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
