Doctor Zhivago (73 page)

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Nobody asked him to go to the war, he went because he imagined himself a burden to us, so that we should be free of him. That was the beginning of all his madness. Out of a sort of misdirected, adolescent vanity he took offense at things at which one doesn
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t take offense. He sulked at the course of events. He quarrelled with history. To this day he is trying to get even with it. That
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s what makes him so insanely defiant. It
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s this stupid ambition that
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s driving him to his death. God, if I could only save him!
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How immensely pure and strong is your love for him! Go on, go on loving him. I
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m not jealous of him. I won
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t stand in your way.
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Summer came and went almost unnoticed. The doctor recovered. While planning to go to Moscow he took not one but three temporary jobs. The rapid devaluation of money made it difficult to make ends meet.

Every morning he got up at daybreak, left the house, and walked down Merchant Street, past the
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Giant
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movie house as far as the former printing shop of the Urals Cossack Army, now renamed the Red Compositor. At the corner of City Street the door of the town hall bore the notice
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Complaints.
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He crossed the square, turned into Buianovka Street, and coming to the hospital went in through the back door to the out-patient department of the Army Hospital, where he worked. This was his main job.

Most of his way from Lara
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s to the hospital lay in the shadow of spreading trees, past curious little frame houses with steep roofs, decorated doors, and carved and painted patterns around the windows. The house next to the hospital, standing in its own garden, had belonged to Goregliadova, a merchant
'
s wife. It was faced with glazed, diamond-cut tiles, like the ancient boyar houses in Moscow.

Three or four times a week Yurii Andreievich attended the board meetings of the Yuriatin Health Service in Miassky Street.

At the other end of town stood the former Institute of Gynecology, founded by Samdeviatov
'
s father in memory of his wife, who had died in childbirth, now renamed the Rosa Luxemburg Institute, where Yurii Andreievich lectured on general pathology and one or two optional subjects as part of the new, shortened course of medicine and surgery.

Coming home at night, hungry and tired, he found Lara busy at her domestic chores, cooking and washing. In this prosaic, weekday aspect of her being, dishevelled, with her sleeves rolled and her skirts tucked up, she almost frightened him by her regal attractiveness, more breath-taking than if he had found her on the point of going to a ball, taller in high-heeled shoes and in a long, low-cut gown with a sweeping, rustling skirt.

She cooked or washed and used the soapy water to scrub the floors, or more quietly, less flushed, pressed and mended linen for the three of them. Or when the cooking, washing, and cleaning had all been got out of the way, she gave lessons to Katenka; or with her nose in her textbooks worked at her own political re-education, in order to qualify as a teacher at the new, reorganized school.

The closer this woman and her daughter became to him, the less he dared to think of them as family and the stricter was the control imposed on his thoughts by his duty to his own family and the pain of his broken faith. There was nothing offensive to Lara or Katenka in this limitation. On the contrary, this attitude on his part contained a world of deference that excluded every trace of vulgarity.

But the division in him was a sorrow and a torment, and he became accustomed to it only as one gets used to an un-healed and frequently reopened wound.

Two or three months went by. One day in October Yurii Andreievich said to Larisa Feodorovna:

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You know, it looks as if I
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ll be forced to resign from my jobs. It
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s always the same thing—it happens again and again. At first everything is splendid.
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Come along. We welcome good, honest work, we welcome ideas, especially new ideas. What could please us better? Do your work, struggle, carry on.
'

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Then you find in practice that what they mean by ideas is nothing but words—claptrap in praise of the revolution and the regime. I
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m sick and tired of it. And it
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s not the kind of thing I
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m good at.

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I suppose they are right, from their point of view. Of course, I
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m not on their side. Only I find it hard to reconcile myself to the idea that they are radiant heroes and that I am a mean wretch who sides with tyranny and obscurantism. Have you ever heard of Nikolai Vedeniapin?
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Well, of course! Both before I met you and from what you
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ve told me yourself. Sima Tuntseva often speaks of him, she
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s a follower of his. To my shame, I haven
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t read his books. I don
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t like purely philosophical works. I think a little philosophy should be added to life and art by way of seasoning, but to make it one
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s speciality seems to me as strange as eating nothing but horseradish. But I
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m sorry, I
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ve distracted you with my nonsense.
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No, actually it
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s very much what I think myself. Well, about my uncle, I
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m supposed to be corrupted by his influence. One of my sins is a belief in intuition. And yet see how ridiculous: they all shout that I
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m a marvellous diagnostician, and as a matter of fact it
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s true that I don
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t often make mistakes in diagnosing a disease. Well, what is this immediate grasp of a situation as a whole supposed to be if not the intuition they find so detestable?

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Another thing is that I am obsessed by the problem of mimicry, the outward adaptation of an organism to the color of its environment. I think this biological phenomenon can cast light on the problem of the relationship between the inward and the outward world.

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I dared to touch on this problem in my lectures. Immediately there was a chorus:
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Idealism, mysticism, Goethe
'
s
Naturphilosophie
,
neo-Schellingism.
'

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It
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s time I got out. I
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ll stay on at the hospital until they throw me out, but I
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ll resign from the Institute and the Health Service. I don
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t want to worry you, but occasionally I have the feeling that they might arrest me any day.
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God forbid, Yurochka. It hasn
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t come to that yet, fortunately. But you are right. It won
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t do any harm to be more careful. I
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ve noticed that whenever this regime comes to power it goes through certain regular stages. In the first stage it
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s the triumph of reason, of the spirit of criticism, the fight against prejudice and so on.

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Then comes the second stage. The accent is all on the shady activities of the pretended sympathizers, the hangers-on. There is more and more suspicion—informers, intrigues, hatreds. And you are right—we are at the beginning of the second stage.

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We don
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t have to go far to find evidence of it. The local evolutionary court has had two new members transferred to it from Khodatskoie—two old political convicts from among the workers, Tiverzin and Antipov.

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They both know me perfectly well—in fact, one of them is my father-in-law. And yet it
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s only since their arrival, quite recently, that I
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ve begun really to tremble for Katenka
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s and my life. They are capable of anything. Antipov doesn
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t like me. It would be quite like them to destroy me and even Pasha one of these days in the name of higher revolutionary justice.
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The sequel to this conversation took place very soon. A search had been carried out by night at the widow Goregliadova
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s, at 48 Buianovka Street, next door to the hospital. A cache of arms had been found and a counterrevolutionary organization uncovered. Many people were arrested and the wave of searches and arrests continued. It was whispered that some of the suspects had escaped across the river.
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Though what good will it do them?
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people said.
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There are rivers and rivers. Now the Amur, for instance, at Blagoveshchensk—you jump in and swim across and you are in China! That really is a river. That
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s quite a different matter.
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The air is full of threats,
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said Lara.
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Our time of safety is over. They are sure to arrest us, you and me. And then what will become of Katenka? I am a mother, I can
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t let this misfortune happen, I must think of something. I must have a plan. It
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s driving me out of my mind.
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Let
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s try to think. Though what is there that we can do? Is it in our power to avert this blow? Isn
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t it a matter of fate?
"

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We certainly can
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t escape, there
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s nowhere to go. But we could withdraw into the shadow, into the background. Go to Varykino, for instance. I keep thinking of the house there. It
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s very lonely and neglected, but we would be less in the way than here, we wouldn
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t attract so much attention. Winter is coming on. I wouldn
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t at all mind spending it there. By the time they got around to us we
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d have gained a year of life; that
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s always something. Samdeviatov would be a link between us and the town. Perhaps he
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d help us to go into hiding. What do you think? It
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s true, there isn
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t a soul, it
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s empty and desolate, at least it was when I was there in March. And they say there are wolves. It
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s rather frightening. But then people, anyway people like Tiverzin and Antipov, are more frightening than wolves.
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I don
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t know what to say. Haven
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t you been urging me to go to Moscow all this time, telling me not to put it off? That
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s easier now. I made inquiries at the station. Apparently they
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ve stopped worrying about black-marketeers. Not everyone whose papers aren
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t in order gets taken off the train. They shoot less, they
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ve got tired.

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It worries me that I
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ve had no reply to my letters to Moscow. I ought to go there and see what
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s happening to them—you keep telling me so yourself. But then how am I to take what you say about Varykino? You surely wouldn
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t go to such an out-of-the-way place by yourself?
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No, of course, without you it would be impossible.
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And yet you tell me to go to Moscow?
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Yes, you should go.
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Listen. I
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ll tell you what, I
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ve got a wonderful idea—let
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s go to Moscow, all three of us.
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To Moscow? You
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re mad! What should I do in Moscow? No, I have to stay, I must be near here. It
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s here that Pasha
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s fate will be decided. I must wait here and be within reach if he needs me.
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Well then, let
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s think about Katenka.
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I was talking about her with Sima—Sima Tuntseva, she comes to see me sometimes.
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