Doctor Zhivago (41 page)

The house teased his curiosity but kept its sorrowful silence. Questions were not in order in these days, and no one ever answered them. But the sun sparkled on the pure whiteness with a glare that was almost blinding. How cleanly his shovel cut into its smooth surface! How dry, how iridescent, like diamonds, was each shovelful. He was reminded of the days when, as a child in their yard at home, dressed in a braided hood and a black sheepskin fastened with hooks and eyes sewn in the curly fleece, he cut the dazzling snow into cubes and pyramids and cream puffs and fortresses and the cities of cave dwellers. Life had had zest in those far-off days, everything was a feast for the eyes and the stomach!

But these three days in the air, too, gave the impression of a feast. And no wonder! At night the workers received loaves of hot fresh bread, which was brought no one knew from where or by whose orders. The bread had a tasty crisp crust, shiny on top, cracked at the side, and with bits of charcoal baked into it underneath.

They became fond of the ruined station, as one becomes attached to a shelter used for a few days on a climbing trip in a snow-bound mountain. Its shape, its site, the details of its damage, remained imprinted in their memory.

They returned to it every evening just as the sun, as if out of loyalty to the past, set at its usual place behind an old birch tree outside the telegrapher
'
s window.

At that spot the wall had caved into the room, but the corner facing the window had remained intact, with its coffee-colored wallpaper, the tiled stove with the round vent and the copper lid closed with a chain, and the inventory of the office furniture hanging on the wall in a black frame. As before the collapse, the setting sun brushed the tiles, brought out the warm brown glow on the wallpaper, and hung the shadow of the birch on the wall as if it were a woman
'
s scarf.

At the rear of the building, on the nailed door to the ruins of the waiting room, there was still an announcement, put up in the first days of the February revolution, or shortly before it, which said:

"
Sick passengers are temporarily requested not to bother about medicines and bandages. For obvious reasons, am sealing door, of which am giving notice hereby.

"
Medical Assistant

"
Ust-Nemdinsk District
"

When finally the last piles of snow between the cleared tracks were levelled, the entire line of rails came into view, flying into the distance like an arrow. On each side stretched white mountains of shovelled snow, bordered all along by the black walls of the forest.

As far as the eye could reach, groups of people with shovels in hand stood at intervals along the line. Seeing themselves for the first time in full force, they were astonished at their numbers.

It was learned that the train would leave shortly, despite the lateness of the hour and the approaching night. Yurii Andreievich and Antonina Alexandrovna went out to enjoy the sight of the cleared line once again. No one else was on the tracks. The doctor and his wife stood a while, gazing into the distance, exchanged a few words, and turned back to their car.

On the way they heard the angry voices of two quarrelling women. They recognized them at once as those of Ogryzkova and Tiagunova, who were walking in the same direction as they were, from the head to the end of the train, but on the station side, while the doctor and his wife walked on the wooded side. The endless line of cars screened the two couples from each other. The women seemed hardly ever to be abreast of the doctor and Antonina Alexandrovna, but always to be ahead of them or falling behind.

They seemed to be in a state of great agitation, and it was as though their strength failed them. Judging from the way their voices rose to a shriek or died down to a whisper, either their legs refused to carry them or else they kept stumbling and falling into snowdrifts. Tiagunova seemed to be chasing Ogryzkova, perhaps belaboring her with her fists whenever she caught up with her. She showered her rival with choice abuse, and her genteel, melodious voice made the insults sound infinitely more obscene than the coarse and unmusical swearing of men.

"
You slut, you drag-tailed whore,
"
Tiagunova screamed.
"
I can
'
t move an inch without seeing you flouncing up and down, and ogling. Isn
'
t my old fool enough for you without your having to make eyes at a babe in arms, to seduce a minor?
"

"
So Vasia too is your legal husband?
"

"
I
'
ll give you legal husband, you filthy plague! One more word from you, and I
'
ll kill you, don
'
t tempt me.
"

"
Now, now, keep your hands to yourself. What do you want of me?
"

"
I want to see you dead, you lecherous louse, you cat in heat, you shameless bitch!
"

"
That
'
s what I am, is it? Naturally, I
'
m nothing but a cat, a bitch, compared with such a grand lady as you! Born in the gutter, married in a ditch, a rat in your belly, and a hedgehog for a brat!…Help! Help! She
'
ll kill me! Help a poor orphan, help a poor defenseless girl!
"

"
Come along,
"
Antonina Alexandrovna urged her husband.
"
I can
'
t bear to listen to it, it
'
s too disgusting. It will end badly.
"

Suddenly everything changed—the weather and the landscape. The plains ended, and the track wound up hills through mountain country. The north wind that had been blowing all the time dropped, and a warm breath came from the south, as from an oven.

Here the woods grew on escarpments projecting from the mountain slopes, and when the track crossed them, the train had to climb sharply uphill until it reached the middle of the wood, and then go steeply down again.

The train creaked and puffed on its way into the wood, hardly able to drag itself along, as if it were an aged forest guard walking in front and leading the passengers, who turned their heads from side to side and observed whatever was to be seen.

But there was nothing yet to see. The woods were still deep in their winter sleep and peace. Only here and there, a branch would rustle and shake itself free of the remaining snow, as though throwing off a choker.

Yurii Andreievich was overcome with drowsiness. All these days he lay in his bunk and slept and woke and thought and listened. But there was nothing yet to hear.

While Yurii Andreievich slept his fill, the spring was heating and melting the masses of snow that had fallen all over Russia, first in Moscow on the day they had left and since then all along the way—all that snow they had spent three days clearing off the line at Ust-Nemdinsk, all that thick, deep layer of snow that had settled over the immense distances.

At first the snow thawed quietly and secretly from within. But by the time half the gigantic labor was done it could not be hidden any longer and the miracle became visible. Waters came rushing out from below with a roar. The forest stirred in its impenetrable depth, and everything in it awoke.

There was plenty of room for the water to play. It flung itself down the rocks, filled every pool to overflowing, and spread. It roared and smoked and steamed in the forest. It streaked through the woods, bogging down in the snow that tried to hinder its movement, it ran hissing on level ground or hurtled down and scattered into a fine spray. The earth was saturated. Ancient pine trees perched on dizzy heights drank the moisture almost from the clouds, and it foamed and dried a rusty white at their roots like beer foam on a mustache.

The sky, drunk with spring and giddy with its fumes, thickened with clouds. Low clouds, drooping at the edges like felt, sailed over the woods and rain leapt from them, warm, smelling of soil and sweat, and washing the last of the black armor-plating of ice from the earth.

Yurii Andreievich woke up, stretched, raised himself on one elbow, and looked and began to listen.

As they approached the mining region, there were more and more settlements, the runs were shorter, the stations more frequent. More people got on and off at the small stations. Instead of settling down and going to sleep, those who had only a short way to go found seats anywhere—near the door or in the middle of the car—and sat up arguing in low voices about local matters intelligible only to themselves.

From the hints dropped by such local passengers in the past three days Yurii Andreievich gathered that in the north the Whites were getting the upper hand and had seized or were about to occupy Yuriatin. Moreover, unless he had misheard the name or his old friend had a namesake, the White forces were led by Galiullin, whom he had last seen in Meliuzeievo.

Not to worry his family, he said nothing to them about these unconfirmed rumors.

Yurii Andreievich woke up shortly after midnight brimming with a vague feeling of happiness, which was, however, strong enough to have aroused him. The train was standing still. The station bathed in the glassy dusk of a white night. Something subtle and powerful in this luminous darkness suggested a vast and open landscape and that the station was situated high up.

People walked along the platform past the carriage speaking softly and treading as silently as shadows. Zhivago was touched by this evidence of a prewar consideration for the sleeping passengers.

The doctor was mistaken. There was the same din of shouting voices and stamping boots on this platform as on any other. But there was a waterfall near by. It widened the expanse of the white night by a breath of freshness and freedom; that was what had filled him with happiness in his sleep. Its incessant noise dominated all other sounds and gave an illusion of stillness.

Knowing nothing of its existence but soothed and braced by it, the doctor fell fast asleep.

Two men were talking underneath his bunk.

"
Well, have they had their tails twisted yet? Are they keeping quiet now?
"

"
The shopkeepers, you mean?
"

"
That
'
s right. The grain merchants.
"

"
Feed out of your hand! As soon as a few were bumped off by way of example, all the others piped down. A fine has been imposed on the district.
"

"
How much?
"

"
Forty thousand.
"

"
You
'
re lying!
"

"
Why should I lie?
"

"
Forty thousand—that isn
'
t even chicken feed!
"

"
Not forty thousand rubles, of course—forty thousand bushels.
"

"
That was smart!
"

"
Forty thousand of the finest ground.
"

"
Well, that
'
s not such a miracle, after all. It
'
s rich soil. Right in the thick of the corn belt. From here on, along the Rynva till you get to Yuriatin, it
'
s village to village, harbor to harbor, one wholesale after another.
"

"
Don
'
t shout. You
'
ll wake people up.
"

"
All right.
"
He yawned.

"
How about going to sleep? Looks as if we
'
re moving.
"

The train, however, stayed where it was. But the rumble of another train came from behind, bursting into a deafening thunder and obliterating the sound of the waterfall as it approached, and an old-fashioned express rushed past at full speed on the parallel track, roared, hooted, winked its tail lights, and vanished into the distance ahead.

The conversation was resumed.

"
Well, we
'
re in for it. Now we
'
ll never go.
"

"
Yes. It won
'
t be soon.
"

"
It
'
s an armored express—must be Strelnikov.
"

"
Must be him.
"

"
He
'
s a wild beast when it comes to counter-revolutionaries.
"