From outside there came a soft knock at the door: once. Pause. And again – a bit louder and bonier: twice.
Sutulin, without rising from his bed, extended – as was his wont – a foot towards the knock, threaded a toe through the door handle, and pulled. The door swung open. On the threshold, head grazing the lintel, stood a tall, grey man the colour of the dusk seeping in at the window.
Before Sutulin could set his feet on the floor the visitor stepped inside, wedged the door quietly back into its frame and, jabbing first one wall, then another, with a briefcase dangling from an apishly long arm, said, “Yes: a matchbox.”
“What?”
“Your room, I say: it’s a matchbox. How many square feet?”
“Eighty-six and a bit.”
“Precisely. May I?”
Ce personnage qui, dans un instant, va entrer dans la minuscule chambre de Sutulin, va lui proposer un échantillon de Quadraturin, une substance censée faire s’agrandir les murs, et donc s’agrandir cette pièce “à peine plus grande qu’une boîte d’allumettes”.
Sutulin va appliquer la pommade, mais pas exactement comme recommandé sur la notice d’utilisation. Le lendemain matin, au réveil, il découvre avec joie sa pièce agrandie :
Everything was the same: the skimpy, threadbare rug that had trailed after the table somewhere up ahead of him, and the photographs, and the stool, and the yellow patterns on the wallpaper. But they were all strangely spread out inside the expanded room cube.
“Quadraturin,” thought Sutulin, “is terrific!”
Mais la pièce conitinue de grandir, de façon anarchique. Et celle qui était autre fois si petite qu’il lui suffisait de tendre la jambe, depuis son lit, pour ouvrir la porte à un visiteur, se mue en un espace indéfini où plus aucun repère ne vaut, et dans lequel s’aventurer est une expédition bien périlleuse :
The apartment was indeed sleepy and dark. Sutulin walked down the corridor, straight and to the right, opened the door with resolve and, as always, wanted to turn the light switch, but it spun feebly in his fingers, reminding him that the circuit had been broken. This was an annoying obstacle. But it couldn’t be helped. Sutulin rummaged in his pockets and found a box of matches: it was almost empty. Good for three or four flares – that’s all. He would have to husband both light and time. When he reached the coat pegs, he struck the first match: light crept in yellow radiuses through the black air. Sutulin purposely, overcoming temptation, concentrated on the illuminated scrap of wall and the coats and jackets hanging from hooks. He knew that there, behind his back, the dead, quadraturinized space with its black corners was still spreading. He knew and did not look round.
Géant.
“Quadraturin” Sigizmund Krzhizhanowsky.
Cette nouvelle, ainsi que six autres, est également disponible dans un recueil : Seven Stories. Cette édition aurait pu être réalisée avec un peu plus de soins, mais ça reste plus confortable que lire à l’écran. En plus, c’est un auteur qui vaut le détour.