Free Doctor Zhivago by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak Page B

receptions. Its pistachio-colored curtains, gleaming piano top, aquarium, olive-green upholstery, and potted plants resembling seaweed made it look like a green, sleepily swaying sea bed.
    The Gromekos were cultivated, hospitable, and great connoisseurs and lovers of music. They often held receptions and evenings of chamber music at which piano trios, violin sonatas, and string quartets were performed.
    Such a musical evening was to be held in January, 1906. There was to be a first performance of a violin sonata by a young composer, a pupil of Taneiev ' s, and a trio by Tchaikovsky.
    The preparations were begun the day before. The furniture was moved around in the ballroom. In one corner the piano tuner struck the same chord dozens of times and scattered arpeggios like handfuls of beads. In the kitchen, chickens were being plucked, vegetables cleaned, and mustard mixed with olive oil for sauces and salad dressings.
    Shura Shlesinger, Anna ' s bosom friend and confidante, had come first thing in the morning, making a nuisance of herself.
    She was a tall thin woman with regular features and a rather masculine face which recalled the Emperor ' s, especially when she wore her gray astrakhan hat set at an angle; she kept it on in the house, only slightly raising the veil pinned to it.
    In times of sorrow or anxiety the two friends lightened each other ' s burdens. They did this by saying unpleasant things to each other, their conversation becoming increasingly caustic until an emotional storm burst and soon ended in tears and a reconciliation. These periodic quarrels had a tranquillizing effect on both, like the application of leeches for high blood pressure.
    Shura Shlesinger had been married several times, but she forgot her husbands as soon as she divorced them, and despite her many marriages there was a certain coldness, like that of a spinster, about her.
    She was a theosophist, but she was also an expert on the ritual of the Orthodox Church, and even when she was toute transport é e ,in a state of utter ecstasy, could not refrain from prompting the officiating clergy. " Hear, O Lord, " " Now and ever shall be, " " glorious cherubim " she muttered ceaselessly in her hoarse, staccato patter.
    Shura Shlesinger knew mathematics, esoteric Indian doctrine, the addresses of the best-known teachers at the Moscow Conservatory, who was living with whom, and God only knows what else. For this reason she was called in, as arbiter and organizer, on all important occasions in life.
    At the appointed time the guests began to arrive. There came Adelaida Filippovna, Gints, the Fufkovs, Mr. and Mrs. Basurman, the Verzhitskis, Colonel Kavkaztsev. It was snowing, and whenever the front door was opened you could see the swirling air rush past, as though tangled in a thousand knots by the flickering snow. The men came in out of the cold in high clumsy snow boots, and every one of them, without exception, did his best to look like a country bumpkin; but their wives, on the contrary, their faces glowing from the frost, coats unbuttoned, shawls pushed back and hair spangled with rime, looked like hardened coquettes, cunning itself. " Cui ' s nephew, " the whisper went round as the new pianist came in.
    Beyond the open side doors of the ballroom the supper table gleamed, white and long as a winter road. The play of light on frosted bottles of red rowanberry cordial caught the eye. The crystal cruets on silver stands and the picturesque arrangement of game and zakuski [5] captured the imagination. The napkins folded into stiff pyramids and the baskets of mauve cineraria smelling of almonds seemed to whet the appetite.
    Not to delay the pleasure of earthly food too long, the company got down hastily to their spiritual repast. They sat down in rows. " Cui ' s nephew, " they whispered again as the musician took his place at the piano. The concert began.
    The sonata was known to be dry, labored, and boring. The performance confirmed this belief, and the