Pathway to Japanese Literature

*Inga*

Author: Miyamoto Yuriko

1

Inga Riesel was thirty years old.

She was a Party member from the intelligentsia class and now worked as the manager of a sewing factory.
Large-built and attractive, her eyes and lips appeared like beautiful flames reflecting her vigorous passion.

Since the dawn of the new society, many women had advanced into various production sectors of the Soviet Union.
In various factories, albeit in small numbers, female managers had also emerged.

The manager’s job was a position of heavy responsibility.
In the Soviet Union, all production was planned production; therefore, the manager had to firmly control the specialist engineers and factory committees within the plant, overcome the concrete difficulties of the transitional Soviet society, and advance socialist production.
The Soviet Union made it a policy to appoint Party members from worker backgrounds with factory labor experience as factory managers whenever possible.

Now, even if in a certain factory the manager was an honest worker who knew from the gut how one ought to work, the specialist engineers working under them or the trust directors were often from the intelligentsia class. Now positioned in an inverted status before workers whom they once wouldn’t have even allowed into their theaters, these men would frequently compose reports in the most pedantic phrases to confound straightforward managers—needlessly reciting excessively meticulous technical jargon in German all the while. There were more than a few instances where trust directors schemed to entrap worker factory managers, even perverting the law in attempts to drive them out of factories.

The process through which worker-born managers and their supporting worker groups overcame such malicious elements within factories—despite all difficulties—is well depicted in Kirshon’s famous play *The Rails Are Humming*.

Inga Riesel, being a female Party member from the intelligentsia class with education and experience, and given that the factory was a sewing plant suited to women’s activities, avoided experiencing those particular difficulties—yet she faced a different kind of hardship altogether.
The fact that Inga was a woman occupying the position of factory manager.
Within the factory, there existed quite a few individuals who—due to outdated customs and other prejudices—remained discontent with the fact that a woman was serving as factory manager.

Deputy Factory Manager Lyzhov—a worker and Party member—and Sofon Boltykov, the fifty-year-old foreman of the women’s clothing section, were prime examples of this.

Boltykov was a man who, along with his old-fashioned bushy beard, had clung to all the old-fashioned ways of thinking and habits of workers up to the present day.
First, he drank alcohol.
He hit his wife.
The only one he raised his hand to strike was his own wife, but this could be said to be an eloquent practice of his view of women.
Nor did he feel any respect toward Inga.
He believed that showing respect to a female factory manager was a disgrace for male workers.

The meeting at the factory club had just ended that night.
Everyone straggled out into the lounge, and some began drinking tea at the corner table.
Among them, Boltykov also emerged.
He followed closely behind Collective Secretary Somov’s heels as he walked, incessantly grumbling.

“Ain’t right, Grigory Danilovich!”
“Ain’t right!”
“Putting women on the front lines... Don’t give me that... Hmm, women ain’t meant for that sorta thing.”

By background, Somov was a worker like Boltykov.
He was a man who, though already sixty years old, never lost his socially enlightened and progressive views, always maintaining a fair stance toward Inga’s value as a laborer and the general principles of what liberated women ought to be.

“What exactly are you implying about her?”
“Are you saying she doesn’t know how to do her job?”
“Or—are you saying she’s not even human?”

Boltykov tugged at his beard.

"How should I put it...'Course I ain't the boss here."
"The factory's yours—you're the one responsible."
"But I'm speakin' from my real experience as foreman."
"Women—they're just women."
"In women's heads—nothin' but topsy-turvy fantasies!"

When Somov rebuked him, Boltykov sulked and spat:

"The whole damn factory's churned up by skirts—no decent place left for men!"
"I'm goin' to Moscow."
"Then they'll find themselves some petticoat-wearin' foreman!"

“I’ll drive you out!”

It was Somov who shouted.

"In our daily lives, specimens like you—you're the number one enemy!"
"I'll beat that filth right out of you!"

However, the resentment that Deputy Factory Manager Lyzhov harbored toward Inga contained far more complex elements.
First and foremost—hadn't he been a worker engaged in production for twenty-six years?
Moreover, hadn't he spent four years living with his rifle never leaving his hand, even while sleeping?
What was Inga?
Wasn't she just some rotten intelligentsia woman?
(Shit!)
When he'd said as much to Somov earlier, that bastard had retorted—"You're the one rotting with prejudice!"
Then proceeded to sermonize about Inga's accomplishments instead—
that she was an exceptional organizer,
that she'd boosted factory productivity rates while slashing production costs,
that she possessed iron will and profound knowledge—!
Intelligentsia trash!
And just when this alone had become unbearable to endure—Inga went and fell in love with Dmitry Grechannikov, a mere worker serving as factory committee chairman.
Lyzhov grew convinced through sheer conjecture that following this development, they'd oust him and install Dmitry as Deputy Factory Manager.

In the shadowy corner of the club lounge, Dmitry and Inga stood huddled close together discussing something.
It was Lyzhov who glimpsed them.
Inga remained unaware she'd been observed.
Surrounded by Somov, Dmitry, and a throng of workers, she animatedly explained the clothing patterns they planned to produce at the factory this time.

"Why must we trail behind Europe in daily life while blazing new trails in politics and economics?"
"Why do we shrink from declaring our daily lives superior—more rational and beautiful than theirs?"
"Why must we persist in purchasing nothing but European patterns?"

“We could commission artists to create far better Soviet-style patterns for the same price.”

Lyzhov thrust both hands into his trouser pockets and mocked Inga’s proactive, research-driven proposal.
Then, aiming a sarcastic jab at her, he loudly picked a fight with Somov standing nearby.

“But...
“Is this right?”
“The organization sent her here—to the factory—to work, but she...”

Inga reflexively challenged what she heard.

“What is it?”

“She’s canoodling with some youngster in a dim corner!”

Lyzhov shouted toward the gathered crowd of workers.

“I saw it!
“I saw it with my own eyes!”
“Is this what you call proper?”
“Huh?!”

Inga, without losing her composure in front of everyone startled by the unexpected scene, pressed Lyzhov in a clear voice.

“Who with?”
“Where?”

Dmitry tried to say something.

“Why are you intervening?”
“Dmitry.”
“I don’t need any support from you.”

She then said sternly to Lyzhov.

“Ignat! Do you understand what you’ve just said? I will make you either prove your claims with facts or take responsibility for slander. I command—do you understand? I command! Take this case to the supervisory committee. We’ll discuss which of us is correct there.”

II

Even factory women workers，if fortunate enough to find partners they liked，enjoyed their lives together cheerfully.
Was it that only the female factory manager was not allowed to fall in love?
There was no such logic.

Inga truly loved Dmitry.

Given her skill as a worker and her beauty, she had no shortage of natural admirers.
For example, didn’t the factory engineer Nemtsevich tell Inga things whenever he found the chance?
“You draw me in like an open window!”
At times he would solemnly take her hand and shower her with exclamations like “Peerless being!” or “Magnificent creature!”
Inga had already had to tell him dozens of times to stop doing that.

Inga could not love Nemtsevich precisely because she belonged to the intelligentsia.
Within him there was only old sentimentalism.

In contrast, Dmitry was a born laborer.
He didn’t know how to spout the contrived phrases Nemtsevich did when addressing Inga.
“I love you.”
That was the most he could manage.

Inga deeply loved both Dmitry’s simplicity and earnestness, as well as the proactive nature he possessed as a laborer who had risen with the new class.

However, things between Inga and Dmitry could not yet be said to be going smoothly.

Today as well, Inga brought order to Lyzhov’s scheme that had unexpectedly erupted through her unique strong control, but later said to Dmitry:

“I can’t go on like this!”
“If we weren’t working together, it wouldn’t matter either way…”
“We must decide—either fully commit to being together or resolutely go our separate ways.”

Dmitry already had a wife and child.
He had entered into a relationship with Inga while still unable to settle matters with them.
This was not the first time Inga had raised this issue.
Mera from the Women’s Department organizer circle and those like her lived as if they had officially inherited patterns of sexual relations from the wartime communist era.

When Inga talked about Dmitry and mentioned being troubled by his wife and child, Mera, lying on the bench, said while whistling:

“Nothin’s allowed at all, is it? Live with all three of you. That’s all there is to it.”

“But—do you lend your toothbrush to others?”

Mera dodged Inga’s question.

“Ah! I’d just lost my toothbrush.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for reminding me!”

Inga thought.
Had she ever neglected her duties as factory manager or glossed over issues to avoid complications?
Never once.
Since being assigned as manager to this sewing factory, she had established three new workshops, mechanized operations, and expanded production enough to increase the workforce by three hundred workers.
Why was she attempting to implement new Soviet-style designs in their factory?
It was not merely increasing production quantity and making things cheaper that constituted the advancement of new culture.
Inga thought—the Soviet people must not be satisfied merely with being able to buy cheap mass-produced goods.
To those products must be added new beauty, the radiance of proletarian culture.
Regarding production, Inga was striving with such progressive views even for a single garment pattern.

In her attitude toward love as well, Inga remained consistent.
Inga was not Mera—a thirty-five-year-old who found security in mimicking seventeen-year-old Komsomol girls.
Love meant freedom, but did that freedom's essence lie in two women cohabiting with one man?

Inga sought the same active, meaningful constructiveness in sexual relationships as part of daily life as she did in production.
Inga could not remain composed continuing relations with a married man simply because there was someone else outside messily entangled in such a situation.

But how was Dmitry thinking about that?
To put it simply, he was troubled.
It was true that Dmitry had only truly encountered what it meant to be with a woman as a human being after meeting Inga.
However, when Inga asked him whether he intended to choose between his wife Grafira and her—his wife and their one-year-old daughter—Dmitry could only answer like this:
“I don’t know what to do!”
“It’s like I’ve wandered into a forest.”

Inga was not merely speaking about that point as a lover and from a woman’s perspective alone.
As a comrade, she wanted to know Dmitry’s decision.
Would there be a party member who hinders their own development for the sake of an infant?
For a father to be both warrior and revolutionary to his daughter, must he not in the end prove himself an unwavering fighter and revolutionary through the very practice of daily life?

Dmitry, after much agonizing, hit upon a plan.

“I’ve finally figured it out!”
“Whew!”
“Inga, let’s go to the suburbs for a week or so!”
“How about it?”
“Or Moscow.”

“And then?”

“Huh.”
“Does it really matter?”
“It’ll work out somehow.”
“Things’ll sort themselves out.”

“Sort themselves out?”
“Just work out?”
“No!”
“Such half-measures are useless to me.”

Inga could not accept their relationship being dictated by happenstance or left to chance.
Was building a socialist society truly this passive—letting policies form through circumstance and progress unfold haphazardly?
That was precisely the opposite.

Dmitry finally made his decision.

“Alright!”

Inga held her breath, but Dmitry groaned and paced in one spot.

“I can’t abandon them!”

THREE

Dmitry returned home at a bad time.

A great deal of laundry hung from the ceiling of the room, and a baby’s cradle sat in the corner.
In Dmitry’s room—now in such a state—Boltykov barged in, chasing after his wife who had come visiting and gotten caught up in conversation.

“Damn it!”
“Look up—a woman!”
“You bitch!”
“Turn that way—bitch!”
“Even there—a bitch!”
“Damn you!”
“What—you expect the great me to prepare the samovar?”
“What the hell am I to you?”
“A dog?”
“A husband?”

And Boltykov threw Nasyucha—who at just forty had already become as dried-up as a fish left out—around.
He dragged her around.

Engineer Nemtsevich’s wife—who spent all day slovenly in her pajamas—heard the commotion and poked her nose through the door, but far from calming things down, no sooner had she caught sight of Dmitry rushing in clutching his document-filled briefcase than she lashed out in a shrill voice.

“Comrade Grechannikov! As the housing management representative, you simply must ensure such disgraceful scenes don’t occur again in the future. We have guests at our house. I come home exhausted, and here it’s bang-bang, crash-crash! I can’t get a moment’s rest! If I’d known it would be like this, I never would’ve moved here!”

Grafira—unkempt with stray hairs clinging to her cheeks, dressed in bulky, unfashionable clothes, her quiet simplicity on full display—couldn’t control the strangers barging into their home. And yet, she was now barely holding back her anguish. Earlier, when she shook Dmitry’s coat to iron it, a piece of paper had fallen out. When she absentmindedly picked it up and looked, to her surprise, it was a summons from Inga to Dmitry.

Oh, what had become of Dmitry’s recent transformation?
The man who once shared everything and laughed with her now looked at her as if she were a complete stranger.
He remained silent.
The cause lay there.
Grafira was crying as she appealed to Nasyucha.

“I can’t live without Mitya... Who would I give him to? Tell me—why must this child be made unhappy too?”
“If that woman is prettier than me, then let her be pretty. If she’s a good woman, then let her be a good woman.”
“But even so, why must Valerika be made unhappy?”
“You can forget my resentment, but I can’t forgive that alone!”

Having brought out the Madonna icon she had hidden to avoid Dmitry finding it, Grafira tried to pray.
But what good was this icon in the end!

Had Mitya grown tired of me because of this?
Had he seen me praying?
Oh Nasyucha!
"I don't know what to do!"

Just then, a drunk Boltykov stumbled in and kicked off the commotion.

Grafira wiped tears with an apron.
After driving out the Boltykov couple and chatty woman then finally settling into a chair, she tentatively asked Dmitry.

“Mitenka… Shall I prepare dinner?”

“—I don’t need it.”

“Tea? Then…”

“I don’t want anything. ……Didn’t I make myself clear! ……It’s all junk everywhere. Dirty... Didn’t you have time to sweep? Hmph!”

Dmitry sighed in frustration at the lack of culture within his own household that had recently become apparent.
He took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow.
The handkerchief was scented with perfume.
Grafira, her disheveled hair hanging down and a distorted smile on her face,
"You've taken to wearing perfume, haven't you?"

said Grafira.

“That’s excellent perfume… What’re you wiping with it?”

Grafira’s eyes—which had been fixed on Dmitry as if devouring him—suddenly blazed with tears and anger.
She suddenly lashed out.

“Mitya! You idiot!”
“You’ll destroy yourself completely… You’ll destroy all of us!”

Dmitry looked his wife up and down in surprise.

“What’s gotten into you?”
“Rabid dog?”
“Today you’re…”

Grafira could no longer bear it and collapsed at Dmitry’s feet.

“Mityusha!
“You’re my precious candle!”
“You’re the joy in my sorrowful times, you are!”

“Cut it out, you! Let me rest. I’ve worked like a madman all day long, and now here...”

Dmitry said abruptly and without preamble.

“You didn’t wash yourself? You smell strange...”

A single remark led to an unforeseen outcome.
Grafira jumped up from the floor as if stung.

“Don’t like it? Have you grown sick of me? I know—it’s your disgust! Go on, say it! Why are you lying? Why are you toying with me like this?!”

With trembling hands, she thrust the letter from Inga at Dmitry.

“Shameless!”
“You scoundrel!”
“You’re going to claim none of this ever happened? Huh?”

After remaining silent and gazing at the letter, Dmitry slowly tucked it into his pocket.
Eventually, he spoke just as slowly.
“Well then—let’s put an end to this, since it’s come to this.”
“Put an end?”

When he had been speaking with Inga, the words he had thought he could never say finally came out.
While trying not to lose courage, Dmitry took Grafira's large hand—roughened by housework.

“Grasha! Try to understand me. I’ve grown up. I’m no longer the same man I was.”

When he received his monthly salary, he would buy himself something like a watch chain and get Grafira a new shawl or the like.
Once a month, the couple would go visiting together.
On festival days, they would at most go out to the cinema or the theater.
That was the limit of Dmitry’s former life.
The household was Dmitry’s place of solace.

However, the revolution had broken out.
Dmitry's life was renewed, sprouting between struggle and starvation.
With the advance of the entire proletarian battle lines.

Grafira’s life could not expand alongside Dmitry’s rapidly broadening social existence.
Her horizon still ended at the walls of the workers’ housing complex, as it always had.
The kitchen, the wash tub, her husband, and Valika were her entire existence.

“My whole life’s opened up now.
I wanna grab hold of it all.
Not let a single thing slip away.
——……Ah…
You get it?
To you… It’s all same difference—no matter how many ways I try to say it.”

But eleven years lived as husband and wife! Valika, just born.
Grafira couldn’t accept it.

“All these words?
When you were injured and came down with typhus—when they brought you here—what words did we use then?
At night, when I sat by your side and nursed you.
When we lived on just subsidies, you were always buried in books from morning till night.
When I was working at the sewing machine, putting warm food on your table—what language do you think we spoke back then? Mitya!”

Grafira knew.
Knew that the Soviet held many women abandoned by their husbands.
That husbands—having supposedly “grown up”—cast off their wives.
But when had she ever imagined she would meet that same fate?
Dmitry groaned painfully.

“Why d’you bring that up?
“I’m talking about now—right now.”

“I’ve been talking about all these long, long years we’ve had—you! You only remember your own story—how d’you think I’ve lived?”
“While you were off soldiering, was I just lounging about?”

To Dmitry, his tear-streaked wife—this ignorant woman trying to swaddle herself in "the past"—was becoming nothing but a burden.

“Lend me the basket!”

Finally, Dmitry said.

“Which one?”

“That one.”

“Ariya’s things are in there—I can’t do it.”

Dmitry pulled down his shirts and socks from the laundry hanging from the room's ceiling and wrapped them in newspaper. He swept the items on the desk into his briefcase with a rustling sound.

The door opened.
And closed.

After a while, Nasyucha came to quietly peek into Grafira’s room.
She dashed out of the room in astonishment, as if tumbling.

Collective Secretary Somov came rushing in, his good-natured salt-and-pepper beard quivering.

Grafira had drunk acetic acid.

Four

It was a certain day about three months later.

It was lunch hour at the sewing factory.

Today during this break period, the women workers were planning to hold a comrade court.
Boltykov was beyond help.
He drank himself into a stupor.
He still treated his wife Nasyucha more cruelly than a log.
Disturbances arose in workers' housing complexes and workplaces.
If one peered into the midst of it all, there was never a moment when Boltykov’s stubborn, bony shoulders weren’t swaying at the center——.
First of all, with women workers laboring so hard here, they could no longer endure leaving a man like him unchecked.

The factory club’s hall had folding stools lined up.
There was a table covered with red cloth.

Bustling, cheerful women workers came in.
They each took seats on folding stools.
Mera thrust both hands into her jacket pockets, came over, and sat down in front of the red-cloth-covered table.

When they looked at the last cluster of people who had entered lively and chatting about something—oh—wasn't the one forming the center there none other than Grafira?

Could this possibly be the same ignorant Grafira—the Grafira who tried to kill herself?

Now she seemed to have regained ten years of youth.
She wore the same work clothes as everyone else, her head tightly bound with a red cloth; though the black shoes she had on were the very ones she wore when she collapsed after drinking acetic acid, both her facial expression and her way of walking marked her as a completely different person.

Moreover, she somehow had an even more resolute aspect than the other young laboring women.

“Come on, Grasha, representatives should sit right up front!”

Pulling the hand of Grafira—who was shyly retreating to the back—her comrades tried to seat her in the front row of folding stools.
Grasha was now not merely a cheerful woman worker, but a representative.

But that Grafira who had secluded herself, dedicating her life solely to her baby and the kitchen.
How had she—this backward wife Dmitry had abandoned—undergone such a transformation?

When it came to that matter, Grafira could not forget Somov with his salt-and-pepper hair.
That night, as she lay feverish and half-delirious, calling out Dmitry’s name, it was Somov—an old hand in the organization—who sat by her side and gently encouraged her.

“—Mitya… Mitya.”
“Why must there be this Mitya?”
“Aren’t you a human being?”
“Are you trying to say your life ended because of Mitya?”
“Doesn’t the baby need you?”
“Do you think no one else needs you either—or that there’s no one else in this world who’s suffered like you have?”
“I’ve already helped several people stand firmly on their own feet.”
“You work.”
“I’ll make sure everything works out perfectly for you.”

Somov had also said at the time that she should put the child in the nursery.

As the burns from the acetic acid she had poured into her stomach healed, hope and light began to shine into Grafira’s life.
It came shining in with a boundless expanse she had never known before.
Somov had kept every promise, and she started working at the factory.

It was as though a new life seized Grafira, as though a new force welled up from within her.

Meanwhile, how had these three months passed for Factory Manager Inga and Dmitry?

One day, in her usual tone, Mera—

“Hey, how’s the home front?
“What, some cloudless paradise?”

She asked.
Inga answered.

“I am happy.
“I seem to have everything I ever wanted.”

Mera’s sharp black eyes didn’t miss how Inga had faltered somehow.

“But…?”

“But… Well, truly, I’ve discovered so many ‘buts’.”
“That’s true.”
“I even encountered things I never could have anticipated.”

She had neither the inclination nor the time to talk to Mera.
Inga was busy fulfilling her duties.

Since failing in his attempt to publicly humiliate this energetic and dedicated factory manager some time ago, Lyzhov had ceased any overt acts of resistance.
But Inga had ordered the preparation of Soviet-style women’s clothing samples; they dragged out that work and only spent money.
Inga had to drive them on and ensure the samples were completed.

Engineer Nemtsevich remained unchanged as ever.

“I’ve always considered you the heroine.”

“Of a novel?”

“No, of an opera.”

He engaged in such idle talk, but did not submit the blueprints for expanding the nursery that Inga had promised to the third-shift women workers, claiming there was no space.

“I did request today that you would kindly submit them.”

“You are aware, of course…”

“Why?”
“Didn’t you prepare them?”
“I did make the request of you.”

“However, if you’ll excuse me.”
“There’s simply no space for a nursery.”
“Where should we place the machinery?”
“This remains fundamentally a factory—not some maternal care institution.”

Mera shouted indignantly.

“Is this what a Soviet factory where working women are the masters looks like?!”

Inga said firmly.

“I will find a place for the machinery!”

“So…”

Nemtsevich said doggedly.

“What about everything I’ve done so far…?”
“Does this mean all my work gets swept away?”

“Comrade Nemtsevich!
“Just because you balk at redrawing blueprints doesn’t mean I’ll halt authorization for what the women workers require.
“The nursery expansion already has my signature.”

As Inga prepared to leave for the trust with the engineer, Dmitry stopped her heedless of bystanders.

“I have business.”
“Later—I’m going to the Trust.”
“Can’t you spare me even a minute? You’ll chat with others for thirty minutes though.”

“No one else speaks to me in that tone.”

“What tone should I use then?”
“Have I finally had enough?”
“I never even finished middle school.”

When they were alone, Inga said to Dmitry:

“What is this?
“Dmitry!
“Why are you acting so shamefully?
“You’re jealous again.
“Can’t you bear to see me talking to someone else without getting upset?”

No matter how much Inga explained, Dmitry would immediately retort, “I never had that sort of education.”

“I can’t stand it—you being with someone else... I know you call it barbaric.”
“But I love you that much.”

“Dmitry.”
“Think about it.”
“I’m more principled than you.”
“I came to you of my own accord.”
“To be with you—to be with you alone.”
“And yet you’re trying to tie me down with ropes—”

During the period when they weren’t living together, Dmitry had appeared to comprehend Inga’s talents.
Yet now, he couldn’t bring himself to regard Inga as an equal comrade in construction.

The fundamental issue was Dmitry’s lack of sincere effort toward self-improvement.
Inga held greater social stature than he did.
To coexist with that Inga, he needed to cultivate himself.
There should have been class-based significance in Inga choosing to live with Dmitry.
The hope had been that Inga would share her refined qualities with Dmitry, while he’d contribute strengths she lacked—through this exchange, jointly enriching their new society.
Dmitry utterly failed to grasp this crucial meaning.

“I know you’re not Grafira.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“But I’ve managed eleven years without thinking about my laundry or breakfast.”

Dmitry did not voice these complaints at home.
In the factory manager’s office, before the work desk, he voiced them to Inga.
Of course, he hadn’t come merely to say that.
He had come about the ventilation installation issue.

“I’ve already made promises throughout the workplace.”
“Said I’d get it done within the quarter.”
“Try telling me to wait three months now… that’d make me a laughingstock.”
“The Factory Manager’s husband… can’t even control his own wife…”

But that was Dmitry’s own mistaken assumption.
The factory's operations were based on a plan.
Inga had decided to establish a nursery within three months, and its implementation had already begun.

“I can’t go tearing down every wall here just for your pride."
“The ventilation installation will be handled next quarter.”
“It’s already been decided.”

“Don’t you want to stop trying to defeat me?”
“Huh?”
“Do you want to flaunt your own will?”
“That’s not will.”
“It’s just a woman’s stubbornness!”

“Dmitry!”

Inga involuntarily struck the table with her fist.

“Think before you speak!”

Dmitry did not yield.

“—I’ve always backed down before.”
“I won’t back down here.”

Inga bit her lip.

Dmitry was likely attempting to manipulate factory operations through their personal relationship.
“I can’t sacrifice my work for you.”
“So… does this mean everything ends here?”

“—If you insist on framing the problem that way, then I have no choice but to leave you. …I can’t trade my work for you.”

Covering his face with both hands, Dmitry sat in the chair.
Inga approached and stroked Dmitry’s hair.
For Dmitry, there remained only a female friend; his wife had gone.
Inga now clearly understood this.
Dmitry did not comprehend Inga’s value as a comrade.
Suppressing her profound sorrow, Inga spoke gently.

“—Living with you pains me too.
Please understand.”

In this state, even Dmitry had not anticipated meeting Grafira again.

They had once met by chance before.
At that time, Dmitry had said,
“Living with you was easier.”
Grafira had been terribly surprised.
But after talking awhile, it was Dmitry who became even more astonished.
Where had the Grafira he knew gone?
Instead of the timid, narrow-minded woman stood an independent woman worker—vibrant and tempered by experience.

At that moment，Grafira said．

“Give us time，Mityushka—we’re not like your Inga，we’ll get better．”

“Little by little，little by little—we’ll take shape．”

“Our bones are thicker than hers，so we’ll grow even stronger．”

Smiling, Grafira declared!

“Let’s make everything as it was!”

Dmitry, feeling the failure of his life with Inga, lunged toward Grafira—whom he’d encountered again—and spoke.

“Valya and you are my only true blood relatives.”

Grafira, addressed as "you" for the first time, flushed with uncontainable excitement, but her answer differed from what Dmitry had anticipated.
She said quietly.

“—I can’t go back to how I was before, Mitya.”
“…Mitya.”
“I want Valya to have a father.”
“I’ll tell you straight.”
“……But he’s become a good child too.”

A bright, joyful smile drifted across Grafira’s lips.

“—And I don’t want to live alone either.
But Mitya, even though I’m foolish and can’t keep up with you, I don’t want to mess up our lives like that either.”

“I’ll tell you straight—I’m not the same me as before.
Originally, I really only thought about being with you.
I lived only for that, hounded by chaotic work.
But now things have come to this… Living with me—that’s fine too.
So what if we don’t live together…?
I have my own path.
Everything back to how it was?
No—Comrade Mitoshika!
Rivers don’t flow backward; I can’t return to who I was.”

The other day, when Inga, Dmitry, and Grafira met, Grafira said "Hello" and extended her hand to Inga.
Then Inga refused, saying they didn’t shake hands there as per regulations.

At that moment, Inga entered where Grafira and Dmitry were talking.
With a deliberately composed expression, Inga said cheerfully.

“Has everything settled nicely?”
“How simple! How splendid!”

Grafira interjected bluntly.

“I won’t drag Dmitry to my place.
He can stay wherever he thinks best.”

With even more unadorned sincerity, she said to Inga.

“—Why do you speak that way?
As if I’ve never tasted tears or seen your suffering.
I love Mitya so much it’s doubtful whether even you loved him that intensely.
But look—I’ve endured it this way.
I’ve found my own path.
And I will walk that path.
Comrade Giesel!
Look into my heart.
I don’t wish a single bad thing upon you.”

According to Mera, even Inga and Grafira’s spontaneous embrace and kiss in their moment of emotion reeked of petty bourgeois mentality.
But it was not that two women who had ceased competing over a single man and reconciled now embraced each other.
Though differing in scope, two female comrades—each clearly having their own path yet advancing toward the same goal—embraced each other.

“—It’s all… over.”

Inga said as if to herself.

“I was wrong!… I deceived myself!”

“Just live simply!”

Mera spouted her usual half-baked philosophy again.

“Don’t overcomplicate it!”

Inga did not think like Mera.

For her, failure was merely a lesson to advance one step further.
Inga would never give up.
She managed Soviet production expansion efforts for future culture.
Inga would never give up.
Someday she, as a new Soviet woman, would pioneer a new construct in sexual relations as well.
Scattering a vigorous sound, the desk telephone rang.
Inga picked up the receiver with fresh resolve.

“—Yes.
“This is the factory.”
“From Moscow?”
“...Please proceed. This is Inga Giesel speaking.”

—(From Act Four of Inga by Anatoly Grebov.) [March 1931]