Yuri Andreevich involuntarily moaned and clutched his chest. He felt faint, made several hobbling steps towards the couch, and collapsed on it unconscious.
IN VARYKINO AGAIN
1
Winter settled in. Snow fell in big flakes. Yuri Andreevich came home from the hospital.
“Komarovsky’s come,” Lara said in a failing, husky voice, coming to meet him. They stood in the front hall. She had a lost look, as if she had been beaten.
“Where? To whom? Is he here?”
“No, of course not. He was here in the morning and wanted to come in the evening. He’ll show up soon. He needs to talk with you.”
“Why has he come?”
“I didn’t understand all he said. He says he was passing through on his way to the Far East and purposely made a detour and turned off at Yuriatin in order to see us. Mainly for your sake and Pasha’s. He talked a lot about you both. He insists that all three of us, that is, you, Patulia, and I, are in mortal danger, and that only he can save us, if we listen to him.”
“I’ll leave. I don’t want to see him.”
Lara burst into tears, tried to fall on her knees before the doctor, embrace his legs, and press her face to them, but he prevented her, holding her back by force.
“Stay for my sake, I implore you. I’m not at all afraid of finding myself face-to-face with him. But it’s hard. Spare me from meeting him alone. Besides, he’s a practical man, he’s been around. Maybe he really will give us some advice. Your loathing for him is natural. But I beg you, overcome yourself. Stay.”
“What’s the matter, my angel? Calm yourself. What are you doing? Don’t throw yourself on your knees. Stand up. Be cheerful. Drive away this obsession that pursues you. He’s frightened you for life. I’m with you. If need be, if you tell me to, I’ll kill him.”
Half an hour later evening fell. It became completely dark. For six months already, the holes in the floor had been stopped up everywhere. Yuri Andreevich watched for the forming of new ones and blocked them in time. They acquired a large, fluffy cat, who spent his time in immobile, mysterious contemplation. The rats did not leave the house, but they became more cautious.
In expectation of Komarovsky, Larissa Fyodorovna cut up the black rationed bread and put a plate with a few boiled potatoes on the table. They intended to receive the guest in the previous owners’ dining room, which had kept its purpose. In it stood a big oak dining table and a big, heavy sideboard of the same dark oak. On the table, castor oil burned in a vial with a wick in it—the doctor’s portable lamp.
Komarovsky came in from the December darkness all covered with the snow that was falling heavily outside. Snow fell in thick layers from his fur coat, hat, and galoshes, and melted, forming puddles on the floor. The snow that stuck to his mustaches and beard, which Komarovsky used to shave but now had let grow, made them look clownish, buffoonish. He was wearing a well-preserved jacket and vest and well-creased striped trousers. Before greeting them or saying anything, he spent a long time combing his damp, flattened hair with a pocket comb and wiping and smoothing his wet mustaches and eyebrows with a handkerchief. Then silently, with an expression of great significance, he held out his two hands simultaneously, the left to Larissa Fyodorovna and the right to Yuri Andreevich.
“Let’s consider ourselves acquaintances,” he addressed Yuri Andreevich. “I was on such good terms with your father—you probably know. He gave up the ghost in my arms. I keep looking closely at you, searching for a resemblance. No, clearly you didn’t take after your papa. He was a man of an expansive nature. Impulsive, impetuous. Judging by appearances, you are more like your mother. She was a gentle woman. A dreamer.”
“Larissa Fyodorovna asked me to hear you out. She says you have some business with me. I yielded to her request. Our conversation has been forced upon me against my will. I would not seek your acquaintance by my own inclination, and I do not consider us acquainted. Therefore let’s get down to business. What do you want?”
“Greetings, my good ones. I feel everything, decidedly everything, and understand everything thoroughly, to the end. Forgive my boldness, but you’re awfully well suited to each other. A harmonious couple in the highest degree.”
“I must interrupt you. I ask you not to interfere in things that do not concern you. No one has asked for your sympathy. You forget yourself.”
“Don’t you flare up at once like that, young man. No, perhaps you’re like your father after all. The same pistol and powder. Yes, so with your permission, I congratulate you, my children. Unfortunately, however, you are children not only in my expression, but in fact, who don’t know anything, who don’t reflect on anything. I’ve been here for only two days and have learned more about you than you yourselves suspect. You’re walking on the edge of an abyss without thinking of it. If the danger isn’t somehow averted, the days of your freedom, and maybe even of your lives, are numbered.
“There exists a certain Communist style. Few people measure up to it. But no one so clearly violates that way of living and thinking as you do, Yuri Andreevich. I don’t understand—why stir up a hornets’ nest? You’re a mockery of that world, an insult to it. It would be fine if it were your secret. But there are influential people from Moscow here. They know you inside and out. You’re both terribly distasteful to the local priests of Themis. Comrades Antipov and Tiverzin are sharpening their claws for Larissa Fyodorovna and you.
“You are a man—a free Cossack, or whatever it’s called. Madcap behavior, playing with your own life, is your sacred right. But Larissa Fyodorovna is not a free person. She’s a mother. She has a young life, a child’s destiny, in her hands. She’s in no position to fantasize, to live in the clouds.
“I wasted a whole morning talking to her, persuading her to take the local situation more seriously. She refuses to listen to me. Use your authority, influence Larissa Fyodorovna. She has no right to toy with Katenka’s safety, she should not disregard my arguments.”
“Never in my life have I tried to persuade or compel anyone. Especially people close to me. Larissa Fyodorovna is free to listen to you or not. That’s her business. Besides, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What you call your arguments are unknown to me.”
