Free The Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers by Boris Pasternak Page A

opened again, and a searing, scourging whine shuddered through the house. Zhenya’s hair stood on end: the woman was her mother; she had done it. Ulyasha was wailing. She also heard the voice of her father, but only once and not again. She heard Seryozha being pushed into a room, and he roared, “Don’t you dare to lock me up!” Then, just as she was, barefoot, wearing only her nightgown, she dashed into the corridor, almost colliding with her father. He was wearing his overcoat and shouted something to Ulyasha as he ran. “Papa!” She saw that he was running from the bathroom with a jug of water. “Papa!”
    â€œWhere is Lipa?” he shouted in a totally unfamiliar voice. He spilled water on the floor and disappeared through a door. When he came out again a moment later, in his shirt sleeves and without his waistcoat, Zhenya found herself in Ulyasha’s arms and didn’t hear his words, uttered in a desperate, heart-rending whisper.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with Mama?”
    Instead of a reply Ulyasha repeated over and over, “No, no. It cannot be. Zhenya dear, go to sleep, cover yourself up, turn over and lie on your side. A-ah, God! No, no, dear!” she repeated, covered Zhenya up like a small child and went out. It cannot be, but she didn’t say what could not be, and her face had been wet and her hair disarrayed. Three doors away, a lock clicked behind her.
    Zhenya lit a match to see whether it would soon be dawn. It was only one o’clock. She was astonished. Had she really slept only one hour? The hubbub in her parents’ room continued. A loud groaning rose and fell. Then, for a moment, an endless, eternal silence. Hurried footsteps and muffled voices broke the silence. A bell rang once, then again. Then words, arguments, orders—so many that it sounded as if the rooms were lit by voices, as a table is lighted by a thousand fading candelabra.
    Zhenya fell asleep. She slept with tears in her eyes. She dreamed that there were visitors. She counted them but always miscalculated. Every time there was one person too many. And every time the same horror seized her when she recognized that the extra person wasn’t just anybody: it was Mama.
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    One couldn’t help it, one had to feel happy about the small, sunny morning. Seryozha thought of games in the yard, of snowballs, of snowfights with the neighbors’ children. Tea was brought to them in the schoolroom, and they were told that there were floor polishers in the dining room. Their father came in. It was soon clear that he knew nothing about floor polishers. He really knew nothing about them. He told them the true reason for the changes in their routine. Their mother was ill. She needed quiet. Ravens flew, with far-echoing caws, over the street, shrouded in white. A small sleigh glided by, pushing its horse forward. The animal was not yet used to the new harness and kept losing the beat.
    â€œYou’ll go to the Defendovs. I’ve arranged everything. And you, Seryozha—”
    â€œWhy?” Zhenya interrupted.
    But Seryozha had guessed why and forestalled his father. “So that you don’t catch the infection,” he instructed his sister. But the street outside made him restless. He ran to the window as if someone had called to him. The Tartar who came out of the house in his new clothes looked as stately and as highly adorned as a pheasant. He wore a lambskin cap, and his bare sheepskin coat had a sheen warmer than morocco leather. He waddled and rocked slightly, probably because the raspberry-red pattern on his white boots ignored the natural structure of the human foot. These patterns moved arbitrarily; they cared little whether the objects beneath them were feet, teacups or roof tiles. But the most interesting thing of all—at this moment, the weak groaning that came from the bedroom grew louder and their father went into the corridor, forbidding them to follow