“He didn’t attend school . . . Educated at Yasnaya Polyana, that’s what . . .” Pavel Alekseevich chuckled to himself. “Apparently the sixth-grade middle school textbooks made a great impression on him . . .”
“Haec ego fingebam,” proclaimed Lev Nikolaevich, “that carnal love is allowed for human beings! I erred along with all of our so-called Christianity. Everyone suffered, everyone burned in flames owing to a false understanding of love, owing to its division into the carnal and profane versus the intellectualized, philosophical, and lofty, owing to shame over one’s own, innocent, God-given body for which joining with another is innocent, blissful, and good!”
“There’s no doubt about that, Lev Nikolaevich,” Pavel Alekseevich interjected quietly, looking over his shoulder at the graph drawn in red and blue pencil. It contained a crudely depicted ovum and spermatozoon.
“That inclination lies at the foundation of the universe, and the Greeks, and the Hindus, and the Chinese all understood that. We Russians, though, have understood nothing. Only Vasily Vasilievich Rozanov—an essentially odious gentleman—saw the light to an extent. Our upbringing, the diseases of the time, the great lie that has come down to us from the ancient monastic misanthropes have led to our not having achieved love. And a person who has not achieved love of life cannot achieve love of God.” He fell silent and sulked. “Love occurs at the cellular leveclass="underline" that is the essence of my discovery. All laws are concentrated in it—the law of conservation of energy, and the law of conservation of matter. Chemistry, physics, and mathematics. Molecules gravitate toward each other as a function of chemical affinity, which is determined by love. By passion even, if you will. Metal in the presence of oxygen passionately desires to be oxidized. And note the main thing: this chemical love goes as far as self-renunciation! Giving themselves over to each other, each ceases to be itself: metal becomes oxide, and oxygen entirely ceases to be a gas. That is, it yields its natural essence out of love . . . And the elements? The way water aspires to the earth, filling each and every crevice, dissolving into each and every crack in the earth, the waves licking the seashore! Love, in its most perfect form, also denotes denial of the self, of your own being, in the name of that which is the object of your love . . .” The old man wrinkled his dry lips. “I, Pavel Alekseevich, rejected everything that I had written. It was misguided. All of it . . . Now I sit here, and I read, and I think. And I weep, you know . . . I said so many stupid things, I stirred up so many people’s lives, but I never found the words of truth, no . . . I never wrote what was most important about what was most important. I failed to understand anything about love . . .”
“Pardon me, Lev Nikolaevich! What about the story about the young peasant who fell off the roof and died? Wasn’t that about love? Why that’s the best thing I ever read about love in my whole life,” Pavel Alekseevich objected.
Lev Nikolaevich started. “Wait a minute, which story was that? I don’t remember.”
“‘Alyosha the Pot’ it’s called.”
“Yes, yes . . . There was one called that,” Lev Nikolaevich reflected. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I did write one story.”
“What about The Cossacks? Or Hadji-Murat? No, no, I can’t agree with you, Lev Nikolaevich. Isn’t the word itself an element, and doesn’t the same process occur in it as the one you just described? And if our speech is an element—even if not of the highest order, at least you’ll agree, sufficiently highly organized—then you, Lev Nikolaevich, are the master of love and nothing less . . .”
The old man stood up. He was not very tall, bandy-legged, but broad in the shoulders and impressive. He went up to the bookcase: it held his first posthumous collected works in worn paper bindings. Lev Nikolaevich pulled out volume after volume, searching for the story. Then he opened it to the page he needed. Pavel Alekseevich looked tenderly over the old man’s shoulder at the yellowed pages: the same edition had been rescued from Lenochka’s apartment on Trekhprudny.
“So you propose that this is a good story?”
“A masterpiece.” Pavel Alekseevich responded concisely.
“I’ll be sure to reread it. I’d forgotten all about it. Maybe I really did write something worthwhile . . .” he mumbled, glancing through his pince-nez at the yellowed pages.
The sun was already setting. Pavel Alekseevich rose, said good-bye, and promised to come again, if he were able. Lev Nikolaevich, who had invited him for a conversation about the natural sciences, now seemed little interested in his opinion. He was in a rush to reread his old story. Like all elderly people, his own opinion was more important than anyone else’s . . .
The old man walked out onto the porch with Pavel Alekseevich and even kissed him good-bye. Pavel Alekseevich rushed to return to the place where not long ago there had been a riverbank.
15
THE FOOTPATH WOUND ALTERNATELY UPHILL, THEN DOWNhill, and Pavel Alekseevich marveled that the view here—constructed of various planes—was layered, as in the theater, so that a tree in the distance was as visible as the grass alongside the path. At each turn new details of the local world order opened out before him: it turned out that the bed of the stream was raised, and that the water flowed thick and slow. A large pink fish was motionless in the water and looked at Pavel Alekseevich with an unpiscine gaze that was both benevolent and intrigued.
The next turn revealed a low-lying, curly garden. In the garden stood a bench nailed together from white planks. A tall woman got up from the bench and came out to meet him, tapping a striped cane ahead of herself. This could only be Vasilisa, no one else. Her eyes were covered by a white bandage like the blindfolds children use when playing blindman’s bluff. But there was something else that was strange about her face. When she came closer, he saw that above the bandage, in the middle of her forehead, there was a large—more bovine than human in size—bright blue eye with thick girlish eyelashes.
“Pavel Alekseevich, I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been sitting and sitting, and you never come.” Vasilisa rejoiced. They were already next to each other, and he embraced her.
“Hello, Vasilisa, sweetie.”
“We’ve met again, thank the Lord,” she sniffled. Pavel Alekseevich nodded. The eye had two tear ducts, so it was neither left nor right and very symmetrically placed in the center of her forehead. “They took away the old eyes and gave her a new one?” he thought, but, it turned out, he said aloud. Vasilisa laughed. Pavel Alekseevich realized that he had never heard her laugh before.
“They didn’t take them away. They operated on them. On these, the little ones. They said that only you could remove the bandage. After I told you something. But they’re clever: they didn’t tell me what to say. So I’ve been sitting here on this bench and thinking all the time about what to say to you.”
“And?” he inquired. “And what is it?”
“Forgive me, Pavel Alekseevich,” she said ingenuously. Pavel Alekseevich was astonished beyond words. What sort of child’s play was this: planting her on that bench and punishing her, ordering her to ask for forgiveness . . .
“It’s all silliness. It doesn’t matter.” He waved her off.
“What do you mean? I grouped you with the evildoers. Forgive me. And now take off the bandage. Please.”
They returned to the bench. Vasilisa shuffled with her stick, and Pavel Alekseevich supported her by her elbow. How strange: didn’t that beautiful bovine eye see anything?