There had been a fine harvest in 1930. The wheat stood like a tall, thick wall. It was taller than she was. It came right up to the shoulders of her Vasily…
A low wailing hung over the village; the little children kept up a constant, barely audible whine as they crawled about like living skeletons. The men wandered aimlessly around the yards, exhausted by hunger, barely able to breathe, their feet swollen. The women went on searching for something to eat, but everything had already gone -nettles, acorns and linden leaves, uncured sheepskins, old bones, hooves and horns that had been lying around on the ground…
Meanwhile the young men from the city went from house to house, hardly glancing at the dead and the dying, searching cellars, digging holes in barns, prodding the ground with iron bars… They were searching for the grain hidden away by the kulaks.
One sultry day Vasily Chunyak had breathed his last breath. Just then the young men from the city had come back to the hut. One of them, a man with blue eyes and an accent just like Semyonov's, had walked up to the corpse and said:
'They're an obstinate lot, these kulaks. They'd rather die than give in.'
Khristya gave a sigh, crossed herself and laid out her bedding.
51
Viktor had expected his work to be appreciated by only a narrow circle of theoretical physicists. In fact, people were constantly telephoning him – and not only physicists, but also mathematicians and chemists whom he hadn't even met. Often they asked him to clarify certain points; his equations were of some complexity.
Delegates from one of the student societies came to the Institute to ask him to give a lecture to final-year students of physics and mathematics; he gave two lectures at the Academy itself. Markov and Savostyanov said that his work was being discussed in most of the Institute's laboratories. In the special store, Lyudmila overheard an exchange between the wives of two scientists: 'Where are you in the queue?' 'Behind Shtrum's wife.' 'The Shtrum?'
Viktor was by no means indifferent to this sudden fame – though he tried not to show it. The Scientific Council of the Institute decided to nominate his work for a Stalin Prize. Viktor didn't attend the meeting himself, but that evening he couldn't take his eyes off the phone; he was waiting for Sokolov to say what had happened. The first person to speak to him, however, was Savostyanov.
With not even a trace of his usual mockery or cynicism, Savostyanov repeated: 'It's a triumph, a real triumph!'
Academician Prasolov had said that the walls of the Institute had seen no work of such importance since the research of his late friend Lebedev on the pressure of light. Professor Svechin had talked about Viktor's mathematics, showing that there was an innovative element even in his methods. He had said that it was only the Soviet people who were capable of devoting their energy so selflessly to the service of the people at a time of war. Several other men, Markov among them, had spoken, but the most striking and forceful words of all had been Gurevich's.
'He's a good man,' said Savostyanov. 'He didn't hold back – he said what needed to be said. He called your work a classic, of the same importance as that of the founders of atomic physics, Planck, Bohr and Fermi.'
'That is saying something,' thought Viktor.
Sokolov phoned immediately afterwards.
'It's impossible to get through to you today. The line's been engaged for the last twenty minutes.'
He too was excited and enthusiastic.
'I forgot to ask Savostyanov how the voting went,' said Viktor.
Sokolov explained that Professor Gavronov, a specialist in the history of physics, had voted against Viktor; in his view Viktor's work lacked a true scientific foundation, was influenced by the idealist views of Western physicists and held out no possibilities of practical application.
'It might even help to have Gavronov against it,' said Viktor.
'Maybe,' agreed Sokolov.
Gavronov was a strange man. He was referred to in jest as 'The Slav Brotherhood', on account of the fanatical obstinacy with which he tried to link all the great achievements of physics to the work of Russian scientists. He ranked such little-known figures as Petrov, Umov and Yakovlev higher than Faraday, Maxwell and Planck.
Finally, Sokolov said jokingly:
'You see, Viktor Pavlovich, Moscow 's recognized the importance of your work. Soon we'll be banqueting in your house.'
Marya Ivanovna then took the receiver from Sokolov and said:
'Congratulations to both you and Lyudmila Nikolaevna. I'm so happy for you.'
'It's nothing,' said Viktor, 'vanity of vanities.'
Nevertheless, that vanity both excited and moved him.
Later, when Lyudmila Nikolaevna was about to go to bed, Markov rang. He was always very au fait with the ins and outs of the official world and he talked about the Council in a different way from Sokolov and Savostyanov. Apparently, after Gurevich's speech, Kov-chenko had made everyone laugh by saying:
'They're ringing the bells in the Institute of Mathematics to celebrate Viktor Pavlovich's work. The procession round the church hasn't yet begun, but the banner's been raised.'
The ever-suspicious Markov had sensed a certain hostility behind this joke. As for Shishakov, he hadn't said what he thought of Viktor's work. He had merely nodded his head as he listened to the speakers -perhaps in approval, perhaps as if to say, 'Hm, so it's your turn now, is it?' Indeed, he even appeared to favour the work of young Professor Molokanov on the radiographic analysis of steel. If nothing else, his research had immediate practical applications in the few factories producing high-quality metals. After the meeting, Shishakov had gone up to Gavronov and had a word with him.
When Markov finished, Viktor said to him:
'Vyacheslav Ivanovich, you should be in the diplomatic service.'
'No,' replied Markov, who had no sense of humour, 'I'm an experimental physicist.'
Viktor went in to Lyudmila's room. 'I've been nominated for a Stalin Prize. I've just heard the news.'
He told her about the various speeches. 'Of course, all this official recognition means nothing. Still, I've had enough of my eternal inferiority complex. You know, if I go into the conference hall and see free seats in the front row, I never dare go and sit there. Instead I hide away in some distant corner. While Shishakov and Postoev go and sit on the platform without the least hesitation. I don't give a damn about the actual chair, but I do wish I could feel the right to sit in it.'
'How glad Tolya would have been,' said Lyudmila.
'Yes, and I'll never be able to tell my mother,' said Viktor.
Lyudmila then said:
'Vitya, it's already after eleven and Nadya still isn't home. Yesterday she didn't get back till eleven either.'
'What of it?'
'She says she's at a girl-friend's, but it makes me anxious. She says that Mayka's father has a permit to use his car at night and that he drives her right to the corner.'
'Why worry then?' said Viktor. At the same time he thought to himself: 'Good God! We're talking about a real success, about a Stalin Prize, and she has to bring up trivia like this.'
Two days after the meeting of the Scientific Council, Viktor phoned Shishakov at home. He wanted to ask him to accept the young physicist Landesman on the staff: the personnel department were dragging their feet. At the same time he wanted to ask Shishakov to speed up the formalities for Anna Naumovna Weisspapier's return from Kazan. Now that the Institute was recruiting again, it was ridiculous to leave qualified staff behind in Kazan.
All this had been on Viktor's mind for a long time, but he had been afraid that Shishakov was not well disposed towards him and would just say, 'Have a word with my deputy.' As a result he had kept postponing the conversation.