Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [153]
“No, that’s beyond me. Inconceivable. Do you realize what a danger you are to me, what position you put me in? I really must be going out of my mind. I don’t understand anything and never will.”
“I wonder if you can conceive of what a volcano we’re sitting on here even without you?”
“Wait, Lenochka. My wife is perfectly right. It’s no sweet time even without you. A dog’s life, a madhouse. Between two fires all the time, and no way out. Some hang it on us that we’ve got such a red son, a Bolshevik, a people’s darling. Others don’t like it that I myself was elected to the Constituent Assembly. Nobody’s pleased, so just flounder about. And now you. How very merry to go and get shot over you!”
“What are you saying! Come to your senses! For God’s sake!”
After a while, exchanging wrath for mercy, Mikulitsyn said:
“Well, we’ve been yelping in the yard, and enough. We can continue in the house. Of course, I don’t see anything good ahead, but these be the dark waters in the clouds, the shadow-scripted murk of secrecy.9 However, we’re not Janissaries, not heathens. We won’t drive you into the forest as a meal for Bruin the bear. I think, Lenok, they’ll be best off in the palm room, next to the study. And then we’ll discuss where they can settle. I think we’ll install them in the park. Please come in. Welcome. Bring the things in, Vakkh. Give the newcomers a hand.”
In carrying out the order, Vakkh merely sighed:
“Unwedded Mother! Wanderers have as much stuff. Just little bundles. Not a single sweetcase!”
10
A cold night set in. The newcomers washed. The women got busy turning the room allotted to them into night lodgings. Shurochka, who was unconsciously accustomed to having adults receive his infantile utterances in baby talk with delight, and who therefore, adapting himself to their taste, was pouring out his twaddle animatedly and zealously, felt disconcerted. Today his babble had no success, no one paid any attention to him. He was displeased that the black colt had not been brought into the house, and, when they told him to be quiet, he burst into tears, afraid that, being a bad and unsuitable boy, he would be sent back to the baby shop, from which, as he thought, he had been delivered to his parents when he was born. He loudly voiced his genuine fears to all around him, but his sweet absurdities did not make the usual impression. Constrained by staying in a strange house, the adults moved about more hurriedly than usual and were silently immersed in their cares. Shurochka felt hurt and blubbered, as nannies say. He was given something to eat and, with some trouble, put to bed. At last he fell asleep. Mikulitsyn’s Ustinya took Nyusha to her room, to give her supper and initiate her into the mysteries of the house. Antonina Alexandrovna and the men were invited to evening tea.
Alexander Alexandrovich and Yuri Andreevich asked permission to absent themselves for a moment and went out to the porch for a breath of fresh air.
“So many stars!” said Alexander Alexandrovich.
It was dark. Standing two steps apart on the porch, the son- and father-in-law could not see each other. But behind them, from around the corner of the house, the light of a lamp fell from the window into the ravine. In its column, bushes, trees, and some other vague objects showed mistily in the damp air. The bright strip did not take in the conversing men and