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p 220 ...she began to kiss him - on the right eye, then the chin, then the left ear - observing a strict sequence that had once been approved by him.

p 221 It is difficult, difficult to hide a thing: the other things are jealous and inhospitable, holding on firmly to their places and not allowing a homeless object, escaping pursuit, into a single cranny.

p 225 Through the window could be seen a house under construction, all in scaffolding, and a slanting rain; in the corner of the room hung a black little jacket which the official changed during working hours for a lustrine one, and his desk gave a general impression of violet ink and that same transcendental hopelessness.

p 242 ... Lughin was photographed for his passport, and the photographer

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took him by the chin, turned his face slightly to one side, asked him to open his mouth wide and drilled his tooth with a tense buzzing. The buzzing ceased, the dentist looked for something on a glass shelf, found it, rubber-stamped Lughin's passport and wrote with lightning-quick movements of the pen. "There," he said, handing over a document on which two rows of teeth were drawn, and two teeth bore inked-in little crosses.

p 247 In front of him was a round table bearing albums, magazines, separate sheets of paper, and photographs of frightened women and ferociously squinting men. And on one there was a white-faced man with life-less features and big American glasses, hanging by his hands from the ledge of a skyscraper-just about to fall off