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      Zarnitsky Again       I   had   left   suddenly,   without   warning.   Mama,   my   brother   Pavel,   and   his   daughter  remained  in  Ivan  Aleksandrovich’s  care  for  some  time.  I  left  all  my   things—excuse   me,   down   to   my   brassieres—at   home   where   they   lay   un-­‐‑ touched.  My  underwear,  my  black  gloves,  the  hat  with  little  plumes  that  Ivan   Aleksandrovich  so  proudly  showed  off  to  his  mother,  and  all  my  other  things   lay  in  a  box  in  the  big  armoire  in  the  room  that  we  shared.   Ivan  Aleksandrovich   was   very  gloomy  and  depressed.   On  my  birthday   he  brought  home  a  huge  bouquet  of  red  roses  as  he  had  always  done.  Some-­‐‑ how  he  had  found  them  even  in  the  winter.  Mama  saw  how  he  went  to  the   armoire,   opened   the   box   of   my   things,   began   to   tear   off   the   rose   buds   and   threw   them   in.   Then   he   threw   in   the   open   flowers.   He   stripped   the   stems,   threw  them  in  as  well,  and  closed  the  box.  Then  he  saw  Mama  standing  in  the   doorway.  His  face  was  twisted  and  she  was  sure  he  was  about  to  weep.  That   seemed  a  bad  omen  to  her.  Terrified,  she  yelled  “What  have  you  done?  Are   you  preparing  to  bury  her?”   “Yes,  for  me  she  has  died.”  And  he  quickly  left  the  house.   Mama  threw  open  the  box  to  look  for  his  pistol.  It  was  gone.        About   a   year   later,   mid-­‐‑1932,   I   came   to   Rostov   to   fetch   Mama   and   Pavel’s   daughter  Agulya.  They  had  already  moved  away  from  Ivan  Aleksandrovich’s   house  and  Mama  was  taking  care  of  Agulya.   “Ah,   what  have  you  done,  Aga!”  Mama   was   grieving.  “He  almost   shot   himself.”   “Let’s  go  to  see  Ivan  Aleksandrovich,”  I  said  gaily.   It  was  his  birthday.   Ivan  Aleksandrovich  was  shaved  and  nicely  dressed,  as  if  he  had  been  ex-­‐‑ pecting  us.  And   really,  he  greeted   me  with  a  smile  and  calmly  said,  “I  was   sure  that  you  would  come.”   While   the   table   was   being   set,   while   Mama   was   busy   arranging   things   and  Pavel  played  with  his  little  daughter  Agulya,  Ivan  Aleksandrovich  and  I   went  to  our  former  bedroom.  Nothing  had  been  moved.  Everything  was  just   as  it  had  been  on  the  day  I  left.     Ivan  Aleksandrovich  said  to  me,  “Aga,  it  all  happened  too  quickly  to  be   solid,  serious.”  And  he  began  to  ask  me  to  return  to  him.   ZARNITSKY AGAIN 45 “I  simply  can’t  live  this  way;  I  didn’t  shoot  myself  because  I  believed  that   you  would  return  to  me.”   Tears   ran   down   his   cheeks.   He   grabbed   my   hands   and   began   to   kiss   them.  He,  who  was  normally  so  restrained,  so  proper.   At  that  moment  I  just  couldn’t  say  “no,”  I  couldn’t  kick  a  person  in  that   condition.  I  was  also  upset.  I  had  stirred  up  the  past.  So  I  said,  “I  have  to  think   about  it,  Musha.  Maybe  I’ll  come  back.”   He  had  said,  “It  all  happened  so  quickly.”  So  of  course  he  thought  it  was   a  frivolous  impulse,  a  whim.  He  knew  nothing  of  my  six-­‐‑year  “underground   apprenticeship,”  of  my  six-­‐‑year  deception.     I  left  for  Alma-­‐‑Ata.  I  was  pursued  by  a  thick,  pleading,  passionate  letter.   I  didn’t  return.  Once  again  I  betrayed  him.   Everything,  everything,  everything  that  I  later  suffered,  that  I  endured— all  of  that  paid  me  back  for  treating  him  so  wickedly.        Almost  ten  years  later  Mirosha  was  arrested.  I  carried  packages  to  him  in  the   notorious   Lefortovo   prison.   Then   they   stopped   accepting   packages,   we—a   crowd  of  wives—spent  the  night  waiting  to  hear  how  our  husbands  had  been   sentenced.  All  of  us  got  the  same  news:  “Ten  years  without  the  right  of  corre-­‐‑ spondence.”  In  other  words  they  were  to  be  shot!   Suddenly  I  received  a  letter  from  Ivan  Aleksandrovich.  “I  know  that  your   husband  was  arrested,  that  you  are  alone.  Come  back  to  me!  I  live  with  an-­‐‑ other   woman,  but   I  love   only  you,  I  will  leave  her  and  we   will   be  together   again.”     My  old  friend  Susanna  brought  me  the  letter.  I  answered  it  through  her,   “How  can  I  think  about  that  when  my  husband  is  in  prison?”   Once  again  I  betrayed  Ivan  Aleksandrovich.  I  was  already  seeing  Mikhail   Davydovich,  Mirosha’s  cousin.   Several  years  later  I  met  with  Ivan  Aleksandrovich  again.  I  was  already   married  to  Mikhail  Davydovich,  and  I  had  come  to  Rostov  to  stay  with  rela-­‐‑ tives.  He  heard  about  it  and  came  to  see  me.  When  he  was  preparing  to  leave   I  said,  “I’ll...

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