As Pakhomov was in Security, he lived in the most comfortable room (requisitioned) in the best of the five houses. It stood two thirds of a mile away, in front of the hamlet’s three fir trees. The only representative of the government in a region almost as extensive as a state of old Europe, he was decidedly well off: among his possessions were a sofa, a samovar, a chessboard, an accordion, some odd volumes of Lenin, last month’s papers, tobacco, vodka. What more does a man need?
