Free For the Good of the Cause by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

waiting, it occurred to him that unpleasant things always seemed to happen to him in the last days of August. It was on the twenty-ninth of August—that was yesterday’s date—that he was wounded for the first time. And when he was wounded again, in 1944, it was on the thirtieth of August. That was today’s date.

    Some people left Grachikov’s office and Fyodor was called in.
    “A terrible thing has happened, Ivan,” Fyodor said in a flat, hoarse voice as soon as he walked into the room. “Just terrible.”
    He sat straight up on a chair ( Grachikov had gotten rid of those armchairs into which people sank so deep that their chins barely reached the top of the desk) and began his story. Grachikov rested his head in the palm of his hand and listened.
    Nature had given Ivan Grachikov rough-cast features: thick lips, a broad nose, and big ears. But, although he wore his black hair brushed to one side, which gave him a rather forbidding look, his whole appearance was so unmistakably Russian that no matter what foreign clothes or uniform you might put on him, you could never disguise the fact that he was a Russian born and bred.
    “Honestly, Ivan,” the principal said with feeling, “don’t you think it’s stupid? I don’t mean just for the school, but from the point of view of the state, isn’t it plain stupid?”
    “Yes, it’s stupid,” Grachikov said promptly, without shifting in his chair.
    “Look, I’ve jotted down how much all these alterations will come to. The whole building costs four million, right? Well, these changes are sure to cost at least one and a half million, if not two. Look …”
    From his notebook he read out a list of the various jobs and their probable cost. He was becoming more and more convinced that he had an absolutely airtight case.
    Grachikov remained quite still, listening and thinking. He had once told Fyodor that the great thing about this job, compared to the War, was that he no longer had to make decisions by himself and on the spur of the moment, leaving the question of whether they were right or wrong to be settled in the other world. Grachikov much preferred to decide things without rushing-giving himself time to think and letting others have a say. It went against his grain to bring discussions and conferences to an end by simply issuing orders. He tried to argue things out with the people he was dealing with, to get them to say “Yes, that’s right” or else have them convince him that he was wrong. And even in the face of very stubborn opposition he never lost his restrained, friendly manner. But his way took time. Knorozov, the First Secretary of the District Committee, had been quick to seize on this particular weakness of Grachikov’s, and in his laconic fashion that admitted of no argument had once hurled at him: “You’re too soft for this job. You don’t do things in the Soviet way!” But Grachikov had stood his ground: “What do you mean? On the contrary, I do things the way the Soviets are supposed to: by listening to what other people have to say.”
    Grachikov had been made Secretary of the Town Committee at the last conference of the local Party organization, following some remarkable achievements on the part of the factory where he was then Party secretary.
    “Tell me, Ivan, have you heard anything about this research institute? Whose idea was it?”
    “Yes, I’ve heard about it.” Grachikov continued to rest his head in his palm. “There was talk about it back in the spring. Then it got held up.”
    “I see,” Fyodor said in a chagrined tone. “If Khabalygin had signed for the building, we would have moved into it around the twentieth of August, and then they wouldn’t have shifted us.”
    They both remained silent.
    During this silence Fyodor began to feel that the firm ground on which he had been standing was slipping away from under him. The prospect of a million and a half rubles’ worth of alterations hadn’t exactly caused an