The Second Invasion from Mars

June 5

I slept poorly last night. First Artemis woke me up when she came in at 1 a.m. I firmly decided to make a clean breast of it with her, but nothing came of it: she kissed me and locked herself in her bedroom. I had to take a soporific to calm down. Began to snooze, dreamed some sort of nonsense. At 4 a.m. I was again awakened, this time by Charon. Everyone is sleeping, but he goes on talking loudly throughout the house, as if no one else were here. I threw on my robe and went out into the living room. Lord, he was a terrible sight. I understood at once that the overthrow had not succeeded.

He sat at the table greedily eating everything that drowsy Artemis was serving him, and on the table, right on the tablecloth, were lying the greasy dismantled parts of some kind of firearm. He was unshaven, his eyes were red and inflamed, his hair was disheveled and stuck out in matted clumps. He munched his food like a honey-dipper. He had no jacket on, so it must be assumed he came home in precisely that appearance. Nothing of the chief editor of a small but respectable newspaper remained in him. His shirt was torn and smeared with dirt; his hands were filthy with broken fingernails, and horrible swollen scratches could be seen on his chest.

He didn't bother to greet me, simply glanced at me with crazy eyes and grumbled as he choked on the food: "You asked for it, you bastards!" I let this savage remark pass by my ears, because I saw the man was not in his right mind, but my heart sank and my legs felt so weak that I had to sit down on the couch. Artemis, too, was awfully scared, though she tried every which way to hide it. But Charon paid no attention to her and just barked for all the neighborhood to hear: "Bread!" Or: "Brandy, damn it!" Or: "Where's the mustard, Arta? I've asked for it twenty times already."

We had no conversation in the usual sense of the word. Trying in vain to overcome my palpitations, I asked him how he had ridden here. In answer he roared completely unintelligibly that he had ridden on somebody's back, but not the person he should have ridden. I tried to change the subject, to direct the conversation along more peaceful channels, and inquired about the weather in Marathon. He looked at me as if I had mortally insulted him and simply roared in his plate: "Brainless idiots ..." It was quite impossible to talk with him. Every other word was a curse, both while he was eating and afterwards, when he pushed the plates away with his elbow and began to assemble his weapon with renewed vigor. It's a good thing Hermione sleeps so soundly, so she wasn't present for this scene: she can't stand vulgarity. Everyone was a bastard to him; I just couldn't understand what had happened.

Here's the way it went: "All those bastards have become such worthless bastards that now any miserable bastard can do what he likes with the bastards, and not a single bastard will raise a finger to stop the bastards from handing us any old crap."

Poor Artemis stood behind his back wringing her fingers, and the tears ran down her cheeks. From time to time she glanced at me imploringly, but what could I do? I needed help myself; the nervous tension had practically blindfolded me. Without leaving off cursing for a moment, he assembled his weapon (it turned out to be a modern machine gun), inserted the cartridge and rose heavily to his feet, knocking two plates on the floor. Artemis, my poor daughter, her pale face drained of the last drop of blood, leaned over to him, and then, it seemed, he softened up a bit.

"There, there, kid," he said, dropping the cursing and hugging her awkwardly around the shoulders. "I could have taken you with me, but it wouldn't have been much fun for you. I know you like the back of my hand."

Even I felt the painful necessity for Artemis to find the right words at this moment. And, as if catching my telepathic thought, the girl gushed with tears and asked him, in my opinion, the main question: "What will happen to us now?"

I understood at once that, from Charon's point of view, these were not really the right words. He tucked his machine gun under his arm, slapped Artemis on the fanny, and said with a mean grin: "Don't worry, kiddie, nothing new will happen to you." After this he headed straight out. But I couldn't permit him to leave like that, without giving us any explanations.

"Just a minute, Charon," I said, overcoming my weakness. "What will happen now? What will they do to us?"

This question of mine drove him into an indescribable fury. He stopped on the threshold, turned half around and, knocking his knee painfully, hissed through his teeth these strange words: "If only one bastard would ask what he should do. But no, every bastard asks only what they will do to him. Rest easy, yours shall be the heavenly kingdom on Earth."

After this he went out, loudly slamming the door, and a minute later his car was heard roaring down the street.

The next hour was pure hell. Artemis had an attack of something like hysterics, though it more resembled uncontrollable rage. She broke all the dishes left on the table, yanked off the tablecloth and hurled it at the television set, banged on the door with her fists and shouted something in a choked voice that sounded like this: "So to you I'm a fool? ... I'm a fool to you, huh? ... And what are you? ... What are you? ... I spit on the whole deal.... You do what you want, and I'll do what I want! ... Got it? ... Got it? ... Got it?... You'll come running, you'll come begging on your knees!..."

Probably I should have given her some water, slapped her cheeks and the rest, but I myself was laid out on the couch, and there was no one to bring me a validus pill. It ended with Artemis dashing off to her room without paying any attention to me and with me, after resting a bit, crawling off to bed and falling into some sort of half-faint.

Morning came, overcast and rainy. (Temperature: +17° C, cloud cover: 10, no wind.) Fortunately I had slept through Artemis's explanation to Hermione of the mess in the living room. I only know that there had been a scene and both were now puffed up with anger. While she served the coffee, Hermione looked at me with the obvious intention of drawing me into the conversation, but she kept quiet. Most likely I looked pretty bad, and she's a kind woman, which is why I value her. After coffee, I was gathering strength to go to The Five Spot when a messenger boy arrived with a supposed piece of news signed by Polyphemus. It turns out I am a rank-and-file member of the city's "Voluntary Anti-Martian Patrol" and am already instructed to "appear at 10 a.m. on Harmony Square with firearms or sidearms and a three-day food supply." What does he think I am, a babe in the woods? Of course, I didn't go anywhere, purely on principle. From Myrtilus, who is still living in his tent, I found out that the farmers have been coming to the mayor's office since dawn; they are receiving sacks of the new grain-seeds and taking them back to their fields. Supposedly the wheat harvest, consigned to destruction, is being bought up before cutting by the government at a good price, and advances on the harvest of new grain are being offered. In all of this the farmers suspect the usual agrarian rigamarole, but since no money has been demanded of them, nor written contracts, they don't know what to think. Myrtilus assures me (!) that there are no Martians, because life is impossible on Mars. There is simply a new agrarian policy. Nevertheless, he is ready at any moment to leave the city, and, just in case, he also took a bag of seeds. In the papers, the same as yesterday, there is nothing but wheat and gastric juice. If it keeps on like this, Fm going to cancel my subscription. On the radio - also wheat and gastric juice. I don't even turn it on anymore, I just watch television, where everything is as it was before the putsch. Mr. Nicostratus drove up in his car, Artemis skipped out to him and they drove away. I don't want to think about it. Maybe, in the final analysis, it's fate.

Since all this babbling about wheat and gastric juice hasn't stopped, the putsch has apparently succeeded after all. Charon, due to his usual unsociability, didn't get what he'd counted on, argued with everyone there and found himself in the opposition. I'm afraid that because of him things will be unpleasant for us. When madmen like Charon take up a machine gun, they fire it. My God, will the time ever come when things are not unpleasant for me?