Platonov 'Never to return'

[Robert Chandler]

Dear all,

Platonov does something odd with time in this passage from the very end of
KOTLOVAN. Zhachev, the speaker, is in the barak, which is, I think, being
treated as somewhere separate from the kotlovan itself.

– Ты же видишь, что я урод империализма, а коммунизм –  это детское дело, за
то я и Настю любил... Пойду сейчас на прощанье  товарища Пашкина убью.

И Жачев уполз в город, более уже никогда не возвратившись на котлован.
I Zhachev upolz v gorod, bolee uzhe nikogda ne vozvrativshis’ na kotlovan.

There is clearly something paradoxical about this use of the past perfective
gerund. 

At present we have:
‘And Zhachev crawled away into the city, never to return to the foundation
pit.’
But that is utterly normal, which the Russian clearly isn’t.
Another possibility is ‘never having returned to the foundation pit’. But
that too, I think, oversimplifies the meaning?

The following versions are probably the closest, but they seem rather fussy.
The original seems much cleaner!
‘And Zhachev crawled away into the city, never again to have gone back to
 the foundation pit.’
‘And Zhachev crawled away into the city, not once to have gone back to the
foundation pit.’

The last seems to me the least bad, but can anyone suggest anything better?

Best wishes,

R.

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