Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [238]
“We must hurry. Night is coming. There’s no time to reflect. If we settle here, then the horse must be put in the barn, the provisions in the front hall, and we here in this room. But I’m against such a decision. We’ve talked enough about it. It will be painful for you and therefore for me. What’s this, your bedroom? No, the nursery. Your son’s little bed. Too small for Katya. On the other hand, the windows are intact, no cracks in the walls or ceiling. And a magnificent stove besides, I already admired it on my last visit. And if you insist that we stay here after all, though I’m against it, then—off with my coat and straight to work. The heating first of all. Heat, heat, heat. Day and night nonstop to begin with. But what’s the matter, my dear? You don’t answer anything.”
“Just a moment. It’s nothing. Forgive me, please. No, you know, we’d really better have a look at the Mikulitsyns’.”
And they drove further on.
5
The Mikulitsyns’ house was locked with a padlock hanging from the eye of the door bar. Yuri Andreevich pried at it for a long time and ripped it off, with splintered wood clinging to the screws. As in the previous house, they barged in hurriedly and went through the rooms with their coats, hats, and felt boots on.
Their eyes were immediately struck by the stamp of order on the objects in certain parts of the house—for instance, in Averky Stepanovich’s study. Someone had been living here, and quite recently. But who precisely? If it was the owners or some one of them, what had become of them, and why had they locked the outside door with a padlock instead of the lock in the door? Besides, if it was the owners, and they had been living there long and permanently, the house would have been in order throughout and not in separate parts. Something told the intruders that it was not the Mikulitsyns. But in that case who was it? The doctor and Lara were not troubled by the uncertainty. They did not start racking their brains over it. As if there were not enough abandoned dwellings now with half the furniture pilfered? Or enough fugitives in hiding? “Some White officer being pursued,” they agreed unanimously. “If he comes, we’ll live together, we’ll work things out.”
And again, as once before, Yuri Andreevich stood as if rooted to the threshold of the study, admiring its spaciousness and astonished at the width and convenience of the desk by the window. And again he thought how such austere comfort probably disposes one and gives one a taste for patient, fruitful work.
Among the outbuildings in the Mikulitsyns’ yard there was a stable built right onto the barn. But it was locked, and Yuri Andreevich did not know what state it was in. So as not to lose time, he decided to put the horse in the easily opened, unlocked barn for the first night. He unharnessed Savraska, and when she cooled down, he gave her water that he brought from the well. Yuri Andreevich wanted to give her some hay from the bottom of the sleigh, but the hay had turned to dust under the passengers and was unfit for horse feed. Luckily, he found enough hay along the walls and in the corners of the wide hayloft over the barn and stable.
They slept that night under their fur coats, without undressing, blissfully, deeply, and sweetly, as children sleep after a whole day of running about and playing pranks.
6
When they got up in the morning, Yuri Andreevich began to gaze admiringly at the tempting desk by the window. His hands were itching to get to work over a sheet of paper. But he chose to enjoy that right in the evening, when Lara and Katenka had gone to bed. And meanwhile he had his hands full just putting two rooms in order.
In dreaming of his evening’s work, he did not set himself any important goals. A simple passion for ink, an attraction to the pen and the occupation of writing, possessed him.
He wanted to scribble, to set down lines. At first he would be satisfied with recalling and writing