in April p>196, Pasternak first felt the symptoms of the disease. His left scapula began to ache, and before long, he was unable to write in a sitting position, so he had to stand and copy the opening of the play. The doctor found fluid in his body, but he didn't believe it. He thought of a patient in Potkin Hospital. The hospital also said that this person had radiculitis and accumulated fluid in his body, but Pasternak knew that this patient had lung cancer.
On Easter in April that year, Pasternak came to Potapov Hutong for the last time to meet Ivanskaya. The mother and daughter are seeing off Irina Yemelianova's French fiance George Neve. After a serious illness, he is going back to Paris to recuperate. "Bao Lie is in a good mood, tanned, looks just like a healthy person and still speaks amazingly." During this meeting, Pasternak advised Irina Yemelianova not to emigrate. "You are used to explaining people's stupidity to yourself under the conditions of the Soviet Union, but over there, you will encounter stupidity, meanness and shameless, which are unconditional and will be a spiritual blow to you. But I believe in your fate. " He also praised George Neve-for his frankness and simplicity. Several people drank two bottles of "Widow Champagne". [1] Pasternak said that he wanted to write a book about the meaning of civilization and the decline of human nature in art in Russia and the West. "No, there should always be some meaning in this, as it should be!" He intends to bring some of these thoughts into Aga Sonnov's mouth, to predict the fate of art in the future through the characters in the play, or to write a separate chapter. In the evening, he and Evans Kaya went to Beletjelkino together. She went back to her residence, and he went back to the "big villa", where she received Renata Schweitzer, who had been in communication with him for a long time and visited for the first time. After a brief conversation in the study, he took her to meet Evans Kaya. Schweitzer always pounced on him and kissed him. He pretended to be angry and asked Ivanskaya for forgiveness. When he got home, he took off his clothes in the aisle and muttered, "What a heavy coat!" " Then I sat at the Easter table for a long time, talked passionately, drank a lot of wine and was very happy.
the next day, he had severe pain in his chest. Evans Kaya took him to find a familiar neurosurgeon, Baroness Gisenghausen [2]. She looked at his body, praised his poems when he was young, and declared in a quiet contralto voice that no major problems were found. Pasternak perked up slightly.
at the end of April, his illness got worse obviously. He labored to the villa management office and called Moscow. Ivanskaya asked him how he felt, and he said in a weak voice, "Alas, he won't live to be a hundred years old!" " At the same time, Yemeliyanova, who listened to their conversation from another microphone, shouted: "You can, you can live!"
On April 2th, Schweitzer came to say goodbye and presented him with a picture of her nephew entitled "Tiger". One hind leg of the tiger was painted black. The boy meant that Pasternak had defiled himself in his native land. Pasternak exclaimed excitedly: "This is little Xia Jiaer [3]!" I immediately wrote a postcard to the boy to express my gratitude. Pasternak bid farewell to Schweitzer, waved to her from the front steps, trudged back to the study upstairs, and said to Nina Tabize, "Please don't scare Zina and Leonecka, but I believe that I have lung cancer and my shoulder blades are killing me."
On April 23rd, he went to the "small villa" again to look for Ivanskaya (note: Pappas' lover), looking pale and worried. She recalled that he kissed her like that, as if he wanted to restore life, health and strength ... < P > On May 1st, Kara Xie Ning Nikova visited him. According to her account, Yevgeny Borisovich wrote: "He asked her to join in the confession ceremony, his eyes closed, his deformed face shone, and he recited all the related prayers in one breath. The power of the ceremony and the feeling of living Christ's arrival are so amazing that even when he accidentally said that death was approaching, it became a detail. "
during the festival in may, it never stops raining. Evans Kaya and her daughter moved back to the residence of Beletjelkino, waiting for Pasternak, but he was nowhere to be seen. Until the evening of May 3, Koma Ivanov sent his optimistic letter as usual. Pasternak said that he suffered from angina pectoris, high blood pressure and neurasthenia. "Don't be sad, that's not what we want to beat," the letter concluded.
On May 5th, his illness suddenly worsened, but he did not change his daily routine. The next day, he wanted to wash his hair, and a sudden pain in his chest and shoulders almost made him unconscious. Suspected myocardial infarction. The electrocardiogram showed no abnormality. According to the re-examination of ECG on May 9th, Dr. nechayev concluded that it was a deep bi-site infarction, and Professor Vohlison supported this diagnosis, so the clinic of Literature Foundation sent Dr. Anna Golodets for Pasternak.
He has been lying on the bed, in the piano room on the first floor, and is not allowed to get up. His younger brother and sister-in-law arrived in Berejino, and Tamara ivanova [4] also visited from time to time. Pasternak didn't cry for pain, but he had to lie flat according to the regulations in order to prohibit turning over and lying on his side. He couldn't sleep, and he couldn't help thinking about it. He repeatedly sighed and told the nurse that it was a "nightmare without dreams". Naida nikolayev said that he usually eats something at night to sleep better. The doctor allowed him to be fed at eleven o'clock at night, but he still couldn't sleep.
Pasternak can't stand the sight of his stubble. He asked his son to shave him, and Leonia did. Reading is also not allowed, but he still talks and thinks about literature, and what he talks about is literature: "The translations of Shakespeare and Goethe quarreled with each other, which attracted me and disappeared."
The nurse told him it was best not to say anything serious.
"then what should I say?" He was angry. "I'm not talking about the left scapula? But it doesn't speak Russian. "
He kept apologizing to several nurses: Look, I'm sick and you have to take care of me ...
"What's wrong with you?"
"My left scapula has been uncomfortable and painful for a long time, but it doesn't seem to be serious. And sometimes it's too serious to admit. Originally, I thought that the disease could be overcome through internal resistance. I was wrong, I caused all this to myself. "
This belief that physical condition depends on mental condition is completely Pasternak-like. No wonder one day two or three years ago, when Ji Naida nikolayev asked him if he had any complaints, whether they were mental or physical, he said loudly, "I was not born to perceive myself in a physical way!"
upstairs, his study is being repaired. Endless. The topic of repair has been with him all his life, and now it reappears.
Zoya Maslenikova brought a rare cherry in this season and juiced it for him to drink. It was already difficult for him to eat, and he said, "Great."
on the evening of 13th, the situation got worse. He cried for the first time that he had a stomachache. At night, he told Anna Golodets that the history of his life would not end with the history of his illness. "The discussion in the future will continue for a while, but then, everyone will agree. In any case, I am a Nobel Prize winner after all. "
ECG signs are getting worse. Legs also began to ache. Under the action of opium total alkali, he seemed to wake up and said, "Two heels are like my personal enemies who forget their names and make their own decisions." Even so, he didn't let the nurse near him until his wife finished grooming him, and he put on his dentures himself. He called it "living under the teeth".
On May 14th, at the request of Evans Kaya, Professor Dolgo Proske, who treated Pasternak for myocardial infarction in 1952, came to see his condition. The next day, I had a consultation and concluded that it was gastric cancer. Did not inform relatives. He was injected with powerful painkillers, and he fell asleep. When he woke up, he asked, < P > "Where is leonov?"
"leonov didn't come," the nurse replied.
"He was sitting here just now, and we were talking about Faust ... Please don't give me any more anesthetic."
In order to relieve the pain, he was given an oxygen tent, so that he could fall asleep.
once, the nurse asked, "how do you feel about yourself?"
"Everything can happen, but in the process, I feel at peace," he replied.
he no longer drinks his favorite strong tea. He learned that he had an ulcer, and he didn't know who to listen to. In this case, a rich diet is the most harmful to his health. Began to refuse the food prepared for him by tania, a domestic worker: "She is simply stupid on this issue."
"Look at what you said, tania gave his whole heart!"
"She gave her heart, but the dirt stayed."
He said to Nina Tabize, "I love all of you. But now, I no longer exist, leaving only a mess in my chest and stomach. "
The Dutchman sent a big bunch of tulips, and he asked not to bring them into the room, because he didn't like flowers in vases, but only those in nature. Every day he asks if the cherry has blossomed. It was a hot and humid May, but the cherry didn't bloom. "I'd rather it was cloudy during my illness," he said sadly. He can't stand hot weather.
Anna Golodets praised his young healthy muscles and elastic skin. In the last days of May, he became thinner and thinner. What he was most afraid of was that his relatives proposed to call Evans Kaya to him. Golodets guessed that, in his view, this meant that his situation was hopeless. Naida nikolayev even planned to leave home when she arrived, but he rejected the idea.
In the morning examination on May 18th, Golodets felt that there was a metastasis in the upper clavicle of his left side, and immediately rushed to Moscow for consultation.
in the evening, an oxygen tent was set up for him. He could hardly move.
"Look what I've become! Fell into the boring table between the pages. "
Marfa Kuz Minic is an elderly nurse with a strict attitude. Pasternak said to her, "Marfa Kuz Minic, you probably haven't been favored by life. But you have a kind heart. You are so dignified and cherish your reputation. You can do anything if you want. Please do something for me, Marfa Kuz Minic. I really want to live. Don't worry, please sit down and think about doing it again ... I lead a double life. Oh, if you knew her, you wouldn't condemn me. Have you ever had a double life? "
He never told anyone about Ivanskaya again, but occasionally sent 16-year-old nurse Marina Lassina to Ivanskaya to comfort her.
On May 22nd, with the help of his brother, a famous radiologist, yelena Tagg [5] actually moved a fluoroscope to the villa.
"Well, that's great," Pasternak said. "Everything will be clarified, and it will be another result."
According to the fluoroscopic image, Professor Tagg concluded that the left lung cancer was swollen and both lobes had spread. This is the most rapid cancer, usually caused by a strong mental shock. It seems that the symptoms began to develop in the last few months of 1959, when the situation was ambiguous and the direct threat of the authorities replaced persecution.
after fluoroscopy, Pasternak became very thin. I don't wear dentures for the first time. This pair of dentures just sat on his bedside, in a brown box with fallen enamel. The box followed him for many years. Always intact.
The nurse told him that the film showed chronic pneumonia. He doesn't believe it.
On 23rd, the doctor attending the clinic of Literature Foundation visited him. "Lovely doctor," he said, "a bit like Ferdinand. (Note: Soviet writer, Pax's neighbor) "
Some foreign journalists are always waiting near the villa. The whole of Moscow knows the diagnosis, and so does the west. Pasternak demanded that his sister Lidiya be recalled from London. She was going to leave at once, but the Soviet embassy delayed her visa.
At 4am on May 27th, Pasternak's pulse disappeared, and he was given several injections before he recovered. "I feel very good. I couldn't feel anything at first, but your injection brought me back to anxiety. "
"If you die like this," he repeated the same sentence for several days, "there is nothing to be afraid of."
"Life is beautiful," he said to the nurse. "If life lasts, I will use it to resist vulgarity. In world literature and Chinese literature. Too much vulgarity. People's writing is not relevant. "
He also said that he would write about the work of nurses: "Well, yes, you are workers. There are so many troubles in the world, and any activity is so complicated and difficult, but it is so noble, sincere and selfless here. This is what I want to write. "
I asked Olesha if she was still alive. He didn't know that Olesha fell ill in April and died in early May.
"I feel filthy around me," he said to his eldest son. "I heard that I should eat something to make my appetite move. But it's torture. The same is true in the literary world. Recognition is not recognition at all, but ignorance. No memories of the past. Relationships are destroyed in different ways. It's like being in a pile of filth. Not only here, but all over the world. In order to preserve people's freedom and uninhibited talent, the whole life has become a confrontation with absolute vulgarity. I spent my whole life here. "
on may 27th, I gave him blood. He said that he had given blood during the war. When the needle was pulled out of the vein, blood flowed to the bed and the doctor's white coat.
"bloody picture", Pasternak said.
The next morning, he asked the doctor:
"Have you ever treated a patient with complications after myocardial infarction like me?"
"Yes," the doctor replied.
"have they recovered?"
"yes."
"Then tell me their names."
she named several writers. He seems calm.
At night, the nurse on duty fell asleep in front of him for a while, and soon woke up and felt that he was looking at her.
"I'm sorry," the nurse said shyly.
"Never mind," he smiled. "You are in good shape."
On one occasion, Golodets asked him to read aloud.
"You know, I'm writing a book myself. Why should I read someone else's?" He replied with a little irritation.
on 28th, his condition deteriorated completely.
"Since you know everything," he said to the nurse, "why do you tie my life in with this noose? Please look into your heart. Life is beautiful, very beautiful. But it is inevitable to die after all. "
The next day, he couldn't wait for a blood transfusion, because he felt much better after the first transfusion. I called Leonia and asked him how the exam was going. In the evening, Genia also came. Pasternak called him, but he didn't say a word.
Professor Kashirski is the only doctor who doesn't charge for consultation. He said that Pasternak had less than five days left. A week later, Pasternak was still alive. On May 29th, Nina Tabize came to visit. As usual, he grabbed her hand, touched his finger and said, "Gaina!"