The Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers by Boris Pasternak Page A

Zhenya sat down on her chair. She decided to enter the conversation, and felt dimly that the choice of a topic was up to her. Otherwise, the others would once more leave her in her perilous solitude and not realize that her mother was present here, through her and in her. This shortsightedness on their part would hurt—and, most of all, it would hurt Mama. She addressed Mrs. Defendov, who with some difficulty was adjusting the samovar at the edge of the table: “Vassa Vassilievna ...”
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    â€œCan you have a child?”
    Lisa did not answer Zhenya at once. “Quiet, don’t speak so loud. Naturally, all girls can.” She spoke incoherently and in a whisper. Zhenya couldn’t see her friend’s face, for Lisa was looking for matches on the table and not finding any.
    She knew much more about it than Zhenya; she knew everything, the way children know who have picked it up from the conversation of strangers. Natures whom the Creator loves rebel in such cases. They revolt and are gripped by a wild timidity. They cannot have this experience without certain pathological impulses. The opposite would hardly be considered natural: juvenile insanity bears today the seal of normality.
    Somebody had once told Lisa all kinds of vulgar and filthy things in a dark corner. They didn’t shock her when she heard them, and she had carried them about ever since, not forgetting one bit of the dirt that had been revealed to her. She knew it all. Her body was not surprised, her heart made no protest, her soul inflicted no punishment upon her brain because it had dared to find out without consulting her heart about things that didn’t come from the soul.
    â€œI know that.” (“You know nothing,” thought Lisa.) “I know that,” Zhenya repeated. “I’m not asking about that. But whether one feels—you take a step and suddenly you have a child—well ...”
    â€œCome on,” said Lisa hoarsely, repressing her laughter. “How can you yell so loud? They’ll hear you!”
    The conversation took place in Lisa’s room. Lisa spoke so quietly that one could hear the drip from the washstand. She had found the matches, but hesitated before lighting the lamp, because she couldn’t force a serious expression on her face, which was twisted into a grin. She didn’t want to hurt her friend. She indulged Zhenya’s ignorance because she had no idea that one could talk about these things other than in words that couldn’t be used here in her home, to a friend who didn’t go to school. She lit the lamp. Fortunately the pan had run over and Lisa bent down to wipe up the floor, and so she was able to conceal a new fit of laughter with her apron and the slapping of the cleaning rag. Suddenly she burst into uncontrollable laughter, for she had found a pretext: her comb had fallen into the pan.
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    During those days Zhenya thought of nothing but her family and waited for the hour when she would be taken home. In the morning, after Lisa had gone to high school, Zhenya dressed and went out alone.
    The life of the suburb was not like life in the part of the city where she lived. Most of the day it was empty and boring here. There was nothing to please the eye. Everything one saw was good for nothing, except maybe a birch broom or a stove mop. Black slop water flowed into the street, froze instantly and turned white. At certain hours the street was crowded with very simple people. Workers crawled over the snow like cockroaches. The doors of the tea houses flew open, and waves of soap fumes rolled out, as from a laundry—as if it had turned warmer, as if spring had come, when young men ran bent over through the streets with their trousers tucked into felt boots. The pigeons had no fear of all these people. They flew back and forth above the streets, seeking food. Were any millet, oats or droppings sprinkled over the snow? A pie seller’s