your pardon, your name is..?
Are you really a stalker?
Wait... I'll explain everything.
Go...
What a cretin!
You did get drunk after all.
Me? What do you mean?
I had a drink, like one half
of the population does.
The other half gets drunk.
Including women and children.
I just had a drink though.
Damn it, what a mess here.
Go on, drink. We've got time.
How about a glass for the road?
What do you think?
Take it away.
I see. Dry law.
Alcoholism is a scourge of mankind.
All right, we'll drink beer.
Is he with us?
Never mind, he'll sober up.
He needs to go there, too.
Are you really a professor?
If you don't mind.
Then let me introduce myself.
My name is...
Your name is Writer.
Well. And what is my name?
Yours? Professor.
I see. I'm a writer,
so, naturally, everyone calls me
Writer for some reason.
- And what do you write about?
- About the readers.
Obviously, there's nothing else
one should write about.
One should write about nothing at all.
And what are you? A chemist?
A physicist rather.
That must be boring, too.
Searching for the truth.
It's hiding and you keep searching
for it.
You dig in one place -- eureka!
The nucleus is made of protons.
You dig in another -- great!
Triangle ABC equals
Triangle A-prim, B-prim, C-prim.
With me it's quite different.
While I am digging for the truth,
so much happens to it
that instead of discovering the truth
I dig up a heap of, pardon...
I'd better not name it.
You're lucky!
But imagine some antique pot
displayed in a museum.
It was used at its time
as a receptacle of food leftovers,
but now it's an object of
universal admiration
for its laconic pattern
and unique form.
Everyone goes oh! and ah!
And suddenly it turns out
that it's not antique at all,
that some joker has palmed it off
on the archeologists
just for fun.
Strange as it may seem, the admiration
dies off. Those connoisseurs...
Is it what you think about
all the time?
God forbid!
In fact, I don't think much.
It's not good for me.
It's impossible to write, thinking
all the time of success or failure.
Naturlich! But if no one is going
to read me in one hundred years,
why the hell should I write at all?
Tell me, Professor, why did you let
yourself be mixed up in all this?
What do you need the Zone for?
I'm a scientist in some sense.
But what do you need it for?
You're an "in" writer.
Women must be running after you
in flocks.
My inspiration has been lost,
Professor. I go begging for it.
Have you been used up?
What?
Yes, I guess, in a way.
Do you hear it? Our train.
- Have you taken the roof off the car?
- Yes, I have.
Luger, if I don't come back,
call on my wife.
Damn it, I forgot to buy cigarettes.
Don't go back.
- Why?
- You must not.
- You're all like this.
- Like what?
Believing such nonsense.
Well, I'd better leave it for a rainy
day.
Are you really a scientist?
Down!
Don't move!
Go and look, is there anyone there?
Move it, for God's sake!
There's no one there.
Go to the other exit.
Where on earth did you look, Writer?
- You didn't forget the jerry can?
- No. It's full.
Everything I told you before...
is a lie.
I don't give a damn about inspiration.
How would I know
the right word for what I want?
How would I know that actually
I don't want what I want?
Or that I actually don't want
what I don't want?
They are elusive things:
the moment we name them,
their meaning disappears,
melts, dissolves
like a jellyfish in the sun.
My conscience wants vegetarianism
to win over the world.
And my subconscious is yearning
for a piece of juicy meat.
But what do I want?
World domination.
Quiet!
Why a diesel locomotive in the Zone?
It services the outpost.
It won't go any farther.
They don't like going there.
Take your places!
Everybody here?
The guards have arrived.
Tell them to turn the TV off.
Hurry!
Go look if there’s a trolley
on the tracks.
What trolley?
Go back, I'll do it.
The jerry can!