Lunchtime read: The House on the Embankment

The inevitable pressure of the Soviet system starts to impact on Glebov with the educational authorities turning the screws on his girlfriend’s father. The assumption is that he will marry Sonya but already you guess that the great survivor will help destroy her father and then leave Sonya. Because of the other critical voice attacking Glebov, which the more you think about it might be from Lev, the more you start to dislike him.

Highlights between pages 88 – 114
Glebov is asked by a couple of the academic staff to choose another professor so his future ‘father-in-law’ does not end up supervising his post graduate studies. They then ask him to get evidence that will help build a case that the professor is straying from the Marxist path and his idols include dangerous elements. Glebov tells Sonya who in turn tells her father who does not show alarm at the prospect of a hate campaign against him and instead seems to know all about it. Meanwhile Glebov is agonising over whether or not he really loves Sonya.

More tomorrow…