Doctor Zhivago (76 page)

"
I
'
ll have to interrupt you. Kindly don
'
t interfere in what doesn
'
t concern you. We haven
'
t asked for your sympathy. You forget yourself.
"

"
Don
'
t be so touchy, young man. Perhaps after all you do take after your father. He used to lose his temper just like that. Well, my children, with your permission I offer you my best wishes. Unfortunately, however, you really are children—not just in a manner of speaking—completely ignorant and thoughtless children. In two days here I
'
ve learned more about you than you know or suspect about yourselves. Without knowing it, you are walking on the brink of a precipice. Unless you do something about it, the days of your freedom and perhaps even of your lives are numbered.

"
There exists a certain Communist style, Yurii Andreievich. Few people measure up to it. But no one flouts that way of life and thought as openly as you do. Why you have to flirt with danger, I can
'
t imagine. You are a living mockery of that whole world, a walking insult to it. If at least your past were your own secret—but there are people from Moscow who know you inside out. Neither of you are at all to the liking of the local priests of Themis. Comrades Antipov and Tiverzin are busy sharpening their claws, ready to pounce on Larisa Feodorovna and you.

"
However, you are a man, Yurii Andreievich, you are your own master, and you have a perfect right to gamble with your life if you feel like it. But Larisa Feodorovna is not a free agent. She is a mother, she has a child
'
s life in her hands, and she can
'
t go about with her head in the clouds.

"
I wasted all my morning trying to get her to take the situation seriously. She wouldn
'
t listen to me. Will you use your influence? She has no right to play with her daughter
'
s safety. She must not disregard my arguments.
"

"
I
'
ve never in my life forced my views on anyone. Certainly not on those who are close to me. Larisa Feodorovna is free to listen to you or not as she thinks fit. It
'
s her business. Apart from that, I have no idea what you are talking about. I haven
'
t heard what you call your arguments.
"

"
Really, you remind me more and more of your father—just as intractable. Well, I
'
ll tell you. But it
'
s a fairly complicated business, so you
'
ll have to be patient with me and not interrupt.

"
Big changes are being planned at the top. Yes, really, I have it from a most reliable source and you can take it that it
'
s true. What they have in mind is to take a more democratic line, make a concession to legality, and this will come about quite soon.

"
But just because of it, the punitive organs that are to be abolished will be in all the greater hurry to settle their local accounts before the end, and they will be all the more savage. You are marked for destruction, Yurii Andreievich. Your name is on the list—I am telling you this in all seriousness, I
'
ve seen it myself. You must think of saving yourself before it is too late.

"
But all this is by way of introduction. I am coming to the point.

"
Those political forces that are still faithful to the Provisional Government and the disbanded Constituent Assembly are concentrating in the Maritime Province on the Pacific coast. Deputies to the Duma, the more prominent members of the old Zemstvos, and other public figures, businessmen and industrialists, are getting together. The remnants of the armies that fought against the Reds are being concentrated there.

"
They intend to form a Far Eastern republic, and the Soviet Government winks at it, because at the moment it would suit it to have a buffer between Red Siberia and the outside world. The republic is to have a coalition government. More than half the seats, at the insistence of Moscow, will go to Communists. When it suits them, they will stage a
coup d
'
é
tat
and bring the republic to heel. The plan is quite transparent, but it gives us a certain breathing space; and we must make the most of it.

"
At one time before the revolution I used to look after the affairs of the Merkulovs, the Arkharov Brothers, and several other banks and trading firms in Vladivostok. They know me there, and an emissary came to see me on behalf of the shadow cabinet, to offer me the post of Minister of Justice in the future government. This was done secretly, but with unofficial Soviet approval. I accepted and I am on my way there now. All I
'
ve just told you is happening with the tacit consent of the Soviet Government, but not so openly that it would be wise to talk much about it.

"
I can take you and Larisa Feodorovna with me. From there, you can easily get a boat and join your family overseas. You know, of course, that they have been deported. It made a lot of noise; the whole of Moscow is still talking about it.

"
I have promised Larisa Feodorovna to save Strelnikov. As a member of an independent government recognized by Moscow, I can look for him in eastern Siberia and help him to cross over into our autonomous region. If he does not succeed in escaping, I
'
ll suggest that he should be exchanged for someone who is in Allied custody and is valuable to the Moscow Government.
"

Larisa Feodorovna had followed Komarovsky
'
s explanation with difficulty, but when he came to the arrangements for the safety of the doctor and of Strelnikov, she pricked up her ears. Blushing a little, she said:

"
You see, Yurochka, how important all this is for you and for Pasha?
"

"
You are too trusting, my dear. You can
'
t take a half-formed plan for an accomplished fact. I don
'
t say Victor Ippolitovich is deliberately misleading us, but so far he has only told us about castles in the air. For my part,
"
he said, turning to Komarovsky,
"
thank you for the interest you take in my affairs, but you surely don
'
t imagine that I am going to let you run them? As for Strelnikov, Lara will have to think it over.
"

"
All it comes down to,
"
said Lara,
"
is whether we go with him or not. You know perfectly well I wouldn
'
t go without you.
"

Komarovsky sipped the diluted alcohol that Yurii Andreievich had brought from the hospital, ate boiled potatoes, and became more and more tipsy.

It was getting late. Every time the wick was trimmed it spluttered and burned brightly, lighting up the room, then the flame died down and the shadows returned. The hosts were sleepy, they wanted to talk things over by themselves and go to bed, but Komarovsky stayed on. His presence was oppressive, as was the sight of the heavy oak sideboard and the December darkness outside the windows.

He was not looking at them but over their heads, his glazed eyes staring at some distant point and his drowsy, slurred voice grinding on and on, tedious and interminable. His latest hobbyhorse was the Far East. He was explaining the political importance of Mongolia. Yurii Andreievich and Larisa Feodorovna, who were not interested in the subject, had missed the point at which he had got onto it, and this made his explanations even more boring. He was saying:

"
Siberia—truly a New America, as it is often called—has immense possibilities. It is the cradle of Russia
'
s future greatness, the gauge of our progress toward democracy and political and economic health. Still more pregnant with future possibilities is our great Far Eastern neighbor—Outer Mongolia. What do you know about it? You yawn and blink shamelessly, and yet Mongolia has nearly a million square miles and untold mineral wealth; it is a virgin land that tempts the greed of China, of Japan, and of the United States. They are all ready to snatch at it to the detriment of our Russian interests—interests that have been recognized by all our rivals, whenever there has been a division of that remote quarter of the globe into spheres of influence.

"
China exploits the feudal-theocratic backwardness of Mongolia through her influence over the lamas and other religious dignitaries. Japan backs the local princes—the
hoshuns
.
Red Russia has found an ally in the Revolutionary Association of Insurgent Mongolian Herdsmen. I myself would like to see a really prosperous Mongolia with a freely elected government. What should interest you personally is that once you are across the Mongolian frontier, the world is at your feet—you are as free as a bird.
"

His wordy dissertation got on Larisa Feodorovna
'
s nerves. Finally, bored to tears and utterly tired, she held out her hand to him and said abruptly and with undisguised hostility:

"
It
'
s late and it
'
s time for you to go. I am sleepy.
"

"
I hope you aren
'
t going to be so inhospitable as to throw me out at this hour of the night! I don
'
t believe I can find my way—I don
'
t know the town and it
'
s pitch dark.
"

"
You should have thought of that earlier, instead of sitting on and on. No one asked you to stay so late.
"

"
Why are you so sharp with me? You didn
'
t even ask me if I have anywhere to stay.
"

"
It doesn
'
t interest me in the slightest. You are perfectly well able to look after yourself. If you are angling for an invitation to spend the night, I certainly won
'
t put you in the room where we and Katenka sleep, and the other rooms are full of rats.
"

"
I don
'
t mind them.
"

"
Well, have it your way.
"

"
What is wrong, darling? You don
'
t sleep for nights on end, you don
'
t touch your food, you go about all day looking like a maniac. You are always brooding about something. What is bothering you? You mustn
'
t let your worries get the better of you.
"

"
Izot, the watchman from your hospital, has been around again—he is having an affair with the laundress downstairs. So he dropped in and gave me a cheerful piece of news!
'
It
'
s terribly secret,
'
he said.
'
It
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s jail for your friend. Any day now. And then it
'
ll be your turn, poor thing.
'
'
How do you know?
'
I asked him.
'
Oh, it
'
s quite certain, I heard it from a friend who works at the Comics.
'
Of course, what he means by that is the Executive Committee. That
'
s what he calls the Comics.
"
They both burst out laughing.

"
He is quite right,
"
said Yurii Andreievich.
"
The danger has caught up with us and it
'
s time we vanished. The problem is where. There is no question of going to Moscow—we couldn
'
t make the arrangements for the journey without attracting attention. We must slip away so that nobody sees us go. Do you know, my love, we
'
ll do what you thought of in the first place, we
'
ll go to Varykino and drop out of sight. Let
'
s go there for a week or two or a month.
"

"
Thank you, thank you, my dear. Oh, how glad I am! I understand how much you dislike the idea. But we wouldn
'
t live in your house. You couldn
'
t possibly face that—the sight of the empty rooms, the self-reproach, the comparisons with the past. How well I know what it means to build one
'
s happiness on the sufferings of others, to trample on what is dear to one, and holy. I
'
d never accept such a sacrifice from you. But there is no question of that. Your house is in such a state that it would be difficult to make the rooms fit to live in, anyway. I was thinking of the house where the Mikulitsyns lived.
"