Vasily Grossman - Life And Fate

Viktor knew, however, that his sin and her sin couldn't be measured by the number of minutes they had sat together on a bench. His was no mean sin: he loved her. How had she come to occupy such an important place in his life?

Every word he said to his wife was partly a lie. He couldn't help it; there was something deceitful in his every movement, in every look he gave her.

With affected indifference, he would ask her: 'Well, did your friend ring today? How is she? And is Pyotr Lavrentyevich well?'

He felt glad at Sokolov's successes, but not because he felt any goodwill towards him. No, it was because he felt it gave Marya Ivanovna the right not to feel guilty.

He found it unbearable to hear about Sokolov and Marya Ivanovna only through Lyudmila. It was humiliating for Lyudmila, for Marya Ivanovna, and for himself. He was conscious of something false even when he talked to Lyudmila about Nadya, Tolya and Alexandra Vladimirovna. There were lies everywhere. Why was this? How had it happened? His love for Marya Ivanovna was the deepest truth of his soul. How could it have given birth to so many lies?

It was only by renouncing his love that he could deliver himself, Lyudmila and Marya Ivanovna from these lies. But when he realized this was what he had to do, he was dissuaded by a treacherous fear that clouded his judgement: 'This lie isn't so very terrible. What harm does it do anyone? Suffering is more terrible than lying.'

And when he felt he was strong and ruthless enough to break with Lyudmila and ruin Sokolov's life, this same treacherous fear egged him on with a contradictory argument: 'Nothing can be worse than deceit. It would be better to break with Lyudmila altogether than to go on lying to her all the time. And making Marya Ivanovna lie to her. Deceit is more terrible than suffering.'

Viktor wasn't aware that his intelligence was now merely the obedient servant of his emotions and that there was only one way of escaping from this circle of confusion – by using the knife, by sacrificing himself rather than others.

The more he thought about it all, the less he understood. How could he unravel this tangle? How could his love for Marya Ivanovna be the truth of his life and at the same time be its greatest lie? Only last summer he had had an affair with the beautiful Nina. And they had done more than just walk round the square like schoolchildren who had fallen in love. But it was only now that he felt a sense of guilt and betrayal, a sense of having done wrong to his family.

All this consumed an incalculable amount of emotional and intellectual energy, probably as much as Planck had expended in elaborating his quantum theory.

He had once thought that his love had been born only of sorrow and tragedy… But now he was on the crest of the wave – and he needed Marya Ivanovna as much as ever.

She was unlike everyone else; she wasn't attracted in the least by power, riches and fame. She had wanted to share his grief, anxiety and deprivation… Would she turn away from him now?

He knew that Marya Ivanovna worshipped Pyotr Lavrentyevich. Sometimes this drove him almost insane.

Yevgenia was probably right. This second love, born after years of married life, must be the result of a vitamin deficiency of the soul. He was like a cow licking salt after searching for it for years in grass, hay and the leaves of trees. This hunger of the soul grew very slowly, but in the end it was irresistible. Yes, that's what it was. A hunger of the soul… Marya Ivanovna was indeed startlingly different from Lyudmila.

Was all this really so? Viktor didn't realize that these thoughts had nothing to do with his reason; that their truth or falsehood had nothing to do with how he acted. If he didn't see Marya Ivanovna, he was unhappy; if he knew he was going to see her, he was happy. And when he imagined a future in which they were inseparably together, he felt still more happy.

Why didn't he feel a twinge of guilt about Sokolov? Why did he feel no shame?

But what was there to be ashamed of? All they had done was walk through a park and sit down for a while on a bench.

No, it wasn't just a matter of sitting on a bench. He was ready to break with Lyudmila. He was ready to tell Sokolov that he loved his wife and wanted to take her from him.

He remembered everything that had gone wrong between him and Lyudmila: how badly she had treated his mother; how she had refused to let his cousin stay the night after his release from camp; how rude and callous, how cruel and obstinate she had sometimes been.

All this made him feel callous himself. And that was what he needed to feel, if he was to be ruthless. But Lyudmila had spent her life with him; she had shared all his troubles and difficulties. Her hair was going grey; she had suffered. Was there really nothing good in her? He had been proud of her in the past; he had loved her strength and honesty. Yes, he was simply nerving himself to be ruthless.

As he was getting ready to go out in the morning, Viktor remembered Yevgenia's visit and thought: 'All the same, it's a good thing she's back in Kuibyshev.'

Just then, as Viktor was feeling ashamed at being so mean, Lyudmila said: 'So now Nikolay's been arrested as well. How many of our family does that make? At least Yevgenia's not in Moscow any more.'

Viktor wanted to reproach her, but stopped himself in time – that would have been too dishonest.

'Oh yes, Chepyzhin phoned,' said Lyudmila.

Viktor looked at his watch.

'I'll be back early this evening. I'll ring him then. By the way, I'm probably going to the Urals again.'

'Will you be there long?'

'No. Just two or three days.'

He was in a hurry. Today was an important day.

His work was important – even to the State – but his private thoughts were mean, petty and trivial. It was as though they were in inverse proportion.

As she was leaving, Yevgenia had asked Lyudmila to go to Kuznetsky Most and hand over two hundred roubles for Krymov.

'Lyudmila,' said Viktor. 'Don't forget the money Zhenya gave you. I think you've left it too late already.'

He didn't say this because he was worried on behalf of Krymov or Yevgenia; he said it because he was afraid that Lyudmila's negligence might bring Yevgenia back to Moscow again. Then she would start making telephone calls, sending off petitions and statements… In the end his flat would be nothing but a centre for agitation on behalf of political prisoners.

Viktor knew he was being both petty and cowardly. Feeling ashamed of himself, he said hurriedly: 'You must write to Zhenya. Invite her to stay in my name. Maybe she needs to come to Moscow but feels awkward about asking. Yes, Lyuda. Write to her straight away.'

He felt better after that, but then he knew it was only for his own peace of mind that he'd said it… How strange everything was… When he'd just sat in his room all day, a pariah afraid even of the house-manager and the girl at the rations desk, his head had been full of thoughts about life, truth and freedom, thoughts about God… That was when no one had wanted him, when the telephone had been silent for weeks on end and people had ignored him if they passed him on the street. But now, when dozens of people waited on him, phoning him up and writing to him, when a Zis-101 came to pick him up and hooted discreetly beneath the window, now he found it impossible to shed himself of petty anxieties, trivial irritations and thoughts that were emptier than the husks of sunflower seeds. He'd said the wrong thing then, he'd laughed at the wrong moment there – yes, he was obsessed by trivia.

For a while after Stalin's telephone call, he had thought that he need never know fear again. But it was still there; only its outer trappings had changed. Now it was simply a more aristocratic fear, a fear that travelled by car and was allowed to use the Kremlin telephone switchboard.