Twentieth-Century Russian Literature. Selected Papers from the ...

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Yurii's visit to the hotel has dual significance, since it unites two events; while the weaker
event is assigned to the DEATHS OF PARENTS, the stronger one belongs to the next group,
where all contacts are visual.
2. VISUAL CONTACTS
* Y sees L for the first time (II,21:72)
The candle (III,9:89; III,10:91)
* Y sees L again at the Christmas party (III,14:94)
There are three visual contacts in this group, two of which are strong. Yurii's visit to the squalid
hotel is the first time that he sees Lara. He is mystified by her silent eye-contact with
Komarovskii, while Lara is hardly aware of his presence. The strong, one-way visual linkages of
this scene are echoed by Yurii's and Lara's eye-contact through mediating objects. On his way to
the Sventitskiis', 'Yurii saw the same things that, a little while before him, Lara set her eyes
upon'. Their eyes meet, their without knowing it, at the candle lit on the window-sill of Antipov's
room. This time, the visual contact is mutual, but indirect and unconscious on both sides. The
candle assumes the active role of a conscious mind: like 'a consciously peeping eye', it is looking
outward in search of someone particular in the street. Symmetrically, both protagonists are
accompanied by their future spouses, but the candle is noted only by Yurii and Lara. Neither
Tonya, nor Antipov, by whom the candle was lit (though he did it for Lara 'who liked to talk by
candle light') participates in the contact. The third visual contact occurs at the Christmas party in
the same one-way direction, as in the hotel scene previously. Again, Yurii sees Lara, without her
seeing him. However, instead of looking at Komarovskii, Lara shoots at him, and unlike the
languid glances at the hotel, this visual contact is sudden and momentous, like the shot. Once
again, the future spouses Tonya and Komarovskii are also present.
This group of visual contacts is remarkable for its symmetry. Embedded between the two
one-sided visual contacts, the episode with the candle is totally unconscious, and therefore
weaker than the two other episodes, in which Yurii is fully aware of the presence of Lara. The
symmetry is supported by the constant presence of the future spouses: while Tonya stays with
Yurii in two of the scenes, Lara's partners are symmetrically interchanged (Komarovskii–
Antipov–Komarovskii), so that Antipov appears only once, in the candle episode. Thus a
framework is established, by which the importance of the candle event is stressed.