Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [61]
The necklace lay in its place amidst the bread crumbs and gnawed caramels, and the slow-witted malefactor did not notice it in the heap of leftovers, but only rummaged in the hamper of linens and disturbed the order of Lara’s packing. The tipsy and half-asleep Lara, dimly aware of the situation, felt especially grieved about her work. In indignation, she again wanted to shout and again was unable to open her mouth and move her tongue. Then she gave Ira Lagodina, who was sleeping beside her, a strong nudge of the knee in the pit of the stomach, and when she cried out from pain in a voice not her own, Lara shouted along with her. The thief dropped the bundle of stolen things and hurtled headlong out of the room. Some of the men jumped up, barely understanding what was happening, and rushed after him, but the robber’s trail was already cold.
The commotion that had taken place and the collective discussion of it served as a signal for everyone to get up. The last traces of Lara’s tipsiness vanished. Deaf to their entreaties to let them doze and lie about a little longer, Lara made all the sleepers get up, quickly gave them coffee, and sent them home until they were to meet again in the station at the moment of the train’s departure.
When they were all gone, the work went at a boil. With a quickness peculiar to her, Lara rushed from bundle to bundle, stuffing in pillows, tightening straps, and only begging Pasha and the porter’s wife not to hinder her by helping.
Everything got done properly and on time. The Antipovs were not late. The train set off smoothly, as if imitating the movement of the hats waved to them in farewell. When the waving ceased and from afar came a triple roaring of something (probably “hurrah”), the train picked up speed.
5
For the third day there was foul weather. It was the second autumn of the war. After the successes of the first year, the failures began. Brusilov’s Eighth Army, concentrated in the Carpathians, ready to descend from the passes and invade Hungary, was withdrawing instead, pulled back by a general retreat. We were evacuating Galicia, occupied during the first months of military action.5
Dr. Zhivago, who was formerly known as Yura, but whom people one after another now more often called by his name and patronymic, stood in the corridor of the maternity ward of the gynecological clinic, facing the door through which he had just brought his wife, Antonina Alexandrovna. He had taken his leave and was waiting for the midwife, so as to arrange with her how to inform him in case of need and how he could get in touch with her about Tonya’s health.
He had no time, he was hurrying to his own hospital, and before that had to make house calls on two patients, and here he was wasting precious moments gazing out the window at the oblique hatching of the rain, broken and deflected by a gusty autumnal wind, as wheat in a field is blown over and tangled by a storm.
It was not very dark yet. Yuri Andreevich’s eyes made out the backyard of the clinic, the glassed-in terraces of the mansions on Devichye Field, the line of the electric tramway that led to the rear entrance of one of the hospital buildings.
The rain poured down most disconsolately, not intensifying and not letting up, despite the fury of the wind, which seemed aggravated by the imperturbability of the water being dashed on the earth. Gusts of wind tore at the shoots of the wild grape vine that twined around one of the terraces. The wind seemed to want to tear up the whole plant, raised it into the air, shook it about, and threw it down disdainfully like a tattered rag.
A motorized wagon with two trailers came past the terrace to the clinic. Wounded men were taken out of it.
In the Moscow