child. But that old witch!”
“Try to understand, mama, they can’t make an exception for you,” Lara comforted her. “Nobody’s angry with you. On the contrary. Everything that’s going on around us now is being done in the name of man, in defense of the weak, for the good of women and children. Yes, yes, don’t shake your head so mistrustfully. It will be better someday for me and you because of it.”
But her mother did not understand anything.
“It’s always this way,” she said, sobbing. “My thoughts are confused to begin with, and then you blurt things out that just make me roll my eyes. They dump on my head, and it turns out to be in my own interest. No, truly, I must have gone soft in the brain.”
Rodya was at the corps. Lara and her mother wandered about the empty house alone. The unlit street looked into the rooms with vacant eyes. The rooms returned the same gaze.
“Let’s go to the hotel, mama, before it gets too dark. Do you hear, mama? Without putting it off, right now.”
“Filat, Filat,” they called the yard porter. “Filat, dearest, take us to the Montenegro.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Take the bundles, and another thing, Filat, please look after the place in the meantime. And don’t forget seed and water for Kirill Modestovich. And keep everything locked. Oh, and please come to see us there.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Filat. Christ save you. Well, let’s sit down before we go, and God be with us.”
They went outside and did not recognize the air, as after a long illness. Through the frosty expanse, polished like new, round, smooth sounds, as if turned on a lathe, rolled lightly in all directions. Salvoes and gunshots smacked, splatted, and slapped, flattening the distances into a pancake.
Much as Filat tried to dissuade them, Lara and Amalia Karlovna considered these shots blanks.
“You’re a little fool, Filat. Judge for yourself, how could they not be blanks if you can’t see who’s shooting. Who do you think is shooting, the Holy Spirit or something? Of course they’re blanks.”
At one of the intersections a patrol stopped them. They were searched by grinning Cossacks, who brazenly felt them from head to foot. Their visorless caps with chin straps were cocked dashingly over the ear. They all looked one-eyed.
What luck, thought Lara, she will not see Komarovsky for the whole time that they are cut off from the rest of the city! She cannot break with him on account of her mother. She cannot say: Mama, don’t receive him. Or else everything will be given away. So what? Why be afraid of that? Ah, God, let it all go to the devil, as long as it’s over. Lord, Lord, Lord! She’ll fall senseless in the middle of the street right now from revulsion. What did she just remember?! How is it called, that horrible painting with the fat Roman in it, in that first private room where it all began?
The Woman or the Vase.
17 Why, of course. A famous painting.
The Woman or the Vase.
And she was not yet a woman then, to be likened to such a treasure. That came later. The table was so sumptuously set.
“Where are you running like crazy? I can’t go so fast,” Amalia Karlovna wailed behind her, breathing heavily and barely keeping up with her.
Lara was moving quickly. Some force bore her up, as if she were walking on air—a proud, inspiring force.
“Oh, how perkily the gunshots crack,” she thought. “Blessed are the violated, blessed are the ensnared. God give you good health, gunshots! Gunshots, gunshots, you’re of the same opinion!”
20
The Gromeko brothers’ house stood at the corner of Sivtsev Vrazhek and another lane. Alexander Alexandrovich and Nikolai Alexandrovich Gromeko were professors of chemistry, the first at the Petrovskaya Academy,the second at the university. Nikolai Alexandrovich was a bachelor; Alexander Alexandrovich was married to Anna Ivanovna, née Krüger, the daughter of a steel magnate and owner of abandoned, unprofitable mines on
“Try to understand, mama, they can’t make an exception for you,” Lara comforted her. “Nobody’s angry with you. On the contrary. Everything that’s going on around us now is being done in the name of man, in defense of the weak, for the good of women and children. Yes, yes, don’t shake your head so mistrustfully. It will be better someday for me and you because of it.”
But her mother did not understand anything.
“It’s always this way,” she said, sobbing. “My thoughts are confused to begin with, and then you blurt things out that just make me roll my eyes. They dump on my head, and it turns out to be in my own interest. No, truly, I must have gone soft in the brain.”
Rodya was at the corps. Lara and her mother wandered about the empty house alone. The unlit street looked into the rooms with vacant eyes. The rooms returned the same gaze.
“Let’s go to the hotel, mama, before it gets too dark. Do you hear, mama? Without putting it off, right now.”
“Filat, Filat,” they called the yard porter. “Filat, dearest, take us to the Montenegro.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Take the bundles, and another thing, Filat, please look after the place in the meantime. And don’t forget seed and water for Kirill Modestovich. And keep everything locked. Oh, and please come to see us there.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Filat. Christ save you. Well, let’s sit down before we go, and God be with us.”
They went outside and did not recognize the air, as after a long illness. Through the frosty expanse, polished like new, round, smooth sounds, as if turned on a lathe, rolled lightly in all directions. Salvoes and gunshots smacked, splatted, and slapped, flattening the distances into a pancake.
Much as Filat tried to dissuade them, Lara and Amalia Karlovna considered these shots blanks.
“You’re a little fool, Filat. Judge for yourself, how could they not be blanks if you can’t see who’s shooting. Who do you think is shooting, the Holy Spirit or something? Of course they’re blanks.”
At one of the intersections a patrol stopped them. They were searched by grinning Cossacks, who brazenly felt them from head to foot. Their visorless caps with chin straps were cocked dashingly over the ear. They all looked one-eyed.
What luck, thought Lara, she will not see Komarovsky for the whole time that they are cut off from the rest of the city! She cannot break with him on account of her mother. She cannot say: Mama, don’t receive him. Or else everything will be given away. So what? Why be afraid of that? Ah, God, let it all go to the devil, as long as it’s over. Lord, Lord, Lord! She’ll fall senseless in the middle of the street right now from revulsion. What did she just remember?! How is it called, that horrible painting with the fat Roman in it, in that first private room where it all began?
The Woman or the Vase.
17 Why, of course. A famous painting.
The Woman or the Vase.
And she was not yet a woman then, to be likened to such a treasure. That came later. The table was so sumptuously set.
“Where are you running like crazy? I can’t go so fast,” Amalia Karlovna wailed behind her, breathing heavily and barely keeping up with her.
Lara was moving quickly. Some force bore her up, as if she were walking on air—a proud, inspiring force.
“Oh, how perkily the gunshots crack,” she thought. “Blessed are the violated, blessed are the ensnared. God give you good health, gunshots! Gunshots, gunshots, you’re of the same opinion!”
20
The Gromeko brothers’ house stood at the corner of Sivtsev Vrazhek and another lane. Alexander Alexandrovich and Nikolai Alexandrovich Gromeko were professors of chemistry, the first at the Petrovskaya Academy,the second at the university. Nikolai Alexandrovich was a bachelor; Alexander Alexandrovich was married to Anna Ivanovna, née Krüger, the daughter of a steel magnate and owner of abandoned, unprofitable mines on
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