for a train. "It's all right. We can go back," said Gavrik. Rodion Zhukov did not move, but made Petya tell him everything. Then he thought a little and asked Petya to tell him again, without hurrying. Only after Petya had given his story for the second time did Zhukov slip his book into his pocket, rise, stretch luxuriously and say, "Well, we can go up again, then. Evidently it was just chance the bastards happened upon me. Come along, Tamara." "Get up, dear," said Pavlovskaya, lightly nipping Marina's nose as one does with a little child. The girl opened her eyes, looked round about, saw Petya-earth-stained, tousle-headed, with the shot-gun over his shoulder-smiled sleepily and smoothed her creased hair-ribbon. "I want to sleep," she said pettishly, but rose obediently and picked up the kerosene stove. "No, leave your things here, just in case," said Rodion Zhukov. "What a darling she is," thought Petya. When they came out into the fresh air, the stars seemed wonderfully bright, almost blinding. The steppe was very quiet. Silently, stopping now and then to listen, they went back to the orchard, climbed over the earthen weed-grown bank and seated themselves quietly at the fire where Vasily Petrovich was still lecturing on astronomy. "Just try to imagine," he said enthusiastically, raising his head to look at the sky, "that we have the magic power to travel through space with the speed of light. If that were so, we could easily convince ourselves that the universe is infinite. Look at that starry sky which arches so magnificently over us. What do we see? We see myriads of stars, planets, and nebulae, and finally we see the Milky Way which in turn is nothing other than another great collection of stars. But all this countless number is only an infinitesimal part of the universe. So, gentlemen, imagine that we are flying through space with a speed inconceivable to the human mind and finally reach the most distant star. What do we find? We find that we see before us another star-filled firmament. We fly to the farthest star of this new sky but here too there is no end to the universe. Again a sky full of stars opens before us. And thus, however far we fly through space, more and more worlds open before us, and there is no end lo it because the universe itself is endless." Vasily Petrovich fell silent, still looking upwards. And all the others looked silently up too-at the familiar stars, the silvery track of the Milky Way, thrilled, fascinated by the thought of infinity. Marina was sitting beside Petya, looking up too; and suddenly he was swept with a wave of such tenderness, such aching love that tears rose in his eyes. "Listen-" he whispered, gently touching her sleeve. "What?" she said almost soundlessly, without turning her head. The words "I love you" nearly slipped out, but instead he managed to say, "It is marvellous, isn't it?" "Yes," said Marina, with a movement of her head that seemed wonderfully free and graceful. "The darker the night, the brighter the stars." Somewhere far away a cock crowed, barely audible; and the slender blue finger of light from the new Bolshoi Fontan lighthouse rose far up, into the star-filled sky. Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics