Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [58]
3
There was much grief to do with Pasha. While Lara was seriously ill, they would not let him see her. What must he have felt? Lara had wanted to kill a man who, in Pasha’s understanding, was indifferent to her, and had then ended up under the patronage of that same man, the victim of her unsuccessful murder. And all that after their memorable conversation on a Christmas night, with the burning candle! Had it not been for this man, Lara would have been arrested and tried. He had warded off the punishment that threatened her. Thanks to him, she had remained at school, safe and sound. Pasha was tormented and perplexed.
When she was better, Lara invited Pasha to come to her. She said:
“I’m bad. You don’t know me; someday I’ll tell you. It’s hard for me to speak, you see, I’m choking with tears, but drop me, forget me, I’m not worthy of you.”
Heartrending scenes followed, one more unbearable than the other. Voitkovskaya—because this happened while Lara was still living on the Arbat—Voitkovskaya, seeing the tearful Pasha, rushed from the corridor to her side, threw herself on the sofa, and laughed herself sick, repeating: “Ah, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it! No, I must say, that’s really … Ha, ha, ha! A mighty man! Ha, ha, ha! Eruslan Lazarevich!”3
To rid Pasha of this defiling attachment, to tear it out by the root and put an end to his suffering, Lara announced to Pasha that she flatly refused him, because she did not love him, but she sobbed so much as she uttered this renunciation that it was impossible to believe her. Pasha suspected her of all the deadly sins, did not believe a single word of hers, was ready to curse and hate her, and loved her devilishly, and was jealous of her thoughts, of the mug she drank from, and of the pillow she lay on. So as not to lose their minds, they had to act resolutely and quickly. They decided to get married without delay, even before the end of examinations. The plan was to marry on the first Sunday after Easter. The marriage was postponed again at Lara’s request.
They were married on the Day of the Holy Spirit, the Monday after the feast of Pentecost, when there was no doubt of their successful graduation. It was all organized by Liudmila Kapitonovna Chepurko, the mother of Tusya Chepurko, Lara’s classmate, who graduated with her. Liudmila Kapitonovna was a beautiful woman with a high bosom and a low voice, a good singer, and terribly inventive. On top of the actual superstitions and beliefs known to her, she spontaneously invented a multitude of her own.
It was terribly hot in town when Lara was “led under the golden crown,” as Liudmila Kapitonovna murmured to herself in the bass voice of the Gypsy Panina,4 as she dressed Lara before setting off. The gilded cupolas of the churches and the fresh sand of the walks were piercingly yellow. The dusty birch greens cut the day before for Pentecost hung downcast on the church fences, rolled up in little tubes and as if scorched. It was hard to breathe, and everything rippled before one’s eyes from the sunshine. And it was as if thousands of weddings were being celebrated round about, because all the girls had their hair in curls and were dressed in white like brides, and all the young men, on the occasion of the feast, had their hair pomaded and were wearing tight-fitting two-piece suits. And everyone was excited, and everyone was hot.
Lagodina, the mother of another of Lara’s classmates, threw a handful of silver coins under Lara’s feet as she stepped onto the rug, to signify future wealth, and Liudmila Kapitonovna, with the same purpose, advised Lara, when she was standing under the crown, not to cross herself with her bare arm sticking out, but to