Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [133]
The intoxication of spring went to the sky’s head, and it grew bleary from fumes and covered itself with clouds. Low, feltlike clouds with drooping edges drifted over the forest, and warm cloudbursts, smelling of dirt and sweat, poured down through them, washing the last pieces of pierced, black, icy armor from the earth.
Yuri Andreevich woke up, pulled himself over to the square window, from which the frame had been removed, propped himself on his elbow, and began to listen.
20
With the approach of the mining region, the country became more populated, the stages shorter, the stations more frequent. The passengers changed less rarely. More people got on and off at small intermediate stops. Those who were traveling for shorter distances did not settle for long and did not go to sleep, but found places at night somewhere by the doors in the middle of the freight car, talked among themselves in low voices about local affairs, comprehensible only to them, and got off at the next junction or way station.
From some remarks dropped by the local public, who had replaced each other in the freight car over the past three days, Yuri Andreevich concluded that the Whites were gaining the upper hand in the north and either had taken or were about to take Yuriatin. Besides, if his hearing had not deceived him and it was not some namesake of his comrade in the Meliuzeevo hospital, the White forces in that direction were under the command of Galiullin, who was well-known to Yuri Andreevich.
Yuri Andreevich did not say a word to his family about this talk, so as not to upset them uselessly while the rumors remained unconfirmed.
21
Yuri Andreevich woke up at the beginning of the night from a vague feeling of happiness welling up in him, which was so strong that it roused him. The train was standing at some night stop. The station was surrounded by the glassy twilight of a white night. This bright darkness was saturated with something subtle and powerful. It bore witness to the vastness and openness of the place. It suggested that the junction was situated on a height with a wide and free horizon.
On the platform, talking softly, shadows went past the freight car with inaudible steps. That also touched Yuri Andreevich. He perceived in the careful steps and voices a respect for the hour of night and a concern for the sleepers on the train as might have been in the old days, before the war.
The doctor was mistaken. There was the same hubbub and stamping of boots on the platform as everywhere else. But there was a waterfall in the vicinity. Its breathing out of freshness and freedom extended the limits of the white night. It had filled the doctor with a feeling of happiness in his sleep. The constant, never ceasing noise of its falling water reigned over all the sounds at the junction and imparted to them a deceptive semblance of silence.
Not divining its presence, but lulled by the mysterious resilience of the air of the place, the doctor fell fast asleep again.
Two men were talking below in the freight car. One asked the other:
“Well, so, have you calmed them down? Twisted their tails?”
“The shopkeepers, you mean?”
“Yes, the grain dealers.”
“We’ve pacified them. Like silk now. We knocked off a few as an example, and the rest got quiet. We collected a contribution.”
“How much did you take from the area?”
“Forty thousand.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Why should I kid you?”
“Holy cow, forty thousand!”
“Forty thousand bushels.”
“Well, there’s no flies on you! Good boys, good boys!