Sergey is a smoker, I’m not…
Even though I tend to be a very tolerant person, respectful of others’ rights, I have a certain difficulty in standing cigarette, cigar, pipe and whatever else smoke.
I have problems when I have to have a cup of coffee in a café where people smoke, my eyes get red and I feel generally uncomfortable.
Sergey is a smoker, his Russian cigarettes smell so badly, that I might compare them with a biological weapon.
But Sergey is also one of the kindest and most thoughtful people I have ever met.
Sergey never smokes when he’s with me, unless we are outdoors in full air.
Sergey can do things of incredible kindness. I remember once we had necessarily to take temporary shelter from a rain shower into a Parisian café where everybody smoked wildly and the air was practically grey and blue and I was getting grey and blue too.
Nothing could change for one more cigarette, so I told Sergey that he could smoke, if he felt like.
“Never indoors in your company!” He protested nearly scandalized
“But, Sergey, everybody is smoking here….”
“I cannot prevent them from creating discomfort to you, but I won’t add any further discomfort myself….”
This is Sergey…
When we are in the street or at an outdoor café terrace, then he lights his cigarette, but before that, he analyses maniacally the direction of the wind and when we walk, since he’s much taller than me, he manage carefully to keep his cigarette over my head level and, funny and tender at once, after every puff, he carefully waves to dispel the smoke…
“Sergey, don’t be ridiculous – I shout at him – I’m not disturbed AT ALL by your smoke, when we are outdoor”
But he cannot help taking all useless precautions to not disturb me.
This is Sergey.
In a way, even though I think it would be better for his health if he didn’t smoke ( and also for the his jumps…), I could not imagine Sergey without his boxes of Russian cigarette and I have a kind of loving complicity for that feature of his.
If Sergey didn’t smoke, he would be perfect and perfection is so boring after a short while.
I like him the way he is, with his little manias, his cigarette, his overwhelming habit to ask constant questions and to jump from subject to subject.
Sergey is not perfect, luckily
He’s my best friend and I would never change anything in his personality.