Summary of “Tarkin in the Other World” by Tvardovsky


The battered Turkin is to the next world. It’s clean, it looks like a subway. The commandant orders Terkin to get formalized. Account table, check table, table. At Turkin they demand a certificate, they require a photo card, a certificate from a doctor. Terkin undergoes medical treatment. Everywhere pointers, inscriptions, tables. There are no complaints here. The editor of “Grobgazeta” does not even want to listen to Terkin. Cots are not enough, they do not give you a drink…

Terkin meets a front-line comrade. But he seems not happy meeting. He explains to Terkin: there are two other worlds-ours and the bourgeois. And our light is “the best and most advanced.”

Comrade shows Terkin Military Department, Civil. Here, no one does anything, but only direct and take into account. Are cut into dominoes. “Some members” are discussing the draft of the novel. There and then – “fiery orator.” Terkin is surprised: why

all this is necessary? “Nomenclature,” explains his friend. A friend shows the Special Section: here the victims in Magadan, Vorkuta, Kolyma… The Kremlin leader himself is in charge of this department. He is still alive, but at the same time “with them and with us,” because “during his lifetime he places monuments to himself.” Comrade says that Terkin can get a medal, which was awarded posthumously. Promises to show Terkin Stereotrub: this is only “for zagrobativa.” It sees the neighboring, bourgeois that light. Friends treat each other with tobacco. Terkin – this, and a friend – afterlife, smokeless.

Suddenly you can hear the sound of a siren. This means – PE: the living world has leaked to the next world. It should be placed in the “waiting room”, so that it becomes a “full-fledged ghoul.” A friend suspects Terkin and says that he must report to his superiors. Otherwise, he can be sent to the penal battalion. He persuades Turkin to give up the desire to live. And Terkin thinks, how to return to the world of the living.

The comrade explains: trains take people only there, but not back. Terkin realizes that the empty cars are going back. A friend does not want to run away with him: say, on the ground he could not get into the nomenclature. Terkin jumps on the bandwagon of the gunpowder, they do not notice it… But at some point, both the step and the composition disappeared. And the road is still far away. Darkness, Terkin goes to the touch. All the horrors of war pass before him. Here it is already on the very border.

… And then he hears through a dream: “A rare case in medicine.” He is in the hospital, above him is a doctor. Beyond the walls is war…

Science marvels at Terkin and concludes: “To live another hundred years!”

Read other brief retellings of the author’s works Alexander Tvardovsky


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Summary of “Tarkin in the Other World” by Tvardovsky