Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

On the way, as a result of sitting motionless in a narrow compartment, it had seemed that only the train was moving, while time stood still, and that it was as yet only noon.

But night was already falling when the cab bringing the doctor and his things emerged with difficulty, at a walk, from the numberless multitude of people crowding around the Smolensky market.

It may have been so, or it may have been that layers of experience from later years were added to the doctor's impression of that time, but afterwards, in his memory, it seemed to him that even then people bunched together only out of habit, and there was no reason for them to crowd around, because the awnings of the empty stands were lowered and not even fastened with padlocks, and there was nothing to sell on the filthy square, which was no longer swept of dirt and refuse.

And it seemed to him that even then he had seen thin, decently dressed old women and men huddled on the sidewalks, standing as a mute reproach to passersby, silently offering to sell something that no one took and no one had need of: artificial flowers, round spirit lamps for boiling coffee, with glass lid and whistle, evening gowns of black gauze, the uniforms of abolished departments.

A public of a simpler sort traded in more essential things: the prickly, quickly stale crusts of rationed black bread; the dirty, wet ends of sugarloaves; and two-ounce packets of shag tobacco cut in half through the wrapper.

And all over the market some sort of mysterious junk circulated, increasing in price as it passed through everyone's hands.

The cab turned into one of the lanes adjacent to the square. The sun was setting behind them and hit them in the back. In front of them rumbled a drayman on his bouncing, empty cart. He raised pillars of dust that burned like bronze in the rays of the setting sun.

They finally managed to get ahead of the drayman who was blocking their way. They drove faster. The doctor was struck by the piles of old newspapers and posters torn from the houses and fences scattered everywhere on the streets and sidewalks. The wind dragged them to one side, and the hooves, wheels, and feet of those driving and walking to the other.

Soon, after several intersections, his own house appeared at the corner of two lanes. The cab stopped.

Yuri Andreevich's breath was taken away and his heart began to beat loudly, when, getting down from the droshky, he went to the front door and rang. The bell had no effect. Yuri Andreevich rang again. When nothing came of this attempt either, he began, with increasing alarm, to ring again and again at short intervals. Only at the fourth time was there a rattle of the hook and the chain inside, and, along with the front door moving aside, he saw Antonina Alexandrovna holding it wide open. The unexpectedness left them both dumbfounded for the first moment, and they did not hear themselves cry out. But as Antonina Alexandrovna's arm holding the door wide open presented half of a wide-open embrace, this brought them out of their dumbfoundedness, and they threw themselves madly onto each other's necks. A moment later they both began talking at once, interrupting each other.

"First of all, is everyone well?"

"Yes, yes, don't worry. Everything's all right. I wrote foolish things to you. Forgive me. But we'll have to talk. Why didn't you send a telegram? Markel will carry your things. Ah, I understand, you got alarmed because it wasn't Egorovna who opened the door? Egorovna's in the country."

"And you've lost weight. But so young and slender! I'll go and dismiss the cabby."

"Egorovna went to get flour. The rest have been let go. Now there's only one new girl, you don't know her, Nyusha, to take care of Sashenka, and no one else. Everyone's been told you'd be coming, they're all impatient. Gordon, Dudorov, everyone."

"How's Sashenka?"

"He's all right, thank God. He just woke up. If you hadn't just come from the road, we could go to him now."

"Is papa home?"

"Didn't we write to you? He's at the district duma from morning till late at night. As chairman. Yes, imagine. Did you pay the cabby? Markel! Markel!"

They were standing with the wicker hamper and suitcase in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking the way, and the passersby, going around them, looked them up and down and gaped for a long time at the departing cab and the wide-open front door, waiting to see what would happen next.

Meanwhile Markel, in a waistcoat over a calico shirt, with his porter's cap in his hand, came running from the gateway to his young masters, shouting as he ran: