Doctor Zhivago (13 page)

"
I know, Anna Ivanovna, I know you
'
ve seen the letter, I had it sent to you myself. I know you agree with Nikolai Nikolaievich. You both think I should not have refused the legacy. But wait a moment. It
'
s bad for you to talk. Just let me explain—though you know most of it already.

"
Well, then, in the first place, it suits the lawyers that there should be a Zhivago case because there is enough money in Father
'
s estate to cover the costs and to pay the lawyers
'
fees. Apart from that there is no legacy—nothing but debts and muddle—and a lot of dirty linen to be washed. If there really had been anything that could be turned into money, do you think I
'
d have made a present of it to the court and not used it myself? But that
'
s just the point—the whole case is trumped up. So rather than rake up all that dirt it was better to give up my right to a nonexistent property and let it go to all that bunch of false rivals and pretenders who were after it. One claimant, as you know, is a certain Madame Alice, who calls herself Zhivago and lives with her children in Paris—I
'
ve known about her for a long time. But now there are various new claims—I don
'
t know about you, but I was told of them quite recently.

"
It appears that while Mother was still alive, Father became infatuated with a certain dreamy, eccentric Princess Stolbunova-Enrici. This lady has a son by him, Evgraf; he is ten years old.

"
The Princess is a recluse. She lives—God knows on what—in her house just outside Omsk, and she never goes out. I
'
ve seen a photograph of the house. It
'
s very handsome, with five French windows and stucco medallions on the cornices. And recently I
'
ve been having the feeling that the house was staring at me nastily, out of all its five windows, right across all the thousands of miles between Siberia and Moscow, and that sooner or later it would give me the evil eye. So what do I want with all this—imaginary capital, phony claimants, malice, envy? And lawyers.
"

"
All the same, you shouldn
'
t have renounced it,
"
said Anna Ivanovna.
"
Do you know why I called you?
"
she asked again and immediately went on,
"
His name came back to me. You remember the forest guard I was telling you about yesterday? He was called Bacchus. Extraordinary, isn
'
t it! A real bogeyman, black as the devil, with a beard growing up to his eyebrows, and calls himself Bacchus! His face was all disfigured, a bear had mauled him but he had fought it off. And they
'
re all like that out there. Such names—striking, sonorous! Bacchus or Lupus or Faustus. Every now and then somebody like that would be announced—perhaps Auctus or Frolus—somebody with a name like a shot from your grandfather
'
s gun—and we would all immediately troop downstairs from the nursery to the kitchen. And there—you can
'
t think what it was like—you
'
d find a charcoal dealer with a live bear cub, or a prospector from the far end of the province with a specimen of the ore. And your grandfather would always give them a credit slip for the office. Some were given money, some buckwheat, others cartridges. The forest came right up to the windows. And the snow, the snow! Higher than the roofs!
"
Anna Ivanovna had a coughing fit.

"
That
'
s enough, it
'
s bad for you,
"
Tonia and Yura urged her.

"
Nonsense, I
'
m perfectly all right. That reminds me. Egorovna told me that you two are worrying about whether you should go to the party the day after tomorrow. Don
'
t let me hear anything so silly again, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves! And you call yourself a doctor, Yura! So that
'
s settled, you
'
ll go, and that
'
s that. But to return to Bacchus. He used to be a blacksmith when he was young. He got into a fight and was disembowelled. So he made himself a set of iron guts. Now, Yura, don
'
t be silly. Of course I know he couldn
'
t. You mustn
'
t take it literally! But that
'
s what the people out there said.
"

She was interrupted by another coughing fit, a much longer one than the last. It went on and on; she could not get her breath.

Yura and Tonia hurried across to her simultaneously. They stood shoulder to shoulder by her bedside. Their hands touched. Still coughing, Anna Ivanovna caught their hands in hers and kept them joined awhile. When she was able to speak she said:
"
If I die, stay together. You
'
re meant for each other. Get married. There now, you
'
re engaged,
"
she added and burst into tears.

As early as the spring of 1906—only a few months before she would begin her last year in the gymnasium—six months of Lara
'
s liaison with Komarovsky had driven her beyond the limits of her endurance. He cleverly turned her wretchedness to his advantage, and when it suited him subtly reminded her of her shame. These reminders brought her to just that state of confusion that a lecher requires in a woman. As a result, Lara felt herself sinking ever deeper into a nightmare of sensuality which filled her with horror whenever she awoke from it. Her nocturnal madness was as unaccountable as black magic. Here everything was topsy-turvy and flew in the face of logic; sharp pain manifested itself by peals of silvery laughter, resistance and refusal meant consent, and grateful kisses covered the hand of the tormentor.

It seemed that there would be no end to it, but that spring, as she sat through a history lesson at the end of term, thinking of the summer when even school and homework would no longer keep her from Komarovsky, she came to a sudden decision that altered the course of her life.

It was a hot morning and a storm was brewing. Through the open classroom windows came the distant droning of the town, as monotonous as a beehive, and the shrieks of children playing in the yard. The grassy smell of earth and young leaves made her head ache, like a Shrovetide surfeit of pancakes and vodka.

The lesson was about Napoleon
'
s Egyptian campaign. When the teacher came to the landing at Fr
é
jus, the sky blackened and was split by lightning and thunder, and clouds of dust and sand swept into the room together with the smell of rain. Two teacher
'
s pets rushed out obligingly to call the handyman to shut the windows, and as they opened the door, the wind sent all the blotting paper flying off the desks.

The windows were shut. A dirty city rain mingled with dust began to pour. Lara tore a page out of an exercise book, and wrote a note to her neighbor, Nadia Kologrivova:

"
Nadia, I
'
ve got to live away from Mother. Help me to find a tutoring job, as well paid as possible. You know lots of rich people.
"

Nadia wrote back:

"
We are looking for a governess for Lipa. Why not come to us—it would be wonderful! You know how fond my parents are of you.
"

Lara spent three years at the Kologrivovs
'
as behind stone walls. No one bothered her, and even her mother and brother, from whom she had become estranged, kept out of her way.

Lavrentii Mikhailovich Kologrivov was a big businessman, a brilliant and intelligent practitioner of the most modern methods. He hated the decaying order with a double hatred, as a man rich enough to outbid the treasury, and as a member of the lower classes who had risen to fabulous heights. In his house he sheltered revolutionaries sought by the police, and he paid the defense costs in political trials. It was a standing joke that he was so keen on subsidizing the revolution that he expropriated himself and organized strikes at his own plants. An excellent marksman and a passionate hunter, he went to the Serebriany woods and Losin Island in the winter of 1905, giving rifle training to workers
'
militia.

He was a remarkable man. His wife, Serafima Filippovna, was a worthy match. Lara admired and respected both of them, and the whole household loved her and treated her as a member of the family.

For more than three years Lara led a life free from worries. Then one day her brother Rodia went to see her. Swaying affectedly on his long legs and drawling self-importantly, he told her that the cadets of his class had collected money for a farewell gift to the head of the Academy and entrusted it to him, asking him to choose and buy the gift. This money he had gambled away two days ago down to the last kopek. Having told his story, he flopped full length in an armchair and burst into tears.

Lara sat frozen while Rodia went on through his sobs:

"
Last night I went to see Victor Ippolitovich. He refused to talk about it with me, but he said if you wished him to…He said that although you no longer loved any of us, your power over him was still so great…Lara darling…One word from you would be enough.… You realize what this means to me, what a disgrace it is…the honor of my uniform is at stake. Go to see him, that
'
s not too much to ask, speak to him…You can
'
t want me to pay for this with my life.
"

"
Your life…The honor of your uniform.
"
Lara echoed him indignantly, pacing the room.
"
I am not a uniform. I have no honor. You can do what you like with me. Have you any idea of what you are asking? Do you realize what he is proposing to you? Year after year I slave away, and now you come along and don
'
t care if everything goes smash. To hell with you. Go ahead, shoot yourself. What do I care? How much do you need?
"

"
Six hundred and ninety odd rubles. Say seven hundred in round figures,
"
he added after a slight pause.

"
Rodia! No, you
'
re out of your mind! Do you know what you are saying? You
'
ve gambled away seven hundred rubles! Rodia! Rodia! Do you realize how long it takes an ordinary person like me to earn that much by honest work?
"

She broke off and after a short silence said coldly, as if to a stranger,
"
All right. I
'
ll try. Come tomorrow. And bring your revolver—the one you were going to shoot yourself with. You
'
ll hand it over to me, for good. And with plenty of bullets, remember.
"

She got the money from Kologrivov.

Her work at the Kologrivovs
'
did not prevent Lara from graduating from the gymnasium, and taking university courses. She did well, and was to obtain her diploma the following year, 1912.

In the spring of 1911 her pupil Lipa graduated from the gymnasium. She was already engaged to a young engineer, Friesendank, who came of a good, well-to-do family. Lipa
'
s parents approved of her choice but were against her marrying so young, and urged her to wait. This led to scenes. Lipa, the spoiled and willful darling of the family, shouted at her parents and stamped her feet.

In this rich household where Lara was accepted as a member of the family, no one reminded her of her debt or indeed remembered it. She would have paid it back long before, if she had not had secret expenses.

Unknown to Pasha, she sent money to his father, who had been deported to Siberia, helped his querulous and ailing mother, and reduced his own expenses by paying part of his board and lodging directly to his landlady. It was she who had found him his room in a new building in Kamerger Street near the Art Theater.

Pasha, who was a little younger than Lara, loved her madly and obeyed her slightest wish. After graduating from the
Realgymnasium
,
he had, at her urging, taken up Greek and Latin. It was her dream that after they had passed their state examinations the following year they would marry and go out as gymnasium teachers to some provincial capital in the Urals.

In the summer of 1911 Lara went for the last time with the Kologrivovs to Duplyanka. She adored the place, and was even fonder of it than its owners. They knew this, and every summer on their arrival the same scene was enacted as though by an unwritten agreement. When the hot, grimy train left them at the station, Lara, overwhelmed by the infinite silence and heady fragrance of the countryside, and speechless with emotion, was allowed to walk alone from the railroad station to the estate. Meanwhile, the luggage was loaded onto a cart, and the family climbed into their barouche and listened to the Duplyanka coachman in his scarlet shirt and sleeveless coat telling them the latest local news.