket, he would, of course, feel uncomfortable when the inspectors appeared. He would stare down at his feet as if he wanted to sink into the ground. And the inspector would look at the ticket squeamishly and give the man a withering glance as if he were some sort of garbage. While the people would look with big, beautiful eyes at this character, as if to say, “Look at the ground, you shitass, your consdience has gotten the better of you.” And they’d look the inspector in the eye with even more determination: “Take a look at us. Can you judge us? Come on over here, Semenych, we won’t offend you.”

Before Semenych had become the chief inspector, things were very different. In those days, riders without tickets were chased onto the reservation like Hindus, flogged over the head with the Academy Dictionary and then fine and kicked off the train. In those days, people would race through the cars in droves to dodge an inspector, dragging along even those with tickets. Once, two small boys were caught up in the general panic, ran off with the herd, and were crushed to death

before my eyes. They lay as they fell between cars; their little hands, turning blue, still clutched their tickets.

Chief Inspector Semenych chanded all that. He cancelled all the fines and the drives to the reservation. He made things simpler; he accepted one gram of vodka per kilometer from anyone without a ticket. All over Russia drivers take a kopek per kilometer from hitchhikers, but Semenych was one and a half times cheaper – one gram per kilometer. If, for instance, you’re going from Chukhlinki to Usad – a distance of ninety kilometers – you pour out ninety grams for Semenych and off you go sprawled on your bench like a fat cat.

Thus Semenych’s innovation strengthened the bond between the inspector and the broad masses; he made this bond cheaper, simpler, and more humane. And now at the cry, “Ticket Control,” there is no real fear, only anticipation.

Semenych came into the car, smiling carnivorously. He was already hardly able to stand up. Usually, he rode only to Orekhovo-Zuevo, where he would jump off and go into his office, having collected enough to get puking drunk.

“Is that you, Mitrich? Going to Orekhovo with your grandson again to ride the merry-go-round? That’ll be 180 for the two of you. I that you, black moustache? Saltykovskya to Orekhovo-Zuevo? Seventy-two grams. Wake up that whore and ask how much is due from her. And you, Worsted Coat, from where to where? Hammer & Sickle to Pokrov? One hundred and five, be so kind. It’s getting so you can’t find anyone with a ticket anymore. Once this called for ‘public anger and outrage’ but now it’s just ‘justified pride.’ And you, Venya?”

And Semenych bathed me with a blood thirsty whiff of his alcoholic breath. “And you, Venya? Moscow – Petushki, to the end of the line as usual?”