Doctor Zhivago (65 page)

"
What refugees are you talking about—ours, from the camp, or some other kind?
"

"
The others, of course. The new ones, the strangers.
"

"
But they had orders to go to Dvory. How have they got here?
"

"
Dvory! That
'
s a good one. Your Dvory
'
s burned out, mill and all, nothing left of it but cinders. That
'
s what they saw when they came by—not a living thing. Half of them went crazy, yelled and howled and turned straight back to the Whites, and the other half turned this way.
"

"
But how do they get through the taiga, through the swamps?
"

"
What are saws and axes for? Some of our men, who were sent to guard them, helped them a bit. Twenty miles of road they
'
ve cut, they say. Bridges and all, the brutes! Talk about women! They
'
ve done things that would take us a month of Sundays!
"

"
That
'
s a fine thing, twenty miles of road! And what are you looking so pleased about, you jackass? That
'
s just what the Whites want, a highway into the taiga! Now all they have to do is to roll in their artillery!
"

"
Send a force to guard the road.
"

"
I can do my own thinking, thank you.
"

The days were getting shorter; it was dark by five. Toward dusk Yurii Andreievich crossed the highway at the very place where Liberius had stood talking to Svirid a few days earlier. He was on his way back to the camp. Near the clearing where the mound and the rowan tree marked the camp boundary, he heard the bold, challenging voice of Kubarikha, his
"
rival
"
as he jokingly called the cattle healer. She was singing a gay jingle and her voice had a raucous, boisterous screech in it. Judging by the peals of approving laughter that kept interrupting her, there was a crowd of men and women listening. Then came silence. The people must have dispersed.

Thinking herself alone, Kubarikha sang a different song, softly, as if to herself. Yurii Andreievich, who was cautiously making his way in the dusk along the footpath that skirted the swamp in front of the rowan tree, stopped in his tracks. Kubarikha was singing an old Russian song, but he did not know it. Or she was improvising it?

An old Russian folk song is like water held back by a dam. It looks as if it were still and were no longer flowing, but in its depths it is ceaselessly rushing through the sluice gates and the stillness of its surface is deceptive. By every possible means, by repetitions and similes, the song slows down the gradual unfolding of its theme. Then at some point it suddenly reveals itself and astounds us. That is how the song
'
s sorrowing spirit comes to expression. The song is an insane attempt to stop time by means of its words.

Kubarikha half sang and half recited:

"
As a hare was running about the wide world,

About the wide world,
"
over the white snow,

He ran, the lop-eared hare, past a rowan tree,

Past a rowan tree, and complained to it:

Have I not, he said, a timorous heart,

A timorous heart, so faint and weak?

I am frightened, he said, of the wild beast
'
s tracks,

Wild beast
'
s tracks, the wolf
'
s hungry belly.

Pity me, O rowan bush! O fair rowan tree!

Do not give thy beauty to the wicked enemy,

The wicked enemy, the wicked raven.

Scatter thy red berries to the wind,

To the wind, over the wide world, over the white snow.

Fling them, roll them to my native town,

To the far end of the street, the last house,

The last house in the street, the last window, the room

Where she has shut herself in,

My beloved, my longed-for love.

Whisper to my grieving love, my bride,

A warm, an ardent word.

I, a soldier, languish in captivity,

Homesick, I am, poor soldier, kept in foreign parts.

I
'
ll break from durance bitter,

I
'
ll go to my red berry, to my lovely bride.
"

Agafia Fotievna, Pamphil
'
s wife, had brought her sick cow to Kubarikha. The cow had been separated from the herd and tethered to a tree by a rope tied to her horns. Her mistress sat on a tree stump by the cow
'
s forelegs and Kubarikha, on a milking stool, by her hind legs.

The rest of the countless herd was crammed into a glade, hemmed in all around by the dark forest of triangular firs, as tall as hills and rising from their spreading lower branches as if they were squatting on fat bottoms on the ground.

The cows were mostly black with white spots and belonged to some Swiss breed popular in Siberia. They were exhausted, no less exhausted than their owners by privations, endless wandering, and intolerable crowding. Rubbing flank to flank and maddened by the lack of space, they forgot their sex and reared and climbed on top of one another, pulling up their heavy udders with an effort and roaring like bulls. The heifers who were covered by them broke away from underneath and rushed off into the forest, tails in the air and trampling shrubs and branches. Their herdsmen—old men and children—ran shrieking after them.

And as if they too were hemmed in by the tight circle of treetops in the winter sky above the glade, the black and white clouds reared and piled and toppled as chaotically as the cows.

The knot of curious onlookers who stood at a distance annoyed the witch, and she measured them from top to toe with a hostile look. But, vain as an artist, she felt that it was beneath her dignity to admit that they embarrassed her. She pretended not to notice them. The doctor watched her from the back of the crowd, where she could not see him.

This was the first time he took a good look at her. She wore her usual English cap and pea-green overcoat with its crumpled collar. But the haughty and passionate expression that gave a youthful fire and darkness to this aging woman
'
s eyes showed plainly that she did not care in the least what she was wearing or not wearing.

What astonished Yurii Andreievich was the change in Pamphil
'
s wife. He could scarcely recognize her. In the last few days she had aged terribly. Her goggling eyes were almost ready to pop out of their sockets and her neck was as thin and long as a cart shaft. Such was the effect upon her of her secret fears.

"
She doesn
'
t give any milk, my dear,
"
she was saying.
"
I thought she might be in calf, but then she would have had milk by now and she still hasn
'
t any.
"

"
Why should she be in calf? You can see the scab of anthrax on her udder. I
'
ll give you some herb ointment to rub it with. And of course I
'
ll cast a spell on her.
"

"
My other trouble is my husband.
"

"
I
'
ll charm him back, so he won
'
t stray. That
'
s easy. He
'
ll stick to you so you won
'
t be able to get rid of him. What
'
s your third trouble?
"

"
It isn
'
t that he strays. That would be nothing. The misfortune is that he clings to me and the children with all his might, and that breaks his heart. I know what he thinks. He thinks they
'
ll separate the camps, that they will send us one way and him another. And that we
'
ll fall into the hands of Bassalygo
'
s men and he won
'
t be there and we won
'
t have anyone to stand up for us. And that they
'
ll torture us, they
'
ll rejoice in our torments. I know his thoughts. I
'
m afraid he
'
ll do away with himself.
"

"
I
'
ll think about it. I
'
ll find a way to end your grief. What
'
s your third trouble?
"

"
I haven
'
t a third one. That
'
s all there is—my cow and my husband.
"

"
Well, you are poor in sorrows, my dear. See how merciful God has been to you! Such as you are hard to find. Only two sorrows in your poor heart, and one of them a fond husband! Well, let
'
s begin. What will you give me for the cow?
"

"
What will you take?
"

"
I
'
ll have a loaf of bread and your husband.
"

The onlookers burst out laughing.

"
Are you joking?
"

"
Too much, is it? All right, I
'
ll do without the loaf. We
'
ll settle for your husband.
"

The laughter grew louder.

"
What
'
s the name? Not your husband
'
s, your cow
'
s.
"

"
Beauty.
"

"
Half the herd is called that. All right. We
'
ll start with God
'
s blessing.
"

She recited the spell for the cow. At first she was indeed concerned with the cow, but after a while she got carried away and gave Agafia a whole set of instructions on witchcraft. Yurii Andreievich listened spellbound, just as, when he first arrived in Siberia from European Russia, he had listened to the florid chatter of the driver, Bacchus.

The woman was saying:

"
Aunt Margesta, come and be our guest. Come on Wednesday, take away the pest, take away the spell, take away the scab. Ringworm, leave the heifer
'
s udder. Stand still, Beauty, do your duty, don
'
t upset the pail. Stand still as a hill, let milk run and rill. Terror, terror, show your mettle, take the scab, throw them in the nettle. Strong as a lord is the sorcerer
'
s word.

"
You see, Agafia, you have to know everything—bidding and forbidding, the word for escaping and the word for safekeeping. Now you, for example, you look over there and you say to yourself:
'
There
'
s a forest.
'
But what there is over there is the forces of evil fighting the angelic host—they
'
re at war like your men with Bassalygo
'
s.

"
Or take another example, look over there where I
'
m pointing. You
'
re looking the wrong way, my dear, use your eyes, not the back of your head, look where my finger is pointing. That
'
s right! Now, what do you think that is? You think it
'
s two twigs that the wind has tangled together? Or a bird building its nest? Well, it isn
'
t either. That thing is a real devil
'
s work, a garland the water spirit started weaving for her daughter. She heard people coming by, that frightened her, so she left it half done, but she
'
ll finish it one of these nights, you will see.

"
Or again, take your red banner. You think it
'
s a flag, isn
'
t that what you think? Well, it isn
'
t a flag. It
'
s the purple kerchief of the death woman, she uses it for luring. And why for luring? She waves it and she nods and winks and lures young men to come and be killed, then she send famine and plague. That
'
s what it is. And you went and believed her. You thought it was a flag. You thought it was:
'
Come to me, all ye poor and proletarians of the world.
'