JM: "his (Khrenov's) hearing is acute and he fore-hears his daughter's return from the street and his neighbour's outing"
Laurence Hochard: "in addition to being a sick old man haunted by terrible memories, I wonder whether Khrenov isn't some kind of sorcerer who can "see" in a trance what is taking place now (the killings...) in the country he has left."

 

I wonder too if Natasha has inherited some form of her father's gift. Is her characterization of her visions as "fantasy" accurate, or is it her way of explaining the troubling visions that she has? At the end of the story, it seems that Natasha's vision of her father outside the house is not a result of active fantasizing, but rather something she is actually seeing. Her version of her father's gift may be a faulty variant, or perhaps it is an immature version (because of her youth) that will one day be as accurate as her father's.

 

-Will Dane