Page 37 - Excerpts from the diary

railway tracks run on both sides.

Dresdener Strasse. Deutsche Bank. Einbeinstrasse Bridge. 28.4.

Now I am moving still farther, and before my eyes flash familiar buildings and streets from the period of yesterday's visit to the regiments
and battalions.

For the first time in several days of the offensive in Berlin itself, I managed to realize my dream—to be at the front line, at the very
foremost line, and see how the fighting is going there now. First, of course, I went to my regiment, to the command post. Lieutenant
Colonel Shtalko at first did not even want to speak with me.

“Who are you? Show me your documents! How I regret that I did not shoot you back then, when you fell asleep while digging trenches.”

24.06.1945
Today I had intended to write and get a great many useful things done, but fate decided otherwise.

After breakfast I met two girls. They were Russians from a camp whose inmates are to be repatriated home. I nearly sinned once again in
my life, but her youth held me back—she is not yet nineteen. She was born in 1926; her name is Marusya. She is not beautiful, but she is
so pleasant that she could quite compete with prettier girls. A complete contrast to Nadia from Berlin. Nadia was very beautiful and very
compliant. When I saw her... But I will tell the whole story. For me it was an exceptional event, the occasion on which I “sinned.”

Everyone had moved to the new place. I lodged in the regimental commander’s quarters, where there was the only free sofa in the entire
office.

For several days before the event I am describing, I had been absorbed in various medical books dealing with impotence and related
matters. The fear of remaining incapable of sexual life forever frightened me more than ever, and I resolved at all costs to use my last
days in the city to my advantage. I swore to myself that I would persist to the end and overcome my shyness and scruples.

One afternoon, tired from working with books, I looked out of the window and noticed a beautiful girl walking along the street—a blonde
with a slightly reddish tint to her hair. I called to her. She came over. I ran out of the room and, without prolonging the conversation,
bluntly invited her inside.

“What would I do there?” the young lady asked.

I answered in her language: “Read books.”

“But that is boring...”

I embraced her. “We’ll go upstairs,” I suggested. She agreed to that too.

Afterward the regimental commander’s cook, who was still living there, whispered to me, “After you, me!”

“That depends on her. If she wants to...”

“But I’m going to cook something for her to eat.”

“As you like.” I closed and bolted both doors leading into the room.

I embraced her and pressed her to me and caught the smell of a dog. But it did not cool me. I was persistent and methodical; otherwise
nothing would have happened.

A mattress and a small pillow lay on the floor. The room was bright, and sunbeams peered curiously inside. We paid no attention to them.
I was burning with passion. She, I must confess, was not nearly so warm; her body was cold, though my soul had already managed to fall
in love with her, and I could hear her heart beating faster.

I laid her on the bed. I caressed and kissed her, stroking her body. It seemed to me that some caress was still missing. Then, as people say,
I reached “into her bosom” and uncovered her breasts. She did not resist; her eyes seemed to say that she was waiting to see what would
happen next. I hurried toward the outcome. I touched her intimate place and quickly withdrew my hand: it was wet. For a moment I
wondered what that wetness might mean.

“Take everything off. We’ll make love, all right?”

She had apparently been waiting for that and willingly did as I asked. While she undressed, I felt impatient. The current running through
me had not lost its force. In my imagination I pictured the part of her body that was about to be revealed to me for the first time. Images
from famous and lesser artists, photographs, even pornography came back to mind and combined into a single idea of its appearance and
nature. Even in the worst case my imagination could not make it anything but magnificent and smooth, like everything else in a woman.

How great, then, were my surprise, disappointment, and even resentment when instead of the mythical image I saw something real: red,