Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [214]
“And when it comes to the hair, cut it short, please.”
“I’ll try. Such an intellectual, and pretending to be a know-nothing! We don’t count in weeks now, but in tens of days. Today is the seventeenth, and on numbers with a seven barbers have the day off. As if you didn’t know.”
“I honestly didn’t. Why should I pretend? I told you. I come from far away. I’m not from here.”
“Sit still. Don’t jump. It’s easy to get cut. So you’re a newcomer? How did you get here?”
“On my own two feet.”
“Along the high road?”
“Partly, and the rest by the railway line. There’s no end of trains under the snow! All sorts, deluxe, special.”
“Well, there’s just a little bit left. I’ll snip it off, and that’s it. On family business?”
“What family business! I was working for the former union of credit associations. A traveling agent. They sent me around on inspection. I got stuck devil knows where in eastern Siberia. No way to get back. There are no trains. I had to go on foot, no help for it. I walked for a month and a half. The things I’ve seen, it would take more than a lifetime to tell.”
“And you oughtn’t to tell. I’m going to teach you a bit of wisdom. Now wait. Here’s a mirror. Take your hand from under the sheet and hold it. Look at yourself. Well, how do you find it?”
“I think you’ve cut too little. It could be shorter.”
“It won’t hold its shape. As I said, you oughtn’t to tell anything. It’s better to keep mum about all that now. Credit associations, deluxe trains under the snow, agents and inspections—it’s better if you even forget the words. You’ll get into a real mess with them! Don’t put your foot in it, it’s not the season. Better lie that you’re a doctor or a teacher. Well, there, I’ve chopped your beard off roughly, now we’ll give you a real shave. We’ll soap you up, zip-zap, and you’ll get ten years younger. I’ll go put some water on to boil.”
“Who is this woman!” the doctor thought while she was away. “There’s a feeling that we may have some points of contact and I should know her. Something I’ve seen or heard. She probably reminds me of someone. But, devil take it, who precisely?”
The seamstress returned.
“Well, now we’ll have a shave. Yes, so it’s better never to say anything unnecessary. That’s the eternal truth. Silence is golden. About those special trains and credit associations. Better to invent something about being a doctor or a teacher. And as for seeing all sorts of sights, keep it to yourself. Who’ll be surprised at it now? Does the razor bother you?”
“It hurts a little.”
“It scrapes, it must scrape, I know. Bear with it, dearie. No way to avoid it. Your hair has grown and turned coarse, the skin’s not used to it. Yes. Sights won’t surprise anybody now. People have been tried and tested. We’ve drunk our cup of grief. Such things went on here under the Whites! Robberies, murders, abductions. Hunting people down. For instance, there was this petty satrap, from Sapunov’s men, and, you see, he took a dislike to a certain lieutenant. He sends soldiers to ambush him near the Zagorodny woods, across from Krapulsky’s house. He’s disarmed and taken under escort to Razvilye. And Razvilye at that time was the same for us as the provincial Cheka is now. Golgotha. Why are you shaking your head? Scrapes, does it? I know, dearie, I know. Nothing to be done. Here I’ve got to shave against the grain, and your hair’s stiff as bristles. Stiff. A tricky place. His wife is in hysterics. The lieutenant’s wife. ‘Kolya! My Kolya!’ And goes straight to the chief. Only ‘straight’ is just a manner of speaking. Who’s going to let her? Connections. A woman on the next street had access to the chief and interceded for everybody. He was an exceptionally humane man, not like the others, compassionate. General Galiullin. And all around there was lynch law, atrocities, dramas of jealousy. Just