It seemed to me that I had seen those yellow teeth once before. I saw them still dimly in my mind, as at the bottom of a barrel, through water. And I began to search. I fell into caves occasionally; I stumbled over stones; rusty jaws caught my unif a few times; salt drops of sweat ran from my forehead into my eyes.

Nowhere! I could find that exit from below, from the corridors, nowhere! There was none. Well, perhaps it was better that it happened so. Probably that all was only one of my absurd “dreams.”

Tired out, covered with cobweb and dust, I opened the gate to return to the main yard, when suddenly⁠ ⁠… a rustle behind me, splashing steps, and there before me were the pink winglike ears and the double-curved smile of S- . Half closing his eyes, he bored his little drills into me and asked:

“Taking a walk?”

I was silent. My arms were heavy.