Doctor Zhivago

by Boris Pasternak

  “Yurochka! Yurochka! How intelligent you are! You know everything, you guess about everything. Yurochka, you are my fortress, my refuge, and my foundation—God forgive my blasphemy. Oh, how happy I am! Let’s go, let’s go, my dear. Once we’re there, I’ll tell you what’s troubling me.”

  He decided that she was hinting at her supposed pregnancy, probably imaginary, and said:

  “I know.”

  4

  They drove out of town in the morning of a gray winter day. It was a weekday. People walked down the streets about their business. They frequently met acquaintances. At bumpy intersections, next to the old pump houses, women who had no wells near their houses lined up with their buckets and yokes set aside, waiting their turn to draw water. The doctor reined in Savraska, a smoky yellow, curly-haired Viatka horse, who was straining forward, and steered him carefully to avoid the crowding housewives. The sleigh picked up speed, slid sideways off the humpbacked, water-splashed, and icy pavement, rode onto the sidewalks, the bumpers hitting lampposts and hitching posts.

  At full speed they overtook Samdevyatov walking down the street, flew past him, and did not look back to see if he recognized them and his horse and shouted anything after them. In another place, similarly, without any greeting, they left Komarovsky behind, having ascertained in passing that he was still in Yuriatin.

  Glafira Tuntseva shouted all the way across the street from the opposite sidewalk:

  “And they said you left yesterday. Go trusting people after that. Off to fetch potatoes?”—and, with a gesture showing that she had not heard their answer, she waved good-bye behind them.

  For Sima’s sake they tried to pull up on a hillside, in an awkward place, where it was hard to stop. The horse had to be held back all the time without that, by tugging tightly on the reins. Sima was wrapped from head to foot in two or three shawls, which lent her figure the rigidity of a round log. With straight, unbending steps she came to the sleigh in the middle of the pavement and said good-bye, wishing them a safe journey.

  “We must finish our talk when you get back, Yuri Andreevich.”

  They finally drove out of town. Though Yuri Andreevich had occasionally ridden on this road in winter, he mainly remembered it as it was in summer and now did not recognize it.

  The sacks of provisions and other luggage were placed deep in the hay at the front of the sleigh, under the dashboard, and tied securely. Yuri Andreevich drove either kneeling on the bottom of the broad sleigh, in local parlance a koshovka, or sitting sideways, his feet in Samdevyatov’s felt boots hanging over the edge.

  In the afternoon, when winter’s deceptiveness made it seem that the day was coming to an end long before sunset, Yuri Andreevich started whipping Savraska mercilessly. She shot off like an arrow. The koshovka flew up and down like a boat, bobbing over the unevenness of the much-used road. Katya and Lara were wearing fur coats, which hindered their movements. As the sleigh leaned or jolted, they shouted and laughed their heads off, rolling from one side of the sleigh to the other and burying themselves in the hay like unwieldly sacks. At times, for the fun of it, the doctor purposely rode one runner over the snowbank on the edge of the road, turning the sleigh on its side and throwing Lara and Katya out into the snow without doing them any harm. After being dragged by the reins a few steps along the road, he would stop Savraska, set the sleigh back on both runners, and get a scolding from Lara and Katya, who would shake themselves off and climb into the sleigh, laughing and pouting.

  “I’ll show you the place where the partisans stopped me,” the doctor promised, when they had driven far enough from town, but he was unable to keep his promise, because the winter bareness of the forest, the deathly calm and emptiness all around, changed the place beyond recognition. “Here it is!” he soon cried, mistaking the first Moreau and Vetchinkin billboard, which stood in a field, for the second one in the forest, where he had been taken. When they raced past this second one, which was still in its former place, in the woods by the Sakma intersection, the billboard could not be made out through the scintillating lattice of thick hoarfrost, which turned the forest into a filigree of silver and niello. And they did not notice the billboard.

  They flew into Varykino while it was still light and stopped at the Zhivagos’ old house, since it was the first on the road, closer than the Mikulitsyns’. They burst into the room hurriedly, like robbers—it would soon be dark. Inside it was already dark. In his haste, Yuri Andreevich did not make out half the destruction and filth. Some of the familiar furniture was intact. In deserted Varykino there was no one left to carry through the destruction that had been begun. Of their household things Yuri Andreevich found nothing. But he had not been there at his family’s departure, he did not know what they had taken with them and what they had left behind. Meanwhile Lara was saying:

  “We must hurry. Night is coming. There’s no time to reflect. If we settle here, then the horse must be put in the barn, the provisions in the front hall, and we here in this room. But I’m against such a decision. We’ve talked enough about it. It will be painful for you and therefore for me. What’s this, your bedroom? No, the nursery. Your son’s little bed. Too small for Katya. On the other hand, the windows are intact, no cracks in the walls or ceiling. And a magnificent stove besides, I already admired it on my last visit. And if you insist that we stay here after all, though I’m against it, then—off with my coat and straight to work. The heating first of all. Heat, heat, heat. Day and night nonstop to begin with. But what’s the matter, my dear? You don’t answer anything.”

  “Just a moment. It’s nothing. Forgive me, please. No, you know, we’d really better have a look at the Mikulitsyns’.”

  And they drove further on.

  5

  The Mikulitsyns’ house was locked with a padlock hanging from the eye of the door bar. Yuri Andreevich pried at it for a long time and ripped it off, with splintered wood clinging to the screws. As in the previous house, they barged in hurriedly and went through the rooms with their coats, hats, and felt boots on.

  Their eyes were immediately struck by the stamp of order on the objects in certain parts of the house—for instance, in Averky Stepanovich’s study. Someone had been living here, and quite recently. But who precisely? If it was the owners or some one of them, what had become of them, and why had they locked the outside door with a padlock instead of the lock in the door? Besides, if it was the owners, and they had been living there long and permanently, the house would have been in order throughout and not in separate parts. Something told the intruders that it was not the Mikulitsyns. But in that case who was it? The doctor and Lara were not troubled by the uncertainty. They did not start racking their brains over it. As if there were not enough abandoned dwellings now with half the furniture pilfered? Or enough fugitives in hiding? “Some White officer being pursued,” they agreed unanimously. “If he comes, we’ll live together, we’ll work things out.”

  And again, as once before, Yuri Andreevich stood as if rooted to the threshold of the study, admiring its spaciousness and astonished at the width and convenience of the desk by the window. And again he thought how such austere comfort probably disposes one and gives one a taste for patient, fruitful work.

  Among the outbuildings in the Mikulitsyns’ yard there was a stable built right onto the barn. But it was locked, and Yuri Andreevich did not know what state it was in. So as not to lose time, he decided to put the horse in the easily opened, unlocked barn for the first night. He unharnessed Savraska, and when she cooled down, he gave her water that he brought from the well. Yuri Andreevich wanted to give her some hay from the bottom of the sleigh, but the hay had turned to dust under the passengers and was unfit for horse feed. Luckily, he found enough hay along the walls and in the corners of the wide hayloft over the barn and stable.

  They slept that night under their fur coats, without undressing, blissfully, deeply, and sweetly, as children sleep after a whole day of running about and playing pranks.

 
6

  When they got up in the morning, Yuri Andreevich began to gaze admiringly at the tempting desk by the window. His hands were itching to get to work over a sheet of paper. But he chose to enjoy that right in the evening, when Lara and Katenka had gone to bed. And meanwhile he had his hands full just putting two rooms in order.

  In dreaming of his evening’s work, he did not set himself any important goals. A simple passion for ink, an attraction to the pen and the occupation of writing, possessed him.

  He wanted to scribble, to set down lines. At first he would be satisfied with recalling and writing down something old, unrecorded, only so as to warm up his faculties, which had been standing inactive and drowsing in the interim. And later, he hoped, he and Lara would manage to stay on there longer, and he would have plenty of time to take up something new and significant.

  “Are you busy? What are you doing?”

  “Heating and heating. Why?”

  “I need a tub.”

  “If we keep the place this warm, we won’t have wood enough for more than three days. We’ve got to go and look in our former Zhivago shed. What if there’s more there? If there’s enough left, I’ll make several trips and bring it here. Tomorrow I’ll see to it. You asked for a tub. Imagine, my eye fell on one somewhere, but where—it’s gone clean out of my head, I can’t place it.”

  “It’s the same with me. I saw one somewhere and forgot. Probably not in the right place, that’s why I’ve forgotten. But let it be. Mind you, I’m heating a lot of water for cleaning. What’s left I’ll use to do some laundry for me and Katya. Let me have all your dirty things at the same time. In the evening, when we’ve put the place in order and can see what else needs to be done, we’ll wash ourselves before going to bed.”

  “I’ll collect my laundry right now. Thanks. I’ve moved the wardrobes and heavy things away from the walls, as you asked.”

  “Good. Instead of a tub, I’ll wash it in the dish basin. Only it’s very greasy. I’ll have to scrub the fat off the sides.”

  “Once the stove is heated, I’ll close it and go back to sorting the remaining drawers. At each step I find new things in the desk and chest. Soap, matches, pencils, paper, writing materials. And also unexpected things in plain sight. For instance, a lamp on the desk, filled with kerosene. It’s not the Mikulitsyns’, that I know. It’s from some other source.”

  “Amazing luck! It’s all him, our mysterious lodger. Like out of Jules Verne. Ah, well, how do you like that, really! We’re babbling and chattering away, and my cauldron’s boiling over.”

  They were bustling, rushing here and there about the rooms, their hands full, busy, bumping into each other or running into Katenka, who kept getting in the way and under their feet. The girl wandered from corner to corner, hindering their cleaning, and pouted when they told her so. She was chilled and complained of the cold.

  “Poor modern-day children, victims of our gypsy life, unmurmuring little participants in our wanderings,” thought the doctor, while saying to the girl:

  “Well, forgive me, my sweet, but there’s nothing to shiver about. Stuff and nonsense. The stove is red-hot.”

  “The stove may be hot, but I’m cold.”

  “Then bear with it, Katyusha. In the evening I’ll heat it a second time hot as can be, and mama says she’ll also give you a bath, do you hear? And meanwhile—here, catch!” And he poured out on the floor a heap of Liberius’s old toys from the cold storeroom, broken or intact, building blocks, cars, railroad engines, and pieces of ruled cardboard, colored and with numbers in the squares, for games with chips and dice.

  “Well, how can you, Yuri Andreevich!” Katenka became offended like a grown-up. “It’s all somebody else’s. And for little kids. And I’m big.”

  But a minute later she was settled comfortably in the middle of the rug, and under her hands the toys of all sorts turned into building materials, from which Katenka constructed a home for her doll Ninka, brought with her from town, with greater sense and more permanence than those strange, changing shelters she was dragged through.

  “What domestic instinct, what ineradicable striving for a nest and order!” said Larissa Fyodorovna, watching her daughter’s play from the kitchen. “Children are unconstrainedly sincere and not ashamed of the truth, while we, from fear of seeming backward, are ready to betray what’s most dear, to praise the repulsive, and to say yes to the incomprehensible.”

  “The tub’s been found,” the doctor interrupted, coming in with it from the dark front hall. “In fact, it wasn’t in the right place. It’s been sitting on the floor under a leak in the ceiling, evidently since autumn.”

  7

  For dinner, prepared for three days ahead from their freshly started provisions, Larissa Fyodorovna served unheard-of things—potato soup and roast lamb with potatoes. Katenka relished it, could not eat enough, laughed merrily and frolicked, and then, full and languid from the heat, covered herself with her mother’s plaid and fell fast asleep on the sofa.

  Larissa Fyodorovna, straight from the stove, tired, sweaty, half asleep like her daughter, and satisfied with the impression produced by her cooking, was in no rush to clear the table and sat down to rest. Having made sure that the girl was asleep, she said, leaning her breast on the table and propping her head with her hand:

  “I’d spare no strength and I’d find happiness in it, if only I knew that it’s not in vain and is leading to some goal. You must remind me every moment that we’re here to be together. Encourage me and don’t let me come to my senses. Because, strictly speaking, if you look at it soberly, what is it we’re doing, what’s going on with us? We raid someone else’s home, break in, take charge, and urge ourselves on all the while so as not to see that this is not life, it’s a theatrical production, not serious but ‘pretend,’ as children say, a puppet comedy, a farce.”

  “But, my angel, you yourself insisted on this journey. Remember how long I resisted and did not agree.”

  “Right. I don’t argue. So now it’s my fault. You can hesitate, ponder, but for me everything must be consistent and logical. We went into the house, you saw your son’s little bed and felt ill, you almost swooned from the pain. You have the right to that, but for me it’s not allowed, my fear for Katenka, my thoughts about the future must give way before my love for you.”

  “Larusha, my angel, come to your senses. It’s never too late to think better of it, to change your mind. I was the first to advise you to take Komarovsky’s words more seriously. We have a horse. If you want, we can fly off to Yuriatin tomorrow. Komarovsky is still there, he hasn’t left. We saw him in the street from the sleigh, and I don’t think he noticed us. We’ll probably find him.”

  “I’ve said almost nothing, and you already have displeased tones in your voice. But tell me, am I not right? We could hide just as insecurely, at random, in Yuriatin. And if we were seeking salvation, then it should have been for certain, with a thought-out plan, as, in the end, was suggested by that well-informed and sober, though repulsive, man. While here I simply don’t know how much closer we are to danger than anywhere else. A boundless, windswept plain. And we’re alone as can be. We may get snowbound overnight and be unable to dig ourselves out in the morning. Or our mysterious benefactor who visits the house may drop in, turn out to be a robber, and put his knife in us. Do you have any sort of weapon? No, you see. I’m frightened of your lightheartedness, which you’ve infected me with. It muddles my thinking.”

  “But in that case what do you want? What do you order me to do?”

  “I don’t know myself how to answer you. Keep me in submission all the time. Constantly remind me that I’m your blindly loving, unreasoning slave. Oh, I’ll tell you. Our families, yours and mine, are a thousand times better than we are. But is that the point? The gift of love is like any other gift. It may be great, but without a blessing it will not manifest itself. And with us it’s as if we were taught to kiss in heaven and then sent as children to live in the same time, so as to test
this ability on each other. A crown of concord, no sides, no degrees, no high, no low, equivalence of the whole being, everything gives joy, everything becomes soul. But in this wild tenderness, lying in wait every moment, there is something childishly untamed, illicit. It’s a self-willed, destructive element, hostile to peace in the home. My duty is to fear it and not to trust it.”

  She threw her arms around his neck and, fighting back her tears, finished:

  “You understand, we’re in different positions. Wings were given you so as to fly beyond the clouds, and to me, a woman, so as to press myself to the ground and shield my fledgling from danger.”

  He terribly liked everything she said, but did not show it, so as not to fall into excessive sweetness. Restraining himself, he remarked:

  “Our bivouac life really is false and overwrought. You’re profoundly right. But we didn’t invent it. A frantic casting about is everybody’s lot, it’s the spirit of the time.

  “I myself have been thinking today, since morning, about approximately the same thing. I’d like to make every effort to stay on here longer. I can’t tell you how much I miss work. I don’t mean agricultural work. Once our whole household here threw itself into it, and it succeeded. But I wouldn’t be able to repeat that again. It’s not what I have in mind.

  “Life on all sides is gradually being put in order. Maybe someday books will be published again.

  “Here’s what I’ve been thinking over. Couldn’t we arrange it with Samdevyatov, on conditions profitable for him, to keep us supplied for six months, on the pledge of a work I would promise to write during that time, a textbook on medicine, let’s suppose, or something artistic, a book of poems, for example. Or let’s say I undertake to translate some world-famous foreign book. I have a good knowledge of languages, I recently read an advertisement from a big Petersburg publisher who specializes in bringing out works in translation. Work like that would probably acquire an exchange value that could be turned into money. I’d be happy to busy myself with something of that sort.”