Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [160]
“In the seventh chapter of Evgeny Onegin—spring, the manor house empty after Onegin’s departure, Lensky’s grave down by the water, under the hill.
And there the nightingale, spring’s lover,
Sings all night long. The wild rose flowers.
“Why ‘lover’? Generally speaking, the epithet is natural, appropriate. Indeed he is a lover. Besides that, it’s needed for the rhyme. But in terms of sound, do we not also have here the epic Nightingale the Robber?7
“In the folk epic he is called Nightingale the Robber, son of Odikhmanty. How well it speaks of him!
From him and from his nightingale whistle,
From him and from his wild beast cry,
All the grassy masses shrink and shrivel,
All the sky-blue flowers wither and die,
The dark woods all bow down their heads,
And if there are people, they all lie dead.
“We arrived at Varykino in early spring. Soon everything began to turn green, especially in Shutma, as the ravine under Mikulitsyn’s house is called—bird cherry, alder, hazel. Several nights later the nightingales began to trill.
“And again, as if hearing them for the first time, I was amazed at how this song stands out from the calls of all other birds, what a leap, without gradual change, nature performs to the richness and singularity of this trilling. So much variety in changing figures and such force of distinct, far-reaching sound! In Turgenev somewhere8 there is a description of these whistlings, the wood demon’s piping, the larklike drumming. Two turns stood out particularly. The quick, greedy, and luxurious ‘tiokh, tiokh, tiokh,’ sometimes with three beats, sometimes countless, in response to which the thicket, all in dew, shook itself, preened itself, flinching as if it had been tickled. And another falling into two syllables, calling out, soul-felt, entreating, like a plea or an exhortation: ‘A-wake! A-wake! A-wake!’ ”
9
“Spring. We’re getting ready for farmwork. So no more diary. But it has been pleasant to take these notes. I’ll have to set them aside till winter.
“The other day, this time indeed during the week before Lent, the season of bad roads, a sick peasant drives his sled into the yard over water and mud. Naturally, I refuse to receive him. ‘Forgive me, my dear fellow, I’ve stopped doing that—I have neither a real choice of medicines, nor the necessary equipment.’ But there was no getting rid of him. ‘Help me. My skin’s going scant. Have mercy. A bodily ailment.’
“What to do? I don’t have a heart of stone. I decided to receive him. ‘Get undressed.’ I examined him. ‘You’ve got lupus.’ I busy myself with him, glancing sidelong towards the windowsill, at the bottle of carbolic acid. (Good God, don’t ask me where I got it, and another thing or two, the most necessary! It’s all from Samdevyatov.) I look—another sled drives into the yard, with a new patient, as it seems to me at first. And my brother Evgraf drops as if from the clouds. For a while he is at the disposal of the household, Tonya, Shurochka, Alexander Alexandrovich. Afterwards, when I’m free, I join the others. Questions begin—how, from where? As usual, he dodges, evades, not one direct answer, smiles, wonders, riddles.
“He was our guest for about two weeks, often going by himself to Yuriatin, and suddenly he vanished as if he’d fallen through the earth. During that time I was able to notice that he was still more influential than Samdevyatov, yet his doings and connections were still less explicable. Where does he come from? Where does his power come from? What is he engaged in? Before his disappearance, he promised to lighten our farmwork, so that Tonya would have free time to bring up Shura, and I for medical and literary pursuits. We asked curiously what he intended to do towards that end. Again silence and smiles. But he did not deceive us. There are signs that the conditions of our life will indeed change.
“Astonishing thing! He is my half brother. He has the same last name. And yet, strictly speaking, I know him least of all.
“This is