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The Image of Turgis

One of the main characters of the book is Turgis - "the clerk, who was in his early twenties, a thinnish, awkward young man, with a rather long neck, poor shoulders, and large, clumsy hands and feet" [p.28]. His appearance lacked colour and bloom that "suggested that all the food he ate was wrong, all the rooms he sat in, beds he slept in, and clothes he wore, were wrong" [p. 28], and that he lived in a world without sun and sweet air. His babyish mouth was usually open; all his clothes were baggy and scrappy. "Any sensible woman could have compelled him to improve his appearance almost beyond recognition within a week, and it was quite clear that no sensible woman took any interest in him" [p. 29]. You would not have noticed him in a crowd, but if your attention had been called to him, you would have given him one glance and decided that that was enough.

Turgis was not lazy and while he was in the office he preferred doing something to doing nothing, but he never regarded himself as one of the firm [p. 128].

J.B. Priestley points out that "Turgis was by temperament a lover" [p. 128]. The real world was illuminated for him by the bright glances of girls. Actually he was ugly, didn't stand out of the crowd, but in spite of his shabbiness and unprepossessing looks, the shiny baggy suit, the open mouth, slight spottiness, he imagined himself different. There were two figures of him- this lonely lad seeking sympathy in that crowd in which he was lost and the figure of furtive (скрытый) lusts. "He knew that he had little to offer, on the surface was nothing to look at, nobody in particular, but he felt that inside he was different" [p. 129]. He knew that he was wonderful, and sooner or later a girl, a beautiful and passionate girl, caring nothing for the outside show, would recognize this difference, this wonder, which in within Turgis. She would cry then "Oh, it's you!", and the love would immediately follow [p. 128-129].What he really wanted was Love, Romance, a Wonderful Girl of his of His Own[p.251].

He rented a room that was so small that seemed uncomfortable crowded with furniture and fittings and there was no place to feed.

Turgis liked to go to the pictures that give him a feeling that he the lover entered his dream kingdom. Usually it was on Sunday when he washed; brushed, consciously shaved as his Saturday night programme offered him a chance of pick-up. He could spin (крутиться) over the whole evening on the edge of adventure all the time surrounded by many a girls. He went to teashops, picture theatres alone, for he had no friends, only a few acquaintances, so in every event he preferred to hunt in solitude longing for the miracle to happen. He was sitting in the darkness watching some film and pretty girls were welcome to occupy the neighboring seats so as to flirt and perhaps to continue the evening somewhere else. But they wouldn't for so ugly, shy, awkward he was with his mouth wide open and his shoes rotten (дряхлый). As a matter of fact everything he ever bought turned out to be rotten.

His father took no interest in him, hadn't done for years, and he had no near relations. They didn't care much about him in the office.