Valentin Katayev. A White Sail Gleams


     PROGRESS PUBLISHERS MOSCOW

     OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2 ?  http://home.freeuk.com/russica2
     Translated from the Russian by Leonard Stoklitsky
     Illustrated by Vitali Goryaev
     Валентин Катаев
     Original Russian title: Белеет парус одинокий
     На английском языке
     First printing 1954
     Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
     ________________________________________________________
        CONTENTS


     A Few Words About Myself
     1. The Farewell
     2. The Sea
     3. In the Steppe
     4. The Watering
     5. The Runaway
     6. The Turgenev
     7. The Photograph
     8. "Man Overboard!"
     9. Odessa by Night
     10. At Home
     11. Gavrik
     12. "Call That a Horse?"
     13. Madam Storozhenko
     14. "Lower Ranks"
     15. The Boat at Sea
     16. "Turret Gun, Shoot!"
     17. The Owner of the Shooting Gallery
     18. Questions and Answers
     19. A Pound and a Half of Rye Bread
     20. Morning
     21. Word of Honour
     22. Near Mills
     23. Uncle Gavrik
     24. Love
     25. "I Was Stolen"
     26. The Pursuit
     27. Grandpa
     28. Stubborn Auntie Tatyana
     29. The Alexandrovsky Police Station
     30. The Preparatory Class
     31. The Box on the Gun Carriage
     32. Fog
     33. Lugs
     34. In the Basement
     35. A Debt of Honour
     36. The Heavy Satchel
     37. The Bomb
     38. HQ of the Fighting Group
     39. The Pogrom
     40. The Officer's Uniform
     41. The Christmas Tree
     42. Kulikovo Field
     43. The Sail
     44. The May Day Outing
     45. A Fair Wind

        A FEW WORDS ABOUT MYSELF

     Looking  back  on my life, I  recall  to mind  some  episodes that were
instrumental in shaping my understanding of the writer's mission.
     The power of the  printed word was first really brought home to me when
I landed at  the front during  the First World War. I  mentally  crossed out
nearly  all  I  had written up  until  then and  resolved  that from  now on
everything I  write should benefit  the workers, peasants  and soldiers, and
all working people.
     In 1919,  when I  was  in the ranks of the  Red  Army and  was marching
shoulder  to  shoulder  with revolutionary  Red  Army men  against Denikin's
bands,  I vowed to myself that  I  would dedicate my pen to the cause of the
revolution.
     Many Soviet  writers took  part in  the Civil War, and  their words and
their actions inspired the  fighting  men. Alexander Serafimovich was  a war
correspondent. Alexander  Fadeyev shared the privations  of the Far  Eastern
partisans. Dmitry Furmanov was the Commissar of Chapayev's division. Nikolai
Ostrovsky fought the interventionists in the Ukraine. Mikhail Sholokhov took
part in the fighting against Whiteguard  bands. Eduard Bagritsky went to the
front as  a member of a  travelling  propaganda team. More  than 400  Soviet
writers gave  their lives on the battlefronts of the Great Patriotic  War of
1941-45.  Their  names are inscribed  on  a  marble memorial  plaque in  the
Writers Club in Moscow.
     At the  time of  the Russian  revolution of 1905  I was just  a boy  of
eight, but  I clearly remember  the battleship Potemkin, a  red flag on  her
mast, sailing along the coast past Odessa. I witnessed  the fighting on  the
barricades, I saw overturned  horse-trams,  twisted and  torn  street wires,
revolvers, rifles, dead bodies.
     Many years later I  wrote A White Sail Gleams  (Written in 1936.-Ed.) a
novel  in which  I tried to convey  the  invigorating spirit  that  had been
infused into the life of Russia by her first revolution.
     A Son of the  Working People is a  reminiscence of the First World War,
in which I fought.
     When construction of  the Dnieper  hydroelectric power  station began I
went  there  together with  the  poet Demyan Bedny.  Afterwards  we  visited
collective farms in the Don and Volga areas and then set out for the Urals.
     I remember that when our train stopped at Mount Magnitnaya in the Urals
I was so impressed by what I saw that I decided  to leave the train at  once
and remain in the town of Magnitogorsk. I said good-bye to Demyan  Bedny and
jumped down from the carriage.
     "Good-bye and good luck!" he called  out. "If I were younger and didn't
have to get back to Moscow I'd stay here with pleasure."
     I was struck by  all I  saw in Magnitogorsk, by the great enthusiasm of
the  people building  for themselves. This was a revolution too. It inspired
my book Time, Forward! During the last war, as a correspondent at the front,
I saw a great deal, but for some reason  it was the youngsters that made the
biggest impression  on  me-the  homeless, destitute  boys who marched grimly
along the  war-torn roads.  I saw exhausted, grimy,  hungry Russian soldiers
pick  up  the  unfortunate children. This  was a manifestation of  the great
humanism of the  Soviet  man. Those soldiers  were fighting against fascism,
and therefore they, too, were beacons of the revolution. This prompted me to
write Son of the Regiment.
     When I look around today I see the fruits of the events of 1917, of our
technological  revolution, of the construction work at Magnitogorsk.  I  see
that my friends did not give their lives on the battlefronts in vain.
     What does being a Soviet writer mean? Here is how I got the answer.
     Returning  home one day,  a  long time  ago, I  found an envelope  with
foreign stamps on it  in my letter-box. Inside there was an  invitation from
the  Pen Club,  an international  literary association, to attend  its  next
conference, in  Vienna.  I  was  a  young  writer  then, and  I  was greatly
flattered. I told everyone I met about the remarkable  honour that  had been
accorded  me. When  I ran into Vladimir  Mayakovsky  in one of the editorial
offices  I showed him the  letter from abroad. He calmly produced an elegant
envelope exactly like mine from the pocket of his jacket.
     "Look," he said. "They invited  me too, but I'm not  boasting about it.
Because  they  did  not  invite  me,  of course,  as  Mayakovsky, but  as  a
representative  of  Soviet literature. The same applies to  you. Understand?
Reflect,  Kataich (as he called me when he was  in a good mood), on  what it
means to be a writer in the Land of Soviets."
     Mayakovsky's words made a lasting impression  on me. I realised that  I
owed by success  as  a  creative writer to the Soviet people, who had reared
me. I realised that being a  Soviet writer  means marching  in step with the
people, that it means being always on the crest of the revolutionary wave.
     In my short story The Flag, which is based  on a  wartime episode,  the
nazis  have surrounded a  group of Soviet fighting men and called on them to
give up.  But instead  of the white flag of  surrender they ran up a crimson
flag which they improvised from pieces of cloth of different shades of red.
     Similarly,  Soviet  literature  is  made up  of many works of different
shades  which,  taken  together,  shine  like  a  fiery-red  banner  of  the
revolution.
     Once,  walking  round Shanghai  I  wandered into the  market  where the
so-called "Temple  of the City  Mayor"  stood. Here  they  sold  candles for
church-goers. An old Chinese woman was  standing at a table giving  out some
strange sticks from two vases. For ten yuans you were allowed to take one of
these sticks with hieroglyphics on  it. Then  the woman  would ask you  what
number page was marked on the stick, and turning  to her book for reference,
she would find the appropriate page, tear it out and  give it to  you. On my
piece  of paper was written: "The  Phoenix sings before the sun. The Empress
takes no notice. It is difficult to alter the will of the Empress,  but your
name will live for centuries."
     We haven't got an Empress,  and so that part of  the prophecy  does not
apply. It's highly  unlikely  that my name will  live for centuries, and  so
that part doesn't apply either.
     All that remains is  the phrase "The  Phoenix sings before  the sun". I
can agree with that since the sun is my homeland.


        A WHITE SAIL GLEAMS
     1958
     Valentin Katayev


        1
     THE FAREWELL

     The blast of the horn came from  the farmyard  at about five o'clock in
the morning.
     A  piercing,  penetrating sound  that  seemed  split  into  hundreds of
musical strands, it flew out through  the apricot orchard  into the deserted
steppe and towards the sea, where its rolling echo died mournfully along the
bluff.
     That was the first signal for the departure of the coach.
     It was all over. The bitter hour of farewell had come.
     Strictly  speaking, there was no one to bid farewell to. The few summer
residents, frightened by recent events, had begun to leave in mid-season.
     The  only guests  now  remaining  at  the  farm were  Vasili  Petrovich
Batchei, an  Odessa schoolmaster, and  his two sons,  one  three  and a half
years old and  the  other eight and a half. The  elder was called Petya, and
the younger Pavlik. Today they too were leaving for home.
     It  was  for them the horn had been blown and the big black  horses led
out of the stable.
     Petya  woke  up  long  before  the  horn.  He  had slept  fitfully. The
twittering of the birds roused him, and he dressed and went outside.
     The  orchard,  the steppe, and the farmyard all lay in a  chill shadow.
The sun  was rising  out of  the sea, but the high  bluff still hid it  from
view.
     Petya wore his city Sunday suit, which he had quite outgrown during the
summer: a navy-blue  woollen sailor  blouse with a white-edged collar, short
trousers, long lisle stockings, button-shoes, and a broad-brimmed straw hat.
     Shivering  from  the  cold,  he walked  slowly round  the farm,  saying
good-bye to the places where he had spent such a wonderful summer.
     All summer long Petya  had run about practically naked.  He  was now as
brown as  an Indian  and could walk barefoot over burrs  and thorns. He  had
gone swimming three times a day. At the beach he used to  smear himself from
head to  foot with the  red marine clay and  then scratch out designs on his
chest. That made him really look like a Red Indian, especially when he stuck
into his hair the  blue feathers of  those marvellously beautiful birds-real
fairy-tale birds-which built their  nests in the bluff.  And  now, after all
that wealth and  freedom, to  have to walk  about in a  tight woollen sailor
blouse, in prickly stockings, in shoes that pinched, and in a  big straw hat
with an elastic that rubbed against his ears and pressed into his neck!
     Petya  lifted his hat and pushed  it back so that  it  dangled  on  his
shoulders like a basket.
     Two fat ducks waddled past, quacking busily. They threw a look of scorn
at this foppish boy, as though he were a stranger, and then dived under  the
fence one after the other.
     Whether they had deliberately snubbed him or simply failed to recognise
him, Petya could  not  be  sure, yet  all  of  a sudden he felt  so  sad and
heavy-hearted that he wanted to cry.
     Straight  to his heart  cut the feeling that he was a complete stranger
in this cold and deserted world of early morning. Even the pit in the corner
of the  garden-the deep, wonderful pit  where  it was such  thrilling fun to
bake  potatoes  in  a  camp-fire-even  that  seemed   unbelievably  strange,
unfamiliar.
     The sun was rising higher.
     The farmyard and orchard  still lay in the shade, but the bright, cold,
early rays were already gilding the pink, yellow, and blue pumpkins set  out
on the reed roof of the clay hut where the watchman lived.
     The sleepy-eyed  cook, in a  homespun chequered skirt and  a  blouse of
unbleached linen  embroidered  in black and  red cross-stitch, with  an iron
comb in her dishevelled hair, was knocking yesterday's dead coals out of the
samovar, against the doorstep.
     Petya stood in  front of the cook watching  the string of beads jump up
and down on her old, wrinkled neck.
     "Going away?" she asked indifferently.
     "Yes," the boy replied. His voice shook.
     "Good luck to you."
     She went  over  to the water-barrel, wrapped the  hem of  her chequered
skirt round her hand, and pulled out the spigot.
     A thick stream  of water arched  out and  struck the  ground. Sparkling
round drops scattered, enveloping themselves in powdery grey dust.
     The  cook  set  the samovar under the stream. It moaned  as the  fresh,
heavy water poured into it.  No, not a  particle  of sympathy  from anybody!
There  was  the  same  unfriendly silence  and  the same  air of  desolation
everywhere-on the croquet square, in the meadow, in the arbour.
     Yet how gay and merry it had been here such a short while ago! How many
pretty girls and naughty  boys!  How  many  pranks, scenes,  games,  fights,
quarrels, peacemakings, kisses, friendships!
     What a wonderful party the  owner  of the farm,  Rudolf  Karlovich, had
given  for  the  summer  residents  on  the  birthday  of  his  wife,  Luiza
Frantsevna! Petya would never forget that celebration. In the morning a huge
table with bouquets of wild flowers on it  was set under the apricot  trees.
In the centre lay a cake as big as a bicycle wheel.
     Thirty-five lighted candles, by which one could tell Luiza Frantsevna's
age, had been stuck into that rich, thickly frosted cake.
     All the summer residents were  invited to morning tea under the apricot
trees.
     The  day continued as merrily as it  had begun. It ended in the evening
with a costume ball for the children, with music and fireworks.
     All  the children put on the fancy dress that  had been made for  them.
The  girls turned  into mermaids and Gipsies,  the  boys  into  Red Indians,
robbers, Chinese mandarins, sailors. They all wore splendid, bright-coloured
cotton or paper costumes.
     There  were  rustling  tissue-paper skirts and cloaks, artificial roses
swaying on wire stems, and tambourines with floating silk ribbons.
     Naturally-how could it be otherwise!-the very best costume was Petya's.
Father himself had spent two days  making it. His pince-nez kept falling off
his  nose while he worked; he was  nearsighted, and every time he  upset the
bottle of glue he muttered into his beard frightful curses at the people who
had arranged "this outrage" and generally  expressed his disgust with  "this
nonsensical idea".
     But of  course, he was  simply playing safe. He was afraid  the costume
might turn out a failure, he was afraid of disgracing himself. How he tried!
But then the costume-say what you will!-was a remarkable one.
     It was  a real  knight's  suit of  armour, made of  strips of gold  and
silver Christmas tree paper  cleverly pasted together  and stretched  over a
wire frame. The helmet was decorated with a flowing plume and looked exactly
like the helmet of a knight out of Sir Walter Scott. What is more, the visor
could be raised and lowered.
     In  short, it was so  magnificent that Petya  was placed beside Zoya to
make up the second couple. Zoya was the prettiest girl at  the farm, and she
wore the pink costume of a Good Fairy.
     Arm in arm they  walked round the  garden, which was hung  with Chinese
lanterns. Here and  there in the mysterious darkness loomed trees and bushes
unbelievably bright in the flare of red and green Bengal lights.
     In  the  arbour,  by  the  light  of candles  under glass  shades,  the
grown-ups had their supper. Moths flew to the light from all sides and fell,
singed, to the table-cloth.
     Four hissing rockets rose out of  the thick smoke  of the Bengal lights
and climbed slowly into the sky.
     There was  a moon,  too. Petya and Zoya discovered this fact only  when
they found themselves in the very farthest part of the  garden. Moonlight so
bright and magic shone through the leaves that even the whites of the girl's
eyes were a luminous blue-the same blue that danced in the tub of dark water
under the old apricot tree, in which a toy boat floated.
     Here, before  they knew it, the  boy and girl kissed. Then they were so
embarrassed that they dashed off headlong with wild shouts, and they ran and
ran until they landed in the backyard. There the farm labourers who had come
to congratulate the mistress were having their own party.
     On a pine table brought from the servants' kitchen stood a keg of beer,
two  jugs of vodka, a bowl  of fried fish, and a wheaten  loaf. The  drunken
cook,  in  a  new  print   blouse  with  frills,  was  angrily  serving  the
merry-makers  portions of fish  and filling their mugs. A concertina-player,
his coat unbuttoned and his knees  spread apart, swayed from side to side on
a  stool  as  his  fingers  rambled  over  the bass  keys  of  the  wheezing
instrument.
     Two straight-backed  fellows with  impassive faces had taken each other
by the waist  and were  stamping out a polka, with  much  flourishing of the
heels. Several  women labourers in brand-new  kerchiefs and tight kid pumps,
their cheeks smeared with the juice of pickled tomatoes- for coquetry and to
soften the skin-stood with their arms round one another.
     Rudolf Karlovich and Luiza Frantsevna were backing away from one of the
labourers.
     He was as drunk as  a lord.  Several  men  were  holding him  back.  He
strained to get free. Blood spurted from his nose on his Sunday shirt, which
was ripped down the middle. He was swearing furiously.
     Sobbing and choking over his frenzied words, and grinding his teeth the
way people do in their sleep, he shouted: "Three rubles and fifty kopeks for
two months  of slaving! Miser! Let me get at the bastard! Just let me get at
him! I'll choke  the life out of him!  Matches, somebody!  Let me get at the
straw! I'll give them  a birthday party! If only Grishka  Kotovsky was here,
you rat!"
     (Grigori Kotovsky (1887-1925) was  active in the agrarian  movement  in
Bessarabia  in  1905-1906; he  was  a leader  of the  Bessarabian  peasants'
partisan actions against the landowners. In 1918-1920 this son of the people
was an army leader and Civil War hero.-Tr.)
     The moonlight gleamed in his rolling eyes.
     "Now, now," muttered the master,  backing away. "You look out, Gavrila.
Don't go too far. You can be hanged nowadays for that sort of talk."
     "Go ahead, hang  me!" the labourer shouted, panting. "Why don't you? Go
ahead, bloodsucker!"
     This was so terrifying, so puzzling,  and, above all, so out of keeping
with  the  spirit of  the  wonderful  party, that  the  children  ran  back,
screaming that Gavrila wanted to cut Rudolf Karlovich's  throat and set fire
to the farm.
     The panic that broke out is difficult to imagine.
     The parents led the children to  their rooms. They locked all the doors
and  closed all  the  windows,  as though a  storm  were brewing. The  rural
prefect Chuvyakov, who had come to spend a few days with his family, marched
across the  croquet square,  kicking out  the hoops and scattering the balls
and mallets.
     He carried a double-barrelled gun at the ready.
     In  vain did  Rudolf Karlovich  plead with  the  summer residents to be
calm. In vain did he assure them that there was no danger,  that Gavrila was
now bound and locked up in the cellar, and that tomorrow the constable would
come for him.
     Once, in the night, a red glow lit up the  sky far over the steppe. The
next morning it was rumoured that a neighbouring farm had  been burned down.
Labourers had set it on fire, it was said.
     People coming from Odessa reported disturbances in the city. There were
rumours that the trestle bridge in the port was on fire.
     The constable arrived at dawn the next morning. He led Gavrila away. In
his sleep Petya heard the bells of the constable's troika.
     The summer residents began to leave for home.
     Soon the farm was deserted.
     Petya  lingered under the old apricot tree, beside the tub of such fond
memory, and struck the water  with  a twig. No, the tub wasn't the same, the
water wasn't the same, and even the old apricot tree was not the same!
     Everything, absolutely everything, had become different. Everything had
lost its magic. Everything looked at Petya as out of the remote past.
     Would the sea also be so cold and heartless to him this last time?
     Petya ran to the bluff.

        2
     THE SEA

     The low sun beat blindingly into  his eyes. Below,  the entire sweep of
the sea was like burning magnesium. Here the steppe ended suddenly.
     Silvery bushes of wild olive quivered in the shimmering air at the edge
of the bluff.
     A steep path zigzagged  downwards. Petya was  used to running down  the
path barefoot. His shoes bothered him; the soles were slippery. His feet ran
of themselves. It was impossible to stop them.
     Until the first turn he still managed to resist the pull of gravity. He
dug in his  heels and clutched  at the dry roots hanging over  the path. But
the roots were rotten and they broke. The clay crumbled beneath his heels. A
cloud of dust as fine and brown as cocoa enveloped him.
     The dust got into his nose; it tickled his  throat. Petya very soon had
enough of that. Oh, he'd risk it!
     He cried out at the top of his  lungs,  and,  with a wave of his  arms,
plunged headlong.
     His hat filled  with air and bobbed up  and down behind him. His collar
fluttered  in the wind.  Burrs stuck to his stockings. After frightful leaps
down the huge steps of  the natural stairway, the boy  suddenly flew  out on
the dry sand of the shore. The sand felt cold; it had not yet been warmed by
the sun. This sand was amazingly white and fine. It  was  deep, soft, marked
all over with the shapeless holes of yesterday's footprints, and looked like
semolina of the very best quality.
     The  beach  slanted almost  imperceptibly towards  the  water. The last
strip of sand, lapped by broad tongues of snow-white  foam,  was damp, dark,
and smooth; it was firm, easy to walk on.
     This was the most wonderful beach in the world, stretching for about  a
hundred  miles  under the bluffs  from Karolino-Bugaz  to  the  mouth of the
Danube, then the border  of Rumania. At that  early hour it  seemed wild and
desolate.
     The sensation of loneliness gripped Petya with new force. But this time
it was quite different; it was a proud and manly kind of  loneliness. He was
Robinson Crusoe on his desert island.
     The first  thing  Petya  did was to study the  footprints. He  had  the
experienced, penetrating eye of a seeker after adventures.
     He was surrounded by footprints. He read them as though he were reading
Mayne Reid.
     The black spot on the  face of the bluff and the grey ashes meant  that
natives had landed from a canoe the  night before and had cooked a meal over
a camp-fire. The fan-like tracks of gulls meant  a dead calm at sea and lots
of small fish near the shore.
     The  long cork with a French trademark and  the bleached slice of lemon
thrown  up  on  the sand by the waves left no doubt that a foreign ship  had
sailed by far out at sea several days before.
     Meanwhile  the  sun had climbed a bit higher above the horizon. Now the
sea no longer shone all over but only in two  places: in a long strip at the
very  horizon and  in  another near the shore, where  a dozen blinding stars
flashed  in the  mirror of the waves as they stretched themselves out neatly
on the sand.
     Over the rest of its vast expanse the sea shone in the August calm with
such  a  tender  and  such  a  melancholy blue  that  Petya  could  not help
recalling:
     A white sail gleams, so far and lonely,
     Through the blue haze above the foam. . .

     although  there was no  sail  in -sight  and  the sea wasn't  the least
misty.
     He gazed spellbound at the sea.
     . . . No matter how long you look at the sea, you never tire of it. The
sea is always different, always new.
     It changes from hour to hour, before your very eyes.
     Now it is pale-blue and quiet, streaked here and there with the whitish
paths you  see during a calm. Or a vivid dark-blue, flaming and  glistening.
Or  covered with dancing  white horses. Or, if  the wind  is fresh, suddenly
dark indigo  and looking  like wool when you run  your hand against the nap.
When  a storm  breaks, it  changes threateningly.  The wind whips up a great
swell.  Screaming  gulls dart  across the  slate-coloured  sky. The churning
waves roll and toss the shiny carcass of a dead dolphin along the shore. The
sharp  green  of  the  horizon  stands out  like  a  jagged  wall  over  the
mud-coloured storm clouds. The malachite panels of the breakers, veined with
sweeping zigzag lines, crash against the shore  with  the thunder of cannon.
Amid the roar, the echoes reverberate with a brassy ring. The spray hangs in
a  fine  mist,  like a muslin  veil, all the way to the  top  of  the shaken
bluffs.
     But the supreme  spell of the sea lies in the eternal mystery hidden in
its expanses.
     Is not its phosphorescence  a mystery-when you  dip  your arm  into the
warm black water on a moonless July night and see it suddenly gleam all over
with  blue dots? Or  the  moving lights of unseen ships  and the slow  faint
flashes pf an unknown beacon? Or the grains of  sand, too many for the human
mind to grasp?
     . . . And  finally, was not the sight of  the  revolutionary battleship
which once appeared far out at sea, full of mystery?
     Its  appearance was preceded by a  fire in the port of Odessa. The glow
could  be seen forty miles  away. At once  rumours  spread  that the trestle
bridge was burning.
     Then the word Potemkin was spoken.

     (A  battleship of the Black Sea  Fleet whose  sailors mounted a  heroic
revolt in 1905  and  went  over to the side of the revolution. Warships were
dispatched to put  down the revolt, but the sailors of these vessels refused
to fire on the insurgents. However, the  red flag did not wave from the mast
of the Potemkin for long. The absence of a united leadership of the  revolt,
and the shortage of provisions and coal compelled the sailors to surrender.
     The  revolt  of  the  battleship  Potemkin  played  a  role of  immense
importance in the development of the Russian revolutionary movement.-Tr.)

     Several  times the  revolutionary battleship,  solitary and mysterious,
appeared on the horizon in sight of the Bessarabian shore.
     The farm labourers would  drop  their work and come out to the bluff to
catch a glimpse of the distant thread of smoke. Sometimes they  thought they
saw it. They would snatch off their caps and shirts and wave them furiously,
greeting the insurgents.
     But  Petya, to tell the truth, could not make out a thing in the desert
vastness of the sea, no matter how much he screwed up his eyes.
     Except once. Through a spyglass which he  had begged for a minute  from
another  boy, he made out  the light-green silhouette of the three-funnelled
battleship flying a red flag at its mast.
     The ship was speeding westward, in the direction of Rumania.
     The next day a  lowering cloud  of smoke  spread out along the horizon.
That was the whole of the Black Sea squadron in pursuit of the Potemkin.
     Fishermen who sailed  up in their big black boats from the mouth of the
Danube brought the rumour  that  the Potemkin had reached Constantsa,  where
she had to surrender to the  Rumanian  government. Her crew  went ashore and
scattered in all directions.
     At dawn one  morning, after several more days of alarm, a line of smoke
again covered the horizon.
     That was the Black Sea squadron returning from Constantsa to Sevastopol
with the captured insurgent in tow, as if on a lariat.
     Deserted, without  her crew, her  engines flooded, her  flag  of revolt
lowered, the Potemkin, surrounded by  a close  convoy of smoke, moved slowly
ahead,  dipping  ponderously in the swell.  It took the  ship a long time to
pass the  high  bluffs of Bessarabia,  where her  progress  was  followed in
silence by  the farmhands, border guards, fishermen. . . . They stood  there
looking until the entire squadron disappeared from view.
     Again  the  sea  became as  calm and gentle as though blue oil had been
poured over it.
     Meanwhile  details of mounted police had appeared on  the steppe roads.
They had  been  sent  to  the Rumanian border to capture the runaway sailors
from the Potemkin.
     . . . Petya decided to have a last quick swim.
     But no sooner had he  taken a  running  dive  into the sea and begun to
swim on his side, cleaving  the cool  water with  his smooth brown shoulder,
than he forgot everything in the world.
     First he swam across the deep spot near the shore to the sand-bank.
     There he stood up and  began to walk about knee-deep in the transparent
water, examining the sandy bottom with its distinct fish-scale pattern.
     At first glance the bottom  seemed uninhabited.  But a good close  look
revealed  living  things.  Moving  across  the  wrinkles  of  the sand,  now
appearing, now burying themselves, were  tiny hermit crabs. Petya picked one
up  from  the  bottom  and  skilfully  pulled  the  crab-it  even  had  tiny
nippers!-out of its shell.
     Girls  liked to string those  little  shells on twine. They  made  fine
necklaces. But men didn't go in for that sort of thing.
     Then Petya caught sight of a jellyfish and went after it. The jellyfish
hung  like a transparent  lamp-shade, with  a  fringe  of  tentacles just as
transparent.  It seemed to hang  motionless-but  that was not really so. The
thin blue gelatinous margin of the thick cupola was  breathing and rippling,
like the edge of a parachute. The tentacles stirred too. The jellyfish moved
slantwise towards the bottom, as though sensing danger.
     But  Petya caught up  with it.  Carefully,  so  as  not  to  touch  the
poisonous  edge which stung like nettles, he picked the jellyfish out of the
water with both hands,  by its cupola.  Then he flung its weighty but flimsy
body to the shore.
     The  jellyfish flew through the air, dropping some of  its tentacles on
the  way, and then slapped against the  wet sand. The sun immediately flared
up in its slime like a silver star.
     With a cry  of delight Petya plunged from the  sandbank  into the  deep
water and took to his favourite sport: swimming underwater with eyes open.
     What rapture!
     Before the boy's enchanted gaze there spread the wonderful world of the
submarine kingdom.  Clearly visible,  and  enlarged as  if  by  a magnifying
glass, were  pebbles of all colours.  They made a cobble stoned  road of the
sea bed.
     The stems of the sea plants were a fairy-tale forest shot  through with
the cloudy green rays of a sun now as pale as the moon.
     A  huge old  crab  was scampering along sidewise  among  the roots, his
terrifying claws spread out like horns. On his spider-like legs  he  carried
the bulging box that was his back; it was dotted with white stony warts.
     Petya wasn't the  least scared. He knew how to deal with crabs. You had
to pick them up boldly, by the back, with two  fingers.  Then  they couldn't
bite.
     But  he  was  not  interested  in the  crab.  Let  it  crawl  along  in
peace-crabs were no great rarity. The whole beach was strewn with their  dry
claws and red shells.
     Sea horses were much more interesting.
     Just then a small school of them appeared among the seaweed. With their
chiselled faces and chests they looked for all the world like chess knights,
except  that  they  had tails, curled  forward. They swam, standing upright,
straight  at Petya, spreading out  their webbed  fins  like tiny  underwater
dragons.
     It was clear they had never expected to run into a hunter at that early
hour.
     Petya's  heart  leaped with  joy.  He  had  only  one sea  horse in his
collection, and a wrinkled old creature it was. These were big and handsome,
every single one of them.
     To let such a rare opportunity slip by would be sheer madness.
     Petya rose to the surface to fill his lungs and start the hunt at once.
But all of a sudden he caught sight of Father at the edge of the bluff.
     He was waving his straw hat and shouting.
     The bluff was so high  and  the voice made such a hollow  echo that all
Petya caught was a rolling ". . . ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh!. . ."
     But he understood  very well  what that  "ooh-ooh-ooh" meant. It meant:
"Where did you disappear  to, you rascal? I've been looking for you all over
the farm. The  coach is  waiting. Do you want us to miss the boat because of
you? Get out of the water at once, you good-for-nothing!"
     Father's voice brought back to Petya the bitter feeling of parting with
which  he had awakened  in  the  morning.  He  lifted  his  voice in  such a
desperate shout that it made his ears ring: "I'm coming! I'm coming!"
     ". . . ming-ming-ming!" the bluffs echoed.
     Petya pulled on  his suit right over  his  wet  body-very pleasant that
was, too, if the truth be told-and hurried up the bluff.


        3
     IN THE STEPPE

     The  coach  already stood in the road, in front of the gate. The driver
had climbed up on a wheel and was tying  to the roof the canvas camp beds of
the departing  summer  residents and also round  baskets of blue  egg-plants
which  the  farm  owner,  taking  advantage of the  occasion, was sending to
Akkerman.
     Little  Pavlik, dressed  for  the  journey in a new blue pinafore and a
stiffly-starched  pique  hat that  looked  like a jelly-mould,  stood  at  a
prudent distance from the horses. He was making a deep and detailed study of
their harness.
     He  was amazed beyond words to find that this harness -the real harness
of real live horses-was totally unlike  the harness of his  beautiful papier
mache horse, Kudlatka. (Kudlatka, who had not been taken to the country, was
now awaiting her master in Odessa.)
     The shopkeeper who sold them Kudlatka had probably got something wrong!
     At any rate, he had to remember to ask Daddy as  soon as they came home
to cut out a pair of those lovely black things for the eyes and sew them on.
     At the thought  of Kudlatka, Pavlik felt  a twinge of anxiety. How  was
she getting along  in the  attic without him? Was Auntie  Tatyana giving her
hay and  oats? The mice  hadn't  chewed off her tail, had they? True,  there
wasn't much  of a  tail left-two or three hairs and an  upholstery nail, but
still. . . .
     Then, in a fit of impatience, Pavlik stuck his tongue out of the corner
of his mouth and ran off to the house to hurry Daddy and Petya.
     But worried though he was about the fate of Kudlatka, he did  not for a
moment forget about his  new travelling-bag, which hung  across his shoulder
on a strap. He held it tight with both his little hands.
     For in that bag, besides  a bar  of chocolate and a few Capitain  salty
biscuits, lay his chief treasure, a moneybox made out of an Ainem Cocoa tin.
Here Pavlik kept the money he was saving to buy a bicycle.
     He had put aside quite a sum already: about thirty-eight or thirty-nine
kopeks.
     Now Daddy and Petya were coming towards the coach after their breakfast
of grey wheaten bread and milk still warm from the cow.
     Under his arm Petya  carefully  carried his treasures: a jar of  needle
fish preserved in alcohol and a collection of butterflies,  beetles, shells,
and crabs.
     All three bid a warm farewell to their  hosts, who had come to the gate
to see them off. Then they climbed into the coach and set out.
     The road skirted the farm.
     Its water pail rattling, the coach rolled along  past the orchard, past
the  arbour,  and past the cattle  and poultry yards. Finally it reached the
garman, the  level, well-stamped platform where  the grain  is  threshed and
winnowed. In Central Russia this platform is called a tok, but in Bessarabia
it is a garman.
     The  straw  world   of  the  garman  began  just  beyond  the  roadside
embankment,  overgrown with bushes of grey, dusty scratch weed on which hung
thousands of tear-shaped yellowish-red berries.
     There was a whole town of  old and new  straw ricks as big as houses, a
town with real streets, lanes, and blind alleys. Here and  there, beside the
layered and  blackened walls of very old  straw, shoots of wheat broke their
way through the firm and seemingly cast-iron earth; they glowed like emerald
wicks, amazingly clear and bright.
     Thick opalescent smoke poured from the chimney of  the steam-engine. An
unseen thresher whined persistently. The small figures of peasant women with
pitchforks were walking knee-deep in wheat on top of a new rick.
     The wheat on the pitchforks cast  gliding shadows against the clouds of
chaff pierced by the slanting rays of the sun.
     Sacks, scales, and weights flashed by.
     Then  a  tall  mound of newly threshed wheat  covered with  a tarpaulin
floated past.
     After that the coach rolled out into the open steppe.
     In a word,  at first everything was the same as in the other years. The
flat,  deserted  fields of  stubble stretching on  all sides for  dozens  of
miles. The lone  burial mound. The lilac-coloured immortelles  gleaming like
mica. The marmot sitting beside his burrow. The piece of rope looking like a
crushed snake. . . .
     But suddenly  a  cloud  of  dust  appeared ahead. A  police detail  was
galloping down the road.
     "Halt!"
     The coach stopped.
     One of the horsemen rode up.
     Behind the  green shoulder  strap with a number on it  bobbed the short
barrel of a carbine. A dusty forage cap, worn at a slant, also bobbed up and
down. The saddle creaked and gave off a strong hot smell of leather.
     The snorting muzzle of the horse came  to a stop  at  a level with  the
open window.  Big  teeth  chewed  at  the white iron bit.  Grassy-green foam
dripped from the black rubbery lips. Out of the delicate pink nostrils a hot
steamy breath poured over the three passengers.
     The black lips stretched towards Petya's straw hat.
     "Who's that inside?" a rough military voice shouted somewhere overhead.
     "Summer residents.  I'm taking  them to  the boat."  The  driver  spoke
quickly,  in an unrecognisably  thin and  sugary  voice. "They're bound  for
Akkerman and then straight  to Odessa by boat. They've been living on a farm
out here all  summer. Ever since the beginning of June. Now they're on their
way home."
     "Well, let's have a look at 'em."
     With these  words a red face with yellow moustaches  and eyebrows and a
close-shaven chin, and above it a cap with  an oval badge on  a  green band,
appeared at the window.
     "Who are you?"
     "Holiday-makers," said Father, smiling.
     The soldier evidently  did not  like the  smile  or  that  breezy  word
"holiday-makers", which sounded to him like a jeer.
     "I  can see  you're holiday-makers," he  said  with  rough displeasure.
"That don't tell me anything. Just what kind of holiday-makers are you?"
     Father turned pale with indignation. His jaw began to  quiver, and  his
little beard quivered too. He buttoned  all the buttons of  his summer  coat
with trembling fingers and adjusted his pince-nez.
     "How  dare you  speak to me in that tone of voice?" he cried in a sharp
falsetto. "I am  Collegiate Counsellor Batchei,  a high  school teacher, and
these are my two children, Peter and Paul. Our destination is Odessa."
     Pink spots broke out on Father's forehead.
     "Excuse  me,  Your Honour,"  the soldier said  smartly,  his pale  eyes
popping out of his head. He saluted with his whip hand. "I didn't know."
     He  looked as if  he had been  frightened  to death by  the "Collegiate
Counsellor", a grim-sounding title he probably had never heard before.
     "To  the devil with him!" he thought. "He might land me in hot water. I
might get it in the neck."
     He put the spurs to his horse and galloped off.
     "What an idiot!"  Petya  remarked, when the soldiers  had ridden  off a
good distance.
     Father again lost his temper. "Hold your tongue! How many  times have I
told you you mustn't dare say that word! People  who regularly use  the word
'idiot' are usually themselves-er-none too clever. Remember that."
     At any other time, of course, Petya would have  argued, but now he kept
his peace.
     He knew Father's state of mind perfectly.
     Father, who always spoke of titles and medals with scornful irritation,
who never wore his formal uniform or his Order of St. Anna, Third Class, who
never recognised any social privileges and insisted that all the inhabitants
of  Russia were no more and no less than "citizens",  had suddenly, in a fit
of anger, said God knows what. And to whom! To an ordinary soldier.
     "High school teacher"  .. . "Collegiate Counsellor" . . . "How dare you
speak to me in that tone of voice". . . .
     "Ugh, what  nonsense!"  Petya  read in  Father's embarrassed face. "For
shame!"
     Meanwhile, in the general excitement, the driver had lost the  thong of
his whip; this always happened  on long journeys. He  was now walking  along
the road  and  poking  with the  whip-handle  among  the  grey,  dust-coated
wormwood.
     At last he  found the thong. He tied  it  to the  handle and pulled the
knot with his teeth.
     "Damn their souls!" he exclaimed as he came up to the  coach. "All they
do is ride up and down the roads and scare people."
     "What do they want?" Father asked.
     "God only knows. Hunting after somebody, no doubt. Day before yesterday
somebody  set fire  to landlord Balabanov's farm, about thirty  versts  from
here. They  say it  was  a runaway sailor from the Potemkin did it.  And now
they're looking for that runaway sailor high and low. They say he's taken to
cover somewhere in the steppe hereabouts. What a business! Well, time to get
going."
     With these  words he climbed to his high box and took up the reins. The
coach moved on.
     The morning was as fine as ever, but now everybody's mood was spoiled.
     In this  wonderful world  of the deep-blue sky  with its wild droves of
white-maned clouds, this  world of lilac shadows running in waves from mound
to mound over the steppe grasses, in  which a horse's  skull  or a bullock's
horns might  be sighted at any moment, a  world created, it would  seem, for
the sole purpose of man's joy and  happiness- in this world, obviously,  not
all was well.
     Such were the thoughts of Father, the driver, and Petya.
     Pavlik, however, was occupied with thoughts of his own.
     His  attentive brown eyes were fixed on a point beyond  the window, and
his round, cream-coloured little  forehead, with the neat bang sticking  out
from under his hat, was knitted.
     "Daddy," he  said  suddenly, without taking his eyes from  the  window.
"Daddy, what's the Tsar?"
     "What's the Tsar? I don't follow you."
     "Well, what is he?"
     "Hm. . . . A man."
     "No, not that. I know he's a man. Don't you see? I  mean not a man, but
what is he? Understand?"
     "No, I can't say that I do."
     "I mean, what is he?"
     "Ye Gods! What is he? Well, the crowned sovereign, if you like."
     "Crowned? What with?"
     Father gave Pavlik a severe look. "Wha-a-t?"
     "If he's crowned, then what with? Don't you see? What with?"
     "Stop talking nonsense!" Father said. He turned away angrily.

        4
     THE WATERING

     At  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  they  stopped   in  a  large
half-Moldavian, half-Ukrainian village to water the horses.
     Father took Pavlik by  the hand and  went off to buy some  cantaloupes.
Petya remained near the horses. He wanted to see them being watered.
     The  horses which had pulled the  big  lumbering coach were led  by the
driver to the well; it was the kind known as a "crane-well".
     The  driver stuck his whip into his boot-top and  took hold of the long
pole that hung vertically and had a heavy oak bucket attached  by a chain to
the end. Moving one hand over  the other up the pole, he  lowered the bucket
into the well.  The sweep creaked.  Its top end swung  down, as if trying to
peep into the well, while the other end,  which had a large porous rock tied
to it as a counterweight, glided upwards.
     Petya flattened himself against the  edge of the well  and looked  down
into it as if it were a telescope.
     The shaft was round,  and its stone lining was covered with  dark-brown
velvety mould. It  was very deep. In the cold  darkness  at the bottom there
gleamed a tiny circle  of  water in which  Petya saw his hat reflected  with
photographic distinctness.
     He  shouted.  The  well filled with a  resounding roar, the way a  clay
pitcher does.
     Down and down and down the bucket went. It became  altogether tiny, but
still it did not reach the water. Finally a faint splash sounded. The bucket
sank into the water, gurgled, and then began to rise.
     Heavy  drops slapped  down  into the water,  making  noises  like  caps
exploding.
     The pole, polished by  countless hands to the smoothness of glass, took
a long time to rise. At last the wet chain appeared. The sweep  creaked  for
the last time. The driver seized the  heavy bucket with his strong hands and
emptied it into the stone trough.
     But first  he drank out of  the bucket himself. Then  Petya drank. That
was the most thrilling moment in the whole procedure of watering the horses.
     The  water was  as transparent  as could be, and as  cold as ice. Petya
dipped his nose and chin into it. The inside of the bucket was coated with a
beard  of  green slime.  The  bucket  and the  slime  had  an  almost  weird
fascination.  There  was  something very,  very  old  about them,  something
reminding him  of the forest, of the Russian  fairy-tale  about  the  wooden
mill,  the Miller who  was  a sorcerer, the deep  mill-pond,  and  the  Frog
Princess.
     Petya's  forehead  immediately began to ache from the ice water. But it
was a hot day, and he knew that the ache would soon pass.
     He also knew for certain that about eight or ten buckets were needed to
water the horses. That would take at least half an  hour. Plenty of time for
a stroll.
     He  carefully picked his way  through the mud  near  the  trough-mud as
black as boot-polish and indented with hog tracks. Then he followed a gutter
across a meadow strewn with goose down.
     The gutter brought him to a bog overgrown with a  tall forest of reeds,
sedge and weeds.
     Here  cool  twilight  reigned even  when  the sun was  its highest  and
brightest. A rush of heady odours struck Petya's nostrils.
     The sharp odour of sedge mingled  with the sweet and nutty smell of the
headache shrubs, which actually did make your head ache.
     The shrubs were sharp-leafed and covered with blackish-green bolls with
fleshy  prickles and  long smelly  flowers that were remarkably delicate and
remarkably white. Beside  them grew nightshade,  henbane, and the mysterious
sleeping-grass.
     On  the  path sat  a  big  frog, its eyes  closed  as  though  it  were
bewitched. Petya tried with all his might to keep from looking at  the frog:
he was afraid he might see a little golden crown on its head.
     For that matter, the  whole place seemed bewitched, like the forests in
fairy-tales.
     Surely somewhere  nearby wandered  the slender,  large-eyed Alyonushka,
weeping bitterly over her brother Ivanushka. . ..
     And if a little white  lamb had suddenly  run out from  the thicket and
bleated in a thin baby voice, Petya certainly would have been frightened out
of his wits.
     The boy  decided not  to think  about the  little lamb. But the more he
tried not to, the more he did. And the more he did, the more  he was  afraid
to be alone in the black greenness of this bewitched place.
     He  screwed up his eyes as tight as he could, to keep  from crying out,
and fled from the poisonous thicket. He did not stop running  until he found
himself at the backyard of a small farm.
     Behind the wattle fence, on the stakes of which hung a whole collection
of  clay  pitchers,  Petya saw  a  pleasant  little  garman, its small arena
covered  with wheat fresh  from the fields. In the middle of it stood a girl
of about eleven in a long gathered  skirt, a short print  blouse with puffed
sleeves, and a kerchief that came down to her eyes.
     She stood there shielding her eyes against the sun  with her  elbow and
shifting  her bare  feet  as she drove round the circle, by a long rope, two
horses harnessed one ahead of  the other. Scattering the  straw lightly with
their hoofs, the horses pulled a ribbed stone roller over the thick layer of
shining wheat. The roller bounced heavily but noiselessly.
     A  wide board, bent  upward in  front like  a  ski,  dragged behind the
roller.
     Petya knew that the bottom of the board was  fitted with a lot of sharp
yellow flints which  did an especially good job of knocking the grain out of
the ears.
     The board  slid  along quickly. On it stood a lad of Petya's age, in  a
faded shirt unbuttoned at the collar, and a cap with the  peak over one ear;
he had a hard time keeping his balance, but he did it with a dashing air, as
though he were sliding downhill standing up on a toboggan.
     At his feet a tiny fair-haired girl sat on her  haunches, like a mouse;
with  both her  hands she kept a  convulsive  grip  on  one of her brother's
trouser-legs.
     Round  the circle  ran an  old  man, stirring the wheat  with  a wooden
pitchfork and throwing it under the horses' feet. The circle  kept spreading
out, and an old woman was shaping it with a long paddle.
     A  short distance  away, near  the rick, a woman with a face black from
the sun  and with arms as veined as a man's was labouring away at the handle
of  the winnower, as if it were a  hurdy-gurdy.  Red blades flashed  in  the
round opening of the drum.
     The wind carried a shining cloud of chaff out of the winnowing machine.
Like light, airy muslin it settled on the ground  and on the tall  weeds; it
floated  to the  vegetable garden where  a scarecrow in a torn cap-it  was a
nobleman's cap, with a red band-spread its  rags over the dry leaves of ripe
yellow-red steppe tomatoes.
     It was clear that the whole peasant family, with the exception  of  its
head, was at work on  this small garman. The  head of the family, of course,
was at  the war  in Manchuria, and quite likely  at that very  moment he was
crouching in  a field of kaoliang while the Japanese were  firing shimose at
him.
     The people here were  poor, and  their threshing was on  a small scale,
not at all like the rich, noisy,  busy threshing  Petya was accustomed to at
the other  farm. But he  found  this simple scene fascinating  too. He would
have  liked very much, for  one thing, to take a ride on the  board with the
flints, or, at least, to  turn the handle of the winnower. At any other time
he surely would have asked the boy to take  him  along on the board, but the
pity of it was that he had to hurry.
     He went back.
     Petya was never to forget the simple, touching details of that  picture
of peasant labour:  the glint  of the new straw; the neatly whitewashed back
wall  of the clay  hut, and  beside it the rag  dolls  and the little  dried
gourds called  tarakutski, the  only toys of  peasant  children; and on  the
ridge of the reed roof, a  stork  standing on one leg next to his large  and
carelessly built nest.
     Especially clear was the picture he carried away of the stork, with its
tight-fitting little  jacket and pique  vest, its red walking stick of a leg
(the  other leg was bent under and not  to be seen at all), and the long red
beak that made a wooden click, like a night watchman's rattle.
     In front  of  a  cottage  with  a  blue notice  board  reading  "Volost
Administration", three saddled  cavalry horses  were  hitched  to  the porch
posts.
     A soldier in  dusty  boots, with a sword between his  knees, sat on the
steps  in the shade  smoking a cigarette made  of  coarse  tobacco rolled in
newspaper.
     "I say there, what are you doing here?" Petya asked him.
     The soldier lazily surveyed  the city boy from head to foot and ejected
a long stream of yellow spittle through  his teeth. "Hunting down a sailor,"
he said indifferently.
     What kind  of mysterious and terrible man is this sailor who  is hiding
somewhere in the steppe nearby, who sets fire to farms and whom soldiers are
hunting?  Petya wondered as he walked down  the hot, deserted street back to
the well. What if that dreadful highwayman attacked coaches?
     Naturally, Petya did  not mention his fears  to  Father and Pavlik. Why
make them worry? But he himself, naturally, would keep a lookout. And  to be
on the safe side he shoved his collections farther back under the seat.
     As  soon  as  the coach started up the hill  he  glued his face  to the
window and  anxiously scanned  the roadside, expecting to see the highwayman
pop out at every turn.
     He was firmly resolved  to stick to his post  all the way to town, come
what may.
     Meanwhile Father and Pavlik, obviously unaware of the danger,  occupied
themselves with the cantaloupes.
     In  a  pillow-case   of  plain  linen  that  was  faded  from  numerous
launderings and had a little  bouquet of flowers embroidered in each corner,
lay  ten  cantaloupes,  bought  at  a kopeck each.  Father took  out a  firm
greyish-green one covered with  a close network of lines, and saying, "Well,
now we shall try these  famous cantaloupes", neatly sliced it lengthwise and
opened it like a book. A wonderful fragrance filled the coach.
     He cut round the soft insides  with  his penknife  and flipped them out
the  window. Then  he divided  the cantaloupe  into thin, appetising slices.
"Looks  quite toothsome," he remarked as he laid out  the slices on  a clean
handkerchief.
     Pavlik, who had been fidgeting  impatiently  all the while, pounced  on
the biggest slice with both hands and sank into  it up to his  ears.  He ate
with gurgling sounds of delight; cloudy drops of juice hung from his chin.
     Father,  on the other hand, put a small slice into his mouth, tried it,
closed his eyes, and said, "Indeed an excellent cantaloupe."
     "Yum-yum," Pavlik confirmed.
     Here  Petya,  behind  whose back all these  unendurable things had been
taking place, could hold  out  no longer.  Forgetting  the danger, he  threw
himself upon the cantaloupe.


        5
     THE RUNAWAY

     About  ten miles from Akkerman  the vineyards began. The cantaloupe had
been  eaten long ago  and  the rind thrown out of  the window. The  trip was
growing tedious. It would soon be midday.
     The fresh morning  breeze, which had served  as a reminder that  autumn
really was in the offing, had subsided  completely. The  sun beat down as in
the middle of July; its rays were somehow even hotter, drier, broader.
     Sand  lay nearly all  of two  feet  deep in the  road, and  the  horses
laboured to pull  the heavy coach through it. The small front wheels sank in
the  sand up  to  the  hub.  The  large rear  wheels  wobbled along  slowly,
crunching the blue seashells in the sand.
     A  choking  cloud  of dust  as fine as flour enveloped the  travellers.
Their  eyebrows  and eye-lashes turned grey. The dust gritted  between their
teeth. Pavlik  goggled  his mirror-like,  light-chocolate  eyes  and sneezed
desperately.
     The driver turned into a miller.
     All about them the vineyards stretched endlessly.
     The earth, dry  and grey from dust, was covered with the gnarled plaits
of old vines standing in strict  chessboard pattern. They  looked as if they
were  twisted by rheumatism.  Had not Nature bethought  herself to  decorate
them with those wonderful  leaves of  antique design they might  have looked
ugly, repulsive even.
     In  the rays of  the  midday sun  the leaves, with their jagged  edges,
their  raised  patternwork  of curving  veins  and their turquoise spots  of
copper sulphate, looked like fresh greenery.
     The  young  shoots of  the  vines wound sharply round  the tall stakes,
while the old ones were bent under the weight of clusters of grapes.
     It took  a keen  eye, though, to  spot the  clusters  hidden  among the
leaves.  A person without any experience might pass  through  several  acres
without noticing a single one, yet every vine was  hung with  them, and they
cried out,  "Why,  here we are, you strange creature, bushels and bushels of
us, all about you! Pick us and eat, simpleton that you are!" Then,  all of a
sudden, the  simpleton would  notice  a cluster  under  his  very nose, then
another, then a third-until, as if by magic, the entire vineyard glowed with
them.
     Petya  was an expert  in these matters. His  eye caught the clusters at
once. More, he could even tell the different varieties  as they drove  past.
And there were  a  great  many varieties. The  large light-green  Chaus  had
cloudy pits  visible through  their  thick skin and hung  in long triangular
clusters  weighing  two  or three pounds. The experienced  eye  would  never
confuse them with, say, the Ladies' Fingers, which were also light-green but
longer and shinier. The tender medicinal Shashla might appear to be the twin
of the  Pink  Muscatel,  yet what  a world of a difference between them! The
round Shashla grapes, pressed  so tightly  together in their graceful little
clusters  that  they  lost  their  shape and  almost became cubes,  brightly
reflected the sun in their honey-pink bubbles. The Pink  Muscatels, however,
were covered with a dull purplish film and did not reflect the sun.
     All of  them-the  blue-black Isabella,  the Chaus, the Shashla  and the
Muscatel-were  so  wonderfully  ripe  and beautiful that  even  the critical
butterflies alighted on them as if they were flowers, and the feelers of the
butterflies intertwined with the green tendrils of the vines.
     From time to time a straw hut could be seen among the vines. Beside it,
in the lacy blue shade of an apple tree or apricot tree, always stood a  tub
of copper sulphate.
     Petya gazed with longing at those cosy little straw huts.
     Well  did he know the  delight of sitting on  the  hot dry straw inside
such a hut, in the sultry after-dinner shade.
     The  oppressive,  motionless  air would be  filled  with the  aroma  of
savoury and fennel. Pods of chick-peas would be drying with a faint crackle.
It was wonderful! What bliss!
     The grape-vines would tremble and ripple in the glassy waves of heat.
     And over it all would stretch the dusty, pale-blue sky of the steppe, a
sky nearly drained of colour by the heat.
     How wonderful!
     Suddenly   something   so   extraordinary  happened,   and   with  such
breath-taking swiftness,  that it was difficult  to say what came  first and
what after.
     At any rate, first a shot rang out. Not the familiar hollow shot from a
fowling-piece which  you so often heard in vineyards and inspired  no fears.
No. This was the ominous and terrifying crack of an army rifle.
     At that same instant a mounted policeman holding a  carbine appeared in
the road.
     He raised his carbine again and aimed  into the depths of the vineyard.
But then he changed his mind, lowered the carbine across his saddle, spurred
the horse, and, leaning forward, jumped over the roadside ditch and the high
embankment right into the vineyard. He  slapped down  his  cap and  galloped
straight ahead, trampling the vines. Soon he was lost from sight.
     The coach continued on its way.
     For a time not a soul was to be seen.
     All of a sudden there was a  stirring in the bushes  on  the embankment
behind them. A figure jumped into the ditch  and then clambered out into the
road.
     Veiled in a thick cloud of dust, the figure raced after the coach.
     The  driver,  on his high seat, was probably the  first to  notice that
figure. But instead of pulling on the brakes he stood up and waved the  whip
furiously over his head. The horses broke into a gallop.
     But  the  stranger  had already jumped on the footboard.  He opened the
rear door and looked in.
     His breath came in painful gasps.
     He was a  stocky man with a young face pale from fright  and brown eyes
filled with what seemed either merriment or deadly fear.
     A shiny new cap with a button on it,  the kind  of cap workmen  wore on
holidays, sat awkwardly  on his large,  round, close-cropped head. Yet under
his tight jacket could  be seen an embroidered shirt such as farmhands wore,
so that he seemed to be a farm labourer too.
     However, his thick  trousers  of pilot-cloth,  which were velvety  with
dust, were neither a workman's nor a farm labourer's.
     One of the trouser-legs had pulled up, showing the rust-coloured top of
a rough, double-seamed navy boot.
     "The  sailor!" The  instant  this terrifying  thought  flashed  through
Petya's mind he clearly saw, to his horror,  a blue  anchor tattooed on  the
back of the hand clenched round the door-knob.
     The stranger was obviously just as  embarrassed by his sudden intrusion
as were the passengers themselves.
     At  sight of  the  dumbfounded  gentleman  in  pince-nez  and  the  two
frightened children, he  moved his lips soundlessly; he seemed to  be trying
to say hello, or else to apologise.
     But all that came of his efforts was a twisted, confused smile.
     Finally  he waved his hand and was  about to jump from the footboard to
the road, but a mounted detail suddenly appeared ahead. He peered cautiously
round the corner of the coach, and when he caught sight of the soldiers in a
cloud of dust he quickly jumped inside, slamming the door after him.
     He looked at the passengers with pleading  eyes. Then, without saying a
word, he dropped to all fours. To Petya's horror, he crawled under  the seat
where the collections were hidden.
     Petya   looked  in  despair   at  Father.  But  Father  sat  absolutely
motionless; his face was impassive and somewhat  pale, and his  beard jutted
forward determinedly. His hands were folded on his stomach; he was  twirling
his thumbs.
     His  entire appearance said: Nothing has happened. You must not ask any
questions. You must sit in your places and continue travelling as before.
     Petya, and  little  Pavlik  too,  understood Father at  once. Mum's the
word! Under the circumstances that was the simplest and best policy.
     As to the driver, he was no problem at all.  He was so busy whipping on
the horses that he never even glanced back.
     In a word, it was a most curious but unanimous conspiracy of silence.
     The mounted detail rode up to the coach.
     Soldiers' faces looked in at the window. But the sailor was already far
back under the seat. He was completely out of sight.
     The soldiers obviously found nothing suspicious in  that peaceful coach
with the children and the egg-plants. They rode on without stopping.
     For not less than half an  hour  after that all were silent. The sailor
lay under the seat without stirring. Tranquillity reigned.
     Finally a string  of little houses amidst green acacia trees came  into
view ahead. The outskirts of the town.
     Father  was the first  to break the silence. "Well, well, we've  almost
reached Akkerman," he remarked as if to himself, yet  in a deliberately loud
voice, as he  stood  gazing  nonchalantly out the  window. "It's  already in
sight. How frightfully hot it is! And not a soul in the road."
     Petya saw through his father's manoeuvre at once. "We're almost there!"
he shouted. "We're almost there!"
     He took Pavlik by the  shoulders and pushed him  to the window.  "Look,
Pavlik," he cried with feigned excitement, "look  at that  beautiful bird in
the sky!"
     "Where?" Pavlik asked with curiosity, sticking out his tongue.
     "Goodness gracious, what a stupid thing you are! Why, there it is."
     "I don't see it."
     "You must be blind."
     At that moment there was a rustle behind them, followed by the  banging
of the  door.  Petya  quickly  turned round. But everything was  the same as
before-only now there was no boot sticking out from under the seat.
     Petya  looked  in alarm under  the seat to see if  his collections were
safe. They were. Everything was in order.
     At  the window, Pavlik was  still moving  his  head this way and  that,
looking for the bird,
     "Where's the  bird?"  he asked querulously,  twisting his little mouth.
"Show me the bird. Pe-e-et-ya, where's the bird?"
     "Stop whining," Petya said in the tone of a grown-up. "The bird's gone.
It flew away. Don't bother me."
     Pavlik gave a  deep sigh: he saw  that  he had been tricked. He  looked
under the seat, but to his amazement no one was there.
     "Daddy," he said finally, in a shaking voice, "where's the man? Where's
he gone to?"
     "Stop chattering," Father said sternly.
     Pavlik  fell  into   a  sad  silence,  puzzling  over  the   mysterious
disappearance of the bird  and the no less mysterious disappearance  of  the
man.
     The wheels  began to clatter over cobblestones. The coach drove into  a
shady street lined with acacias.
     The grey wobbly trunks of telephone poles flashed by,  and roofs of red
tile  and blue-painted iron;  for  a  minute the dull water of  the  estuary
appeared in the distance.
     An ice-cream  man in a raspberry-coloured shirt walked by in the shade,
carrying his tub on his head.
     Judging by the sun, it  was already past one  o'clock. The Turgenev was
to sail at two.
     Father told the driver to go directly to the wharf without  stopping at
a  hotel. At  the wharf, the steamer had just let out a very  long and  deep
hoot.

        6
     THE TURGENEV

     Even in  the  early years  of  this century the Turgenev was considered
quite out of date.
     With her gather long but narrow hull,  her  two paddle-wheels-their red
float-boards could be seen through the slits of the round paddle-box-and her
two funnels she looked more like a big launch than a small steamer.
     To Petya,  however,  the  Turgenev was  always one of  the miracles  of
shipbuilding, and the trip between Odessa and Akkerman seemed no less than a
voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.
     A  second-class ticket cost a goodly sum: one ruble and ten kopeks. Two
tickets were bought. Pavlik travelled free.
     Still,  travelling  by steamer was much cheaper,  and much  pleasanter,
besides, than bouncing  along in the dust  for thirty miles  in an Ovidiopol
carriage. This was a rattling  vehicle  with  a  Jewish driver in a tattered
gaberdine   belted   swaggeringly   with  a   coachman's   red   girdle;   a
despondent-looking fellow  with  red hair  and  with  eyes always  pink  and
ailing, who  tested the five-ruble piece with his teeth.  He would drag  the
very heart out of his passengers by stopping every two miles to feed oats to
his decrepit nags.
     No sooner  had they  settled  themselves in  a second-class cabin  than
Pavlik,  worn out by the heat and the drive, became drowsy. He had to be put
to bed at once on the black oilcloth bunk; the bunk was burning hot from the
sun beating through the rectangular windows.
     The  windows  were  framed  in  highly  polished  brass, true, but they
spoiled the fun all the same.
     Everyone knew that  a ship was supposed to  have round portholes  which
were screwed down when a storm blew up.
     In  this respect the third-class quarters in the bow of  the  ship were
much better,  for they had real portholes, even though instead of soft bunks
there were only plain wooden plank-benches, like in the horse-trams.
     Travelling third class, however, was looked upon as "improper", in just
the same degree as travelling first class was "exorbitant".
     By social standing, it was to the middle category of passengers, to the
second class, that the family of  the Odessa schoolmaster  Batchei belonged.
That was as pleasant and convenient in some cases as it was inconvenient and
humiliating in others. It all depended upon which class  their acquaintances
were travelling in.
     For  that reason Mr.  Batchei, so as  to avoid unnecessary indignities,
made  it a point never to depart from the summer  resort in  the company  of
wealthy neighbours.
     The tomato and grape season was then at its height. The loading went on
and on tediously.
     Several times Petya stepped out on deck  to see whether they would ever
be ready to cast off.  Each time it seemed to him that no progress was being
made. The stevedores were following one another up the gangway in an endless
file, carrying crates and baskets on their shoulders, and still the cargo on
the wharf did not diminish.
     The boy  walked over to the mate, who was in charge of the loading, and
hovered about beside him. He went  to the hatchway and looked down it to see
how wine barrels  were carefully lowered into the hold on  chains,  three or
four at a time, tied together.
     Every now and  then he  went so far as to  brush his elbow  against the
mate. "Accidentally on purpose", to attract attention to himself.
     "Don't get in the way, my lad," the mate said, annoyed but indifferent.
     Petya took no offence. The main  thing was  to strike up a conversation
by hook or by crook.
     "I say there, tell me please, are we starting soon?"
     "We are."
     "How soon?"
     "As soon as we're loaded we'll start."
     "But when will we be loaded?"
     "When we start."
     Petya gave a loud laugh, to flatter the mate.
     "But tell me really-when?"
     "Get out of the way, I said!"
     Petya  walked  off  with  a  lively,  independent  air,  as  though  no
unpleasantness had  occurred  between  them;  it  was simply  that  they had
chatted and then parted.
     He rested his chin on the  rail  and again looked at  the wharf. Now he
was bored to death by it.
     Besides the Turgenev, a great many barges were being loaded.
     The whole wharf was crowded with wagons of wheat.
     The wheat made a dry, silken rustle as it flowed down the wooden chutes
into the square hatchways of the holds.
     A fierce  white  sun reigned with  merciless monotony over  that  dusty
square which had not the slightest trace of beauty or poetry.
     Everything, absolutely everything, seemed dreary and ugly.
     Those  wonderful tomatoes which had such a warm  and delicious gleam in
the  shade  of  wilted  leaves  in  the vegetable gardens now lay packed  in
thousands of crates all alike.
     Those  tender-tender  grapes, each cluster  of which,  in the vineyard,
seemed a work of art, had been squeezed greedily  into coarse willow baskets
and hastily sewn  round with sacking; and  on each  basket there was a label
besmeared with paste.
     The wheat that had been grown and harvested  with such labour-the large
amber  wheat fragrant with all  the  odours of the hot fields-lay there on a
dirty tarpaulin, and men in boots walked over it.
     Among the  sacks,  crates and barrels strode an Akkerman policeman in a
white uniform jacket, with  an orange revolver-cord round his sunburned neck
and a long sword at his side.
     The motionless river heat, the dust, and the sluggish but  never-ending
noise of the tedious loading made Petya sleepy.
     On an off-chance, he went up  to the  mate  again to find  out if  they
would start soon, and again  he  received the answer  that  when  they  were
loaded they would start, and they would be loaded when they started.
     Yawning,  and  reflecting  sleepily  that  everything in  the world was
obviously  merchandise-the  tomatoes  were   merchandise,  the  barges  were
merchandise,  the  houses  on   the  earthen  shore  were  merchandise,  the
lemon-yellow  ricks next to those  houses were merchandise, and quite likely
the  stevedores were merchandise too-Petya staggered  to  the cabin  and lay
down beside Pavlik. He fell asleep before he knew it, and when he woke up he
found they were already moving.
     The cabin  had in some strange way changed its position. It had  become
much lighter. Across the  ceiling ran a  mirror-like reflection of  rippling
water.
     The engine was working. The busy  flutter of the paddle-wheels could be
heard.
     Petya had  missed the most thrilling moment of the departure-missed the
third blast of the siren, the captain's command, the raising of the gangway,
the casting-off. . . .
     What  made it all the more horrible was that neither Father nor  Pavlik
was in the cabin. That meant they had seen it all.
     "Why didn't you wake  me?"  Petya  cried out. He felt as if he had been
robbed in his sleep.
     As  he rushed out of the cabin to the deck he  gave his leg a frightful
bang against the sharp  brass threshold. But he paid no attention  to such a
trifle.
     "Drat them! Drat them!"
     Petya need not have been so excited, however.
     The boat had indeed cast off, but it had not yet set a straight course;
it was only turning about. That meant the most interesting events were still
to come.
     There would be "slow ahead", and "dead slow ahead", and "stop", and "go
astern", and "dead astern", and a host of other fascinating things which the
boy knew to perfection.
     The wharf moved back, grew smaller, circled about.
     The boat was suddenly full of passengers, all crowding  together at the
same side. They were still waving their handkerchiefs and hats, with as much
frenzy as if they were bound for the end of  the world, while as a matter of
fact they were travelling a  distance of  exactly thirty  miles  as the crow
flies.
     But  such  were  the  traditions  of  sea  travel,  and  such  the  hot
temperament of Southerners.
     Most of them were third-class  passengers and deck  passengers from the
lower  foredeck, near the hold.  They  were not allowed  on the  upper deck,
which  was  reserved  exclusively for the "clean" public  of  the first  and
second classes.
     Petya  caught  sight of  Father and  Pavlik on the top deck. They  were
waving their hats excitedly.
     Also on deck were the captain and the  entire  crew- the  mate  and two
barefoot deck-hands. The  only members  of  the  whole  crew who were  doing
anything really nautical were the captain and one of the hands. The mate and
the other hand  were selling tickets. With their coloured little paper rolls
and a green  wire cash-box of the kind usually seen  in bakeries, they  were
making the round  of the passengers  who had not had  time to buy tickets on
shore.
     The captain gave his commands striding back  and forth across the  deck
between the  bridges on  either side.  Meanwhile, right  before the admiring
eyes of the passengers,
     the deck-hand looked into the big brass pot of a compass and turned the
steering-wheel, helping  it  along  now and  then with his  bare  foot.  The
steering-wheel creaked incredibly and  the  rudder chains  clanged  as  they
crept  backwards and  forwards along the side, ready  at any  moment to tear
away the trains of careless ladies.
     The boat was backing and slowly turning.
     "Starboard helm!" cried the captain to the helmsman. He had the hoarse,
mustardy voice of a glutton and a bully. He paid not the slightest attention
to  the passengers who had gathered  in  a deferential knot  at the compass.
"Starboard helm! More! A little more! Another trifle more! Good! Steady!"
     The captain  went across to the  starboard  bridge, opened the speaking
tube, and pressed the pedal. In the depths of the boat a bell ting-a-linged.
The  passengers  lifted  their eyebrows  respectfully and  exchanged  silent
glances. They understood: the captain had just signalled to the engine-room.
     What should  he  do? Run  to  the bridge to watch the captain call down
into the speaking tube,  or remain near the helmsman  and the compass? Petya
was ready to tear himself in two.
     The speaking tube won.
     He  seized  Pavlik by  the hand and dragged  him to  the bridge. "Look,
Pavlik, look!"  he  shouted  excitedly,  not  without  the  secret  hope  of
astonishing  two  pretty little girls by his  knowledge  of things nautical.
"He's going to say 'Go ahead' into the speaking tube."
     "Slow astern!" said the captain into the speaking tube.
     Down below, the bell immediately  ting-a-linged. That meant the command
had been heard.

        7
     THE PHOTOGRAPH

     Akkerman  had disappeared from sight, and so had the  ruins of  the old
Turkish fortress,  yet  the steamer was still  running  down the  enormously
broad   estuary  of  the  Dniester.  There  seemed  no   end  to  the  ugly,
coffee-coloured river, over which the sun had poured a leaden film.
     The water was  so muddy  that the boat's shadow seemed to be  lying  on
clay.
     The  passengers felt as though the trip had not yet really begun.  They
were all sick of the estuary and were waiting for the sea.
     Finally,  after about an hour and a  half, the steamer neared the mouth
of the estuary.
     Petya glued  himself to  the rail; he  did  not want to miss  even  the
slightest  detail of the great  moment. The water became noticeably lighter,
although it still was fairly muddy.
     The waves  now were broader and  higher. The buoys marking the  channel
jutted  out of the water like red sticks,  and  their pointed  mushroom caps
rocked unsteadily to and fro.
     At  times a buoy  floated so close to the ship's  side that Petya could
clearly see the iron  cage in the centre of the mushroom where a lantern was
placed at night.
     The Turgenev  overtook several black fishing  boats and two small boats
with taut dark sails.
     The boats, lifted and  then  dropped by  the steamer's  wave,  began to
rock.
     Off the hot sandy Cape of Karolino-Bugaz, with its border-post barracks
and mast, a broad fairway marked by two lines of buoys led out into the open
sea.
     Now  the captain himself looked  at the compass every  minute or so and
indicated the course to the helmsman.
     This was clearly no trifling matter.
     The  water became still lighter. Now it  was  obviously diluted  by the
pure blue of the sea.
     "Half-speed!" the captain called into the speaking tube.
     Ahead of them, sharply divided from the  yellow estuary, lay the shaggy
blue-black sea.
     "Slow!"
     From the sea came a fresh wind.
     "Dead slow!"
     The engine  almost stopped breathing. The float-boards  barely  slapped
the water. The flat shore stretched so near that wading across  to it seemed
the easiest thing in the world.
     The small, dazzling white lighthouse  at the border post; the high mast
with its gay garlands of  naval flags stiffened  by  the  wind;  the gunboat
sitting low among the reeds; the small figures of the  border guards washing
their  linen in  the crystal  shallow water-all these moved noiselessly past
the ship, their sunlit details as clear and distinct as transfer pictures.
     The nearness of the sea made the world clean and fresh again, as if all
the dust had suddenly been blown away from the ship and her passengers.
     A change  came  over  the  crates  and  baskets,  too.  What  had  been
insufferably dull merchandise gradually turned  into cargo,  and as the ship
approached the sea it began to creak, as real cargo should.
     "Half-speed!"
     The  border  post  lay  astern; it shifted about and drifted  into  the
distance. The ship was  surrounded by deep  water, clear and dark-green. The
moment  she entered it she  started to  roll; the wind  whipped spray on the
deck.
     "Full speed!"
     Murky clouds of soot poured out of  the hoarsely spluttering funnels. A
slanting shadow settled across the awning at the stern.
     Apparently that old lady, the  engine,  was not  finding  it so easy to
battle the strong waves of the open sea. She began to breathe hard.
     The ancient plating creaked rhythmically. The anchor under the bowsprit
bowed to the waves.
     The wind had already managed to carry off a straw hat; it floated away,
rocking in the broad foamy wake.
     Four blind Jews in blue spectacles climbed the ladder to the upper deck
in single file, holding down their bowler hats.
     They seated  themselves on a  bench  and  then went  at it  with  their
fiddles.
     "The  Hills  of Manchuria" march, played  in  a sickeningly false  key,
mingled with the heavy sighs of the engine.
     Up the same ladder ran one of the ship's two stewards, the tails of his
dress coat  waving in  the wind;  he  wore  white  cotton  gloves  that were
comparatively clean. As he ran he bore along, with the skill of a juggler, a
tray with a fizzing bottle of lemonade.
     That was how they entered the sea.
     Petya  had  already inspected the whole  ship.  He had discovered  that
there were no suitable  children aboard, hardly anyone with whom  a pleasant
acquaintance might be struck up.
     At first,  true, the two girls for whom he so unsuccessfully showed off
his nautical knowledge had looked promising.
     But not for long.
     To begin with, the girls were travelling first  class,  and by speaking
French with their governess  they gave him to understand right off that they
had nothing in common with a boy from the second class.
     Then, the minute they reached the sea one of the girls became sea-sick;
and-as Petya had seen through the open door-she now lay on a velvet divan in
the unattainable splendour of a  first-class cabin; moreover, she lay  there
sucking a lemon, which was downright disgusting.
     And  lastly,   though  she  was  undoubtedly  beautiful  and  elegantly
turned-out  (she  wore  a  short  coat  with  golden buttons decorated  with
anchors, and a  sailor hat with a red pompon,  French  style), the  girl who
remained on deck turned out to be singularly capricious, and a cry-baby. She
quarrelled endlessly with her father, a tall, extremely phlegmatic gentleman
with side-whiskers, who wore a flowing cape. He was  the very  image of Lord
Glenarvan from Captain Grant's Children.
     Father and daughter were carrying on the following conversation:
     "I'm thirsty, Daddy."
     "Never   mind,   you'll   get   over   it,"   Lord   Glenarvan  replied
phlegmatically, without taking his eyes from his binoculars.
     The girl stamped her foot. "I'm  thirsty," she  repeated,  raising  her
voice.
     "Never mind, you'll get over it," her father replied, calmer than ever.
     The  girl chanted with stubborn  fury, "Daddy, I'm  thirsty. Daddy, I'm
thirsty. Daddy, I'm thirsty."
     Bubbles frothed on her angry  lips. In a nagging drawl that would  have
tried  the   patience  of   an   angel,  she  continued,   "Da-aad-dy,   I'm
thir-ir-ir-sty. I'm thir-ir-ir-sty."
     To  which  Lord   Glenarvan  leisurely  replied,   with  even   greater
indifference and  without raising his voice,  "Never  mind, you'll get  over
it."
     This strange duel between the two obstinate creatures had been going on
practically all the way since Akkerman.
     Naturally, striking up  an acquaintance  with  her was quite out of the
question.
     Then Petya found a fascinating occupation: he followed in the footsteps
of one of the passengers. Everywhere the passenger went, Petya went too.
     That was really interesting,  especially since Petya  had  long noticed
something strange about the passenger's behaviour.
     Other   passengers,   perhaps,  had   not   noticed   one   astonishing
circumstance, but Petya had, and he was greatly struck by it.
     This man did not have a ticket, and the mate was very well aware of it.
     But for some reason he had said nothing to the strange passenger. More,
he had given him permission-not in  so many words,  of course-to go wherever
he wished, even into the first-class cabins.
     Petya clearly saw what had passed when the mate  approached the strange
passenger with his wire cash-box.
     "Your ticket?"
     The passenger whispered something in  the  mate's ear. The mate nodded.
"Right you are."
     After that, no one disturbed the strange passenger. He walked about the
whole ship, looking into every corner: into the cabins, the engine-room, the
refreshment bar, the lavatory, the hold.
     Now who could he be?
     A landowner? No. Landowners did not dress that way and did not act that
way.
     A Bessarabian landowner always wore a heavy linen dust coat and a white
travelling  cap, and the visor  of  the  cap was covered with  finger marks.
Next,  he would have  a drooping corn-coloured moustache, and a small wicker
basket with a padlock on it. In the basket there were always a box of smoked
mackerel,  some  tomatoes and some Brinza cheese, and two or three quarts of
new white wine in a green bottle.
     Landowners  travelled  second  class,  for  economy's  sake; they  kept
together,  never came out  of their cabins, and were always either eating or
playing cards.
     Petya had not seen the strange passenger in their company.
     He wore a summer cap, true enough, but he had neither a dust coat nor a
wicker basket.
     No, decidedly, he was not a landowner.
     Then perhaps he was a postal official, or a schoolmaster?
     Hardly.
     Although under his jacket he did wear a pongee shirt with a turned-down
collar, and  instead  of a  tie  a  cord with little pompons,  his curled-up
moustache which  was  as  black as boot-polish  and his  smooth-shaven  chin
obviously did not fit in with that.
     And as for the smoked  pince-nez-uncommonly large ones they were-on the
coarse fleshy nose  with hairy  nostrils,  they did not fit any category  of
passenger whatsoever.
     Besides, there  were those  pinstripe  trousers  and those sandals over
thick white socks.
     Yes, something was definitely fishy here.
     Petya shoved his hands in his  pockets (which, by the way, was strictly
forbidden)  and  strolled along with a  most  independent air, following the
strange passenger all over the ship.
     At  first  the passenger  stood  for a while in  the narrow passage-way
between the engine-room and the galley.
     The galley gave off the  sour, smoky reek of an eating-house, and  from
the open  ventilators of the engine-room there came a hot  wind smelling  of
superheated steam, iron, boiling water and oil.
     The engine-room  skylight was raised,  and Petya could  look down  into
it-which he did with delight.
     He knew the engine from A to Z, yet he went into  raptures each time he
saw it. He could stand there watching it for hours.
     As everybody knew, the  engine was outdated and good for nothing and so
on, but it was incredibly powerful and astonishing all the same.
     The steel connecting rods covered with thick green grease slid back and
forth with amazing ease, considering they weighed a ton.
     The pistons pumped furiously. The  cast-iron cranks twirled. The  brass
discs of the cams rubbed quickly and nervously against one another, exerting
a mysterious influence on the painstaking work  of the modest but  important
slide valves.
     And over all this swirling chaos reigned an immensely huge flywheel. At
first glance it seemed to be turning slowly, but when one took a closer look
one saw that it was going at a tremendous speed and was raising a steady hot
wind.
     It  was nerve-racking to watch the  mechanic as  he walked about  among
those inexorably moving joints and bent over to apply the long nozzle of his
oil can to them.
     But the most amazing  thing in the whole engine-room was the ship's one
and only electric lamp.
     It hung in a wire muzzle, under a tin plate. (And what a far cry it was
from the blindingly bright electric lamps of today!)
     Inside  its  blackened glass there was a  dimly  glowing red-hot little
loop of wire which quivered at every vibration of the ship.
     But  it  seemed  a  miracle. It  was associated  with  the  magic  word
"Edison", which in the  boy's  mind had long since lost meaning as a surname
and had  taken  on  mysterious  meaning as  a  phenomenon  of  Nature,  like
"magnetism", or "electricity".
     After that the strange man walked unhurriedly round the lower decks.
     Petya  had  the impression he  was  making  a secret but very attentive
study of the passengers who were sitting on their bundles and baskets at the
mast, near the rails, and beside the cargo.
     He was ready to bet (betting, by the  way, was also strictly forbidden)
that the man was secretly searching for someone.
     The  stranger  stepped unceremoniously  over  sleeping  Moldavians.  He
squeezed his  way  through  groups  of  Jews  who  were  eating  olives.  He
cautiously raised  the edges  of a  tarpaulin stretched over some crates  of
tomatoes.
     Asleep  on the bare boards of the deck lay a man with his cap  over his
cheek and  his  head  nestling in  one of the rope fenders which are lowered
over the  side  to soften the ship's impact against the wharf. His arms were
spread out and his legs were drawn up, just as a child sleeps.
     Petya gave a casual glance at the man's legs and  then stood petrified:
the  trousers had pulled up,  and he saw the well-remembered navy boots with
the rust-coloured tops.
     There could be no doubt about it. They were the very same  boots he had
seen under the seat in the coach that morning.
     And even if that was a mere coincidence, there was something  else that
most  certainly  was  not.  On the sleeping  man's  hand, in  the  very same
place-the fleshy triangle beneath the thumb and forefinger-Petya clearly saw
a small blue anchor.
     He almost cried out in surprise.
     He  controlled  himself because he  noticed that the  sleeping man  had
attracted the attention of the moustached passenger too.
     Moustaches walked past  the sleeper several times, trying to peer under
the cap covering  his face. But he did not  succeed.  Then he walked by once
again and stepped on the sleeping man's hand, as if by accident.
     "Sorry!"
     The  other gave  a start. He  sat up and  looked round  in fright  with
sleepy, uncomprehending eyes.
     "Eh? What's up? Where to?"  he muttered  disjointedly as  he rubbed the
coral imprint of the rope on his cheek.
     It was he, the very same sailor!
     Petya hid behind the hatchway and watched with bated breath to see what
would happen next.
     But nothing special happened. After excusing himself again,  Moustaches
went on his way, and the sailor turned over on his other side. He did not go
back to sleep, however, but kept looking round in alarm  and-so it seemed to
Petya-impatient annoyance.
     What should he do? Run to Father? Or tell the whole story to the mate?
     No, no!
     Petya clearly remembered Father's behaviour in the coach. Evidently the
whole business was something about which  he should neither speak to anybody
nor ask any questions, but simply hold his  tongue and make believe  he knew
nothing.
     At this  point  he  decided to hunt up  Moustaches and  see what he was
doing.
     He found him on the  first-class  deck, which was practically deserted.
He was leaning against a life-boat with a canvas tightly roped over it.
     Under  the deck-house  the invisible  wheel was  pounding away at water
almost black and covered with a coarse lace of foam. It was  making the kind
of noise you heard at a watermill. The ship's shadow, now a rather long one,
slid quickly  over the bright  waves, which turned a darker and darker  blue
the farther away they were.
     At the stern waved the white,  blue  and  red merchant navy flag,  shot
through by the sun.
     Behind  her the  ship left a  broad  wake;  it  widened and  melted and
stretched  far  into  the  distance,  like   a  well-swept  sleigh  road  at
Shrovetide.
     On the left ran the high clay shore of Novorossia.
     As for Moustaches, he was furtively examining something  he held in his
hand.
     Petya stole up to him from behind, stood on tiptoe, and saw  it. It was
a small, passport-size photograph of a sailor  in  full uniform; his cap was
tilted at a swaggerish angle, and on its band was the inscription:

        KNYAZ POTEMKIN TAVRICHESKY

     That was the very same sailor, the one with the anchor on his hand.
     And  here Petya suddenly realised,  in  a  flash of  insight, what  was
strange  about  Moustaches'  appearance:  like  the  man  with  the  anchor,
Moustaches was in disguise.

        8
     "MAN OVERBOARD!"

     A fair wind was  blowing.  To help the engine along and to  make up for
the time lost during loading, the captain ordered a sail to be set.
     Not a single holiday  celebration,  not  a  single present, could  have
thrown Petya into such raptures as did that trifle.
     On second thought, a fine trifle!
     An engine and a sail at one and the same time on one and the same ship!
A packet-boat and frigate combined!
     I dare say that you, comrades, would also be delighted  if you suddenly
had the good fortune to make  a sea voyage on a real steamer  that was under
sail into the bargain.
     Even in those days  sails were set only on the oldest  steamers, and on
the rarest occasions at that. Nowadays it is never done at all.
     So you can easily imagine how Petya felt about it.
     Naturally, Moustaches and the  runaway flew out of his mind at once. He
stood  in the  bow,  gazing in a  trance at  the barefoot deck-hand  who was
pulling, rather lazily, a neatly folded sail out of the hatchway.
     Petya knew perfectly well that this was  a jib. All the same he went up
to the mate, who, because there were no other seamen, was helping to set the
sail.
     "I say there, tell me please, is that a jib?"
     "It is."
     The  mate's  tone  was  decidedly gruff, but  Petya  was not the  least
offended. He knew very well  that a  real  sea dog was bound to  be somewhat
gruff. Otherwise what kind of sea-faring man was he?
     Petya  looked at the  passengers with  a restrained  superior smile and
again addressed  the  mate,  casually, as man to man: "Now tell me,  please,
what other kinds of sails are there? How about the mainsail and foresail?"
     "Get out of the way," the mate said, with the expression of a man whose
tooth has suddenly begun to ache. "Run along to your Mama in the cabin."
     "My Mama's dead," Petya told  the  rude  fellow  with sad pride. "We're
travelling with Father."
     To that the mate made no reply, and the conversation ended.
     Finally the jib was set.
     The little ship ploughed on  faster than ever. Odessa  was now tangibly
near. The white spit of the Sukhoi Liman came into sight ahead.
     The shallow water of this estuary was such a dense and  dark blue  that
it gave off a reddish glow.
     Then the  slate  roofs of  Lustdorf, the German  quarter, and  the tall
rough-hewn church with the weather-vane on its spire appeared.
     And after that came  the villas, orchards, vegetable  gardens,  bathing
beaches, towers, lighthouses.
     First there was the famous Kovalevsky tower, a tower with a legend.
     A rich man by the name of Kovalevsky decided to build, at his own risk,
a water-supply system for  the city. It would  have brought him vast profit.
For every  drink of water they took, people would have to pay Mr. Kovalevsky
as much as he wanted. You see, the only source of  good drinking  water near
Odessa was on Mr.Kovalevsky's  land. But the water lay very deep, and to get
it a  tremendous water tower  had  to be built. That was a big  job for   a
single man to handle. But  since Mr.  Kovalevsky did  not want to share  his
future profits with anyone, he began to build the tower on his own. The work
turned out to cost  much more  than  he had thought it would.  His relatives
pleaded with  him to give up  his mad idea,  but  he had already put so much
money into it that he would not back out. He went on with the work. When the
tower was three-quarters built he ran out  of money.  But by mortgaging  all
his  houses  and his lands, he managed to finish the  tower.  It was a  huge
thing,  and it  looked like a chessboard castle enlarged thousands of times.
On Sundays  whole families used to  come from Odessa to look at  the wonder.
But  the tower alone was not enough, of  course. Machines had  to be ordered
from abroad;  holes had to be drilled, mains had  to be laid. Mr. Kovalevsky
grew desperate. He ran to the merchants and bankers of Odessa for a loan. He
offered a fabulous rate of interest. He promised them dividends such as they
had never dreamed of. He begged, he went down on his knees, he wept. But the
rich merchants and bankers  would not forgive him for having refused to take
them in as partners from  the beginning. They were deaf to his  pleas. Not a
kopek did he get  from anybody. He  was completely ruined, broken,  crushed.
The water-main became an obsession with him.  All  day long he used to pace,
like  a madman,  round and round the  tower which had  swallowed  his  whole
fortune, racking  his brains for  a way to raise  money. Little by little he
went out  of  his mind. One fine  day  he climbed to  the very  top  of  the
accursed tower and jumped down. That had happened about fifty years earlier,
but the  tower, blackened with age,  still stood overlooking the sea not far
from the rich commercial city, as a  grim warning and a ghastly monument  to
insatiable human greed.
     Then the new white lighthouse appeared,  and after it  the old one, now
no longer in service.
     Lit  up  by  the pink sun  setting  into  the golden chain of  suburban
acacias, they  looked so  distinct, so near- and, above all, so  familiar-as
they towered over the bluffs, that  Petya was ready  to blow into the jib as
hard as he could, if only that would make the ship arrive sooner.
     From here on he knew  every inch  of the coast.  Bolshoi Fontan, Sredny
Fontan, Maly Fontan, the high, steep shore overgrown with scratch weed, wild
rose, lilac, and hawthorn.
     The big  rocks standing in the water in the shadow of the bluffs, rocks
green with slime halfway up their sides, and on  them  the swimmers and  the
anglers with their bamboo poles.
     And here was Arcadia, the restaurant on piles, with its band-stand-from
a distance so small,  no bigger than a prompter's  box-its brightly-coloured
sunshades, and the  table-cloths  across which  the cool wind was scurrying.
Each  new detail which  met the boy's eyes was  fresher and more interesting
than  the  one before.  They  had  not been  forgotten.  No! They  could  be
forgotten no more than he could forget his own name! They had somehow merely
slipped from his memory for a time. Now they were suddenly rushing back, the
way a boy rushes home after having gone out without permission.
     They  came  racing  back, more  and more  of  them all  the  time,  one
overtaking the other.
     They seemed to be shouting to him, in eager rivalry:
     "Greetings, Petya! So you're back at last! How  we've missed you!  Come
now, don't you recognise us?  Take  a good look: this is  me, your favourite
summer resort, Marazli. How  you loved to  walk  over  my splendidly clipped
emerald lawns, strictly forbidden though that was!  How you loved to examine
my   marble   statues,   over    which   big   snails   with   four   little
horns-'lavriks-pavliks',  you called them-used  to  crawl,  leaving behind a
slimy  trail!  Look  how  I've grown during the summer!  Look  how thick  my
chestnut trees have become! What gorgeous  dahlias and peonies  are in bloom
in my flower-beds!  What magnificent August butterflies you'll see alighting
in the dark shadows of my garden walks!"
     "And here am I, Otrada! Surely  you haven't forgotten my bathing beach,
my  shooting gallery, my skittle-alley!  Look  at me: while you were gone we
put up a  wonderful  merry-go-round, with boats and  horses. And  a  stone's
throw away lives your old friend Gavrik. He's counting  the hours until your
return. So hurry, hurry!"'
     "I'm here too, Petya! How do you do? Don't you recognise Langeron? Look
at all the flat-bottomed fishing boats pulled up on my beach, and at all the
fishing  nets drying on crossed oars! Wasn't it  here, in my sand, that last
year you found two kopeks and then  drank four whole glasses-it was  so much
you actually had to force it down -of  sour kvass,  and it tickled your nose
and nipped your tongue? Don't you recognise the kvass stand? Why, here it is
at the edge of the bluff, as large as life, amidst the weeds that have grown
so high during the summer! You don't even need binoculars to see it!"
     "And here am I! I'm here too! Hello, Petya! Ah, if you only knew what's
been going on here in Odessa while you were away! Hello! Hello!"
     As they approached the city the wind grew quieter and warmer.
     Now the sun had disappeared altogether. Only  the  top of the mast  and
the tiny red  peak of  the weather-vane still glowed in the absolutely clear
pink sky.
     The jib was taken in.
     The pounding of the ship's engine raised a loud echo  among the  bluffs
and crags of the shore. Up the mast crept the pale-yellow top lantern.
     In thought Petya was already ashore, in Odessa.
     Had anybody told him that only a short while before, that very morning,
in  fact,  he had almost  cried when bidding farewell to  the farm, he never
would have believed it.
     The farm? Which  farm? He had  already forgotten it. It  had  ceased to
exist for him-until the next summer.
     Quick, quick!  To the cabin, to  hurry  Daddy  and  to put their things
together!
     Petya spun about, ready to run. But then he froze in horror. The sailor
with the anchor on his hand was sitting on the steps of  the bow-ladder, and
Moustaches was walking  directly towards him, hands in  pockets, without his
pince-nez, his sandals squeaking.
     He came up to the sailor, leaned over him, and said, in a voice neither
loud nor soft, "Zhukov?"
     "What about  Zhukov?"  the sailor  said in  a low,  strained  voice. He
turned visibly pale and stood up.
     "Sit down. Be quiet. Sit down, I tell you."
     The sailor  continued  to  stand. A faint smile  tremb