'Wait a moment,' said Viktor. 'I need room to breathe.'

'For heaven's sake!' said Sokolov. 'No one's going to interfere with your work. You can breathe as much as you like.'

'Listen, my friend,' said Viktor with a sour smile. 'You mean well by me and I thank you with all my heart. But please allow me to be equally frank. Why, for the love of God, did you have to talk like that about Dmitry Petrovich? After the freedom of thought we enjoyed in Kazan, I found that very upsetting. As for me, I'm afraid I'm not as fearless as all that. I'm no Danton – as we used to say in my student days.'

'Thank God for that! To be quite honest, I've always thought of political speechmakers as people incapable of expressing themselves in anything creative. We ourselves do have that ability.'

'I don't know,' said Viktor. 'What about that young Frenchman Galois? And what about Kibalchich?'

Sokolov pushed his chair back. 'Kibalchich, as you know very well, ended up on the scaffold. What I'm talking about is empty blather. Like Madyarov's.'

'So you're calling me a blatherer?'

Sokolov shrugged his shoulders and didn't answer.

One might have expected this quarrel to be forgotten as easily as their previous quarrels. But for some reason this particular flare-up was not forgotten. If two men's lives are in harmony, they can quarrel, be wildly unjust to one another and then forget it. But if there is some hidden discord, then any thoughtlessness, any careless word, can be a blade that severs their friendship.

Such discord often lies so deep that it never reaches the surface, never becomes conscious. One violent, empty quarrel, one unkind word, appears then to be the fateful blow that destroys years of friendship.

No, Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich did not just quarrel over a goose! [46]

27

When people talked about Kasyan Terentyevich Kovchenko, the new deputy director of the Institute, they always called him 'one of Shishakov's men'. He seemed friendly, he sprinkled his conversation with odd words of Ukrainian, and he managed to obtain both a car and a flat with remarkable speed.

Markov, who knew any number of stories about the different Academicians and senior members of staff, said that Kovchenko had been awarded a Stalin Prize for a work that he had first read through after its publication: his part had been to obtain materials that were in short supply and to smooth over various bureaucratic obstacles.

Shishakov entrusted Kovchenko with the task of filling the various positions that had fallen vacant. Applications were invited for the posts of director of the vacuum laboratory and director of the low temperature laboratory; there were also vacancies for research directors.

The War Department furnished both workers and materials; the mechanical workshop was reorganized and the main building of the Institute restored; the central power station agreed to provide an unlimited supply of electricity; special factories sent in whatever materials were in short supply. All this was arranged by Kovchenko.

Usually when a new director takes over, people say respectfully, 'He's the first to arrive at work and the last to leave.' This was said of Kovchenko. But a new director wins even more respect when people say, 'It's two weeks since he was appointed and he's only appeared once, for half an hour. He just never comes in.' This means that the director is drawing up new canons of law, that he has access to the highest circles of government. And this is what was said of Academician Shishakov.

As for Chepyzhin, he went off to his dacha, to work in what he called his laboratory hut. Professor Feinhard, the famous cardiologist, had advised him not to lift anything heavy and to avoid any sudden movements. Chepyzhin, however, chopped wood, dug ditches and felt fine. He wrote to Professor Feinhard that a strict regime suited him.

In cold, hungry Moscow the Institute seemed an oasis of warmth and luxury. When they came in to work, the members of staff took great pleasure warming their hands on the hot radiators; their flats were freezing and damp.

What they liked most of all was the new canteen in the basement. It had a buffet where you could buy yoghurt, sweet coffee and pieces of sausage. And the woman behind the counter didn't tear off the coupons for meat and fat from your ration-cards; this was particularly appreciated.

The canteen had six different menus: one for doctors of science, one for research directors, one for research assistants, one for senior laboratory assistants, one for technicians and one for service personnel. The fiercest passions were generated by the two highest-grade menus, which differed only in their desserts – stewed fruit or a jelly made from powder. Emotions also ran high over the food parcels delivered to the houses of doctors and research directors.

Savostyanov remarked that, in all probability, these parcels had stirred more passions than the theory of Copernicus.

Sometimes it seemed as though higher, more mysterious powers were involved in the arcana of rations allocation; that it did not depend merely on the Party committee and the administrators of the Institute.

'You know, your parcel came today,' Lyudmila announced one evening. 'What I can't understand is why Svechin, a nonentity in the scientific world, should get two dozen eggs, while you, for some reason, only get fifteen. I checked it on the list. You and Sokolov each get fifteen.'

'God knows what it all means,' said Viktor. 'As you are aware, there are various different classes of scientists: very great, great, famous, talented and – finally – very old. Since the very great and the great are no longer with us, they don't need eggs. The others receive varying quantities of eggs, semolina and cabbage according to rank. But then everything gets confused by other questions. Are you active in society? Do you give seminars in Marxism? Are you close to the directors? And it comes out quite crazy. The man in charge of the Academy garage gets the same as Zelinsky – twenty-five eggs. There's a very charming young lady in Svechin's laboratory who was so upset yesterday that she burst into tears and refused to eat anything at all. Like Gandhi.'

Nadya burst out laughing. 'You know, Papa, I'm amazed you're not ashamed to eat your lamb chops with the cleaning ladies right there beside you. Grandmother could never have done that.'

'Each according to his labour,' said Lyudmila. 'That's the principle of Socialism.'

'Come on!' said Viktor. 'There's no trace of Socialism in our canteen. Anyway, I don't give a damn. But do you know what Markov told me today?' he added suddenly. 'At the Institute – and even at the Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics-people are typing out copies of my work and passing them round.'

'Like Mandelstam's poems,' said Nadya.

'Don't make fun of me,' said Viktor. 'And the final-year students are even asking for special lectures on it.'

'That's nothing,' said Nadya. 'Alka Postoeva told me, "Your papa's become a genius." '

'No,' said Viktor, 'I'm not yet a genius.'

He went off to his room. A moment later, however, he came back and said: 'I just can't get this nonsense out of my head. Two dozen eggs for Svechin! It's amazing what ways they find to humiliate people.'

To Viktor's shame, what hurt him most was being put on the same level as Sokolov. 'Yes, they should have recognized my merits by allowing me at least one extra egg. They could have given Sokolov fourteen – just as a symbolic distinction.'

He tried to laugh at himself, but he couldn't get rid of his pathetic sense of irritation. He was more upset at being given the same as Sokolov than at being given less than Svechin. With Svechin everything was clear enough: he was a member of the Party bureau. This was something Viktor could accept. But with Sokolov it was a matter of relative scientific standing. That was something he couldn't ignore. He felt quite tormented; his indignation sprang from the very depths of his soul. What an absurd way for the authorities to show their appreciation of people! But what could he do? There are times when everyone behaves pathetically.

[46] The subject of a famous story by Gogol.