He for his part had noticed nothing. Where had he been when she herself was only guessing at it?! He didn’t seem to need any other female companionship – he was happy being with her.
Everybody was fond of him, as they are fond of any cheerful fellow they have got accustomed to who never refuses to help, and if an extra rouble comes his way (an extremely rare occurrence), is always ready to give it to someone else. «Well, he might need it,» he would reply to her pragmatic warning that «he’ll only just fritter it away in any case».
«But he’ll still need it!» He couldn’t see how he could refuse.
She protested against the approaching separation with her whole being, tense and super-sensitive as it was. She had no idea how she would live or what she would do. The main thing was not to make a spectacle of her feelings, and not to impose herself, so that he would not suffer on her account. That would never do! But without him? Without him – what would she ever do without him? Such a thought was unreal! For her there simply could never be a ’without him’.
But nobody could possibly have predicted the way it actually turned out.
All the members of the graduating class (and there weren’t that many of them) were handed their assignments – she was detailed to work on the Conservatory’s own academic journal. Everyone received an assignment, except for him.
«You are so talented, you have a such a special profile, that we can’t assign you a place just yet!» an official at the ministry told him with a supercilious smile. He was crushed. No matter what he did now, no matter where he looked for work, he would still not have his degree, since the degrees were awarded only after the work assignments. A vicious circle!
She gave an involuntary shiver at the memory of it. Still, it meant they could continue to see each other every evening. But then along came the «Doctors’ plot».4 They had spoken earlier about his Jewish background (she herself knew what it was like to be an outcast after her own father was taken) – there had been insults and fears in great supply, but now it became even physically frightening, perhaps because they were beginning to understand more as they advanced in years, or perhaps it was true that nothing quite so frightening had happened before. The word