Chapter 25 Chapter 10 Bomb Tower (3)

His guide left the lantern inside the tower.He felt strongly the presence of a young man beside him, undoubtedly of that lean, tireless power type.The young man could hug his waist at any time, lift him up, and throw him down from a high altitude.But who is he on this platform, and who is he who fell off? He turned slowly to face the younger man. "If it is true that Pavel was brought here to be killed," he said, "then I will forgive you for bringing me here. If it was a monstrous plot and you were the one who pushed him down, Then I warn you, you will not be forgiven." The two of them were within twelve inches of each other.Clouds covered the moon, and the wind lashed them with raindrops, but he was sure that Nechayev would not flinch from him.His opponent is likely to play all the tricks from beginning to end: nothing he says can surprise him.Or else, he's a devil who can shake curses off him like raindrops.

Nechayev spoke. "You should be ashamed to say that. Pavel Isaev is our comrade. We were like his family when he had no family. You went abroad and left him at home. You Lost contact with him, you're almost strangers. And now you've popped out of nowhere to accuse his only true kin." He drew his cloak tighter around his neck. "Do you know who you remind me of? You remind me of a distant relative who appears out of nowhere with a traveling bag and comes to a funeral to demand a share of the inheritance of someone he has never met. You are Pavel Ya Not his father, nor even his stepfather, was a distant relation of Alexandrovitch's for four or five generations."

The words stung him.He roughly tried to squeeze past Nechayev, but his opponent blocked the doorway. "Don't be deaf to me, Fyodor Mikhailovich! You lost Isaev, we saved him. How can you think we killed him?" "You shall swear in the name of your eternal soul!" When he said this, he himself felt exaggerated and artificial.In fact, the whole scene—two men on a moonlit terrace above the street, braving wind and showers, accusing each other at the top of their voices—seems phony and melodramatic.But where can you find sincere words, where Pavel can listen with a smile and nod his head in agreement?

"I won't swear in the name of something I don't believe in," Nechayev said stubbornly. "But you have reason to know that I'm telling the truth." "Then what's the matter with Ivanov? Do you have to tell me rationally that you are also innocent of Ivanov's death?" "Who is Ivanov?" "Ivanov is the name of the guy who watches over the house where I live. That's where Pavel lived. Where your girlfriend came to see me." "Oh, police detective! That man you've befriended! What's the matter with him?"

"He was found dead yesterday." "Really? We lost one, they lost one." "They lost one? You compare Pavel with Ivanov? Is that how you calculate?" Nechayev shook his head. "Don't involve individuals, it only complicates the matter. Those who cooperate with the police have made many enemies. They are spurned by the people. It is not surprising that this Ivanov died." "I'm not a friend of Ivanov, and I don't like his job. But that's no reason to kill him! Speaking of the people, that's nonsense! The people don't do such things. The people don't plan assassinations. They don't dodge either."

"The people know who their enemy is, and when the enemy dies, they don't waste their tears!" "Ivanov is not the enemy of the people, he is just a man with empty pockets who has to support his family like thousands of others. If he is not a member of the people, who is the people?" "You know very well that he is not of one mind with the people. Calling him a part of the people is sheer nonsense. The people are made up of workers and peasants. Ivanov has no connection with the people: he is not of worker and peasant origin. and a drunkard, so easy to buy, so easy to turn against the people. I am amazed that a wise man like you should fall into such a simple trap."

"Smart or not, I don't accept this kind of ridiculous reasoning! Why did you bring me to this place? You said you wanted to show me the evidence of Pavel's murder. Where is the evidence? You didn't get here. Not evidence." "Of course not evidence. This is the scene of a murder, not a murder in fact, but an execution arranged by the state. I have brought you here so that you can see it for yourself. Now you have had the opportunity to see it; if you If you still don't believe it, then you are hopeless." He clung to the fence, gazing into the bottomless darkness below.Infinite intervals of time between here and there, unimaginably long.In the time period between here and there, Pavel is alive, more alive than ever before.Our vitality is strongest when we fall—a truth that makes people feel distressed when they think about it!

"If you don't want to believe it, you don't believe it," said Nechayev. Believe: another word.Believe, what does it mean?I believe in the bodies on the sidewalk below.I believe in blood and bones.To pick up the broken body and hold it in your arms: that's what it means to believe.Believe and love -- two things in one. "I believe in the resurrection," he said.The words came out without thinking.There was no longer that frenzied yelling in his voice.He said and listened to these words with a momentary ecstasy not caused by the words themselves but in the way they came out as if they were spoken by someone else.Pavel!he thinks.

"What did you say?" Nechayev drew closer. "I believe in physical resurrection and eternal life." "That's not what I wanted to ask." The gusts of wind were so strong that the younger man had to yell so loudly for the other to hear.His cloak was blown and flapped against him; he clung to the rail to keep from falling. "But that's what I'm going to say!" Although it was past midnight when he got home, Anna Sergeyevna waited and did not sleep.Surprised and grateful for her concern, he told her all about the meeting on the pier and Nechayev's conversation at the bomb tower.Then he asked her to recount to him the night of Pavel's death.Was she sure, for example, that Pavel had died on the docks?

"I was told so," she replied. "What else can I believe? Pavel went out in the evening and didn't say where. The next morning someone reported that he had had an accident and sent me to the hospital." "How did they know to inform you?" "He has ID in his pocket." "and after?" "I went to the hospital to identify the body. Then I notified Mykov." "How did they explain it to you?" "They didn't explain it to me and they asked me to explain it to them. I had to go to the police station and answer questions: who was he, where did he live, when was the last time I saw him, he lived with us How long, who was he with--that sort of thing! All they could tell me was that he was found dead, on Joinery's Wharf. I informed Mr. Maykoff of the truth. How did he inform you afterwards? Yes, I don't know."

"He used the word accident. He must have contacted the police. Accident is the police term for suicide. He was telegraphing, so he can't go into details." "That's how I understood it, I mean, that's how I understood it to have happened. If that's the case, I've never understood why he did it. He never confided in us. There's nothing about what happened afterwards. sign." "One last question. What was he wearing that night? Was he wearing anything weird?" "Did you mean when he went out?" "No, when you saw him...after the accident." "I can't tell. I don't remember. There was a sheet. I don't want to talk about the situation. But he looked very peaceful. I want you to know that." He thanked her sincerely.The conversation ends here.But after he returned to his room, he couldn't fall asleep for a long time.He remembered Mykoff's late telegram (why the delay?).It was Anja who opened the telegram; Anya came to his study and announced the news, the words of which still echoed in his brain tonight like a muffled bell: "Fedya, Pavel died!" He took the telegram, held it in his hand, stared blankly at the yellow paper, and tried to get the Frenchman to say something other than the telegram.died.Forever left the world of light and entered the prison of the past.There is no return.The funeral has already been held.The account, the account counted with life, is settled.Stop bookkeeping.It became a movable type block that the printing workers said was ready to be dismantled. Accident: A synonym for suicide by Mykoff.Now Nechayev puts it in another way!His sincere inclination is to be skeptical of Nechayev and let the official story stand.why?Because he hated Nechayev—hated him, hated his teachings?Because he wanted Pavel out of his grasp even when retroactively?Or because he had a more ignominious motive: to avoid as much as possible the duty he had to perform to do justice to his son? He recognized the inertia in himself that had come directly from Pavel's death.He was growing old, getting closer every day to the old man he must eventually become: sitting in a corner all day with nothing to do but talk over and over about past mistakes. He thought: I am the dead and the buried, Pavel is the living and will live forever.What I'm struggling with right now is what I'll look like when I rise from the grave. He thought of a Siberian prisoner, a tall, hunchbacked man with gray hair, who had raped his twelve-year-old daughter and then strangled her.Afterwards, people found him holding the lifeless corpse, sitting by the duck pond.He resigned himself to the arrest, insisting only that he should take the dead child home and lay it on a table—all with the utmost tenderness, it is said.The other prisoners ignored him, and he didn't talk to anyone else.At night he sat in his bunk, smiling, moving his lips as he read the Gospel.It may have been thought that in time the autism would abate and his repentance would be accepted.But in fact he was still ostracized, not because of the crimes committed twenty years ago, but because of his sly and crazy smile that made the blood run cold at the sight.They said that smile was exactly the same as when he committed the crime: nothing had changed in him. Why did the image of the man sitting by the pond with the dead child in his arms resurface before him now?A child who was loved too much, a child who became a sexual object, could not allow her to live.Cruel tenderness.Gentle cruelty.The love of the lining is turned inside out like a glove, revealing the unsightly stitching.With what needle and thread is love sewn together?He tried to figure out that person's appearance again, and looked hard at his facial expressions. His attention was not on the eyes that were closed in ecstasy, but on the slightly moving lips.Not rape, but robbery—isn't it?Fathers devour children, raise them with care, and eat them like delicacies.Delicious food store. Can that explain Nechayev's vengeful psychology: when he opened his eyes, he saw the naked fathers, and saw the group of fathers whose desires were exposed.What kind of man was that old Nechayev, Gennady's father.Will he sit in a corner and weep, or snicker, when the news comes in one day (and there will be) that his son is dead? He shook his head, as if trying to get rid of the demon's harassment.What compromised the integrity of his sorrow, insisting that it was just a pretense?The truth got lost somewhere in him.As if in the labyrinth of his mind, yet it seemed also in the labyrinth of his body—vessels, bones, intestines, organs—a tiny child was groping for light, for a way out.How can he find the lost child inside him and make him vocalize his mournful song? Blow the bone flute.He remembered an old story about a young man who was murdered and dismembered, his remains scattered all over the floor, and the wind blew a femur that made a mournful sound, pointing to his killer.In fact, he recalls these old stories he heard from his grandma one by one now. He didn't understand the meaning of the stories at the time, but just stored them unconsciously for later use.The people built and tended the great caverns where the story remains were buried long before history.Let Pavel find the place where my femur is, and play to me there!Dad, why did you leave me in the dark forest?Dad, when will you come and save me? The candles in front of the holy image burned down to a puddle of oil; the flowers and leaves of the offerings also drooped.The little girl had set up the shrine and had forgotten it, or abandoned it.Did she think Pavel didn't talk to him anymore because he too was lost and all he heard now was the voice of the devil? He took out the wick of the candle, held it upright and lit it, and knelt down by himself.The Virgin's eyes were fixed on the baby in her arms, and the baby's eyes watched him from the icon, and pointed out a tiny finger warningly.