A Fine Red Rain [antikvár]

ONE T„ .HE MAN SITTING ON GOGOL'S SHOULDERS WAS WEEP-ing and shouting, but Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov couldn't hear him. Rostnikov stood in Arbat Square across Gogol Boulevard, straining to hear the man's words over the gentle bump-thump of the light September rain. It was very early on a Monday moming. Buses and cars crept up Su-vorov Boulevard. People on their way to work on Arbat Street and on the New Arbat—or Kalinin Prospekt, as it was officially known—climbed off the buses or hurried out of the underground Arbatskaya Metro Station behind Rostnikov. A few people, like Rostnikov, paused to watch the ranting man and wonder how he had climbed the statue, which stood tall and apparently unclimbable in the small park. People pressed their faces against the windows of the buses to catch a glimpse of the man on Gogol's shoulders. A Volga stopped and the bespectacled driver stepped out, cupped his right hand over his eyes, squinted at the man and Gogol, and got back in shaking his head. "Gogol looks amused, like it's a game," said an old man clutching a cloth bag. He had spoken to Rostnikov, who • i .1