dissatisfaction with himself, which makes a man unbearable and hateful to himself and ready to die of shame? Or had he taken some dreadful, irrevocable decision, with which he did not want to be left alone, and the fulfillment of which he kept postponing as long as possible by chatting with the doctor and being in his company?
However it was, Strelnikov was hiding some important secret that weighed on him, while giving himself in all the rest to the most lavish outpourings of the heart.
This was the sickness of the age, the revolutionary madness of the epoch. In thought everyone was different from his words and outward show. No one had a clear conscience. Each with good reason could feel himself guilty, a secret criminal, an unexposed deceiver. On the slightest pretext, a rage of self-castigating imagination would play itself out to the uttermost limits. People fantasized, denounced themselves, not only under the effect of fear, but also drawn on by a destructively morbid inclination, of their own free will, in a state of metaphysical trance and passion for self-condemnation that, once set loose, could not be stopped.
How much of this evidence, written and oral, given on the point of death, had been read and heard in his time by the prominent military, and sometimes also court-martial, figure Strelnikov. Now he himself was possessed by a similar fit of self-exposure, re-evaluated himself entirely, put a bottom line to everything, saw everything in a feverish, distorted, delirious misinterpretation.
Strelnikov was telling it all without order, jumping from confession to confession.
“It was near Chita. Were you struck by the curiosities I stuffed the cupboards and drawers in this house with? It’s all from war requisitions, which we carried out when the Red Army occupied eastern Siberia. Naturally, I didn’t drag it on my back myself. Life always pampered me with loyal, devoted people. These candles, matches, coffee, tea, writing materials, and all the rest are partly from Czech military property, partly Japanese and English. Wonders of the world, right? ‘Right?’ was my wife’s favorite expression, as you’ve probably noticed. I didn’t know whether to tell you this at once, but now I’ll confess. I came to see her and our daughter. I wasn’t told in time that they were here. And now I’m too late. When I learned about your intimacy with her from gossip and reports, and the name Doctor Zhivago was first uttered, I remembered in some inconceivable way, out of the thousands of faces that have flashed past me in these years, a doctor of that name who was once brought to me for interrogation.”
“And you were sorry you didn’t have him shot?”
Strelnikov let this remark go unnoticed. Perhaps he did not even hear his interlocutor interrupt his monologue with his own insertion. He went on distractedly and pensively.
“Of course, I was jealous of you, and I’m jealous now. How could it be otherwise? I’ve been hiding in these parts only in recent months, after my other covers failed far to the east. I was supposed to be court-martialed on a false accusation. The outcome was easy to predict. I didn’t know myself to be guilty of anything. There was a hope that I might vindicate myself and defend my good name in the future under better circumstances. I decided to quit the field in good time, before I was arrested, and meanwhile to hide, wander about, live like a hermit. Maybe I would have saved myself in the end. A young rascal who wormed his way into my confidence did me a bad turn.
“I was going west through Siberia on foot, in winter, hiding, starving. I buried myself in the snow, spent nights in snow-covered trains, of which there were endless chains standing under the snow then along the Siberian main line.
“In my wanderings, I ran into a vagabond boy who supposedly had survived after being shot by the partisans in a line of other men executed at the same time. He supposedly crawled from under the pile of corpses, caught his breath, recovered, and then began moving about from one lair to another, like myself. At least that’s what he told me. A scoundrelly adolescent, full of vices, backward, one of those dunces who get thrown out of school for inability.”
The more details Strelnikov gave, the better the doctor recognized the boy.
“First name Terenty, last name Galuzin?”
“Yes.”
“Then all that about the partisans and the execution is true. He didn’t invent any of it.”
“The only good feature the boy had was that he madly adored his mother. His father had perished as a hostage. He learned that his mother was in prison and would share the father’s lot, and decided to do anything to free her. In the provincial Cheka, where he came pleading guilty and offering his services, they agreed to forgive him everything for the price of some important information. He pointed out the place where I was hiding. I managed to forestall his betrayal and disappear in time.
“With fantastic efforts, with thousands of adventures, I crossed Siberia and came here, to places where I’m known to everybody and am least of all expected to appear, such boldness not being presumed on my part. And indeed they spent a long time searching for me around Chita, while I was hiding in this house or some other refuge in the area. But now it’s the end. They’ve tracked me down here, too. Listen. It’s getting dark. I don’t like the time that’s coming, because I lost my sleep long ago. You know what a torment that is. If you haven’t burned up all my candles—excellent stearine candles, right?—let’s talk a bit longer. Let’s talk as long as you can, with every luxury, all night long, with candles burning.”
“There are candles. Only one pack has been opened. I burned the kerosene I found here.”
“Do you have any bread?”
“No.”
“What did you live on? However, I’m asking a stupid question. On potatoes. I know.”
“Yes. There’s all you could want here. The owners of the place were experienced and provident. They knew how to store them. They’re all safe in the cellar. Didn’t rot or freeze.”
Suddenly Strelnikov began talking about the revolution.
17
“All this is not for you. You won’t understand it. You grew up differently. There was the world of the city’s outskirts, a world of railroad tracks and workmen’s barracks. Filth, overcrowding, destitution, the degradation of man in the laborer, the degradation of women. There was the gleeful, unpunished impudence of depravity, of mama’s boys, well-heeled students, and little merchants. The tears and complaints of the robbed, the injured, the seduced were dismissed with a joke or an outburst of scornful vexation. This was the olympianism of parasites, remarkable only in that they did not trouble themselves about anything, never sought anything, neither gave nor left the world anything!
“But we took up life like a military campaign, we moved mountains for the sake of those we loved. And though
