feet and implore her: “It can’t go on like this. Think what I’ve done to you. You’re sliding down a steep slope. Let’s tell your mother. I’ll marry you.”
And he wept and insisted, as if she were arguing and disagreeing. But it was all just phrases, and Lara did not even listen to those tragic, empty-sounding words.
And he went on taking her, under a long veil, to the private rooms of that terrible restaurant, where the waiters and customers followed her with their gazes as if undressing her. And she only asked herself: Does one humiliate the person one loves?
Once she had a dream. She is under the ground, all that remains of her is her left side with its shoulder and her right foot. A clump of grass is growing from her left nipple, and aboveground they are singing: “Dark eyes and white breasts” and “Tell Masha not to cross the river.”
17
Lara was not religious. She did not believe in rites. But sometimes, in order to endure life, she needed it to be accompanied by some inner music. She could not invent such music each time for herself. This music was the word of God about life, and Lara went to church to weep over it.
Once at the beginning of December, when Lara’s inner state was like Katerina’s in
The Storm
, 12 she went to pray with such a feeling as if the earth were about to open under her andthe church’s vaults to collapse. And it would serve her right. And everything would be over. Only it was a pity she had taken that chatterbox, Olya Demina, with her.
“Prov Afanasyevich,” Olya whispered in her ear.
“Shh. Let me be, please. What Prov Afanasyevich?”
“Prov Afanasyevich Sokolov. Mother’s second cousin. The one who’s reading.”
“Ah, she means the psalm-reader. Tiverzin’s relation. Shh. Be quiet. Don’t bother me, please.”
They had come at the beginning of the service. The psalm “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name” was being sung. 13
The church was rather empty and echoing. Only towards the front were people crowded in a compact group. It was a newly built church. The colorless glass of the window did not brighten in any way the gray, snow-covered lane and the people driving or walking up and down it. The church warden stood by that window and, loud enough for the whole church to hear, paying no attention to the service, admonished some deaf woman, a ragged holy fool, and his voice was of the same conventional, everyday sort as the window and the lane.
While Lara, slowly going around the praying people, copper money clutched in her hand, went to the door to buy candles for herself and Olya, and went back just as carefully, so as not to push anyone, Prov Afanasyevich managed to rattle off the nine beatitudes, 14 like something well-known to everyone without him.
Blessed are the poor in spirit … Blessed are those who mourn … Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness …
Lara walked, suddenly shuddered, and stopped. That was about her. He says: Enviable is the lot of the downtrodden. They have something to tell about themselves. They have everything before them. So He thought. It was Christ’s opinion.
18
Those were the Presnya days. 15 They found themselves in the zone of the uprising. A few steps away from them, on Tverskaya, a barricade was being built. It could be seen from the living-room window. People were fetching buckets of water from their courtyard to pour over the barricade and bind the stones and scraps of metal it was made of in an armor of ice.
The neighboring courtyard was a gathering place of the people’s militia, a sort of first-aid station or canteen.
Two boys used to come there. Lara knew them both. One was Nika Dudorov, a friend of Nadya’s, at whose house Lara had made his acquaintance. He was of Lara’s ilk—direct, proud, and taciturn. He resembled Lara and did not interest her.
The other was a student at a progressive school, Antipov, who lived with old
And he wept and insisted, as if she were arguing and disagreeing. But it was all just phrases, and Lara did not even listen to those tragic, empty-sounding words.
And he went on taking her, under a long veil, to the private rooms of that terrible restaurant, where the waiters and customers followed her with their gazes as if undressing her. And she only asked herself: Does one humiliate the person one loves?
Once she had a dream. She is under the ground, all that remains of her is her left side with its shoulder and her right foot. A clump of grass is growing from her left nipple, and aboveground they are singing: “Dark eyes and white breasts” and “Tell Masha not to cross the river.”
17
Lara was not religious. She did not believe in rites. But sometimes, in order to endure life, she needed it to be accompanied by some inner music. She could not invent such music each time for herself. This music was the word of God about life, and Lara went to church to weep over it.
Once at the beginning of December, when Lara’s inner state was like Katerina’s in
The Storm
, 12 she went to pray with such a feeling as if the earth were about to open under her andthe church’s vaults to collapse. And it would serve her right. And everything would be over. Only it was a pity she had taken that chatterbox, Olya Demina, with her.
“Prov Afanasyevich,” Olya whispered in her ear.
“Shh. Let me be, please. What Prov Afanasyevich?”
“Prov Afanasyevich Sokolov. Mother’s second cousin. The one who’s reading.”
“Ah, she means the psalm-reader. Tiverzin’s relation. Shh. Be quiet. Don’t bother me, please.”
They had come at the beginning of the service. The psalm “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name” was being sung. 13
The church was rather empty and echoing. Only towards the front were people crowded in a compact group. It was a newly built church. The colorless glass of the window did not brighten in any way the gray, snow-covered lane and the people driving or walking up and down it. The church warden stood by that window and, loud enough for the whole church to hear, paying no attention to the service, admonished some deaf woman, a ragged holy fool, and his voice was of the same conventional, everyday sort as the window and the lane.
While Lara, slowly going around the praying people, copper money clutched in her hand, went to the door to buy candles for herself and Olya, and went back just as carefully, so as not to push anyone, Prov Afanasyevich managed to rattle off the nine beatitudes, 14 like something well-known to everyone without him.
Blessed are the poor in spirit … Blessed are those who mourn … Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness …
Lara walked, suddenly shuddered, and stopped. That was about her. He says: Enviable is the lot of the downtrodden. They have something to tell about themselves. They have everything before them. So He thought. It was Christ’s opinion.
18
Those were the Presnya days. 15 They found themselves in the zone of the uprising. A few steps away from them, on Tverskaya, a barricade was being built. It could be seen from the living-room window. People were fetching buckets of water from their courtyard to pour over the barricade and bind the stones and scraps of metal it was made of in an armor of ice.
The neighboring courtyard was a gathering place of the people’s militia, a sort of first-aid station or canteen.
Two boys used to come there. Lara knew them both. One was Nika Dudorov, a friend of Nadya’s, at whose house Lara had made his acquaintance. He was of Lara’s ilk—direct, proud, and taciturn. He resembled Lara and did not interest her.
The other was a student at a progressive school, Antipov, who lived with old
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