Marisha approached timidly and took Victor’s hand with a clumsy movement of coquetry. He jerked his hand away; he said impatiently: “We can’t neglect our guests, Marisha. Look, Comrade Sonia is alone. Go and talk to her.”
Marisha obeyed humbly. Rita’s glance followed her through a jet of smoke; Rita pulled her short skirt up and crossed her long, thin legs.
“Indeed,” said Comrade Sonia coldly with an accent of final authority, “I cannot say that I congratulate you upon your choice, Comrade Lavrova. A true proletarian does not marry out of her class.”
“But, Comrade Sonia,” Marisha protested, stupefied, “Victor is a Party member.”
“I’ve always said that the rules of Party admission were not sufficiently strict,” said Comrade Sonia.
Marisha wandered dejectedly through the crowd of guests. No one looked at her and she had nothing to say. She saw Vasili Ivanovitch alone by the buffet, lining up bottles and glasses. She approached him and smiled hesitantly. He looked at her, astonished. She said with determination, very quickly, bluntly, running her words together, blushing: “I know you don’t like me, Vasili Ivanovitch. But, you see, I ... I love him so much.”
Vasili Ivanovitch looked at her, then said: “It’s very nice, child,” his voice expressionless.
Marisha’s family sat in a dark corner, solemn, morose, uncomfortable. Her father — a stooped, gray-haired man in a worker’s blouse and patched trousers — clasped long, calloused hands over his knee; his face, with a bitter slash of a mouth, leaned forward, his fierce, brilliant eyes studying the room fixedly; his eyes were dark and young on a withered face. His wife huddled timidly behind him, pallid and shapeless in a flowered calico dress, her face like a sandy shore washed by many rains into a dull, quiet gray. Marisha’s young brother, a lanky boy of eight, stood holding onto his mother’s skirt, throwing angry, suspicious glances at little Acia.
Victor joined Pavel Syerov and a group of three men in leather jackets. He threw one arm around Syerov’s shoulders and the other around those of the secretary of their Party Cell; he leaned on them both, intimately, confidentially, his dark eyes smiling. Comrade Sonia, approaching, heard him whisper: “... yes, I’m proud of my wife’s family and their revolutionary record. Her father — you know — he was exiled to Siberia, under the Czar.”
Comrade Sonia remarked: “Comrade Dunaev is a very smart man.”
Neither Victor nor Syerov liked the tone of her voice. Syerov protested: “Victor’s one of our best workers, Sonia.”
“I said Comrade Dunaev is very smart,” she repeated, and added: “I wouldn’t doubt his class loyalty. I’m sure he had nothing in common with patrician gentlemen such as that Citizen Kovalensky over there.”
Pavel Syerov looked fixedly at Leo’s tall figure bending over Rita Eksler. He asked: “Say, Victor, that man’s name — it’s Lev Kovalensky, isn’t it?”
“Leo Kovalensky, yes. He’s a very dear friend of my cousin’s. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.”
Leo noticed Kira and Andrei sitting side by side on a window sill. He bowed to Rita, who shrugged impatiently, and walked toward them slowly.
“Am I intruding?” he asked.
“Not at all,” said Kira.
He sat down beside her. He took out his gold cigarette case and, opening it, held it out to her. She shook her head. He held it over to Andrei. Andrei took a cigarette. Leo bent forward to light it, leaning over Kira.
“Sociology being the favorite science of your Party,” said Leo, “don’t you find this wedding an occasion of particular interest, Comrade Taganov?”
“Why, Citizen Kovalensky?”
“As an opportunity to observe the essential immutability of human nature. A marriage for reasons of state is one of the oldest customs of mankind. It had always been advisable to marry into the ruling class.”
“You must remember,” said Andrei, “the social class to which the person concerned belongs.”
“Oh, nonsense!” said Kira. “They’re in love with each other.”
“Love,” said Leo, “is not part of the philosophy of Comrade Taganov’s Party. Is it?”
“It is a question that has no reason to interest you,” Andrei answered.
“Hasn’t it?” Leo asked slowly, looking at him. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Is it a question that contradicts your ... theory on the subject?” Andrei asked.
“No. I think it supports my theory. You see, my theory is that members of your Party have a tendency to place their sexual desires high above their own class.” He was looking straight at Andrei, but he pointed lightly, with his cigarette, at Marisha across the room.
“If they do,” Andrei answered slowly, “they’re not always unsuccessful.” He was looking straight at Kira, but he pointed at Victor.
“Marisha looks happy,” said Kira. “Why do you resent it, Leo?”
“I resent the arrogant presumption of friends — ” Leo began.
“ — who do not know the limit of a friendship’s rights,” Andrei finished.
“Andrei,” said Kira, “we’re not being gallant to ... Marisha.”
“I’m sorry,” he said hastily. “I’m sure Citizen Kovalensky won’t misunderstand me.”
“I don’t,” said Leo.
Irina had lined glasses on trays and Vasili Ivanovitch had filled them. She passed them to the guests, smiling vaguely at the hands that took the glasses; her smile was resigned, indifferent; she was silent, which was unusual for her.
The trays were emptied swiftly; the guests held the glasses eagerly, impatiently. Victor rose and the clatter of voices stopped short in a solemn silence.
“My dear friends,” Victor’s voice was clear, vibrant with his warmest persuasiveness, “I have no words to describe my deep gratitude to all of you for your kindness on this great day of my life. Let us all join in a toast to a person who is very dear to my heart, not only as a relative, but as a man who symbolizes a splendid example to us, young revolutionaries starting out on our lives of service to the cause of the Proletariat. A man who has devoted his life to that cause, who had risen bravely against the tyranny of the Czar, who has sacrificed his best years in the cold wastes of a Siberian exile, fighting for the great goal of the people’s freedom. And since that goal is ever paramount for all of us, since it is higher than all thoughts of personal happiness, let us drink our first toast to one of the first fighters for the triumph of the Worker-Peasant Soviets, my beloved father-in-law, Glieb Ilyitch Lavrov!”
Hands applauded noisily; glasses rose, clinking; all eyes turned to the corner where the gaunt, stooped figure of Marisha’s father got up slowly. Lavrov was holding his glass, but he did not smile; his gnarled hand motioned for silence. He said slowly, firmly, evenly:
“Listen here, you young whelps. I spent four years in Siberia. I spent them because I saw the people starved and ragged and crushed under a boot, and I asked for freedom. I still see the people starved and ragged and crushed under a boot. Only the boot is red. I didn’t go to Siberia to fight for a crazed, power-drunk, bloodthirsty gang that strangles the people as they’ve never been strangled before, that knows less of freedom than any Czar ever did! Go ahead and drink all you want, drink till you drown the last rag of conscience in your fool brains, drink to anything you wish. But when you drink to the Soviets, don’t drink to me!”
In the dead silence of the room, a man laughed suddenly, a loud, ringing, resonant laughter. It was Andrei Taganov.
Pavel Syerov jumped up and, throwing his arm around Victor’s shoulders, yelled, waving his glass: “Comrades, there are traitors even in the ranks of the workers! Let’s drink to those who are loyal!”