Sublime

Leo took his time walking up the stairs, contemplating how he had ended up here–policing people’s reactions. He’d never intended to join the State Security Department; the career had grown out of his military service.

If there was anyone to whom the brothers were indebted for their upbringing and education for the rest of their lives, it was to this Yefim Petrovich, a most generous and humane man, of a kind rarely found.

The old woman’s principal heir, however, turned out to be an honest man, the provincial marshal of nobility of that province,1 Yefim Petrovich Polenov.

mercenary,

he was simply an early lover of mankind,

who, on retiring from the army, feels all but certain that his service has earned him the power of life and death over his subjects.

Un officier de rang plus élevé, qui avait commencé sa carrière dans le renseignement à Dresde, en Allemagne de l’Est, une fois rapatrié en catastrophe puisqu’il n’y avait plus d’Allemagne de l’Est se retrouvait sans emploi, sans logement de fonction, réduit à faire le taxi sauvage dans sa ville natale, Leningrad, en maudissant les « nouveaux Russes