We celebrate Constitution Day along with everyone else. Three days off. I hope we don’t fall apart — we’re used to the harness; though it’s not easy, at least we’re always busy. Met with the families. Lyusya seems out of sorts. It even spoiled my mood. Probably she’s tired too, or sick. Her face is wrong, the phrases are wrong, without the usual lift. The conversation was somehow uninteresting; she keeps asking things twice. I can’t figure out what’s going on. I asked — she says everything’s fine. And my son wasn’t ready for the meeting with his father either. I ask about his school; he just repeats — fine, and that’s that. Some meeting.

Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. The south and center of Africa have turned green, unrecognizable, as if covered with moss. The water has more shades now. At Cape Horn the snow is still receding, revealing the earth. Off the east coast of America there’s a large turquoise field of plankton. In our parts it’s autumn — the fields are yellow; I saw a golden band stretching northeast from the Aral — the forests have turned yellow.