Life and Fate Read Along, Part 3 Chapter 43

This post, covering Part 3, Chapter 43 is part of The Slavic Literature Pod’s chapter a day read along of Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate. Learn more about our project here.

Back in his cell, Krymov is desperately racking his brain trying to understand how the investigators found out about Trotsky calling his article pure marble.

Krymov can still picture the encounter perfectly. He can remember how the words were spoken: “‘Marble! Pure marble!’ The words spoken to him one morning in the Znamenka, in the office of the chairman of the Revolutionary War Soviet of the Republic… The man with the pointed beard and sparkling pince-nez had read through Krymov’s article and talked to him in a quiet, friendly voice,” (p. 789). What concerns him is that he only ever told this to one person…