Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [144]
All these people to a man were acquainted with each other, conversed from afar, greeted each other when they came near. They dressed and talked slightly differently than in the capitals, did not eat the same things, had other habits.
It was curious to learn what they lived by, what moral and material resources nourished them, how they struggled with difficulties, how they evaded the laws.
The answer was not slow to appear in the most vivid form.
2
Accompanied by the sentry who dragged his gun on the ground and propped himself up on it as on a staff, the doctor went back to his train.
It was sultry. The sun scorched the rails and the roofs of the cars. The ground, black with oil, burned with a yellow gleam, as if gilded.
The sentry furrowed the dust with his rifle butt, leaving a trail in the sand behind him. The gun knocked against the ties. The sentry was saying:
“The weather’s settled. It’s the perfect time for sowing the spring crops—oats, summer wheat, or, say, millet. It’s too early for buckwheat. We sow buckwheat on St. Akulina’s day.1 We’re from Morshansk, in Tambov province, not from here. Eh, comrade doctor! If it wasn’t for this civil hydra right now, this plague of counterrevolutionists, would I be lost in foreign parts at a time like this? It’s run among us like a black cat, this class war, and see what it does!”
3
“Thanks. I’ll do it myself,” Yuri Andreevich declined the offered aid. People bent down from the freight car and stretched their hands out to him to help him get in. He pulled himself up and jumped into the car, got to his feet, and embraced his wife.
“At last. Well, thank God, thank God it all ended like this,” Antonina Alexandrovna kept saying. “However, this happy outcome is no news to us.”
“How do you mean, no news?”
“We know everything.”
“From where?”
“The sentries kept telling us. Otherwise how could we have borne the uncertainty? Papa and I nearly lost our minds as it was. There he sleeps, you can’t wake him. He collapsed from anxiety as if he were cut down—you can’t rouse him. There are new passengers. I’m going to have you meet someone now. But first listen to what they’re saying all around. The whole car congratulates you on your happy deliverance. See what a husband I’ve got!” She suddenly changed the subject, turned her head, and, over her shoulder, introduced him to one of the newly arrived passengers, squeezed by his neighbors back in the rear of the car.
“Samdevyatov,” was heard from there, a soft hat rose above the mass of people’s heads, and the owner of the name began pushing his way towards the doctor through the thick of the bodies pressed against him.
“Samdevyatov,” Yuri Andreevich reflected meanwhile. “Something old Russian, I thought, folk epic, broad bushy beard, peasant tunic, studded belt. But here’s some sort of society for lovers of art, graying curls, mustache, goatee.”
“Well, so, did Strelnikov give you a fright? Confess.”
“No, why? The conversation was serious. In any case, he’s a strong, substantial man.”
“That he is. I have some notion of this person. He’s not native to us. He’s yours, a Muscovite. The same as our novelties of recent times. Also yours, imported from the capital. Our own minds would never have come up with them.”
“This is Anfim Efimovich, Yurochka—all-knowing, omniscient. He’s heard about you, about your father, knows my grandfather, everybody, everybody. Get acquainted.” And Antonina Alexandrovna asked in passing, without expression: “You probably also know the local teacher Antipova?” To which Samdevyatov replied just as expressionlessly: “What do you want with Antipova?”
Yuri Andreevich heard it and did not enter into the conversation. Antonina Alexandrovna went on:
“Anfim Efimovich is a Bolshevik. Watch out, Yurochka. Keep your ears pricked up with him.”
“No, really? I’d never have thought it. By the looks of him, it’s sooner something artistic.”
“My father kept an inn. Had seven troikas running around for him. But I am of higher education.