Doctor Zhivago (9 page)

He must not give in to this exhausting, nagging, anxious mood. He was not a schoolboy, after all. He must realize what would happen if instead of being just a toy this girl—a mere child, the daughter of his dead friend—turned into an obsession. He must come to his senses. He must be true to himself and to his habits. Otherwise everything would go up in smoke.

Komarovsky gripped the oak railing until it hurt his hand, shut his eyes a moment, then turned back resolutely and went down. On the landing, with its patches of light, the dog was waiting for him. It lifted its head like a slobbering old dwarf with hanging jowls and looked up at him adoringly.

The dog hated the girl, tore her stockings, growled at her, bared its teeth. It was jealous of her as if fearing that she would infect its master with something human.

"
Ah, I see! You have decided that everything is going to be just as before—Satanidi, mean tricks, dirty jokes? All right then, take this, and this, and this.
"
He struck the bulldog with his stick and kicked it. Jack squealed, howled, waddled up the stairs shaking his behind, and scratched at the door to complain to Emma Ernestovna. Days and weeks went by.

What an inescapable spell it was! If Komarovsky
'
s intrusion into Lara
'
s life had merely filled her with disgust, she would have rebelled and broken free. But it was not so simple as that.

The girl was flattered that a handsome man whose hair was turning gray, a man old enough to be her father, a man who was applauded at meetings and written up in the newspapers, should spend his time and money on her, should take her out to concerts and plays, and tell her that he worshipped her, and should, as they say,
"
improve her mind.
"

After all, she was still a girl in a brown uniform who enjoyed harmless plots and pranks at school. Komarovsky
'
s lovemaking in a carriage behind the coachman
'
s back or in an opera box in full view of the audience fascinated her by its daring and aroused the little devil slumbering in her to imitate him.

But this mischievous, girlish infatuation was short-lived. A nagging depression and horror at herself were taking permanent hold of her. And all the time she wanted to sleep—because (she told herself) she did not get enough sleep at night, because she cried so much, because she had constant headaches, because she worked hard at school, and because she was physically exhausted.

He was the curse of her life; she hated him. Every day she returned to these thoughts.

She has become his slave for life. How has he subjugated her? How does he force her to submit, why does she surrender, why does she gratify his wishes and delight him with her quivering unconcealed shame? Because of his age, her mother
'
s financial dependence on him, his cleverness in frightening her, Lara? No, no, no! That is all nonsense.

It is she who has a hold on him. Doesn
'
t she see how much he needs her? She has nothing to be afraid of, her conscience is clear. It is he who should be ashamed, and terrified of her giving him away. But that is just what she will never do. To do this she does not have the necessary ruthlessness—Komarovsky
'
s chief asset in dealing with subordinates and weaklings.

This is precisely the difference between them. And it is this that makes the whole of life so terrifying. Does it crush you by thunder and lightning? No, by oblique glances and whispered calumny. It is all treachery and ambiguity. Any single thread is as fragile as a cobweb, but just try to pull yourself out of the net, you only become more entangled.

And the strong are dominated by the weak and the ignoble.

What if she were married, she asked herself, what difference would it make? She entered the path of sophistry. But at times she was overtaken by a hopeless anguish.

How can he not be ashamed to grovel at her feet and plead with her?
"
We can
'
t go on like this. Think what I have done to you! You will end up in the gutter. We must tell your mother. I
'
ll marry you.
"
He wept and insisted as though she were arguing and refusing. But all this was just words, and Lara did not even listen to these tragic, hollow protestations.

And he continued taking her, veiled, to dinner in the private rooms of that ghastly restaurant where the waiters and the clients undressed her with their eyes as she came in. And she merely wondered:
"
Does one always humiliate those one loves?
"

Once she had a dream. She was buried, and there was nothing left of her except her left shoulder and her right foot. A tuft of grass sprouted from her left breast and above the ground people were singing
"
Black eyes and white breast
"
and
"
Masha must not go to the river.
"

Lara was not religious. She did not believe in ritual. But sometimes, to be able to bear life, she needed the accompaniment of an inner music. She could not always compose such a music for herself. That music was God
'
s word of life, and it was to weep over it that she went to church.

Once, early in December, she went to pray with such a heavy heart that she felt as if at any moment the earth might open at her feet and the vaulted ceiling of the church cave in. It would serve her right, it would put an end to the whole thing. She only regretted that she had taken that chatterbox, Olia Demina, with her.

"
There
'
s Prov Afanasievich,
"
whispered Olia.

"
Sh-sh. Leave me alone. What Prov Afanasievich?
"

"
Prov Afanasievich Sokolov. The one who
'
s chanting. He
'
s our cousin twice removed.
"

"
Oh, the psalmist. Tiverzin
'
s relative. Sh-sh. Stop talking. Don
'
t disturb me, please.
"

They had come in at the beginning of the service. They were singing the psalm
"
Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name.
"

The church was half empty, and every sound in it echoed hollowly. Only in front was there a crowd of worshippers standing close together. The building was new. The plain glass of the window added no color to the gray, snowbound, busy street outside and the people who walked or drove through it. Near that window stood a church warden paying no attention to the service and loudly reproving a deaf, half-witted beggarwoman in a voice as flat and commonplace as the window and the street.

In the time it took Lara, clutching her pennies in her fist, to make her way to the door past the worshippers without disturbing them, buy two candles for herself and Olia, and turn back, Prov Afanasievich had rattled off nine of the beatitudes at a pace suggesting that they were well enough known without him.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.… Blessed are they that mourn.… Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.…

Lara started and stood still. This was about her. He was saying: Happy are the downtrodden. They have something to tell about themselves. They have everything before them. That was what He thought. That was Christ
'
s judgment.

It was the time of the Presnia uprising. The Guishars
'
flat was in the rebel area. A barricade was being built in Tver Street a few yards from their house. People carried buckets of water from their yards in order to cement the stones and scrap iron with ice.

The neighboring yard was used by the workers
'
militia as an assembly point, something between a Red Cross post and a soup kitchen.

Lara knew two of the boys who went to it. One was Nika Dudorov, a friend of her school friend Nadia. He was proud, straightforward, taciturn. He was like Lara and did not interest her.

The other was Pasha Antipov, the gymnasium student, who lived with old Tiverzina, Olia Demina
'
s grandmother. Lara noticed the effect she had on the boy when she met him at the Tiverzins
'
. He was so childishly simple that he did not conceal his joy at seeing her, as if she were some summer landscape of birch trees, grass, and clouds, and could freely express his enthusiasm about her without any risk of being laughed at.

As soon as she realized the kind of influence she had on him, she began unconsciously to make use of it. However, it was not until several years later and at a much further stage in their relationship that she took his malleable, easygoing character seriously in hand. By then Pasha knew that he was head over heels in love with her and that it was for life.

The two boys were playing the most terrible and adult of games, war; moreover, participation in this particular war was punishable by deportation and hanging. Yet the way their woollen caps were tied at the back suggested that they were children, that they still had fathers and mothers who looked after them. Lara thought of them as a grownup thinks of children. Their dangerous amusements had a bloom of innocence that they communicated to everything—to the evening, so shaggy with hoarfrost that it seemed more black than white, to the dark blue shadows in the yard, to the house across the road where the boys were hiding, and, above all, to the continual revolver shots which came from it.
"
The boys are shooting,
"
thought Lara. This was how she thought not only of Nika and Pasha but of the whole fighting city.
"
Good, decent boys,
"
she thought.
"
It
'
s because they are good that they are shooting.
"

They learned that the barricade might be shelled and that their house would be in danger. It was too late to think of going to stay with friends in some other part of Moscow, the quarter was surrounded; they had to find shelter in the neighborhood, within the ring. They thought of the Montenegro.

It turned out that they were not the first to think of it. The hotel was full. There were many others who shared their predicament. For old time
'
s sake the proprietor promised to put them up in the linen room.

Not to attract attention by carrying suitcases, they packed the most necessary things into three bundles; then they put off moving from day to day.

Because the employees of the workshop were treated rather like family members, they had continued to work despite the strike. But one dull, cold afternoon there was a ring at the door. Someone had come to complain and to argue. The owner was asked for. Fetisova went instead to pour oil on the troubled waters. A few moments later she called the seamstresses into the hall and introduced them to the visitor. He shook hands all round, clumsily and with emotion, and went away having apparently reached an agreement with Fetisova.

The seamstresses came back into the workroom and began tying on their shawls and putting on their shabby winter coats.

"
What has happened?
"
asked Madame Guishar, hurrying in.

"
They
'
re calling us out, Madam, we
'
re on strike.
"

"
But…Have I ever wronged you?
"
Madame Guishar burst into tears.

"
Don
'
t be upset, Amalia Karlovna. We
'
ve got nothing against you. We
'
re very grateful to you. It
'
s not just you and us. Everybody
'
s doing the same, the whole world. You can
'
t go against everybody, can you?
"

They all went away, even Olia Demina and Fetisova, who whispered to Madame Guishar in parting that she agreed to the strike for the good of the owner and the establishment. But Amalia Karlovna was inconsolable.

"
What black ingratitude! To think that I was so mistaken in these people! The kindness I
'
ve lavished on that brat! Well, admittedly she
'
s only a child, but that old witch!
"

"
They can
'
t make an exception just for you, Mother, don
'
t you see?
"
Lara said soothingly.
"
No one bears you any malice. On the contrary. All that
'
s being done now is done in the name of humanity, in defense of the weak, for the good of women and children. Yes, it is. Don
'
t shake your head so skeptically. You
'
ll see, one day you and I will be better off because of it.
"