For all their disagreements—which over the course of the many years of their conversations constantly, like a cat in a bag, made themselves known—Pavel Alekseevich and Ilya Iosifovich coincided unconditionally in one regard. They shared a clear sense of the hierarchy of knowledge, of which raw data collection (weight, shape, color, number of chromosomes or legs or veins on the wing) was the most primitive but also formed the very foundation. In the ancient and descriptive science of data collection, approximation was not allowed, and answers had to be unequivocaclass="underline" yes or no . . . Speculation of a theoretical nature—about the cosmic clock or the evolution of some biological species—had to build precisely on reliable knowledge measured with a ruler, a thermometer, or a hydrometer . . . And so, Goldberg based his calculations and speculation about genius on levels of uric acid in blood. Goldberg’s new ideas struck Pavel Alekseevich as interesting, but completely unfounded. Goldberg insisted that the construction of a model of a process was also in many cases its proof. Pavel Alekseevich did not want to hear anything of the sort.
After three terms in the camps, having lost the intelligentsia’s innate sense of guilt before nation, society, and Soviet power, Goldberg had arrived at his latest idea: that over the course of fifty years of Soviet power the sociogenetic unit formerly, before the revolution, known as the “Russian people” had ceased to exist as a reality, and the current population of the Soviet Union that bore the proud name of the “Soviet people” was in fact a new sociogenetic unit that differed profoundly from its predecessor in a variety of parameters—physically, psychophysically, and morally . . .
“Okay, Ilya, I am prepared to agree that in physical appearance great changes really have occurred: hunger, wars, the massive displacement of peoples, miscegenation . . . Ultimately, it is possible to conduct anthropometric research. But how can you measure moral qualities? No, that’s rubbish. I’m sorry, but it’s unprofessional . . .”
“I assure you, there are ways. They’re indirect still, but they exist.” Ilya Iosifovich defended his theory. “Suppose the human genome consists of one hundred thousand genes; that’s a plausible figure. They are distributed across twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, right? Although we know a lot about the various mechanisms of intrachromosomal exchange, we still have grounds for dividing all genes into twenty-three groups by chromosome affiliation. Well, of course, that’s impossible to do today, but a hundred years from now, I assure you, it will be doable. And just imagine: the gene responsibility for, say, the blue color of the iris is located in direct proximity to the gene that determines cowardice or bravery! There’s a good chance that they will be inherited together.”
“One gene for one quality, you’re saying?” Pavel Alekseevich objected. “It seems unlikely that such a powerful and diverse quality as courage would be determined by a single gene.”
“What difference does it make: let it be ten genes! That’s not the point! The point is simply that eye color could turn out to be linked to another gene. Crudely put, a blue-eyed person has a greater chance of turning out to be heroic,” Ilya Iosifovich raised his index finger.
“Great idea, Ilya,” Pavel guffawed. “A blue-eyed blond is brave, while a black-eyed brunet is a coward. And if the black-eyed fellow also has a hook nose, then he’s a Judas, for sure! Genetically speaking . . .”
“You’re a typical provocateur, Pasha!” Ilya Iosifovich wailed. “I had something totally different in mind. Listen! In 1918 the White Army—nearly three hundred thousand healthy young men of reproductive age—left Russia. The aristocratic, select part of society—the more educated, the more honest, and unwilling to compromise with Bolshevik power!”
“Where are you going with that? Ilyusha, that’s going to get you a fourth term!”
“Don’t interrupt!” Ilya Iosifovich dismissed him. “Nineteen twenty-two. The year they deported all the professors. Not that many, around six hundred, it seems. But again: the select! The best of the best! With their families! The country’s intellectual potential. Further: the anti-kulak campaigns claim millions of peasants, also the best, the hardest working. And their children. And their unborn children as well. People disappear and take their genes with them. They remove them from the gene pool. Party repressions knock out whom? Those who have the courage to express their own opinion, to object, to defend their own point of view! The honest ones, that is! The most honest! Priests were systematically exterminated over the entire period . . . The bearers of moral values, teachers and educators . . .”
“But at the same time, Ilya, they were also the most conservative people, no?”
“I won’t deny that. But allow me to point out that nowadays conditions in Russia are such that a conservative—traditional, that is—mentality presents less danger than a revolutionary one,” Goldberg noted with a haughty smile. “Let’s keep going. World War II. Exemption from military service is granted to the elderly and the infirm. They’re the ones given an extra chance of surviving. Prisons and camps consume the larger part of the male population, depriving them of the chance to leave offspring. Do you sense the degree of deformation? Now let’s add to that Russia’s famous alcoholism. But that’s not all. There is one more extremely important consideration. We’re constantly discussing whether or not evolution is a directed process, whether it has its own goals. Within the current time span, a very short one from the point of view of evolution, we can observe an exceptionally effective mechanism of directed evolution. Insofar as the evolution of a species is aimed at survival, we are within our rights to put the question as follows: which qualities offer the individual greater chances of surviving? Brains? Talent? Honor? A sense of self-esteem? Moral resolve? No! All of these qualities have impeded survival. The carriers of these qualities either left the country or were systematically exterminated. And which qualities facilitated survival? Caution. Caginess. Hypocrisy. Moral irresolution. Lack of self-esteem. Overall, any illustrious quality made a person conspicuous and immediately put him at risk. Gray, average, C students, so to speak, found themselves at an advantage. Take a Gaussian distribution. Remove the center, the area of more pronounced carriers of any quality. Now, taking all these factors into consideration, you can construct a map of the gene pool that claims to be the Soviet people. And you say?”
“In view of the general atmosphere these days—five to seven years,” Pavel Alekseevich commented.
Ilya Iosifovich laughed. “That’s what I’ve been saying: the nation has become flatter, the chimney lower, the smoke thinner . . . Before it would have been worth ten to fifteen . . .”
Pavel Alekseevich always liked his friend’s wit and fearlessness, although inside he often disagreed with the results of his high-keyed mental work. The brutal picture of national degeneration Ilya Iosifovich had drawn demanded verification. Pavel remembered perfectly his father’s social circle in the last years before the revolution. In a certain sense, Ilya was right: the doctors of the highest rank, university professors, and leading clinicians at the time were people with European educations and broad interests extending beyond the bounds of their profession. Among the people who visited their house there had been military men, lawyers, and writers . . . He had to admit: it had been a long time since Pavel Alekseevich had encountered people of the same intellectual level . . . But that didn’t mean that they didn’t exist . . . They could exist—in secret, without announcing their existence . . . “No, no, that’s nonsense,” Pavel Alekseevich cut himself short. That only supports Ilyusha’s idea: don’t stick out, hide in a corner, and that means denying your own identity . . . A serious objection lies somewhere else . . . Of course, with children. In newborn children. Each is marvelous and unfathomable, like a sealed book. Goldberg’s ideas are too mechanistic. According to him, if you subtract a couple dozen genetic letters from a hundred thousand, new children—the daughters and sons of informers, murderers, thieves, and perjurers—who carry their parents’ qualities alone, will populate the world . . . Rubbish! Each infant holds enormous potential; it represents the entire human race. When you come down to it, Goldberg himself wrote a whole book about genius and should have noticed that genius, that rare miracle, can be born of a fisherman, a watchmaker, or a dishwasher . . .