Turkish Gambit Read Free

filth. Pyotr studied at the university and gave lessons and Varvara qualified as a stenographer and earned as much as a hundred roubles a month. She kept the records of court proceedings and took down the memoirs of a crazy old general, the conqueror of Warsaw,- and then, on the recommendation of friends, she had found herself recording the text of a novel for a Great Writer (we shall dispense with names, since the arrangement ended in unpleasantness). Varya regarded the Great Writer with veneration and had absolutely refused to accept any payment, feeling that she was quite fortunate enough to be doing such work at all; but the intellectual luminary had misinterpreted her refusal. He was terribly old, over fifty, burdened with a large family and not at all good-looking, but there was no denying that he spoke eloquently and convincingly: virginity really was a ridiculous prejudice, bourgeois morality was repulsive and there was nothing shameful about human nature. Varya had listened and then consulted for hours on end with her Petya about what she ought to do. Petya agreed that chastity and hypocritical piety were shackles imposed on women, but he resolutely counselled her against entering into physiological relations with the Great Writer. He grew heated and attempted to demonstrate that the Writer was not so very Great after all, even though he did have past services to his credit - that many progressive people actually regarded him as a reactionary. It had all ended, as previously mentioned, unpleasantly. One day the Great Writer, breaking off the dictation of a scene of exceptional power (Varya was writing with tears in her eyes) began breathing noisily, then he gave a loud snort, embraced his brown-haired stenographer clumsily round the shoulders and dragged her over to the divan. For a while she endured his unintelligible whisperings and the touch of his trembling fingers, which had become hopelessly entangled in her hooks and buttons, until suddenly she realised quite clearly -she did not, in fact, understand it so much as sense it -that this was all wrong and it simply could not happen. She pushed the Great Writer away, ran out of the room and never went back.
    This story had a bad effect on Pyotr. It was March, spring had come early, the breeze blowing from the Neva was redolent of open spaces and drifting ice, and Pyotr had given her an ultimatum: things could not go on as they were,- they were made for each other,- their relations had stood the test of time. They were both flesh and blood and they had no business attempting to defy the laws of nature. Of course, he would settle for carnal love without a wedding ceremony, but it would be better to get married properly, since it would spare them many complications. And somehow he had managed to put things so cleverly that afterwards only one thing was discussed: which kind of wedding they should have, civil or church. The arguments continued until April, but in April the long-expected war for the liberation of the Russian people's Slav brethren had broken out, and as a man of honour Pyotr Yablokov had signed up as a volunteer. Before his departure Varya had promised him two things: that she would soon give him her final answer and that they would assuredly fight together side by side - somehow she would think of a way.
    And so she had. Not immediately, but she had thought of a way. She had failed to get a job as a nurse in a temporary military infirmary or a field hospital -they refused to take her incomplete midwifery studies into consideration. Nor were female telegraphers being taken on for active army service, Varya had been on the point of succumbing to despair when a letter arrived from Roumania: Petya complained that he had not been allowed to join the infantry because of his flat feet and had been retained at headquarters on the staff of the commander-in-chief, the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich - for volunteer Yablokov was a mathematician and the army was