The insightful reader himself will guess what this distant story has to do with me personally, and why I tried so hard not to distort in it any known detail.

Half a century ago, a very cute little girl came from Rostov-on-Don to a huge Ural factory. In her warm southern town, there was a man, a clever guy from a professor family, who lived in an enormous apartment. What is called, all friends advise. He was a couple of years older and already had time to become a postgraduate student, but always found the opportunity to be with her - then going together to the Caucasian mountains, then playing in the then STEMs - student theatres of miniatures. The guy was prominent, astute, tactical, but something still apparently lacked her in his virtues - their relationship she left friendly, although warm. But at this deaf factory, another guy immediately looked at her, also with a higher education, but broke his way out of the barracks, from the Ural family of scattered peasants. While all the other factory guys watched her openly, he alone looked at her in a human way. Sometimes even too humanly – when she first went to them in the cabinet, everyone stood on her, and he thoughtfully looked at the flowers on the wallpaper at that moment. When they became friends, he with endless patience walked with her through the pine forests, leaning one step where she had to go two or three.

By December, their relationship developed to such an extent that they decided to celebrate the New Year with her in communion together, sending a girlfriend away from the room. But two hours before the New Year, they were awaited by a surprise – the guy No. 1 of the
of Rostov. He arrived without warning, rightly reasoning that on the frosty New Year's night the girl would not deport him - there were no hotels in the factory settlement. It happened, she did not expel him. But she didn’t want to drive out the guy No. 2 either – she liked him. As she recalled, she was especially angry that both guys were perfectly polite and wary. No fight was planned, and with both, the New Year's Eve became some sort of nightmare nonsense. She was drunk for the first time in her life and was sick. The educated Rostov guy No. 1 could not withstand this spectacle, shrugged and went out to smoke. The educated Ural guy No. 2 breathed, grabbed her in his arms, took her to the shell, resolutely swung two fingers into his throat and instantly brought in a feeling. She recently celebrated her golden wedding with him, and I think she never regretted it in her life.