Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [172]
3
Night brought much that was unforeseen. It became warm, unusually so for the time of year. A fine-beaded rain drizzled down, so airy that it seemed to diffuse through the air in a misty, watery dust without reaching the earth. But that was an illusion. Its warm, streaming water was enough to wash the earth clean of snow and leave it all black now, glistening as if with sweat.
Stunted apple trees, all covered with buds, miraculously sent their branches from the gardens over the fences into the streets. Drops, tapping discordantly, fell from them onto the wooden sidewalks. Their random drumming resounded all over town.
The puppy Tomik, chained up in the photographers’ yard since morning, barked and whined. Perhaps annoyed by his barking, a crow in the Galuzins’ garden cawed for the whole town to hear.
In the lower part of town, three cartloads of goods were delivered to the merchant Lyubeznov. He refused to accept them, saying it was a mistake and he had never ordered these goods. Pleading the lateness of the hour, the stalwart carters asked him to let them spend the night. The merchant shouted at them, told them to go away, and would not open the gates. Their altercation could also be heard all over town.
At the seventh hour by church time,3 and by common reckoning at one o’clock in the morning, a wave of soft, dark, and sweet droning separated from the heaviest, barely moving bell of the Vozdvizhenye and floated away, mixing with the dark moisture of the rain. It pushed itself from the bell as a mass of soil washed away by flooding water is torn from the bank and sinks, dissolving in the river.
This was the night of Holy Thursday, the day of the Twelve Gospels.4 In the depths behind the netlike veil of rain, barely distinguishable little lights, and the foreheads, noses, and faces lit up by them, set out and went floating along. The faithful were going to matins.
A quarter of an hour later, steps were heard coming from the monastery along the boards of the sidewalk. This was the shopkeeper Galuzina returning home from the just-begun service. She walked irregularly, now hastening, now stopping, a kerchief thrown over her head, her fur coat unbuttoned. She had felt faint in the stuffy church and had gone outside for a breath of air, and now she was ashamed and regretted that she had not stood through the service and for the second year had not gone to communion. But that was not the cause of her grief. During the day she had been upset by the mobilization order posted everywhere, which concerned her poor, foolish son Teresha. She had tried to drive this unpleasantness from her head, but the white scrap of the announcement showing everywhere in the darkness had reminded her of it.
Her house was around the corner, within arm’s reach, but she felt better outside. She wanted to be in the open air, she did not feel like going home to more stuffiness.
She was beset by sad thoughts. If she had undertaken to think them aloud, in order, she would not have had words or time enough before morning. But here in the street these joyless reflections fell upon her in whole lumps, and she could have done with them all in a few moments, in two or three turns from the corner of the monastery to the corner of the square.
The bright feast is at hand, and there’s not a living soul in the house, they’ve all gone off, leaving her alone. What, isn’t she alone? Of course she’s alone. Her ward, Ksiusha, doesn’t count. Who is she, anyway? There’s no looking into another’s heart. Maybe she’s a friend, maybe an enemy, maybe a secret rival. She came as an inheritance from her husband’s first marriage, as Vlasushka’s adopted daughter. Or maybe not adopted, but illegitimate? And maybe not a daughter at all, but from a completely different opera! Can you climb into a man’s