Moskau, Hotel «Banna»
Scene 6
Sometimes things slip so fast out of one's hands that one can regain a semblance of control only when one is in the bathtub. In the suds one takes a deep breath and turns akin to a tadpole that sinks gradually to the bottom of the pond. The world is hardly to be heard or to be seen through the foam – one smells nothing, one feels at once leaden and weightless. But then one needs to come up for air, and is forced to return to the world above the gills. Like an air bubble, one rises to the surface, shooting out of the foam and gasping over and over again at the unfolding drama of evolution – that transforms the smug tadpole into a sullen frog, which lands directly in the beak of the stork or, if it is lucky, at least on the meat platter of French cuisine. Even after his rather reluctant metamorphosis in his hotel «Banna», under the foam, which smelled like a shower room stuffed with tennis players, Maille found himself back in Moscow – naturally, because one could not get out of it so easily.