'That's enough!' Sokolov finally shouted out.

'Enough?' repeated Madyarov in a mock-threatening tone of voice. 'No, that isn't enough. Chekhov brought Russia into our consciousness in all its vastness – with people of every estate, every class, every age… More than that! It was as a democrat that he presented all these people – as a Russian democrat. He said – and no one had said this before, not even Tolstoy – that first and foremost we are all of us human beings. Do you understand? Human beings! He said something no one in Russia had ever said. He said that first of all we are human beings – and only secondly are we bishops, Russians, shopkeepers, Tartars, workers. Do you understand? Instead of saying that people are good or bad because they are bishops or workers, Tartars or Ukrainians, instead of this he said that people are equal because they are human beings. At one time people blinded by Party dogma saw Chekhov as a witness to the fin de siècle. No. Chekhov is the bearer of the greatest banner that has been raised in the thousand years of Russian history – the banner of a true, humane, Russian democracy, of Russian freedom, of the dignity of the Russian man. Our Russian humanism has always been cruel, intolerant, sectarian. From Avvakum to Lenin our conception of humanity and freedom has always been partisan and fanatical. It has always mercilessly sacrificed the individual to some abstract idea of humanity. Even Tolstoy, with his doctrine of non-resistance to Evil, is intolerant – and his point of departure is not man but God. He wants the idea of goodness to triumph. True believers always want to bring God to man by force; and in Russia they stop at nothing – even murder – to achieve this.

'Chekhov said: let's put God – and all these grand progressive ideas – to one side. Let's begin with man; let's be kind and attentive to the individual man – whether he's a bishop, a peasant, an industrial magnate, a convict in the Sakhalin Islands or a waiter in a restaurant. Let's begin with respect, compassion and love for the individual – or we'll never get anywhere. That's democracy, the still unrealized democracy of the Russian people.

'The Russians have seen everything during the last thousand years – grandeur and super-grandeur; but what they have never seen is democracy. Yes – and this is what separates Chekhov from the decadents. The State may sometimes express irritation with the decadents; it may box them on the ears or kick them up the arse. But it simply doesn't understand Chekhov – that's why it tolerates him.

There's still no place in our house for democracy – for a true humane democracy.'

It was obvious that Sokolov was very upset by Madyarov's boldness. Noticing this, and with a delight he couldn't quite understand, Viktor said: 'Well said! That's all very true and very intelligent. Only I beg you to be indulgent towards Scriabin. He may be a decadent, but I love him.'

Sokolov's wife offered Viktor a saucer of jam. He made a gesture of refusal. 'No thanks. Not for me.'

'It's blackcurrant,' replied Marya Ivanovna.

Viktor looked into her golden-brown eyes and said: 'Have I told you about my weakness, then?'

She smiled and nodded her head. Her teeth were uneven, and her lips thin and pale. When she smiled, her pallid, even slightly grey, face suddenly became quite charming.

'She's a splendid woman,' thought Viktor. 'If only her nose wasn't always so red.'

Karimov turned to Madyarov.

'Leonid Sergeich, how can you reconcile your earlier hymn to Dostoyevsky with this passionate speech in praise of Chekhov and his humanity? Dostoyevsky certainly doesn't consider everyone equal. Hitler called Tolstoy a degenerate, but they say he has a portrait of Dostoyevsky hanging in his office. I belong to a national minority myself. I'm a Tartar who was born in Russia and I cannot pardon a Russian writer his hatred of Poles and Yids. No – even if he is a genius. We had more than enough blood spilt in Tsarist Russia, more than enough of being spat at in the eye. More than enough pogroms. A great writer in this country has no right to persecute foreigners, to despise Poles and Tartars, Jews, Armenians and Chuvash.'

The grey-haired, dark-eyed Tartar smiled haughtily and angrily -like a true Mongol. Still addressing Madyarov, he continued:

'Perhaps you've read Tolstoy's Hadji Mourat? Perhaps you've read The Cossacks? Perhaps you've read the story "A Prisoner in the Caucasus "? They Were written by a Russian count. While Dostoyevsky was a Lithuanian. As long as the Tartars remain in existence, they will pray to Allah on behalf of Tolstoy.'

Viktor looked at Karimov, thinking: 'Well, well. So that's how you feel, is it?'

'Akhmet Usmanovich,' said Sokolov, 'I profoundly respect your love for your people. But allow me to be proud of my nationality too. Allow me to love Tolstoy – and not only because of what he wrote about the Tartars. We Russians, for some reason, are never allowed to be proud of our own people. And if we show such pride, we're immediately taken for members of the Black Hundreds.'

Karimov got to his feet, his face covered in pearls of sweat.

'Let me tell you the truth. Why should I lie when I know the truth? Anyone who remembers how the pride of our race, every cultural figure of any importance, was exterminated way back in the twenties -anyone with a mind can see why The Diary of a Writer must be banned!'

'We suffered too,' said Artelev.

'It wasn't just people who were destroyed – it was a whole culture. Today's intelligentsia are savages by comparison.'

'Yes,' said Madyarov with heavy irony. 'But the Tartars might not have stopped at culture. They might have wanted Tartar home-rule and a Tartar foreign policy. And that's not on…'

'But you've got your own State now,' said Sokolov. 'You've got your own Institutes, your own schools, your own operas, your own books. You've got newspapers in Tartar. You owe all that to the Revolution.'

'Yes, a State opera and a comic-opera State. But it's Moscow that collects our harvest and Moscow that sends us to prison.'

'Would it be any better if you were jailed by a Tartar?' asked Madyarov.

'What if people weren't jailed at all?' asked Marya Ivanovna.

'Mashenka!' said Madyarov, 'what will you want next?' He looked at his watch and said: 'Hm, it's getting on.'

'Stay for the night, Lenechka,' Marya Ivanovna said hurriedly. 'I can make up the camp-bed.'

Madyarov had once told Marya Ivanovna that he felt particularly lonely late at night, when he came back to a dark empty room with no one waiting for him.

'Well,' he said, 'I won't say no. Is that all right by you, Pyotr Lavrentyevich?'

'Of course.'

'Said the master of the house without the least enthusiasm,' Madyarov added with a smile.

Everyone got up from the table and began saying goodbye. Sokolov accompanied his guests to the door. Marya Ivanovna lowered her voice and said to Madyarov: 'It is good that Pyotr Lavrentyevich no longer shrinks from these conversations. In Moscow he clammed up at the merest hint of anything political.'

She pronounced her husband's name and patronymic with particular tenderness and respect. At night she often copied out his work by hand; she kept all his notebooks and even pasted his casual jottings onto cards. She thought of him as a great man – and at the same time as her helpless child.

'I like Shtrum,' said Madyarov. 'I can't understand why people say he's disagreeable.' He smiled and added: 'I noticed he pronounced all his speeches in your presence, Mashenka. While you were busy in the kitchen, he spared us his eloquence.'

Marya Ivanovna had turned towards the door. She seemed not to have heard Madyarov. But then she asked: 'What do you mean, Lenya? He pays no more attention to me than to an insect. Petya considers him unkind, arrogant and too ready to mock people. That's why he's not popular and why some of the physicists are even afraid of him. But I don't agree. I think he's very kind.'