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Authors: Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
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entered the path of sophistry. But at times she was overtaken by a hopeless anguish.
How can he not be ashamed to grovel at her feet and plead with her? " We can ' t go on like this. Think what I have done to you! You will end up in the gutter. We must tell your mother. I ' ll marry you. " He wept and insisted as though she were arguing and refusing. But all this was just words, and Lara did not even listen to these tragic, hollow protestations.
And he continued taking her, veiled, to dinner in the private rooms of that ghastly restaurant where the waiters and the clients undressed her with their eyes as she came in. And she merely wondered: " Does one always humiliate those one loves? "
Once she had a dream. She was buried, and there was nothing left of her except her left shoulder and her right foot. A tuft of grass sprouted from her left breast and above the ground people were singing " Black eyes and white breast " and " Masha must not go to the river. "
17
Lara was not religious. She did not believe in ritual. But sometimes, to be able to bear life, she needed the accompaniment of an inner music. She could not always compose such a music for herself. That music was God ' s word of life, and it was to weep over it that she went to church.
Once, early in December, she went to pray with such a heavy heart that she felt as if at any moment the earth might open at her feet and the vaulted ceiling of the church cave in. It would serve her right, it would put an end to the whole thing. She only regretted that she had taken that chatterbox, Olia Demina, with her.
" There ' s Prov Afanasievich, " whispered Olia.
" Sh-sh. Leave me alone. What Prov Afanasievich? "
" Prov Afanasievich Sokolov. The one who ' s chanting. He ' s our cousin twice removed. "
" Oh, the psalmist. Tiverzin ' s relative. Sh-sh. Stop talking. Don ' t disturb me, please. "
They had come in at the beginning of the service. They were singing the psalm " Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name. "
The church was half empty, and every sound in it echoed hollowly. Only in front was there a crowd of worshippers standing close together. The building was new. The plain glass of the window added no color to the gray, snowbound, busy street outside and the people who walked or drove through it. Near that window stood a church warden paying no attention to the service and loudly reproving a deaf, half-witted beggarwoman in a voice as flat and commonplace as the window and the street.
In the time it took Lara, clutching her pennies in her fist, to make her way to the door past the worshippers without disturbing them, buy two candles for herself and Olia, and turn back, Prov Afanasievich had rattled off nine of the beatitudes at a pace suggesting that they were well enough known without him.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.… Blessed are they that mourn.… Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.…
Lara started and stood still. This was about her. He was saying: Happy are the downtrodden. They have something to tell about themselves. They have everything before them. That was what He thought. That was Christ ' s judgment.
18
It was the time of the Presnia uprising. The Guishars ' flat was in the rebel area. A barricade was being built in Tver Street a few yards from their house. People carried buckets of water from their yards in order to cement the stones and scrap iron with ice.
The neighboring yard was used by the workers ' militia as an assembly point, something between a Red Cross post and a soup kitchen.
Lara knew two of the boys who went to it. One was Nika Dudorov, a friend of her school friend Nadia. He was proud, straightforward, taciturn. He was like Lara and did not interest her.
The other was Pasha Antipov, the gymnasium student, who lived with old Tiverzina, Olia Demina ' s grandmother. Lara noticed the effect she had on the boy when she met him at the Tiverzins ' . He was so
How can he not be ashamed to grovel at her feet and plead with her? " We can ' t go on like this. Think what I have done to you! You will end up in the gutter. We must tell your mother. I ' ll marry you. " He wept and insisted as though she were arguing and refusing. But all this was just words, and Lara did not even listen to these tragic, hollow protestations.
And he continued taking her, veiled, to dinner in the private rooms of that ghastly restaurant where the waiters and the clients undressed her with their eyes as she came in. And she merely wondered: " Does one always humiliate those one loves? "
Once she had a dream. She was buried, and there was nothing left of her except her left shoulder and her right foot. A tuft of grass sprouted from her left breast and above the ground people were singing " Black eyes and white breast " and " Masha must not go to the river. "
17
Lara was not religious. She did not believe in ritual. But sometimes, to be able to bear life, she needed the accompaniment of an inner music. She could not always compose such a music for herself. That music was God ' s word of life, and it was to weep over it that she went to church.
Once, early in December, she went to pray with such a heavy heart that she felt as if at any moment the earth might open at her feet and the vaulted ceiling of the church cave in. It would serve her right, it would put an end to the whole thing. She only regretted that she had taken that chatterbox, Olia Demina, with her.
" There ' s Prov Afanasievich, " whispered Olia.
" Sh-sh. Leave me alone. What Prov Afanasievich? "
" Prov Afanasievich Sokolov. The one who ' s chanting. He ' s our cousin twice removed. "
" Oh, the psalmist. Tiverzin ' s relative. Sh-sh. Stop talking. Don ' t disturb me, please. "
They had come in at the beginning of the service. They were singing the psalm " Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name. "
The church was half empty, and every sound in it echoed hollowly. Only in front was there a crowd of worshippers standing close together. The building was new. The plain glass of the window added no color to the gray, snowbound, busy street outside and the people who walked or drove through it. Near that window stood a church warden paying no attention to the service and loudly reproving a deaf, half-witted beggarwoman in a voice as flat and commonplace as the window and the street.
In the time it took Lara, clutching her pennies in her fist, to make her way to the door past the worshippers without disturbing them, buy two candles for herself and Olia, and turn back, Prov Afanasievich had rattled off nine of the beatitudes at a pace suggesting that they were well enough known without him.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.… Blessed are they that mourn.… Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.…
Lara started and stood still. This was about her. He was saying: Happy are the downtrodden. They have something to tell about themselves. They have everything before them. That was what He thought. That was Christ ' s judgment.
18
It was the time of the Presnia uprising. The Guishars ' flat was in the rebel area. A barricade was being built in Tver Street a few yards from their house. People carried buckets of water from their yards in order to cement the stones and scrap iron with ice.
The neighboring yard was used by the workers ' militia as an assembly point, something between a Red Cross post and a soup kitchen.
Lara knew two of the boys who went to it. One was Nika Dudorov, a friend of her school friend Nadia. He was proud, straightforward, taciturn. He was like Lara and did not interest her.
The other was Pasha Antipov, the gymnasium student, who lived with old Tiverzina, Olia Demina ' s grandmother. Lara noticed the effect she had on the boy when she met him at the Tiverzins ' . He was so
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