He’d surely told this story a hundred times and seen the film a dozen. Nevertheless, the flickering images once again carried him away into the past, to the time when he’d met Anna, when they still had bold dreams. For the rest of his stay in the theater, Galina, icy Yakutia, and the great change hanging over him were forgotten.
They stayed until the end of the third part of War and Peace; it was already after midnight. Feeling good because of what she saw as the growing closeness between her and her husband, Anna strolled beside him to the subway and, soon thereafter, along the Mozhaisk Chaussée. When they arrived home, they tiptoed past the sleeping Viktor Ipalyevich, climbed into the sleeping alcove, and put Petya between them without waking him up.
The following afternoon, as Anna was returning home from work, she started in alarm. Anton was in the ZIL, waiting for her. That could mean but one thing: Alexey wanted to propose a meeting. A hundred thoughts flashed across her brain. Her dearest wish was to make a clean break, and that would entail leaving Alexey. Leonid’s presence positively compelled a separation! She’d give him a farewell gift, Anna decided, as she walked toward the ZIL; she’d tell him what she knew about Lyushin. Yes, that was how she’d do it: She’d go to Drezhnevskaya Street one last time, sit in the corner seat on the sofa, next to her dear old wolf, drink a little wine, and tell him the truth. Anna exchanged greetings with Anton and agreed to an appointment the following evening.
“Tomorrow I’m meeting that man for the last time,” she began without prelude when she found Leonid alone in the apartment. She didn’t carry her groceries into the kitchen; she had an irresistible urge to start talking honestly and immediately.
Leonid kept his eyes on the sheet of paper in front of him, scribbled a few more lines, and looked up. “Man? What man?”
Anna put out a hand to stop the bag of potatoes from falling off the table and answered that she was talking about the man from the Central Committee.
Leonid almost blurted out a question: Was he the reason she was meeting this fellow? He was downright fearful of the idea that Anna’s CC contacts had something to do with him.
When he remained silent, Anna said, “It’s the last time. I can’t do it anymore, and I don’t want to, either. I don’t care what privileges come with it!”
She was in front of him again, Anna, who was filled with the highest ideals and at the same time caught in the web of necessity; Anna, who surrendered what she could to rescue her family’s happiness. He laid an envelope over his sheet of paper. “Are you sure this is the right time to do that?”
His dispassion irritated her. Was he insulted to hear that the affair was still going on? Didn’t he understand from her behavior that his homecoming had changed everything? Anna wasn’t used to talking about feelings with Leonid. The signals between them had always been sent by other means—a good meal, a song on the radio, a smiling gaze at their son. Alexey, not Leonid, was the man who’d encouraged Anna to name her wishes and her fears. And now she was standing before her husband, unsure of how to proceed. She said, “I’ve decided, Leonid, and I know everything’s going to be all right.”
She moved toward him, the potato bag toppled over, and the first tuber spilled out, followed by several more. With his foot, Leonid prevented a potato from rolling under the cupboard. Anna knelt down. He didn’t want to see his wife scooting around on the floor and bent to help her. They met in front of the sofa, still gathering up potatoes. Holding one in each hand, she crawled to his side, embraced him, sought his mouth, and pressed him against the sofa.
She couldn’t understand why she was now wild for the very same man she’d scarcely desired during the course of the previous five years. What tricks emotions play on people, she thought; the Party was right to demand that individual passion be placed in the service of society as a whole. While Anna was considering what ideal she subordinated her own passion to and concluding that her attitude vis-à-vis politics was deficient, Leonid pulled his sweater off and unbuttoned his shirt. How simple it had been to live right when she was a Pioneer