§ ≡ A section of The Pilot's Saga { Chapter 1.4 « Chapter 1.5 » Chapter 1.6 }
"Lolek! You have to let me take one of the girls, at least until you remarry. You can't raise them both by yourself. For God's sake, Elena's just a baby — and Hanka not much more!" Lidia continues for some time in quite the same vein (though her verses ramble ever so slightly, her refrain remains unchanged): Lev Abramovich must ... Lev Abramovich should ... Lev Abramovich can't ... .
Lev Abramovich, with heart fragmented and bereft, his mind exhausted beyond limitlessness, momentarily tunes out his sister-in-law (in a rare and un-Levlike maneuver). He becomes during these moments transfixed by an image: one with which he is not entirely unfamiliar because it has recurred with increasing frequency in the days since his wife's death, and with increasing intensity, both proportionate to his immersion into the reality of his loss and its implications and to his sleeplessness.
Lev Abramovich's reverie: a woman who looks like his daughter has adopted an underhanded way of getting people to do what she wants them to do, first trying flattery, and when that doesn't work excuses and self-pity, and when that doesn't work a pernicious aggression which she thinks (wrongly) she has successfully disguised as innocent by-standing. He sees, in other words, an unhappy woman. Lev Abramovich is not a man prone to delusions of grandeur. Though he sometimes fantasizes about Hanka, with her sylphen frame, dancing the lead in Giselle or, with her intense curiosity, solving one of nature's many lingering riddles, he hasn't any grand schemes for his daughters beyond this — that each live a happy life.
He conveys no trace of these thoughts through his facial expression, which retains its usual enigmatic air of detachment. Presently, the impression that his sister-in-law has paused her expostulation for a brief interlude (after all even the higher mortals among us must, on occasion, come up for air) arouses him from his reverie. He seizes the opportunity to speak.
"Dearest Lidia, you've been so good to me throughout this ordeal, a true rock, and I thank you. But ... daughters belong with their fathers." He has taken his pipe out of his mouth with his right hand and placed his left hand in the pocket of his old brown corderoy blazer. He has made an effort to look presentable, despite the few day's worth of growth gracing his face around his mustache. "Now if I'd've had sons, I might've let you take them." To a keener eye, Lev's crooked smile, an accompaniment to this joke, would betray the anxiety and apprehension the attempt at humor aims to cover up. Lidia, who is however oblivious, begins to interrupt.
But Lev, possessing a fine tenor voice and the confidence of many a triumph in public-speaking engagements during his time at the university, summons his most ceremonious tone to hold her at bay. "Lidia, I know I'm bound to fail. Nevertheless — I present to you — failure is not always the worst alternative. Hell, if it weren't for failures, I'd have no achievements at all." Lidia's emerging expression of utter confusion convinces him that his approach has worked, if only temporarily.
"Lolek! You have to let me take one of the girls, at least until you remarry. You can't raise them both by yourself. For God's sake, Elena's just a baby — and Hanka not much more!" Lidia continues for some time in quite the same vein (though her verses ramble ever so slightly, her refrain remains unchanged): Lev Abramovich must ... Lev Abramovich should ... Lev Abramovich can't ... .
Lev Abramovich, with heart fragmented and bereft, his mind exhausted beyond limitlessness, momentarily tunes out his sister-in-law (in a rare and un-Levlike maneuver). He becomes during these moments transfixed by an image: one with which he is not entirely unfamiliar because it has recurred with increasing frequency in the days since his wife's death, and with increasing intensity, both proportionate to his immersion into the reality of his loss and its implications and to his sleeplessness.
Lev Abramovich's reverie: a woman who looks like his daughter has adopted an underhanded way of getting people to do what she wants them to do, first trying flattery, and when that doesn't work excuses and self-pity, and when that doesn't work a pernicious aggression which she thinks (wrongly) she has successfully disguised as innocent by-standing. He sees, in other words, an unhappy woman. Lev Abramovich is not a man prone to delusions of grandeur. Though he sometimes fantasizes about Hanka, with her sylphen frame, dancing the lead in Giselle or, with her intense curiosity, solving one of nature's many lingering riddles, he hasn't any grand schemes for his daughters beyond this — that each live a happy life.
He conveys no trace of these thoughts through his facial expression, which retains its usual enigmatic air of detachment. Presently, the impression that his sister-in-law has paused her expostulation for a brief interlude (after all even the higher mortals among us must, on occasion, come up for air) arouses him from his reverie. He seizes the opportunity to speak.
"Dearest Lidia, you've been so good to me throughout this ordeal, a true rock, and I thank you. But ... daughters belong with their fathers." He has taken his pipe out of his mouth with his right hand and placed his left hand in the pocket of his old brown corderoy blazer. He has made an effort to look presentable, despite the few day's worth of growth gracing his face around his mustache. "Now if I'd've had sons, I might've let you take them." To a keener eye, Lev's crooked smile, an accompaniment to this joke, would betray the anxiety and apprehension the attempt at humor aims to cover up. Lidia, who is however oblivious, begins to interrupt.
But Lev, possessing a fine tenor voice and the confidence of many a triumph in public-speaking engagements during his time at the university, summons his most ceremonious tone to hold her at bay. "Lidia, I know I'm bound to fail. Nevertheless — I present to you — failure is not always the worst alternative. Hell, if it weren't for failures, I'd have no achievements at all." Lidia's emerging expression of utter confusion convinces him that his approach has worked, if only temporarily.
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