The garden of the central poly clinic adjoined the grounds of the Central Committee Sanatorium.
The patients used it as a short cut on their way home from the beach. Pavel loved to rest here in the shade of a spreading plane tree which grew beside a high limestone wall. From this quiet nook he could watch the lively movement of the crowd strolling along the garden paths and listen to the music of the band in the evenings without being jostled by the gay throngs of the large health resort.
Today too he had sought his favourite retreat. Drowsy from the sunshine and the bath he had just taken, he stretched himself out luxuriously on the chaise-lounge and fell into a doze. His bath towel and the book he was reading, Furmanov's Insurrection, lay on the chair beside him. His first days in the sanatorium had brought no relief to his nerves and his headaches continued. His ailment had so far baffled the sanatorium doctors, who were still trying to get to the root of the trouble. Pavel was sick of the perpetual examinations. They wearied him and he did his best to avoid his ward doctor, a pleasant woman with the curious name of Yerusalimchik, who had a difficult time hunting for her unwilling patient and persuading him to let her take him to some specialist or other.
"I'm tired of the whole business," Pavel would plead with her. "Five times a day I have to tell the same story and answer all sorts of silly questions: was your grandmother insane, or did your great-grandfather suffer with rheumatism? How the devil should I know what he suffered from? I never saw him in my life! Every doctor tries to induce me to confess that I had gonorrhea or something worse, until I swear I'm ready to punch their bald heads. Give me a chance to rest, that's all I want.
If I'm going to let myself be diagnosed all the six weeks of my stay here I'll become a danger to society."
Yerusalimchik would laugh and joke with him, but a few minutes later she would take him gently by the arm and lead him to the surgeon, chattering volubly all the way.
But today there was no examination in the offing, and dinner was an hour away. Presently, through his doze, he heard steps approaching. He did not open his eyes.
"They'll think I'm asleep and go away," he thought. Vain hope! He heard the chair beside him creak as someone sat down.
A faint whiff of perfume told him it was a woman. He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was a dazzling white dress and a pair of bronzed feet encased in soft leather slippers, then a boyish bob, two enormous eyes, and a row of white teeth as sharp as a mouse's. She gave him a shy smile.
"I haven't disturbed you, I hope?"
Pavel made no reply, which was not very polite of him, but he still hoped that she would go.
"Is this your book?" She was turning the pages of Insurrection.
"It is."
There was a moment of silence.
"You're from the Kommunar Sanatorium, aren't you?"
Pavel stirred impatiently. Why couldn't she leave him in peace? Now she would start asking about his illness. He would have to go.
"No," he replied curtly.
"I was sure I had seen you there."
Pavel was on the point of rising when a deep, pleasant woman's voice behind him said:
"Why, Dora, what are you doing here?''
A plump, sunburned, fair-haired girl in a beach costume seated herself on the edge of a chair. She glanced quickly at Korchagin.
"I've seen you somewhere, Comrade. You're from Kharkov, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Where do you work?"
Pavel decided to put an end to the conversation.
"In the garbage disposal department," he replied. The laugh this sally evoked made him jump.
"You're not very polite, are you, Comrade?"
That is how their friendship began. Dora Rodkina turned out to be a member of the Bureau of the Kharkov City Committee of the Party and later, when they came to know each other well, she often teased him about the amusing incident with which their acquaintance had started.
One afternoon at an open-air concert in the grounds of the Thalassa Sanatorium Pavel ran across his old friend Zharky. And curious to relate, it was a foxtrot that brought them together.
After the audience had been treated to a highly emotional rendering of Oh, Nights of Burning Passion by a buxom soprano, a couple sprang onto the stage. The man, half-naked but for a red top hat, some shiny spangles on his hips, a dazzling white shirt front and bow tie, in feeble imitation of a savage, and his doll-faced partner in voluminous skirts. To the accompaniment of a delighted buzz from the crowd of beefy-necked shopowners standing behind the armchairs and cots occupied by the sanatorium patients, the couple gyrated about the stage in the intricate figures of a foxtrot. A more revolting spectacle could scarcely be imagined. The fleshy man in his idiotic top hat, with his partner pressed tightly to him, writhed on the stage in suggestive poses. Pavel heard the stertorous breathing of some fat carcass at his back. He turned to go when someone in the front row got up and shouted:
"Enough of this brothel show! To hell with it!"
It was Zharky.
The pianist stopped playing and the violin subsided with a squeak. The couple on the stage ceased writhing. The crowd at the back set up a vicious hissing.
"What impudence to interrupt a number!"
"All Europe is dancing foxtrot!"
"Outrageous!"
But Seryozha Zhbanov, Secretary of the Cherepovets Komsomol organisation and one of the Kommunar patients, put four fingers into his mouth and emitted a piercing whistle. Others followed his example and in an instant the couple vanished from the stage, as if swept off by a gust of wind. The obsequious compere who looked like nothing so much as an old-time flunkey, announced that the concert troupe was leaving.
"Good riddance to bad rubbish!" a lad in a sanatorium bathrobe shouted amid general laughter.
Pavel went over to the front rows and found Zharky. The two friends had a long chat in Pavel's room. Zharky told Pavel that he was working in the propaganda section of one of the Party's regional committees.
"You didn't know I was married, did you?" said Zharky. "I'm expecting a son or a daughter before long."
"Married, eh?" Pavel was surprised. "Who is your wife?"
Zharky took a photograph out of his pocket and showed it to Pavel.
"Recognise her?"
It was a photo of himself and Anna Borhart.
"What happened to Dubava?" Pavel asked in still greater surprise.
"He's in Moscow. He left the university after he was expelled from the Party. He's at the Bauman Technical Institute now. I hear he's been reinstated. Too bad, if it's true. He's rotten through and through. ... Guess what Pankratov is doing? He's assistant director of a shipyard. I don't know much about the others. We've lost touch lately. We all work in different parts of the country. But it's nice to get together occasionally and recall the old times."
Dora came in bringing several other people with her. She glanced at the decoration on Zharky's jacket and asked Pavel:
"Is your comrade a Party member? Where does he work?"
Puzzled, Pavel told her briefly about Zharky.
"Good," she said. "Then he can remain. These comrades have just come from Moscow. They are going to give us the latest Party news. We decided to come to your room and hold a sort of closed Party meeting," she explained.
With the exception of Pavel and Zharky all the newcomers were old Bolsheviks. Bartashev, a member of the Moscow Control Commission, told them about the new opposition headed by Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev.
"At this critical moment we ought to be at our posts," Bartashev said in conclusion. "I am leaving tomorrow."
Three days after that meeting in Pavel's room the sanatorium was deserted. Pavel too left shortly afterward, before his time was up.
The Central Committee of the Komsomol did not detain him. He was given an appointment as Komsomol Secretary in one of the industrial regions, and within a week he was already addressing a meeting of the local town organisation.
Late that autumn the car in which Pavel was travelling with two other Party workers to one of the remote districts, skidded into a ditch and overturned.
All the occupants were injured. Pavel's right knee was crushed. A few days later he was taken to the surgical institute in Kharkov. After an examination and X-ray of the injured limb the medical commission advised an immediate operation.
Pavel gave his consent.
"Tomorrow morning then," said the stout professor, who headed the commission. He got up and the others filed out after him.
A small bright ward with a single cot. Spotless cleanliness and the peculiar hospital smell he had long since forgotten. He glanced about him. Beside the cot stood a small table covered with a snow-white cloth and a white-painted stool. And that was all.
The nurse brought in his supper. Pavel sent it back. Half-sitting in his bed, he was writing letters.
The pain in his knee interfered with his thoughts and robbed him of his appetite.
When the fourth letter had been written the door opened softly and a young woman in a white smock and cap came over to his bed.
In the twilight he made out a pair of arched eyebrows and large eyes that seemed black. In one hand she held a portfolio, in the other, a sheet of paper and a pencil.
"I am your ward doctor," she said. "Now I am going to ask you a lot of questions and you will have to tell me all about yourself, whether you like it or not."
She smiled pleasantly and her smile took the edge off her "cross-examination". Pavel spent the better part of an hour telling her not only about himself but about all his relatives several generations back.
... The operating theatre. People with gauze masks over noses and mouths. Shining nickel instruments, a long narrow table with a huge basin beneath it.
The professor was still washing his hands when Pavel lay down on the operating table. Behind him swift preparations were being made for the operation. He turned his head. The nurse was laying out pincets and lancets.
"Don't look, Comrade Korchagin," said Bazhanova, his ward doctor, who was unbandaging his leg. "It is bad for the nerves."
"For whose nerves, doctor?" Pavel asked with a mocking smile.
A few minutes later a heavy mask covered his face and he heard the professor's voice saying:
"We are going to give you an anaesthetic. Now breathe in deeply through your nose and begin counting."
"Very well," a calm voice muffled by the mask replied. "I apologise in advance for any unprintable remarks I am liable to make."
The professor could not suppress a smile.
The first drops of ether. The suffocating loathsome smell.
Pavel took a deep breath and making an effort to speak distinctly began counting. The curtain had risen on the first act of his tragedy.
Artem tore open the envelope and trembling inwardly unfolded the letter. His eyes bored into the first few lines, then ran quickly over the rest of the page.
"Artem! We write to each other so seldom, once, or at best twice a year! But is it quantity that matters? You write that you and your family have moved from Shepetovka to Kazatin railway yards because you wished to tear up your roots. I know that those roots lie in the backward, petty-proprietor psychology of Styosha and her relatives. It is hard to remake people of Styosha's type,and I am very much afraid you will not succeed. You say you are finding it hard to study 'in your old age', yet you seem to be doing not so badly. You are wrong in your stubborn refusal to leave the factory and take up work as Chairman of the Town Soviet. You fought for the Soviet power,didn't you? Then take it! Take over the Town Soviet tomorrow and get to work!
"Now about myself. Something is seriously wrong with me. I have become a far too frequentinmate in hospitals. They have cut me up twice. I have lost quite a bit of blood and strength, but nobody can tell me yet when it will all end.
"I am no longer fit for work. I have acquired a new profession, that of 'invalid'. I am enduring much pain, and the net result of all this is loss of movement in the joint of my right knee, several scars in various parts of my body, and now the latest medical discovery: seven years ago I injured my spine and now I am told that this injury may cost me dearly. But I am ready to endure anything so long as I can return to the ranks.
"There is nothing more terrible to me in life than to fall out of the ranks. That is a possibility I refuse to contemplate. And that is why I let them do anything they like with me. But there is no improvement and the clouds grow darker and thicker all the time. After the first operation I returned to work as soon as I could walk, but before long they brought me back again. Now I am being sent to a sanatorium in Yevpatoria. I leave tomorrow. But don't be downhearted, Artem, you know I don't give in easily. I have life enough in me for three. You and I will do some good work yet, brother. Now take care of your health, don't try to overtax your strength, because health repairs cost the Party far too much. All the experience we gain in work, and the knowledge we acquire by study is far too precious to be wasted in hospitals. I shake your hand.
"Pavel."
While Artem, his heavy brows knitted, was reading his brother's letter, Pavel was taking leave of Dr. Bazhanova in the hospital.
"So you are leaving for the Crimea tomorrow?" she said as she gave him her hand. "How are you going to spend the rest of the day?"
"Comrade Rodkina is coming here soon," Pavel replied. "She is taking me to her place to meet her family. I shall spend the night there and tomorrow she will take me to the station."
Bazhanova knew Dora for she had often visited Pavel in the hospital.
"But, Comrade Korchagin, have you forgotten your promise to let my father see you before you go? I have given him a detailed account of your illness and I should like him to examine you.
Perhaps you could manage it this evening."
Pavel agreed at once.
That evening Bazhanova showed Pavel into her father's spacious office.
The famous surgeon gave Pavel a careful examination. His daughter had brought all the X-ray pictures and analyses from the clinic. Pavel could not help noticing how pale she turned when her father made some lengthy remark in Latin. Pavel stared at the professor's large bald head bent over him and searched his keen eyes, but Bazhanov's expression was inscrutable.
When Pavel had dressed, the professor took leave of him cordially, explaining that he was due at a conference, and left his daughter to inform Pavel of the result of his examination.
Pavel lay on the couch in Bazhanova's tastefully furnished room waiting for the doctor to speak. But she did not know how to begin. She could not bring herself to repeat what her father had told her — that medicine was so far unable to check the disastrous inflammatory process at work in Pavel's organism. The professor had been opposed to an operation. "This young man is fated to lose the use of his limbs and we are powerless to avert the tragedy."
She did not consider it wise either as doctor or friend to tell him the whole truth and so in carefully chosen words she told him only part of the truth.
"I am certain, Comrade Korchagin, that the Yevpatoria mud will put you right and that by autumn you will be able to return to work."
But she had forgotten that his sharp eye had been watching her all the time.
"From what you say, or rather from what you have not said, I see that the situation is grave.
Remember I asked you always to be perfectly frank with me. You need not hide anything from me, I shan't faint or try to cut my throat. But I very much want to know what is in store for me."
Bazhanova evaded a direct answer by making some cheerful remark and Pavel did not learn the truth about his future that night.
"Do not forget that I am your friend, Comrade Korchagin," the doctor said softly in parting. "Who knows what life has in store for you. If ever you need my help or my advice please write to me. I shall do everything in my power to help you."
Through the window she watched the tall leather-clad figure, leaning heavily on a stick, move painfully from the door to the waiting cab.
Yevpatoria again. The hot southern sun. Noisy sunburned people in embroidered skullcaps. A ten-minute drive brought the new arrivals to a two-storey grey limestone building — the Mainak Sanatorium.
The doctor on duty, learning that Pavel's accommodation had been reserved by the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party, took him up to room No. 11.
"I shall put you in with Comrade Ebner. He is a German and he has asked for a Russian roommate," he explained as he knocked at the door. A voice with a heavy German accent sounded from within. "Come in."
Pavel put down his travelling bag and turned to the fair-haired man with the lively blue eyes who was lying on the bed. The German met him with a warm smile.
"Guten Morgen, Genosse. I mean, good day," he corrected himself, stretching a pale, long-fingered hand to Pavel.
A few moments later Pavel was sitting by his bed and the two were engrossed in a lively conversation in that "international language" in which words play a minor role, and imagination,gestures and mimicry, all the media of the unwritten Esperanto, fill in the gaps.
Pavel learned that Ebner was a German worker who had been wounded in the hip during the Hamburg uprising of 1923. The old wound had re-opened and he was confined to his bed. But hebore his sufferings cheerfully and that won Pavel's respect for him at once.
Pavel could not have wished for a better room-mate. This one would not talk about his ailments from morning till night and bemoan his lot. On the contrary, with him one could forget one's own troubles.
"Too bad I don't know any German, though," Pavel thought ruefully.
In a corner of the sanatorium grounds stood several rocking-chairs, a bamboo table and two bath-chairs. It was here that the five patients whom the others referred to as the "Executive of the Comintern" were in the habit of spending their time after the day's medical treatments were over.
Ebner half reclined in one of the bath-chairs. Pavel, who had also been forbidden to walk, in the other. The three other members of the group were Weiman, a thickset Estonian, who worked at a Republican Commissariat of Trade, Marta Laurin, a young, brown-eyed Lettish woman wholooked like a girl of eighteen, and Ledenev, a tall, powerfully-built Siberian with greying temples.
This small group indeed represented five different nationalities — German, Estonian, Lettish,Russian and Ukrainian. Marta and Weiman spoke German and Ebner used them as interpreters.
Pavel and Ebner were friends because they shared the same room; Marta, Weiman and Ebner, because they shared a common language. The bond between Ledenev and Korchagin was chess.
Before Ledenev arrived, Korchagin had been the sanatorium chess "champion". He had won the title from Weiman after a stiff struggle. The phlegmatic Estonian had been somewhat shaken by his defeat and for a long time he could not forgive Korchagin for having worsted him. But one day a tall man, looking remarkably young for his fifty years, turned up at the sanatorium and suggested a game of chess with Korchagin. Pavel, having no inkling of danger, calmly began with a Queen's Gambit, which Ledenev countered by advancing his central pawns. As "champion", Pavel was obliged to play all new arrivals, and there was always a knot of interested spectators around the board. After the ninth move Pavel realised that his opponent was cramping him by steadily advancing his pawns. Pavel saw now that he had a dangerous opponent and began to regret that he had treated the game so lightly at the start.
After a three-hour struggle during which Pavel exerted all his skill and ingenuity he was obliged to give up. He foresaw his defeat long before any of the onlookers. He glanced up at his opponent and saw Ledenev looking at him with a kindly smile. It was clear that he too saw how the game would end. The Estonian, who was following the game tensely and making no secret of his desire to see Korchagin defeated, was still unaware of what was happening.
"I always hold out to my last pawn," Pavel said, and Ledenev nodded approvingly.
Pavel played ten games with Ledenev in five days, losing seven, winning two and drawing one.
Weiman was jubilant.
"Thank you, Comrade Ledenev, thank you! That was a wonderful thrashing you gave him! He deserved it! He knocked out all of us old chess players and now he's been paid back by an old man himself. Ha! Ha!"
"How does it feel to be the loser, eh?" he teased the now vanquished victor.
Pavel lost the title of "champion" but won in Ledenev a friend who was later to become very precious to him. He saw now that his defeat on the chessboard was only to have been expected. His knowledge of chess strategy had been purely superficial and he had lost to an expert who knew all the secrets of the game.
Korchagin and Ledenev found that they had one important date in common: Pavel was born the year Ledenev joined the Party. Both were typical representatives of the young and old guard of Bolsheviks. The one had behind him a long life of intensive political activity, years of work in the underground movement and tsarist imprisonment, followed by important government work; the other had his flaming youth and only eight years of struggle, but years that could have burnt up more than one life. And both of them, the old man and the young, were avid of life and broken in health.
In the evenings the room shared by Ebner and Korchagin became a sort of club. All the political news emanated from here. The room rang with laughter and talk. Weiman usually tried to insert a bawdy anecdote into the conversation but invariably found himself attacked from two sides, by Marta and Korchagin. As a rule Marta was able to restrain him by some sharp sarcastic remark, but when this did not help Korchagin would intervene.
"Your particular brand of 'humour' is not exactly to our taste, you know, Weiman," Marta would say.
"I can't understand how you can stoop to that sort of thing," Korchagin would begin.
Weiman would stick out his thick underlip and survey the gathering with a mocking glint in his small eyes.
"We shall have to set up a department of morals under the Political Enlightenment Department and recommend Korchagin as chief inspector. I can understand why Marta objects, she is the professional feminine opposition, but Korchagin is just trying to pose as a young innocent, a sort of Komsomol babe-in-arms. . . . What's more, I object to the egg trying to teach the hen."
After one heated debate on the question of communist ethics, the matter of obscene jokes was discussed from the standpoint of principle. Marta translated to Ebner the various views expressed.
"Die erotische Anekdote" he said, "is no good. I agree with Pavel."
Weiman was obliged to retreat. He laughed the matter off as best he could, but told no more smutty stories.
Pavel had taken Marta for a Komsomol member, judging her to be no more than nineteen. He was much surprised when he learned that she had been in the Party since 1917, that she was thirty-one and an active member of the Latvian Communist Party. In 1918 the Whites had sentenced her to be shot, but she had eventually been turned over to the Soviet Government along with some other comrades in an exchange of prisoners. She was now working on the editorial staff of the Pravda and taking a university course at the same time.
Before Pavel was aware of it, a friendship sprang up between them, and the little Lettish woman who often dropped in to see Ebner, became an inseparable member of the "five". Eglit, a Latvian underground worker, liked to tease her on this score. "What about poor Ozol pining away at home in Moscow? Oh Marta, how can you?"
Every morning, just before the bell to rise sounded, a lusty cockcrow would ring out over the sanatorium. The puzzled attendants would run hither and thither in search of the errant bird. It never occurred to them that Ebner, who could give a perfect imitation of a cockcrow, was having a little joke at their expense. Ebner enjoyed himself immensely.
Toward the end of his month's stay in the sanatorium Pavel's condition took a turn for the worse.
The doctors ordered him to bed. Ebner was much upset. He had grown very fond of this courageous young Bolshevik, so full of life and energy, who had lost his health so early in life.
And when Marta told him of the tragic future the doctors predicted for Korchagin, Ebner was deeply distressed.
Pavel was confined to his bed for the remainder of his stay in the sanatorium. He managed to hide his suffering from those around him, and Marta alone guessed by his ghastly pallor that he must be in pain. A week before his departure Pavel received a letter from the Ukrainian Central Committee informing him that his leave had been prolonged for two months on the advice of the sanatorium doctors who declared him unfit for work. Money to cover his expenses arrived along with the letter.
Pavel took this first blow as years before during his boxing lessons he had taken Zhukhrai's punches. Then too he had fallen only to rise again at once.
A letter came from his mother asking him to go and see an old friend of hers, Albina Kyutsam, who lived in a small port town not far from Yevpatoria. Pavel's mother had not seen her friend for fifteen years and she begged him to pay her a visit while he was in the Crimea. This letter was to play an important role in Pavel's life.
A week later his sanatorium friends gave him a warm send-off at the pier. Ebner embraced him and kissed him like a brother. Marta was away at the time and Pavel left without saying good-bye to her.
The next morning the horse cab which brought Pavel from the pier drove up to a little house fronted by a small garden.
The Kyutsam family consisted of five people: Albina the mother, a plump elderly woman with dark, mournful eyes and traces of beauty on her aging face, her two daughters, Lola and Taya, Lola's little son, and old Kyutsam, the head of the house, a burly, unpleasant old man resembling a boar.
Old Kyutsam worked in a co-operative store. Taya, the younger girl, did any odd job that came along, and Lola, who had been a typist, had recently separated from her husband, a drunkard and a bully, and now stayed at home to look after her little boy and help her mother with the housework.
Besides the two daughters, there was a son named George, who was away in Leningrad at the time of Pavel's arrival.
The family gave Pavel a warm welcome. Only the old man eyed the visitor with hostility and suspicion.
Pavel patiently told Albina all the family news, and in his turn learned a good deal about the life of the Kyutsams.
Lola was twenty-two. A simple girl, with bobbed brown hair and a broad-featured, open face, she at once took Pavel into her confidence and initiated him into all the family secrets. She told him that the old man ruled the whole family with a despotic hand, suppressing the slightest manifestation of independence on the part of the others. Narrow-minded, bigoted and captious, he kept the family in a permanent state of terror. This had earned him the deep dislike of his children and the hatred of his wife who had fought vainly against his despotism for twenty-five years. The girls always took their mother's side. These incessant family quarrels were poisoning their lives.
Days passed in endless bickering and strife.
Another source of family trouble, Lola told Pavel, was her brother George, a typical good-fornothing, boastful, arrogant, caring for nothing but good food, strong drink and smart clothes.
When he finished school, George, who had been his mother's favourite, announced that he was going to the university and demanded money for the trip.
"Lola can sell her ring and you've got some things you can raise money on too. I need the money and I don't care how you get it."
George knew very well that his mother would refuse him nothing and he shamelessly took advantage of her affection for him. He looked down on his sisters. The mother sent her son all the money she could wheedle out of her husband, and whatever Taya earned besides. In the meantime George, having flunked the entrance examinations, had a pleasant time in Leningrad staying with his uncle and terrorising his mother by frequent telegraphic demands for more money.
Pavel did not meet Taya until late in the evening of his arrival. Her mother hurried out to meet her in the hallway and Pavel heard her whispering the news of his coming. The girl shook hands shyly with the strange young man, blushing to the tips of her small ears, and Pavel held her strong, calloused little hand for a few moments before releasing it.
Taya was in her nineteenth year. She was not beautiful, yet with her large brown eyes, and her slanting, Mongolian brows, fine nose and full fresh lips she was very attractive. Her firm young breasts stood out under her striped blouse.
The sisters had two tiny rooms to themselves. In Taya's room there was a narrow iron cot, a chest of drawers covered with knick-knacks, a small mirror, and dozens of photographs and postcards on the walls. On the windowsill stood two flower pots with scarlet geraniums and pale pink asters.
The lace curtain was caught up by a pale blue ribbon.
"Taya does not usually admit members of the male sex to her room. She is making an exception for you," Lola teased her sister.
The next evening the family was seated at tea in the old couple's half of the house. Kyutsam stirred his tea busily, casting hostile glances over his spectacles at the visitor."I don't think much of the marriage laws nowadays," he said. "Married one day, unmarried the next. Just as you please. Complete freedom."
The old man choked and spluttered. When he recovered his breath he pointed to Lola.
"Look at her, she and that fine fellow of hers got married without asking anyone's permission and separated the same way. And now it's me who's got to feed her and her brat. An outrage I call it!" Lola blushed painfully and hid her tear-filled eyes from Pavel.
"So you think she ought to live with that scoundrel?" Pavel asked, his eyes flashing.
"She should have known whom she was marrying."
Albina intervened. Barely repressing her wrath, she said quickly: "Why must you discuss such things before a stranger? Can't you find anything else to talk about?"
The old man turned and pounced on her:
"I know what I'm talking about! Since when have you begun to tell me what to do!"
That night Pavel lay awake for a long time thinking about the Kyutsams. Brought here by chance,he had unwittingly become a participant in this family drama. He wondered how he could help the mother and daughters to free themselves from this bondage. His own life was far from settled,many problems remained to be solved and it was harder than ever before to take resolute action.
There was clearly but one way out: the family had to break up, the mother and daughters must leave the old man. But this was not so simple. Pavel was in no position to undertake this family revolution, for he was due to leave in a few days and he might never see these people again. Was it not better to let things take their course instead of trying to stir these turbid backwaters? But the repulsive image of the old man gave him no rest. Several plans occurred to Pavel but on second thoughts he discarded them all as impracticable.
The next day was Sunday and when Pavel returned from a walk in town he found Taya alone at home. The others were out visiting relatives.
Pavel went to her room and dropped wearily onto a chair.
"Why don't you ever go out and enjoy yourself?" he asked her.
"I don't want to go anywhere," she replied in a low voice.
He remembered the plans he had thought of during the night and decided to put them before her.
Speaking quickly so as to finish before the others returned, he went straight to the point.
"Listen, Taya, you and I are good friends. Why should we stand on ceremony with each other? I am going away soon. It is a pity that I should have come to know your family just at the time when I myself am in trouble, otherwise things might have turned out differently. If this happened ayear ago we could all leave here together.
There is plenty of work everywhere for people like you and Lola. It's useless to expect the old man to change. The only way out is for you to leave home.
But that is impossible at present. I don't know yet what is going to happen to me. I am going to insist on being sent back to work. The doctors have written all sorts of nonsense about me and the comrades are trying to make me cure myself endlessly. But we'll see about that.... I shall write to mother and get her advice about your trouble here. I can't let things go on this way. But you must realise, Taya, that this will mean wrenching yourself loose from your present life. Would you want that, and would you have the strength to go through with it?"
Taya looked up.
-"I do want it," she said softly. "As for the strength, I don't know."
Pavel could understand her uncertainty.
"Never mind, Taya! So long as the desire is there everything will be all right. Tell me, are you very much attached to your family?"
Taya hesitated for a moment.
"I am very sorry for mother," she said at last. "Father has made her life miserable and now George is torturing her. I'm terribly sorry for her, although she never loved me as much as she does George...."
" They had a long heart to heart talk. Shortly before the rest of the family returned, Pavel remarked jokingly:
"It's surprising the old man hasn't married you off to someone by now."
Taya threw up her hands in horror at the thought.
"Oh no, I'll never marry. I've seen what poor Lola has been through. I shan't get married for anything."
Pavel laughed.
"So you've settled the matter for the rest of your life? And what if some fine, handsome young fellow comes along, what then?"
"No, I won't. They're all fine while they're courting."
Pavel laid his hand conciliatingly on her shoulder.
"That's all right, Taya. You can get along quite well without a husband. But you needn't be so hard on the young men. It's a good thing you don't suspect me of trying to court you, or there'd be trouble," and he patted her arm in brotherly fashion.
"Men like you marry girls of a different sort," she said softly.
A few days later Pavel left for Kharkov. Taya, Lola and Albina with her sister Rosa came to the station to see him off. Albina made him promise not to forget her daughters and to help them all to find some way out of their plight. They took leave of him as of someone near and dear to them, and there were tears in Taya's eyes.
From the window of his carriage Pavel watched Lola's white kerchief and Taya's striped blouse grow smaller and smaller until they finally disappeared.
In Kharkov he put up at his friend Petya Novikov's place, for he did not want to disturb Dora. As soon as he had rested from the journey he went to the Central Committee. There he waited for Akim, and when at last the two were alone, he asked to be sent at once to work. Akim shook his head.
"Can't be done, Pavel! We have the decision of the Medical Commission and the Central Committee says your condition is serious. You're to be sent to the Neu-ropathological Institute for treatment and not to be permitted to work."
"What do I care what they say, Akim! I am appealing to you. Give me a chance to work! This moving about from one hospital to another is killing me."
Akim tried to refuse. "We can't go against the decision. Don't you see it's for your own good, Pavel?" he argued. But Pavel pleaded his cause so fervently that Akim finally gave in.
The very next day Pavel was working in the Special Department of the Central Committee Secretariat. He believed that he had only to begin working for his lost strength to return to him.
But he soon saw that he had been mistaken. He sat at his desk for eight hours at a stretch without pausing for lunch simply because the effort of going down three flights of stairs to the canteen across the way was too much for him. Very often his hand or his leg would suddenly go numb, and at times his whole body would be paralysed for a few moments. He was nearly always feverish. On some mornings he found himself unable to rise from his bed, and by the time the attack passed, he realised in despair that he would be a whole hour late for work. Finally the day came when he was officially reprimanded for reporting late for work and he saw that this was the beginning of what he dreaded most in life — he was falling out of the ranks.
Twice Akim helped him by shifting him to other work, but the inevitable happened. A month after his return to work he was confined to his bed again. It was then that he remembered Bazhanova's parting words. He wrote to her and she came the same day. She told him what he had wanted to know: that hospitalisation was not imperative.
"So I don't need any more treatment? That's fine!" he said cheerfully, but the joke fell flat. As soon as he felt a little stronger he went back to the Central
Committee. This time Akim was adamant. He insisted on Pavel's going to the hospital.
"I'm not going," Pavel said wearily. "It's useless. I have it on excellent authority. There is only one thing left for me — to retire on pension. But that I shall
never do! You can't make me give up my work. I am only twenty-four and I'm not going to be a labour invalid for the rest of my life, moving from hospital to hospital, knowing that it won't do me any good. You must give me something to do, some work suitable to my condition. I can work at home, or I can live in the office. Only don't give me any paper work. I've got to have work that will give me the satisfaction of knowing that I can still be useful."
Pavel's voice, vibrant with emotion, rose higher and higher.
Akim felt keenly for Pavel. He knew what a tragedy it was for this passionate-hearted youth, who had given the whole of his short life to the Party, to be torn from the ranks and doomed to a life far from the battlefront. He resolved to do all he could to help him.
"All right, Pavel, calm yourself. There will be a meeting of the Secretariat tomorrow and I'll put your case before the comrades. I promise to do all I can."
Pavel rose heavily and seized Akim's hand.
"Do you really think, Akim, that life can drive me into a corner and crush me? So long as my heart beats here" — and he pressed Akim's hand to his chest so that he could feel the dull pounding of his heart — "so long as it beats, no one will be able to tear me away from the Party. Death alone can put me out of the ranks. Remember that, my friend."
Akim said nothing. He knew that this was not an empty phrase. It was the cry of a soldier mortally wounded in battle. He knew that men like Korchagin could not speak or feel otherwise.
Two days later Akim told Pavel that he was to be given an opportunity to work on the staff of a big newspaper, provided, of course, it was found that he could be used for literary work. Pavel was courteously received at the editorial office and was interviewed by the assistant editor, an old Party worker, and member of the Presidium of the Central Control Committee of the Ukraine.
"What education have you had, Comrade?" she asked him.
"Three years of elementary school."
"Have you been to any of the Party political schools?"
"No."
"Well, one can be a good journalist without all that. Comrade Akim has told us about you. We can give you work to do at home, and in general, we are prepared to provide you with suitable conditions for work. True, work of this kind requires considerable knowledge. Particularly in the sphere of literature and language."
This was by no means encouraging. The half-hour interview showed Pavel that his knowledge was inadequate, and the trial article he wrote was returned to him with some three dozen stylistic and spelling mistakes marked in red pencil.
"You have considerable ability, Comrade Korchagin," said the editor, "and with some hard work you might learn to write quite well. But at the present time your grammar is faulty. Your article shows that you do not know the Russian language well enough. That is not surprising considering that you have had no time to learn it.
Unfortunately we can't use you, although as I said before, you have ability. If your article were edited, without altering the contents, it would be excellent.
But, you see, we haven't enough editors as it is."
Korchagin rose, leaning heavily on his stick. His right eyebrow twitched.
"Yes, I see your point. What sort of a journalist would I make? I was a good stoker once, and not a bad electrician. I rode a horse well, and I knew how to stir up the Komsomol youth, but I can see I would cut a sorry figure on your front."
He shook hands and left.
At a turning in the corridor he stumbled and would have fallen had he not been caught by a woman who happened to be passing by.
"What's the matter, Comrade? You look quite ill!"
It took Pavel several seconds to recover. Then he gently released himself and walked on, leaning heavily on his stick.
From that day Pavel felt that his life was on the decline. Work was now out of the question. More and more often he was confined to his bed. The Central Committee released him from work and arranged for his pension. In due time the pension came together with the certificate of a labour invalid. The Central Committee gave him money and issued him his papers, giving him the right to go wherever he wished.
He received a letter from Marta inviting him to come to visit her in Moscow and have a rest. Pavel had intended going to Moscow in any case, for he cherished the dim hope that the All-Union Central Committee would help him to find work that would not require moving around. But in Moscow too he was advised to take medical treatment and offered accommodation in a good hospital. He refused.
The nineteen days spent in the flat Marta shared with her friend Nadya Peterson flew quickly by.
Pavel was left a great deal to himself, for the two young women left the house in the morning for work and did not return till evening. Pavel spent his time reading books from Marta's well-stocked library. The evenings passed pleasantly in the company of the girls and their friends.
Letters came from the Kyutsams inviting him to come and visit them. Life there was becoming unendurable and his help was wanted.
And so one morning Korchagin left the quiet little flat on Gusyatnikov Street. The train bore him swiftly south to the sea, away from the damp rainy autumn to the warm shores of the southern Crimea. He sat at the window watching the telegraph poles fly past. His brows were knit and there was an obstinate gleam in his dark eyes.
中央委员会“公社战士”疗养院的旁边，是中心医院的大花园。疗养院的人从海滨回来，都从这座花园经过。花园的一堵灰色石头砌的高墙附近，长着枝叶茂盛的法国梧桐，保尔喜欢在这里的树荫下休息。这个地方很少有人来。从这里可以观看花园林荫道和小径上络绎不绝的行人；晚上，又可以远远避开大疗养区恼人的喧闹，在这里静听音乐。
今天，保尔又躲到这个角落里来了。他舒适地在一张藤摇椅上躺下，海水浴和日光浴使他疲乏了，他打起瞌睡来。一条厚毛巾和一本没有看完的富尔曼诺夫的小说《叛乱》，放在旁边的摇椅上。到疗养院的最初几天，他仍然处在神经过敏的紧张状态中，头疼的症状始终没有消失。教授们一直在研究他那复杂而罕见的病情。一次又一次的叩诊、听诊，使他感到又腻烦，又疲劳。责任医生是一个大家都愿意接近的女党员，姓耶路撒冷奇克，这个姓很怪。她总要费很大劲，才能找到她的这个病人，然后又耐着性子劝他一起去找这位专家或者那位专家。
“说实在的，这一套真叫我烦透了。”保尔说。“同样的问题，一天得回答他们五遍。什么您的祖母是不是疯子啊，什么您的曾祖父得没得过风湿病啊，鬼才知道他得过什么病，我压根儿就没见过他。而且，他们每个人都想叫我承认得过淋病，或者别的什么更糟糕的病。老实说，为了这个我真想敲敲他们的秃脑袋。还是让我休息一会儿吧！要是这一个半月老这么把我研究来研究去，我就要变成一个社会危害分子了。”
耶路撒冷奇克总是笑着，用玩笑回答他，过不了几分钟，她已经挽着他的胳膊，一路上说着有趣的事，把他领到外科医生那里去了。
今天看样子不会检查了。离吃午饭还有一个小时。保尔在矇眬的睡意中听到了脚步声。他没有睁开眼睛，心想：“也许以为我睡着了，就会走开的。”但是，希望落空了，摇椅嘎吱响了一声，有人坐了下来。飘过来一股清淡的香气，说明坐在旁边的是个女人。保尔睁开眼睛。首先映入他眼帘的是耀眼的白色连衣裙，两条晒得黝黑的腿和两只穿着羊皮便鞋的脚，然后是留着男孩发式的头，两只大眼睛，一排细小的牙齿。她不好意思地笑了笑，说：“对不起，我大概打搅您了吧？”
保尔没有做声。这可有点不礼貌，不过他还是希望这个女人会走开。
“这是您的书吗？”
她翻弄着《叛乱》。
“是我的……”
又是一阵沉默。
“同志，请问您是‘公社战士’疗养院的吗？”
保尔不耐烦地扭了一下。“打哪儿冒出来这么个人？这算什么休息？说不定马上还要问我得的是什么病呢。算了，我还是走吧。”于是他生硬地回答：“不是。”
“可我好像在哪儿见过您。”
保尔已经抬起身子，背后忽然传来一个女人的响亮的声音。
“你怎么钻到这儿来了，朵拉？”
一个晒得黝黑、体态丰满的金发女人，穿着疗养院的浴衣，在摇椅边上坐了下来。她瞥了保尔一眼。
“同志，我好像在哪儿见过您。您是不是在哈尔科夫工作？”
“是的，是在哈尔科夫。”
“做什么工作？”
保尔决心结束这场没完没了的谈话，便回答说：“掏茅房的！”
她们听了哈哈大笑，保尔不由得哆嗦了一下。
“同志，您这种态度，恐怕不能说很有礼貌吧。”
他们的友谊就是这样开始的。哈尔科夫市党委常委朵拉·罗德金娜后来不止一次回忆起他们结识时的可笑情景。
一天午饭后，保尔到海洋疗养院的花园去看歌舞演出，没想到在这里遇见了扎尔基。说来也怪，使他们相逢的竟是一场狐步舞。
一个肥胖的歌女，狂荡地打着手势，唱完了一支《良夜销魂曲》。随后，一男一女跳上了舞台。男的头上戴一顶红色圆筒高帽，半裸着身体，胯骨周围系着五颜六色的扣带，上身却穿着白得刺眼的胸衣，还扎着领带。一句话，装的是野蛮人，看起来却不伦不类。那女的长相倒不错，身上挂着许多布条。他们刚出场，一群站在疗养员的安乐椅和躺床后面的新经济政策暴发户，就伸出他们的牛脖子，齐声喝彩。这一对宝贝在他们的喝彩声中，扭动屁股，踏着碎步，在舞台上跳起了狐步舞。简直难以想象还有比这更加令人作呕的场面了。戴着傻瓜圆筒帽的胖汉子和那个女人，紧紧贴在一起，扭来扭去，做出各种下流猥亵的姿势。保尔身后，一个肥猪似的大胖子乐得呼哧呼哧直喘气。保尔刚要转身走开，紧靠舞台的前排有一个人站了起来，愤怒地喊道：“够了，别卖淫了！见鬼去吧！”
保尔认出这个人是扎尔基。
钢琴伴奏中断了，小提琴尖叫了一声，不再响了。台上的一对男女停止了扭摆。暴发户们从椅子后面发出一片嘘声，气势汹汹地指责方才喊叫的人：“把一出好戏给搅黄了，真他妈的不像话！”
“整个欧洲都在跳啊！”
“简直岂有此理！”
这时候，在“公社战士”疗养院来的一群观众里，共青团切列波韦茨县委书记谢廖沙·日巴诺夫把四个手指夹进嘴里，打了一个绿林好汉式的唿哨，别的人也群起响应。于是，台上那一对宝贝像被风刮走似的不见了。报幕的小丑像一个机灵的堂倌，跑出来向观众宣布，他们的歌舞班子马上就走。
“一条大道朝天，夹起尾巴滚蛋，要是爷爷问你，就说到莫斯科看看！”一个穿疗养衣的小伙子，在一片哄笑声中这样喊着，把报幕人送下了舞台。
保尔跑到前排，找到了扎尔基。他们在保尔房间里坐了很久。扎尔基在一个专区的党委会负责宣传鼓动工作。
“告诉你，我已经结婚了。很快就要抱孩子了。”扎尔基说。
“是吗，你爱人是谁？”保尔惊奇地问。
扎尔基从上衣口袋里掏出一张相片给保尔看。
“还认得出来吗？”
这是他和安娜·博哈特的合影。
“那杜巴瓦哪儿去了呢？”保尔更加惊讶了，又问。
“上莫斯科了。被开除出党以后，他就离开了共产主义大学，现在在莫斯科高等技校学习。听说他恢复了党籍。白搭！这个人是不可救药了……你知道潘克拉托夫在哪儿吗？他现在当了造船厂副厂长。其他人的情况我就不太清楚了，大家都不通音信。咱们分散在各地，能够碰到一起，谈谈过去的事，真叫人高兴。”扎尔基说。
朵拉走进保尔的房间，同她一起进来的还有几个人。一个高个子的坦波夫人关上了门。朵拉看了看扎尔基胸前的勋章，问保尔：“你的这位同志是党员吗？他在哪儿工作？”
保尔不明白是怎么回事，把扎尔基的情况简单地介绍了一下。
“那就让他留下吧。刚才从莫斯科来了几位同志。他们要给咱们讲一讲党内最近的一些情况。我们决定在你屋里开个会，算是个内部会议吧。”朵拉解释说。
在场的人，除了保尔和扎尔基之外，几乎全是老布尔什维克。莫斯科市监委委员巴尔塔绍夫，矮墩墩的个子，五十上下年纪，过去在乌拉尔地区当翻砂工人，他先发言，声音不大：“是的，有事实为证，出了新的反对派，我们原先就有预感，果然发生了。新反对派的领袖人物，除了季诺维也夫和加米涅夫，还有一个，不是别人，正是托洛茨基。他们狼狈为奸，相互打气。如今这个各色反对派拼凑起来的大杂烩开始行动了。”
坦波夫来的检察员插进来说：“第十四次代表大会上我就对同志们说过：‘你们记住我的话吧，季诺维也夫、加米涅夫早晚要同托洛茨基结亲。’当时，季诺维也夫带着一帮列宁格勒代表一个劲儿反对代表大会，托洛茨基一声不吭，净在一边看热闹，心里则在寻思：‘你们这帮狗崽子，因为‘十月革命的教训’一直在攻击我，要把我置之死地，如今自己滑进了同一个泥坑。’有人不同意我的看法，说季诺维也夫和加米涅夫多年来都在跟托洛茨基主义作斗争，在各个转折关头都谴责托洛茨基主义是党内异己派别，他们决不会背叛布尔什维主义，决不会听命于他们长期激烈批判过的人。
“结果怎么样呢？昨天的敌人、思想上的对头今天成了朋友，因为他们都在不择手段地反对布尔什维克党中央，同谁联合都行，牺牲自己的全部原则、放弃原先的立场也行。这些原则和立场如今在他们眼里粪土不如。同托洛茨基结盟会使他们过去布尔什维克的称号蒙上耻辱，可这算得了什么呢？
这个无原则的联盟很像一九一二年的八月联盟。不论是现在还是那个时候，挥舞指挥棒的都是托洛茨基。季诺维也夫和加米涅夫这次的表演，其卑鄙程度不亚于他们在十月武装起义前的畏缩。这号人，”坦波夫人瞥了一眼在座的女同胞朵拉，咽回去一句骂娘话。“呸，差点没说出脏话来！这种乱七八糟的事我还真没见过。”坦波夫人结束了他的发言。
“一切迹象表明，最近期间这个联合的反对派就会向党发动进攻。这些不断冒出来的小集团干的就是一件事——制造混乱，破坏党的统一。我不明白，我们什么时候才能把它们彻底了结。我们太放任太宽容他们了。依我看，应该把这些职业的捣乱分子和反对派一个一个通通清除出党。我们在跟这些反党分子的斗争上浪费了多少时间和精力。”朵拉激烈地说。
老人梅伊兹然默默地听完大家的发言，接着说：“朋友们，我们不能再耽搁，要赶紧回去。疗养院多住两天少住两天无所谓，在这样紧要的关头，我们必须坚守各自的岗位。我明天就动身。”
在保尔房间集会之后三天，疗养员都走光了。保尔也提前出了院。
保尔在团中央没有耽搁很久。他被派到一个工业专区去，担任共青团专区委员会书记。一个星期后，城里的共青团积极分子就听到了他的第一次讲话。
深秋的一天，保尔和两名工作人员乘专区党委会的汽车到离城很远的一个区去，汽车掉进路边的壕沟里，翻了车。
车上的人都受了重伤。保尔的右膝盖压坏了。几天以后，他被送到哈尔科夫外科学院。几个医生会诊，检查了他红肿的膝盖，看了爱克斯光片，主张立即动手术。
保尔同意了。
“那么就明天早晨做吧。”主持会诊的胖教授最后这样说，接着就起身走了。其他医生也都跟着走了出去。
一间明亮的单人小病室，一尘不染，散发着保尔久已淡忘的那种医院特有的气味。他向四周看了看。一只铺着白台布的床头柜，一张白凳子，这就是全部家具。
护理员送来了晚饭。
保尔谢绝了。他半躺在床上写信。伤腿疼得很厉害，影响思考，也不想吃东西。
写完第四封信的时候，病室的门轻轻地打开了。保尔看见一个穿白大褂、戴白帽的年轻女人走到他床前。
在薄暮中，保尔依稀看到她那两道描得细细的眉毛和一对似乎是黑色的大眼睛。她一手提着皮包，一手拿着纸和铅笔。
“我是您这个病室的责任医生，”她说。“今天我值班。现在我向您提一些问题，您呢，不管愿意不愿意，要把您的全部情况都告诉我。”
女医生亲切地笑了笑。这一笑，减轻了“审问”的不快。
保尔整整讲了一个小时，不仅讲了自己的情况，而且连祖宗三代都讲到了。
手术室里，几个人戴着大口罩。
镀镍的手术器械闪着银光，狭长的手术台下面放着一个大盆。保尔躺在手术台上的时候，教授已经快洗完手了。手术前的准备工作正在保尔身后紧张地进行着。保尔回头看了一下，护士在安放手术刀、镊子。责任医生巴扎诺娃给他解开腿上的绷带，轻声对他说：“柯察金同志，别往那边看，看了对神经有刺激。”
“您说的是谁的神经，大夫？”保尔不以为然地笑了笑。
几分钟以后，保尔的脸给蒙上了厚实的面罩，教授对他说：“不要紧张，现在就给您施行氯仿麻醉。请您深呼吸，用鼻子吸气，数数吧。”
面罩下传出了低沉而平静的声音：“好的，我保不住会说出不干不净的话来，那就事先请你们原谅了。”
教授忍不住笑了。
几滴氯仿麻醉剂，散发着一股令人窒息的难闻气味。
保尔深深地吸了一口气，开始数起数来，努力把数字说得清楚些。他的生活悲剧就这样揭开了第一幕。
阿尔焦姆差点把信封撕成两半。他打开信的时候，不知道为什么心情忐忑不安。眼睛一看到信的开头，他就急忙一口气读了下去：
阿尔焦姆！咱们很少通信。一年一次，最多也就是两次吧！但是，次数多少有什么关系呢？你来信说，为了同老根一刀两断，你已经转到卡扎京的机车库工作，带着全家离开了舍佩托夫卡。我明白你的意思，你说的老根就是斯捷莎和她一家的那种小私有者的落后心理，以及诸如此类的东西。改造斯捷莎这一类人是困难的，我担心你未必做得到。你说“上了年纪，学习有困难”，可是你学得并不坏嘛。让你脱产专做市苏维埃主席的工作，你坚决不干，这是不对的。你不是为夺取政权战斗过吗？那你就应该掌握政权。你应该明天就接手市苏维埃的工作，干起来。
现在谈谈我自己。我的情况有点不妙。经常住院，开了两次刀，流了不少血，体力也有很大消耗，而且谁也不告诉我，什么时候是个头。
我离开了工作，给自己找到了一种新的职业——当病号。
我忍受着种种痛苦，而结果呢，是右膝关节不能活动了，身上添了好几个刀口；另外，医生最近发现，我的脊梁骨七年前受过暗伤。现在他们说，这个伤可能要我付出极高的代价。
我准备忍受一切，只要能重新归队就行。
对我的生活来说，没有比掉队更可怕的事情了。我甚至连想都不敢想。正因为这样，我才承受一切，只是一直不见起色，相反，阴云越聚越浓。第一次手术过后，我刚能走动，就恢复了工作，但是很快又被送进了医院。刚才我拿到了叶夫帕托里亚的迈纳克疗养院的入院证，明天就动身。别难过，阿尔焦姆，要我进棺材并不那么容易。我的生命力顶三个人不成问题。咱们还能干一阵呢，哥哥！你要注意身体，别再一下扛十普特了。不然，以后党要付出很大的代价给你修理。
岁月给我们经验，学习给我们知识，而得到这一切，并不是为了到一个又一个医院去做客。握你的手。
保尔·柯察金
就在阿尔焦姆皱着两道浓眉，阅读弟弟来信的时候，保尔正在医院和巴扎诺娃告别。她把手伸给他，问：“您明天就动身到克里木去吗？今天您打算在哪儿过呢？”
保尔回答：“朵拉同志马上就来。今天白天和晚上我都在她家里，明天一早她送我上火车。”
巴扎诺娃认识朵拉，因为她常来看保尔。
“柯察金同志，咱们说过，您临走之前要同我父亲见一面，您还记得吗？我已经把您的病情详细地告诉他了。我很想让他给您检查一下。今天晚上就可以。”
保尔立即同意了。
当天晚上，巴扎诺娃把保尔领到她父亲宽敞的工作室里。
这位著名的外科专家给保尔做了详细检查。巴扎诺娃也在场，她从医院拿来了爱克斯光片和全部化验单。谈话中间，她父亲用拉丁语说了很长一段话，她听了之后，脸色顿时变得煞白，这不能不引起保尔的注意。他盯着教授那秃顶的大脑袋，想从他敏锐的目光中看出点什么来，但是巴扎诺夫教授不露声色，无法捉摸。
等保尔穿好衣服，巴扎诺夫客气地向他告别；他要去参加一个会议，嘱咐女儿把检查结果告诉保尔。
在巴扎诺娃那间陈设雅致的房间里，保尔靠在沙发上，等待她开口。但是她不知道从哪里说起，说些什么；她感到很为难。父亲告诉她，保尔体内的致命炎症正在发展，医学现在还无法控制。教授反对再做任何外科手术，他说：“这个年轻人面临着瘫痪的悲剧，我们却没有能力防止它。”
作为保尔的医生和朋友，巴扎诺娃觉得不能把这一切都和盘托出。她只是用谨慎的措词向他透露了一小部分真情。
“柯察金同志，我相信，叶夫帕托里亚的泥疗一定会使您的病出现转机。秋天您就可以工作了。”
但是她说这些话的时候，忘记了有一对敏锐的眼睛一直在注视着她。
“从您的话里，确切些说，是从您没明说的话里，我已经完全明白了我的病情的严重性。您该记得，我请求过您永远要对我实话实说。什么事情都不要瞒着我，我听了不会晕倒，也不会抹脖子。可是我非常想知道，我今后会怎么样。”保尔说。
巴扎诺娃说了句笑话，把话岔开了。
这天晚上，保尔到底还是没有了解到真实情况，不知道他的明天将会怎样。临分手的时候，巴扎诺娃轻声
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