The natural greatness of mountains and oceans with all that they contain—their fish, their birds, their mushrooms, and their people—stands above Ilyusha’s reasoning, and the wisdom of the world surpasses all, even the most outstanding, human discoveries. You can sweat, pant, stand on your toes, and strain yourself to the limit, but all you’ll get is a mere reflection of the true law. Of course, those hundred thousand genes are a great puzzle. But that puzzle does not contain the whole truth, just an insignificant portion of it. Its entirety lies inside the newborn still slippery with vernix, and even if each of them bears all one hundred thousand potentials, it cannot, it must not be, that nature intended some massive aberration that would turn an entire nation into an experimental herd . . .
Pavel Alekseevich said something of the sort, in short, to Goldberg, but the latter resisted.
“Pavel, human beings stopped being governed by the laws of nature long ago. A very long time ago! Already today certain natural processes are regulated by humans, and within a hundred years, I assure you, humans will learn how to change the climate, control heredity, and discover new forms of energy . . . Soviet man will also be reshaped, the lost genes reintroduced. And, in general, imagine: a young couple have decided to have a child—that’s your field—and they are able to designate in advance their child’s genetic makeup, combining the parents’ best qualities with desired qualities absent in the parents’ genome!”
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask the child.” Pavel Alekseevich frowned.
Ilya Iosifovich was angry: Why couldn’t the old gynecologist understand such simple things? Why didn’t he share his joy for the inevitable beauty of a future world enhanced through science with precise calculation and without all the pesky imperfections of a marvelous design?
“When are you going to resurrect the dead?” Pavel Alekseevich quipped.
“Not yet, but life expectancy will increase at least twofold. And people will be twice as happy,” Ilya Iosifovich claimed with exaggerated passion. All his discoveries and ideas required a dispute; without polemics they lacked something . . .
“Maybe twice as unhappy? No, no, that kind of world is not for me. Then like Ivan Karamazov, I’ll return my ticket . . .”
Father and daughter, stepfather and stepdaughter, had not grown so far apart from each other after all.
4
Elena’s Second Notebook
I NEED TO JOT DOWN MY NOTES AT THE SAME TIME EVERY day and to tell Vasilisa to remind me. I used to keep a notebook like this, but I don’t remember where it’s disappeared to. For absolute certain I hid it somewhere, but I don’t remember where. I tried looking for it, but couldn’t find it anywhere. I remember well what it looked like: a general-purpose school notebook on some subject that Tanya had started and then abandoned. Light blue.
Today my head is clear, and my thoughts are in order. Sometimes there are days when I can’t think a single thought to the end and I lose it. Or I lose words, and everything is filled with black holes. What a disaster!
At first the doctors thought that I had some sort of disease that affected the blood vessels in my brain. Then PA took me to the Burdenko Institute, and they tested me with all their various apparatuses. PA didn’t leave me for a second, and he looked so lost. He’s too good for words. There, at the Burdenko Institute, they said that my blood vessels weren’t great, but that nothing terrible was happening to them. It turned out that in fact they had been looking for a brain tumor and were happy not to have found one. Of course, there wasn’t supposed to be one. I am absolutely sure that there’s nothing in my head that shouldn’t be there; just the opposite, something necessary is missing. A psychiatrist examined me as well. He also found no disease. Still, I spent a month and a half on sick leave, then went back to work. Everyone was very glad to see me, Galya and Anna Arkadievna as well. Galya had been doing all my work and says that she’d had a rough time. Kozlov brought his drafts and asked me to do final copy. As always, I found lots of mistakes in his work. It’s just amazing: he’s such a talented engineer, but has absolutely no spatial imagination.
I feel best at my drafting board: I don’t forget anything, and my work, as always, consoles me.
Tanechka of late has become more kind. Although basically nothing has changed: she isn’t looking for work and quit the university. PA says that I shouldn’t pester her about that. He says that she’s an intelligent girl and we should trust her judgment. Yesterday (or the day before?) Tanya dropped in on me in the evening when I was already in bed. She kissed me, sat down on the bed, and asked if I remembered how we had all gone to Timiryazevka to ride the horses. We spent a long time recollecting that winter day. I remember all the details: how PA’s nose kept dripping. (He’d forgotten his handkerchief at home and kept asking us to turn away, blowing his nose soldier-style between his two fingers. With a trumpeting sound.) How happy we were in those days! I remember perfectly all the details of that day, the kind of car we rode in, what kind of coat Tanya had on, even that famous purebred black horse with the small head. Only I couldn’t remember its name, and Tanya reminded me: its name was Arab. I don’t remember why PA was so cheerful that day. He still didn’t drink then.
No, that’s not right. I’m mistaken: that was precisely the year he started to drink. He keeps worrying about my health, but he ought to think about himself. He can’t drink that much at his age. But I can’t say anything to him. Still he’s the best. Despite the fact that we’ve lived as if we’ve been divorced for ten years. Or not divorced?
Another memory slip again. This time at work. During lunch I was in the cafeteria. I was eating salad when I suddenly couldn’t figure out what was in front of me: some red pieces of something that I had no idea what to do with . . . I came to, like last time, the next day in my bed. Then Anna Arkadievna came and told me what had happened to me. I stayed in the cafeteria with my salad until the cafeteria lady said that it was time for her to close, but I didn’t answer her. She even got scared. And so on. Anna Arkadievna didn’t call an ambulance, but got a cab and drove me home. She says that I was very obedient but didn’t respond to questions.
PA resigned me from my job. He speaks very tenderly to me, but unnaturally, as with a little child. I have tried to explain to him that I am absolutely healthy, that certain pieces drop out of my memory, but that in all other respects everything’s the same. I am not insane, and I understand perfectly what’s happening to me. I really can’t go to work in this condition, but I would like to get work from the institute to do at home. We have an arrangement for people who work at home. Otherwise, I’ll just be bored. It’s not like Vasilisa and I are going to start making soup together. So he and I made an agreement.