but few had ever gone down into them, and fewer
still had  any idea of their layout. The  catacombs were, in a way, Odessa's
mystery, its legend.
     Terenti,  however,  had  once  been a fisherman.  He  knew  the  Odessa
shoreline  perfectly, and had made an exact  study of all the catacomb exits
there.
     One of these exits was located a hundred  paces behind the hut, halfway
up the  bluff. It was a narrow opening concealed  by growths  of sweet-brier
and spindle  tree.  A brook  trickled out of  the  opening and ran  down the
bluff, causing the creepers and weeds to tremble.
     After repulsing the first  attack of the  policemen and the detectives,
Terenti led his comrades straight to the opening in the bluff.
     Their  pursuers  knew  nothing  of  its  existence.  They  thought  the
fugitives  were trying to make their way to town through the villa district.
This played into their hands, for they  had the district surrounded and  the
fugitives would be trapped for certain.
     And so, after the first shots the  policemen were ordered to hold their
fire.
     When he had waited  below for about a quarter of  an hour, the chief of
the  Alexandrovsky police  station, who was directing  the  raid personally,
sent  the district  police  inspector to find  out if the criminals had been
caught.
     The inspector took  the easy but  roundabout  path  to the top  of  the
bluff, and another quarter of an hour passed  before he  returned to  report
that the fugitives had not been seen up there. It thus  turned out that they
were neither at  the  top nor at the  bottom.  Then where were they?  It was
utterly  impossible to  think  they  were  sitting in  the bushes  somewhere
halfway up the bluff, waiting to be caught.
     Nevertheless,  the chief ordered  his men to climb up  and search every
bush. Then,  no longer trusting "those fools",  he  himself  followed  them,
letting  out  strings  of oaths as his patent-leather  boots slipped on  the
grass and clay.
     They combed  the bluff from bottom to top but nothing did they find. It
seemed a  miracle. The fugitives couldn't  have been  swallowed  up  by  the
earth!
     "Your Honour!" a frightened voice suddenly cried from above. "Could you
please come here?"
     "What's the matter?"
     "It's the catacombs, Your Honour."
     The  chief of police reached up  and caught hold of  the  thorny bushes
with his white-gloved  hands. An instant later he was seized by strong hands
and pulled up to a small ledge.
     Moustaches struck  one  match  after  another, and by their light  they
could make out a long black crevice overgrown with bushes.
     The chief saw at once that he had  lost.  What a catch had escaped him!
He shook  with rage; he  stamped his  elegant boots; his white-gloved  fists
struck out right and left, hitting random noses, cheekbones and moustaches.
     "What are you standing  there for, you idiots!" he blustered in a voice
hoarse from shouting. "Forward, march! Search all the catacombs! Catch those
scoundrels  or else I'll tear your heads off! I'll smash your damned mugs to
a pulp! Forward, march!"
     But  he  knew that it was hopeless. To  search  all the catacombs would
take a fortnight at least. And it was  useless even to  start, for they  had
already lost  more  than half  an  hour and  the  fugitives had  undoubtedly
reached the other side of town long since.
     Several  policemen  unwillingly crawled  through the opening.  Lighting
matches  continually, they hovered not far from the entrance,  examining the
damp  limestone walls  of  the underground  passage  that  disappeared  into
sepulchral darkness.
     The chief  spat on the ground in  disgust and ran down the side  of the
bluff, his spurs jingling. He was choking with fury. He tore so violently at
the  over-starched collar of his white pique uniform jacket  that  the hooks
flew off.
     He strode  through  the crackling  bushes  to  the  hut,  and  savagely
wrenched open the door. The policemen  sprang to attention  in  fright.  The
chief stepped into the little room and halted, his feet  wide  apart and his
twitching  fingers  behind his  back. He  was followed through  the door  by
Moustaches.
     "Your  Honour,"  Moustaches  whispered  mysteriously,  his  round  eyes
indicating Grandpa, "he's the owner of this undercover place  and that's his
brat."
     Without glancing at Moustaches the chief stretched out his arm, put the
flat of his white hand against the man's sweaty face, and pushed it  away in
furious disgust.
     "No one's asking you, you fool! I know that myself!"
     Gavrik  was  horror-stricken. He felt  something dreadful  was about to
happen. Small, pale, his ear red  and swollen, he stared unblinkingly at the
erect,   broad-shouldered  officer   in   the   blue  breeches   and   black
patent-leather shoulder belt.
     After standing like that fully a minute,  a minute that seemed an  hour
to the boy, the chief sat  down  on the edge of the bed. Without  taking his
eyes off  Grandpa  he  stretched  out a patent-leather boot, drew  a  silver
cigarette  case and  an  orange-coloured  matchbox from  his tight breeches'
pocket, and lit a yellow cigarette.
     "He smokes Asmolovs," Gavrik thought.
     The  chief  blew  the  smoke  through  his  nostrils,  drawling  out  a
"Ss-o-o-oo!" together with the smoke. Then he suddenly shouted at the top of
his  lungs, in a  voice so  loud that Gavrik's ears rang.  "Stand up in  the
presence of an officer, you scoundrel!"
     Grandpa nervously sprang to attention. Standing on his bent, bare black
legs and adjusting the shirt over his frail chest,  he stared  at  the chief
with dull, expressionless eyes.
     Gavrik could see Grandpa's taut neck trembling; the dry  skin, on which
there was an old scar, stretched like two reins.
     "So you're hiding outlaws, eh?" the chief said in an icy voice.
     "No, sir," Grandpa whispered.
     "Speak up, now. Who was just here?"
     "I don't know, sir."
     "You don't know, eh?" The chief  slowly rose  to his feet,  compressing
his lips. With a clipped, precise swing he gave  the old man  a blow in  the
ear that flung him against the wall.
     "Speak up! Who were they?"
     "I  don't  know,  sir," the old  man repeated firmly,  his jaw  muscles
twitching.
     Again the fist in the white glove flashed through the air. Two trickles
of blood  began to flow from Grandpa's nostrils. He closed his eyes, hunched
his shoulders, and caught his breath with a sob.
     "What's this beating for, Your Honour?"
     Grandpa's voice was  low but  stern. He wiped his nose  and  showed the
chief his blood-stained hand.
     "None of your lip!" cried the chief, turning pale.
     The large velvety birth mark stood out black on his plaster-white face.
He glanced disgustedly at his spoilt glove.
     "Speak up! Who were they?"
     "I don't know."
     Grandpa had time to cover his face with his hands and turn to the wall.
The  blow  struck him  on the  head.  His trousers bagged  out at the knees.
Slowly he sank to the floor.
     "Don't hit him!  He's an old man!" cried Gavrik with tears  of despair,
flinging himself at the chief.
     But the chief was already striding out of the hut. "Take this scoundrel
into custody!" he shouted.
     The  policemen seized the old man and twisted his arms behind his back.
They dragged him out of the hut as though he were a  bundle of straw. Gavrik
dropped to the floor and, gnawing at his fists, burst into sobs of rage.
     For  some time he sat motionless, listening with one ear  to the noises
and stirrings of the night. His other ear was deaf.
     Every now and then  he deliberately put his finger in his good ear, and
a profound silence enveloped him. It was a terrifying silence, in which some
nameless danger seemed to lurk.
     He would then uncover his ear, as if hurrying to release the imprisoned
sounds. One ear, however, could not take in all  the different sounds at the
same time.
     First he  would hear the deep infrequent sighs of  the sea, and nothing
else. Then the tinkling music of the crickets would break  in, shutting  out
the sound of the sea.  A warm breeze, passing over the weeds, would fill the
night with rustling, and  leave no place either for the crickets or the sea.
Then there would be only the sputtering of the lamp, in  which  the paraffin
had burnt out.
     All  at  once a  realisation of his  loneliness swept  over the boy. He
sprang to his feet, blew out the lamp, and dashed off to look for Grandpa.
     A luxuriant August night enveloped the world.  The  twinkling black sky
showered its stars upon the running boy. The chirp  of the crickets streamed
as high as the Milky Way itself.
     But  what  did all that  indifferent beauty  matter  to  the  tortured,
outraged child since it had no power to make him happy!
     Gavrik ran as fast as he could.
     By the time he caught up with Grandpa  and the  two policemen they were
already in Staro-Portofrankovskaya Street, just outside the police  station.
They were riding in a  droshky, one  of the  policemen sitting and the other
standing.  Grandpa had  fallen off  the seat. He lay  on  the floor  at  the
policeman's  feet,  his  head bobbing helplessly against the step. The light
from the gas lamps flickered across his face, streaked with dust and blood.
     Gavrik made a dash forward but the droshky came to a  stop in  front of
the police station. The policemen dragged  the stumbling old man through the
gate.
     "Grandpa!"
     One of the policemen rapped Gavrik across the back of the neck with the
scabbard of his sword. The gate swung closed. The boy remained alone.

        28
     STUBBORN AUNTIE TATYANA

     Petya's moment of supreme happiness and triumph had come.
     By  one o'clock in the afternoon he had  already made the  round of all
his acquaintances in the 'house to show his new Gymnasium  cap  and  give an
excited account of the exam he had just passed.
     To be quite truthful, there was almost nothing  to tell. There had been
no actual  examination but  merely a simple  entrance test  lasting  fifteen
minutes.  It began  at half past  ten, and  by five minutes  past eleven the
bowing, smiling assistant in the shop next door to the Gymnasium was handing
the boy his old straw hat wrapped in paper.
     From  the moment he put it on before the shop  mirror and right through
until evening, Petya did not remove his new cap.
     "What a grand showing I made in that exam!" Petya declared excitedly as
he hurried down the street beside Auntie Tatyana.
     He kept looking in all the windows to catch glimpses of himself  in his
new cap.
     "Calm  yourself, my dear," Auntie Tatyana remarked, her chin  quivering
with suppressed laughter. "It wasn't an exam but only a test."
     "Why, Auntie Tatyana, how can you say  that!" Petya cried at the top of
his  voice. He turned red with  anger and  stamped his feet, ready  to burst
into tears. "You weren't there, yet you talk! It was a real examination. You
were waiting in the reception room, so you have no right to say it wasn't. I
tell you it was an exam!"
     "To be  sure. I'm the fool,  and  you're the clever one. It was  only a
test."
     "It wasn't! It was an exam!"
     "You will insist that the beard was clipped."
     Auntie Tatyana  was  referring to  the  old  Ukrainian joke  about  the
stubborn fellow who argued  with his wife as to whether the  volost  clerk's
beard was  clipped or shaven. Despite  all evidence to  the contrary he kept
insisting  it  was  clipped.  Finally his infuriated wife picked him  up and
threw him into the river. He continued to shout "It was clipped!" and as his
head  went under the water he raised one hand and made clipping motions with
his fingers.
     But Petya did not take the hint.  In a tearful voice he kept repeating,
"It was an exam! It was an exam!"
     Auntie Tatyana was a kindhearted woman, and now she began to feel sorry
that she was depriving her nephew of the most  precious part of his triumph.
If the word "exam"  meant so much to the boy,  then let him  have his joy of
it. Why irritate him on this happy day?
     And  so, she made a bargain with  her conscience. "On second thought, I
probably was  mistaken,"  she  said  with a subtle smile,  "I do  believe it
really was an exam."
     Petya beamed. "And what an exam!"
     Yet deep down inside Petya was consumed by doubts. It had all been much
too quick and easy for an exam.
     True, the children had been lined up in  twos and led into a classroom.
Also, there had been a long table covered with a blue cloth. And behind that
table had  sat stern  examiners in blue uniforms with gold buttons,  wearing
gold-rimmed spectacles, medals, starched shirt-fronts  that  looked as stiff
as egg-shells, and  cuffs that crackled.  Among them had stood out  the silk
cassock and womanish curls of a priest.
     Petya had  felt his  stomach sink; his feet had turned  clammy;  an icy
sweat  had  broken  out on his temples. All the  symptoms known  since  time
immemorial had been there.
     But as to the exam itself- No, Petya now clearly saw that it was only a
test, after all.
     The minute the boys had  seated  themselves  at  the  desks one of  the
examiners  buried  his nose in a big sheet of paper on  the table and  said,
rolling out each word beautifully and distinctly, "Well, let us begin. These
boys  will  please step  forward:  Alexandrov, Boris;  Alexandrov,  Nikolai;
Batchei, Pyotr."
     When he  heard  his  name pronounced in  full,  sounding so strange and
forbidding in  that bare, echoing classroom,  Petya felt as if  someone  had
punched him in the  pit of the stomach. He had  never dreamt the  terrifying
moment would come so soon.
     Taken completely by surprise, he  turned a fiery red and almost fainted
as he walked across the slippery floor to the table.
     Each of the three boys was turned over to an examiner.
     Petya fell to the priest.
     "Well, now," drawled the huge old man, rolling back the wide sleeves of
his cassock.
     Then  he pressed against his narrow chest  the  dagger  of  a  crucifix
hanging from his neck on a silver chain. The  chain  was made of  flat links
with grooves like those in coffee beans.
     "Come closer, son. What is your name?"
     "Petya."
     "Not Petya  but  Pyotr, my dear boy. You left Petya at home.  And  your
last name?"
     "Batchei."
     "The son of Vasili Petrovich who teaches in the trade school?"
     "Yes."
     The priest leaned back  in his  chair in  the dreamy attitude  of a man
smoking.
     He  squinted at  Petya with an ironical  smile that  the  boy  did  not
understand, and  said, "I know him, I should say  so. A gentleman of liberal
views. Well, now-" He pushed himself still farther back in the  little chair
until it swayed on its two hind legs.
     "Which prayers do you know? Do you know the Creed?"
     "Yes, I do."
     "Recite it."
     Petya  filled his  lungs with air and  began to  rattle  off  the Creed
without any punctuation stops, trying to get it all out in one breath:
     "I believe  in  God the  Father maker of Heaven  and Earth  and of  all
things visible and invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ-"
     Here Petya ran out of breath and came to a stop.
     Hurrying lest  the  priest think  he  had forgotten the end, he  took a
fresh gulp of air with a sob, but the priest waved his hand in alarm.
     "That will do, that will do. Go to the next examiner."
     Now Petya stood in front of the mathematics examiner.
     "How high can you count up to?"
     "As high as  you like," Petya replied,  emboldened  by  his triumph  in
religion.
     "Excellent. Count up to a million."
     Petya  felt  as  if  he had fallen through a hole  in the ice.  Without
realising it, he made a choked, gasping  sound. He looked round  desperately
for help, but everybody was busy, and the mathematics examiner was gazing to
the  side  through  his  glasses,  in whose  curved lenses  were  distinctly
reflected the  two big classroom windows and  beyond them the  trees of  the
Gymnasium  garden, the blue cupolas of  the St. Panteleimon  Church and even
the watch  tower of the Alexandrovsky fire station, on which hung two  black
balls showing that there was a fire in the second precinct.
     Count up to a million!  Petya was lost.  Bravely he  began,  "One, two,
three,  four, five,  six, seven.  .  ." stealthily crooking  his fingers and
smiling sheepishly and sadly. "Eight, nine, ten, eleven. . . ."
     The mathematics examiner gazed impassively out of the window.
     "That will do," he said when the  dispirited  boy reached seventy-nine.
"Do you know the multiplication table?"
     "Once one makes one, once two makes two, once three makes three," Petya
began  in a loud,  quick  voice, afraid  of being stopped. But the  examiner
nodded his head. "That will do."
     "I know addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, too!"
     "That will do. Go to  the next  examiner." Why, they wouldn't  even let
you open your mouth! It wasn't fair.
     The next examiner  had a long, wispy beard through which  a shiny medal
could be seen. "Read from here."
     Petya reverentially took the book with the marbled-paper cover, staring
at the thick yellow fingernail that lay across the big letters of the title,
The Lion and the Dog.
     "The  Lion  and  the  Dog,"  Petya  began  at  a  smart pace,  although
stuttering  a bit from  excitement. "The Lion and the Dog.  There was once a
lion  who lived  in  a  menagerie.  He was very ferocious.  The keepers were
afraid of him. The lion ate a great deal of meat. The owner of the menagerie
did not know what to do-" "That's enough."
     Petya  almost  burst  into tears. How could  that be  "enough" when  he
hadn't even reached the dog! "Do you know any poems by heart?"
     This was the moment Petya secretly had been waiting for. It  would be a
triumph. Now he would shine in all his glory!
     "I know The Sail, by M. Y. Lermontov."
     "Recite it, please."
     "With expression?"
     "Very well."
     "Just a minute."
     Petya  quickly put one foot forward (this was absolutely necessary when
reciting with expression) and flung back his head.
     "The Sail, by M. Y. Lermontov!" he announced in a sing-song voice.

     A white sail gleams, so far and lonely,
     Through the blue haze above the foam.
     What does it seek in distant harbours'?
     What is it fleeing from at home?

     He quickly spread his arms in a gesture of surprise and puzzlement  and
then  continued,  hurrying to get  in as  much as  he  could  before he  was
stopped:

     The billows run; the breezes play
     About the mast that dips and creaks;
     It is not joy the wand'rer flees from,
     Nor is it happiness he seeks.

     Petya hastily emphasised the words "It is not" with a gesture,  but the
examiner waved his hand in good time.
     "That's enough."
     "I'll finish  in  another moment. There's  only a little bit left," the
boy begged.

     ` Below, the sea is crystal azure. . . .

     "That's quite enough. You may go home."
     "Don't I have to recite anything else?  I know  A. S. Pushkin's The Lay
of Oleg the Wise"
     "No, nothing  more.  You may  tell  your  parents  that  you have  been
accepted. That is all."
     Petya was dumbfounded. For a minute or  two he stood  in  the middle of
the classroom not knowing what to do next.
     It seemed absolutely  unbelievable that this  mysterious and terrifying
event for  which  he had prepared  so anxiously all  summer long was already
over.
     At last he gave a clumsy click of the  heels, stumbled, and ran out  of
the classroom. A second later he dashed back like a madman.
     "May  I  buy  my Gymnasium  cap now?" he asked, his voice breaking with
excitement.
     "Certainly. You may go."
     Petya  burst  into the reception room  where Auntie  Tatyana, wearing a
summer hat with a  veil  and long  gloves,  sat  on a  gilt  chair beneath a
plaster-of-Paris bust of Lomonosov.
     "Auntie  Tatyana!"  he shouted in a voice that must have carried to the
coachmen  in the street. "Hurry  up!  They told me  to buy my  Gymnasium cap
straightaway!"

        29
     THE ALEXANDROVSKY POLICE STATION

     Oh, the bliss of buying that cap!
     First they  tried on cap after cap until the proper fit was found, then
they bargained, and after that they  chose the badge,  a  beautiful thing of
silver.  It consisted of  two  thorny branches, crossed, with "O. 5 G.", the
monogram of the Odessa Fifth Gymnasium, between them.
     The badge they chose was the  largest and the cheapest. It cost fifteen
kopeks.
     With an  awl the clerk punched two holes in the stiff blue beaver-cloth
band of the cap and attached the badge,  bending back the brass tabs  on the
inside.
     At  home the cap and badge  caused a furore. Everyone wanted to  handle
it,  but  this Petya would not allow. They could look  all  they wanted, but
hands off!
     Everyone-Father,  Dunya,  Pavlik-kept asking, "What did it cost?" As if
that was what mattered!
     "A  ruble  forty-five, and fifteen  kopeks  for  the  badge,"  he said,
fuming. "But that's nothing! You should have seen how I passed the exam!"
     Pavlik stared  at the cap with  envious eyes and snuffled, ready at any
moment to burst into tears.
     Then Petya ran downstairs to the shop to show his  cap to Nusya  Kogan.
But Nusya had again gone off to the bay on a visit. What luck!
     However,  Nusya's  father,  the  shopkeeper, nicknamed Izzy the  Dizzy,
showed great interest in the cap.
     He put on his spectacles and examined  it a long time from  all  sides,
saying ts-ts-ts all the while, until finally he came out with, "What did  it
cost?"
     After making the round of all his acquaintances in the house Petya went
out into the field  and showed his cap to the  soldiers. They also asked how
much  it had cost. Now  not even half the day was over, and there was no one
else to show the cap to!
     Petya was in despair.
     All at once  he caught  sight of Gavrik walking past the  fence  of the
maternity  hospital.  He ran to him, filling the air with shouts and  waving
his cap.
     But  good  God! What had happened to Gavrik?  There  were brown circles
under his eyes-angry eyes in a thin, unwashed face. His shirt was in shreds.
One ear was swollen and purplish-red. It was the first thing that struck the
eye, and it looked so horrible and unreal that Petya felt frightened.
     "You should have seen me in the exam!" he wanted to shout but the words
died on his lips.
     Instead  he whispered, "Oh! You've been in a  fight? Who gave you  that
ear?"
     Gavrik lowered his eyes and smiled grimly.
     "Let's see it," he said, stretching out his hand for the cap. "What did
it cost?"
     Although  the idea  of anyone handling the  cap  was  agonising,  Petya
(true, with a wrench of his heart) gave it to Gavrik.
     "But don't mess it up."
     "No fear."
     The boys sat down beside a bush near the rubbish-heap and proceeded  to
give the cap a thorough examination.
     Gavrik  at  once   discovered  that  it  had  dozens  of   secrets  and
possibilities which had escaped Petya's notice.
     In the  first  place,  it  appeared  that  the  thin steel  hoop  which
stretched  the  top  could  be  taken out.  The hoop  was  pasted  over with
rust-stained paper, and once pulled out of the cap it had independent value.
     It  would be the easiest thing in the world  to break the hoop  into  a
great number of little  pieces of steel which, if no good for anything else,
could  be put  on the rails in front  of a suburban train-simply to see what
would happen.
     In  the  second  place,  there  was a  black  sateen  lining  with  the
inscription "Guralnik Bros." stamped in gold. All one had to do was rip open
the edge, and then all kinds of things  could be  hidden inside where nobody
would ever find them.
     In the third place, the black varnish on the leather peak could be made
still  more shiny by a good rubbing  with the green  pods of what  was known
among boys as the "varnish-tree".
     As to the badge,  it immediately had  to be bent  back according to the
fashion, and its branches clipped a bit.
     The  boys set to work without losing  a moment's  time. They kept at it
industriously until they  had squeezed  out all the enjoyment  the  cap  was
capable of giving.
     This distracted Gavrik for a time.
     But  when the  cap no  longer resembled anything  under the sun and had
lost its attractions, Gavrik again grew glum.
     "Listen, Petya, fetch me some bread and a couple of lumps of sugar," he
said suddenly, making his voice gruff. "I'll take it to Grandpa."
     "But why? Where is he?"
     "In the police station."
     Petya stared at his friend with wide, uncomprehending eyes.
     Gavrik smiled grimly and spat on the ground.
     "Come on, what are  you gaping for?  Wasn't that clear enough for  you?
What are  you, a baby? They  took Grandpa to the  police station  yesterday.
I've got to bring him something to eat."
     Still Petya did not understand.
     He had heard that drunkards, brawlers,  thieves and tramps were  locked
up in the police station. But  Gavrik's Grandpa? That was more than he could
grasp.
     Petya knew the old man very well, for he  had often visited  Gavrik  at
the beach.
     How many times  had Grandpa taken him out together with Gavrik to catch
bullheads!  How  many  times  had  he  treated  Petya to  his  very special,
fragrant,  smoky  tea,  always apologising, "But there's no sugar!" How many
times had he made  a sinker for Petya and shown him how  to attach it to his
fishing line!
     What funny  Ukrainian  proverbs he knew-proverbs  to fit every possible
occasion-how many stories about the Turkish war, how many soldiers' jokes!
     He would sit there with his legs crossed under him like a Turk, mending
his nets with a wooden needle especially whittled for that purpose, and tell
stories without  end. The  boys would  laugh so hard their insides ached. He
would  tell  the  story of  the  soldier who  boiled his  axe,  and  of  the
bombardier  who went to  heaven, and  of the orderly who so cleverly tricked
his drunken officer.
     Never in  his life had Petya  known such a delightful host, one who was
always glad to  tell a story but  who could listen to  others with  pleasure
too.
     When Petya let his imagination run wild and, waving his arms, told such
a  tall story  that a person's ears began to tingle,  Grandpa never turned a
hair. He would sit there, nodding gravely, and  remark, "All quite possible.
Might very easily have happened."
     And a man like that had been locked up! It was unbelievable!
     "But why? What for?"
     "Because."
     Gavrik  gave a deep, grown-up sigh.  He was silent for a while. Then he
quickly leaned close to his friend. "Listen," he whispered mysteriously.
     He proceeded to tell Petya what had happened the night before.
     To be sure, he did not tell the whole story. He  said not a .word about
the sailor  or  Terenti. The  way  he told  it,  three  strange men who were
running away from the  police had come  into their hut at night to hide. The
rest of the story was the truth.
     "Then that snake grabbed me by the ear, and I'll say he twisted it!"
     "Oh, I'd have given it to him! I'd  have shown him!" Petya shouted, his
eyes flashing. "I'd have given him a good lesson!"
     "Oh, shut up!" Gavrik said glumly. He took  a  firm grip on the peak of
Petya's cap and yanked it down over his face so that his ears jutted out.
     This accomplished, Gavrik  went on  with his  story. Petya  listened in
horror.
     "But who were they?" he asked when Gavrik had finished. "Robbers?"
     " 'Course not. I told you they were just ordinary men. Committee men."
     "What kind you say?"
     "Might as  well talk to a post  as tell you something! Committee men, I
tell you. From the Committee."
     Gavrik leaned still closer and said  in a  whisper that brought a smell
of onions to Petya's nostrils:
     "The ones who make strikes. From the Party. See?"
     "But why did the policemen beat Grandpa and lock him up?"
     Gavrik smiled scornfully.
     "Because he  hid them, stupid! Where are your brains? They'd have taken
me too only they can't because I'm a kid. You know what  you  get for hiding
somebody? It's terrible! But-"
     Gavrik glanced  round  and  said in a  whisper so  low that Petya could
hardly make it out:
     "But  you wait  and  see-he won't  stay  there  more  than a week. Soon
they'll go through the whole city raiding the police stations. They'll throw
every single one of those snakes into the Black Sea. May I never see a happy
day in all my life! By the true and holy Cross!"
     Gavrik  again spat  on  the ground. "Well, how  about it?" he said in a
businesslike tone.
     Petya raced home. Two minutes later he returned with six lumps of sugar
in his pocket and half of a wheaten loaf inside his sailor blouse.
     "That'll do," Gavrik said, counting the lumps and weighing the bread in
his hand. "Coming to the police station with me?"
     The  police  station, it goes without  saying,  was definitely  out  of
bounds, near though it was. As luck would have it, Petya was suddenly filled
with such a desire  to go to the police station that to describe it would be
impossible.
     Again there  was a fierce struggle with his conscience, a struggle that
lasted all the way to the police station.
     Conscience finally won  out,  but too late, for  the  boys were already
there.
     When Petya was with  Gavrik, things  and conceptions always  lost their
usual  aspect and  revealed no end  of  qualities that previously  had  been
hidden from  him. Near Mills was transformed from  a sad abode of widows and
orphans into a workers' settlement with purple  irises in the front gardens;
a policeman became a snake; a cap turned out to have a steel hoop in it.
     And now the police station.
     What  had it  been  in  Petya's mind up  until  now?  A big  government
building  on  the  corner of Richelieu and Novorybnaya streets, opposite the
St. Panteleimon  Church. Many  was  the time he had  ridden past  it  on the
horse-tram.
     The most important part of that building was its tall square tower with
the little fireman up at the top. Day  and night the fireman, in a sheepskin
coat, walked round the mast on the  small balcony, gazing out over the city.
Every time  Petya looked at the mast, which had a  crossbar, it reminded him
of a pair of scales or a  trapeze. There were always several ominous-looking
black balls hanging from it, and their number showed in which section of the
city there was a fire.  The city was so big that there  was certain to be  a
fire somewhere.
     At  the foot of the tower  stood  the headquarters of  the Odessa  fire
brigade. It consisted of a row of huge wrought -iron gates.
     To  the blare of  bugles,  teams of  four  wild dapple-greys  would fly
through  the gates  one after the  other, their  snow-white manes  and tails
streaming.
     The red fire-engines, sinister and yet somehow toy-like, sped  down the
street  accompanied by  the steady jangle of the bell. They left behind them
in  the air  orange  tongues  of flame  from the  torches, whose  light  was
reflected in  the  firemen's brass  helmets. The spectre of misfortune would
rise to haunt the careless city.
     Apart from that, the police station was in no way remarkable in Petya's
eyes.
     But  the  minute Gavrik came near, it  turned about,  as  though by the
touch of a magic wand, and showed the barred windows of a prison looking out
into an alley.
     The police station, it appeared, was simply a prison.
     "Wait here," said Gavrik.
     He ran across the damp pavement and slipped through the  gate unnoticed
by the policeman. Here, too, it appeared, Gavrik knew his way about.
     Petya remained alone in a small crowd  opposite the police station. The
people were relatives, and they  were talking across the street with the men
in the jail.
     Petya had never thought so many people  could be sitting  in  the jail.
There were at least a hundred of them.
     But they were hardly "sitting". Some stood on the windowsills, clinging
to the bars of the open windows; others looked out from behind  them, waving
their hands; still others jumped up  and down  trying to see the street over
the heads and the shoulders.
     To  Petya's amazement  there were  neither  thieves  nor  drunkards nor
tramps  among them. Just the opposite: plain, ordinary and quite respectable
people, like those to be seen every  day  near the station, in  Langeron, in
Alexandrovsky  Park, or riding in  the horse-tram.  There  were  even a  few
university students.  One  of them stood out especially because of the black
Caucasian felt cloak he  wore over a  white tunic with gold buttons. Cupping
his hands close to his haggard cheeks, he shouted to someone in the crowd in
a deafening, guttural  voice: "Tell the association that last night Comrades
Lordkipanidze, Krasikov, and Burevoi were summoned from their cells and told
to  take  their belongings with them.  Lordkipanidze, Krasikov, and Burevoi!
Last night! Organise a public protest! Regards to the comrades!"
     From another window a man  who reminded Petya of  Terenti, in a  jacket
and a Russian blouse with the collar unfastened, shouted: "Tell Seryozha  to
go to the office and collect my pay!"
     Other voices rang out, interrupting one another:
     "Don't trust Afanasyev! Do you hear? Don't trust Afanasyev!"
     "Kolka's in the Bulvarny jail!"
     "In a box behind the wardrobe at Pavel Ivanich's!"
     "Wednesday at the latest!"
     The relatives shouted too, raising  packages  and  children over  their
heads.
     One of the women held up a girl with earrings just like Motya's.
     "Don't worry about  us!" she cried. "People are helping us out! We have
enough to eat! See how healthy our Verochka looks."
     Now and then the policeman approached the crowd, gripping  the scabbard
of his sword with both hands.
     "Ladies and gentlemen, you are asked  not to stand opposite the windows
and not to talk to the prisoners."
     His  words  would  immediately  be  followed  by  deafening  cat-calls,
unbelievable  swearing  and  roars  from  the  windows.  Water-melon  rinds,
corn-cobs and cucumbers would fly at the policeman.
     "You snake!"
     "Gendarme!"
     "Go and fight the Japs!"
     With  his sword under his arm the  policeman  would stroll  unhurriedly
back to the gate, pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
     No, things in  the world  were definitely not going as smoothly as they
might seem at first glance!
     Gavrik returned downcast and angry.
     "Did you see Grandpa?"
     Gavrik  did not reply.  The boys walked away. Near  the railway station
Gavrik halted.
     "They beat him every  day," he said in a hollow voice,  wiping his eyes
with his ragged sleeve. "See you later."
     He turned away.
     "Where are you going?"
     "To Near Mills."
     Petya  made  his way home across  Kulikovo  Field. The  wind whipped up
clouds of dry and dreary dust.
     The boy's heart  was so heavy that even the flattened cartridge-case he
found on the way brought him no joy.

        30
     THE PREPARATORY CLASS

     Autumn came.
     Petya  was  now  attending   the  Gymnasium.  The  school  uniform  had
transformed  him from a tall, sunburned, long-legged boy in  lisle stockings
into a small, crop-haired, lop-eared  preparatory  class  pupil-in Gymnasium
slang, a "greenie".
     The long trousers and  uniform jacket, bought  for thirty-six rubles at
Landesman's Clothing Establishment, were baggy and highly uncomfortable. The
coarse collar chafed his tender neck accustomed to  the freedom of a  sailor
blouse.
     Even the belt, a real Gymnasium belt with a German silver buckle, which
had come after the cap  in  Petya's dreams,  fell  short of expectations. It
kept creeping up towards his  armpits,  the buckle slipped  to one side, and
the free end dangled like a tongue.
     The  belt did not give his  figure  the  manliness on  which he  had so
strongly counted. It was nothing more than a constant source of humiliation,
calling forth rude laughter from the grown-ups.
     On the other hand, a joy as great  as it was unexpected came during the
buying of the copybooks, textbooks and writing materials.
     What  a  difference  between  the  quiet, serious  book  shop  and  the
light-minded, silly shops in Richelieu Street or the Arcade! It was probably
an even more serious shop than the chemist's.  At any rate, it was much more
intellectual.
     The sign alone, a narrow, modest sign which said

        EDUCATION

     was enough to inspire the deepest respect.
     It  was on  a  dark autumn evening that Petya's father  took him to the
"Education" shop.
     They entered a drowsy realm of book-backs which in the light of the gas
jets  had  a greenish tinge and a sort of university flavour. On top of them
stood the  painted heads  of members of the four human races:  the Red,  the
Yellow, the Black, and the White.
     The first three heads conformed exactly to the races they were supposed
to represent. The Indian was as red  as could be. The Chinese as yellow as a
lemon. The Negro blacker than pitch.  The only one not entirely  true to his
name was  the specimen of the "master race": he was not white but a delicate
pink, with a long  blond beard. Petya stared enchanted  at  the  blue globes
with  their brass  meridians, the  black star  charts,  and the  terrifying,
startlingly bright anatomical charts.
     All the wisdom  of .the universe was concentrated in this  shop, and it
seemed to penetrate into  the very pores of the  customer.  Petya,  for one,
felt  remarkably  well educated  as he came home in the horse-tram, although
they  had spent no more than ten minutes in the  shop and  had  bought  five
little books in all, the thickest costing only forty-two kopeks.
     They had also bought a real satchel of calf-leather with the fur on the
outside and a small lunch basket.
     Then they had chosen a wonderful pencil-case with a transfer picture on
its sliding lacquered top. The top fit so tightly that when it was opened it
squeaked like a wooden peasant toybox. Petya put a  great  deal  of care and
taste  into filling all the sections  of  the case with the proper articles,
making a point of it that none remained empty.
     All  kinds of nibs went  into the  case: blue nibs  with three holes in
them, "Cossodo", "Rondo", "No. 86",  "Pushkin"  nibs with the curly  head of
the famous poet on them, and many others.
     Then there  was an india-rubber with an elephant drawn on it, a crayon,
two pencils, one for writing  and the  other for drawing, a penknife with  a
mother-of-pear] handle, an  expensive  penholder  (it cost 20  kopeks),  and
coloured pasting tabs, drawing pins, pins and pictures.
     And  all  these small, elegant implements  of study  were so absolutely
new, so shiny, and smelled so delightfully!
     The whole evening Petya  industriously covered his books  and copybooks
with special blue paper, pasting down the edges with tabs.
     He pasted lacy pictures in the corners of his blotters; glossy bouquets
and angels firmy held silk ribbons in place.
     On all the copybooks he neatly printed:

     This Copybook Is the Property
     of P. BATCHEI
     Preparatory Class Pupil, 0. 5 G.

     He could  hardly wait for morning to come. It was still almost dark and
the lamp was burning at home  when the boy ran off to the Gymnasium equipped
from head to foot as if off to the wars.
     Now not a  single department  of  learning  would be  able to withstand
Petya's onslaught! Three weeks of incredible patience, both at  home and  at
the Gymnasium, went into  improving his scholastic equipment. Time and again
he repasted  his pictures, replaced the  covers on his textbooks and changed
the  nibs  in  his  pencil-case,  striving  for  the  height  of beauty  and
perfection.
     And when Auntie Tatyana remarked,  "Hadn't you better do your lessons?"
Petya would groan in despair, "Oh, Auntie Tatyana, don't talk such nonsense!
How can I study when nothing is properly ready?"
     In a word, things were going splendidly.
     There  was only one cloud to  darken the joy of learning:  not once had
Petya been called upon to  recite,  and there was not a  single mark in  his
report-book. Nearly all  the  boys  in the  class had been  marked, but  not
Petya.
     Each Saturday he sorrowfully brought  home  his  unmarked  report-book,
sumptuously  wrapped in pink paper, pasted over  with gold and  silver stars
and  seals,  and decorated  with  coloured  book-marks.  But  then  came the
Saturday when Petya dashed into the dining-room, his coat still on, his face
aglow. He waved his handsome report-book  in the air, shouting at the top of
his  lungs, "Auntie Tatyana!  Pavlik! Dunya! Come quick! I've got marks! Oh,
what a pity Daddy's still at school!"
     Triumphantly he tossed his  report-book on  the table  and then stepped
away in modest pride, so as not to interfere with their contemplation of his
marks.
     "Well, well!"  exclaimed Auntie,  running into the  dining-room  with a
dress-pattern in her hand. "Let's see your marks."
     She picked up the report-book and quickly scanned it.
     "Religion-Poor;         Russian-Poor;        arithmetic-Unsatisfactory;
attention-Satisfactory; diligence-Fair," she read in surprise. She shook her
head  reproachfully.  "I  don't see what you're so happy about.  Nothing but
Poors here."
     Petya stamped his foot in annoyance.
     "I knew it!" he cried,  fairly  weeping from resentment. "Why can't you
understand, Auntie Tatyana?  The important thing is that  there  are  marks!
Marks, don't you see?
     But you simply don't want to understand! It's always that way!"
     Petya angrily snatched up his treasured report-book and ran outside  to
show his marks to the boys.
     With  this ended the first stage of Petya's studies-the festive period.
It was followed by cheerless, humdrum days of cramming.
     Gavrik stopped coming to  see  him, and Petya, busy  with his Gymnasium
studies, almost forgot his existence.
     For a time, Gavrik,  too,  forgot  Petya's existence.  He was living at
Near Mills now, with Terenti.
     Grandpa was still  in  prison. He  was kept part  of  the  time in  the
Alexandrovsky jail and the  other  part in the Secret  Police Department, to
which he was often driven at night by carriage. It was evident  that the old
man knew how to hold his tongue, for the police were not disturbing Terenti.
     Exactly where the sailor was Gavrik did not know, and  he did not think
it necessary  to ask  Terenti. Certain signs, however,  led him to  conclude
that the sailor was in safe hiding somewhere in the vicinity.
     For were there not  nooks and corners aplenty in Near Mills where a man
might lie low, might vanish  as  in thin air? And were there not numbers  of
men who were lying low for the time being in the Near Mills district?
     But Gavrik made it a rule never to stick  his nose into  other people's
affairs. Besides, he had enough troubles of his own.
     Terenti's family was having a hard time making ends  meet. The  railway
workers were on strike almost all the time. Terenti  made a  little money by
doing odd  locksmith's jobs  at home, but there  were not many of those jobs
and,  besides, a good deal of his time  was taken up by urgent matters which
were only hinted at in the family circle.
     Terenti did  not  seem to belong to himself. Men would  come for him in
the middle  of  the night, and without saying a  word he would  dress and go
off, sometimes for days.
     People were  always arriving at the house. The teakettle had to  be put
on  for  them and  gruel prepared. There were  always  muddy  tracks in  the
passage  those autumn days; the room was filled with clouds of cheap tobacco
smoke.
     Gavrik's conscience would not allow  him to be a burden on his brother,
who had a family to provide for, and so he had to make his own living. After
all, he wasn't a child! Besides, he had  to  have food to take to Grandpa in
jail. Fishing,  of course, was  out of the  question without Grandpa.  Then,
too, the weather had turned bad, with storms blowing every other day.
     Gavrik went down to  the beach, hauled the boat over to  a neighbour's,
and hung the padlock on the door of the hut.
     From morning  to  night he now wandered about the city in Terenti's old
boots, looking for ways of  earning his daily bread. Begging would of course
have been  the easiest way out.  But Gavrik  was  ready to  die  rather than
stretch out  a  hand for alms. The very thought of  it  made his fisherman's
blood boil.
     No!  He  was  accustomed  to earning  his bread by  working. He carried
cooks' baskets home from the market for two kopeks. He helped the loaders at
the Odessa Goods Station. He would run to the spirits shop  to get vodka for
coachmen  who, under penalty  of  a fine,  were not allowed  to leave  their
horses.
     When he  was hungry and unable to find work of any kind, he would go to
the cemetery chapel and wait for a burial, in order to receive  in his cap a
handful of  kolevo, that funeral dish of cooked rice sprinkled with powdered
sugar and decorated with lilac-coloured sweets.
     The  distribution  of  kolevo  at funeral  was an old  custom, and  the
cemetery beggars took advantage of it. Some of them even grew fat on it. But
since kolevo was eaten not only by  the beggars but by all who  attended the
funeral,  Gavrik did  not  feel  it  beneath  him to  take  advantage  of so
convenient a custom.  The more so since the sweets he came by could be taken
to  Terenti's children  as  gifts-and without  gifts  Gavrik did not feel it
proper to return home for the night.
     Sometimes Terenti asked him to take a parcel  to an address that had to
be learned  by heart and  could under no circumstances be put down on paper.
Gavrik liked  these  errands very much, for they clearly had some connection
with the affairs that kept Terenti so busy.
     The parcel, usually a roll of papers, Gavrik would thrust  deep down in
his pocket and then press flat so  that  it did not show. He knew that if he
was caught he was to say he had found it.
     After finding the person for whom it was intended he had to be  sure to
say at first, "How  do you  do? Sophia Ivanovna sends you her regards."  The
person would reply,  "How  is Sophia Ivanovna's health?" Only then could  he
hand over  the parcel. Very often the person, after taking the parcel, would
give him a whole ten-kopek piece "for tram fare".
     How much terror and fun there was in those errands!
     Finally, Gavrik  earned  money by  playing  "lugs",  a  game  that  had
recently come into fashion not only among children but among adults as well.
Lugs  was  the name given  to the  buttons from  uniforms worn by government
employees, with the links bent in.
     In broad outline, the game went as follows: the players  put their lugs
on the  ground, wrong side  up, and  then, one after the other,  threw their
king-lug  at them,  the  object being  to make the lugs turn  right side up.
Every time a player managed to turn over a lug it became his.
     Lugs  was  neither more difficult nor more interesting  than any  other
street  game, but  it had a devilish  attraction  all its own: the lugs cost
money. They  could  always  be  bought and  sold, and  they  were quoted  at
definite rates on the street exchange.
     Gavrik  played  a  brilliant  game of  lugs.  His  throw  was firm  and
accurate, and his eye was keen. He soon became  famous as a champion player.
His pouch was always filled with superior, expensive lugs. When affairs took
an especially bad turn he would sell a part of his supply.
     But his pouch never remained empty. The very next day he would win even
more lugs than he had sold.
     What to others  was an amusement thus became, for Gavrik, a  profitable
trade. There was no other way out. One had to make a living somehow.

        31
     THE BOX ON THE GUN CARRIAGE

     Big events were  approaching. Seemingly at a snail's pace, but actually
with the terrifying speed of an express train.
     How well  did Gavrik, a resident  of Near Mills,  know that  feeling of
awaiting the flying express train!
     . . .The train is still far away, neither to be seen nor heard, but the
steady tinkling of the signal bell at the Odessa Goods Station announced its
approach.  The line is clear. The arm of the semaphore  is raised. The rails
are shiny and immobile. There is not a sound.  But everyone  now knows  that
the train is coming and that no power on earth can stop it.
     At the crossing, the barrier slowly drops. The  boys scramble up on the
station fence.  A  flock  of  birds takes off  from  the trees in alarm  and
circles above the water tower. From up there they can probably see the train
already.
     Out of the distance  comes the  faint sound of a pointsman's  horn. And
now into the silence there  trickles the faintest of noises. No, not a noise
but  rather its presentiment, a delicate quivering of the rails as they fill
with inaudible sound. There  is this quivering, then  a  sound,  and  then a
noise.
     Now the train can clearly  be heard: it is  slowly breathing out steam,
and each breath is louder than the one before it.
     All the same, it is hard  to believe  that  the  express will be flying
past  in  another  minute.  But then  suddenly,  unexpectedly,  the  engine,
enveloped  in  a  cloud of steam, comes into  sight ahead. It  seems  to  be
standing still at the end of the avenue of green trees.
     Yes, it must have stopped.
     But if so, why is  it  growing so enormously bigger with each  instant?
However, now there is no longer time to answer the question.
     Belching steam sidewise, the express flies past in a dizzying whirlwind
of wheels, windows, doors, steps, couplings, buffers. . . .
     Gavrik, who spent his days roaming through the  city, could not  but be
aware  of  the  approach  of  events.  They  were  still  somewhere  on  the
way-halfway between St. Petersburg  and Odessa, perhaps-but into the silence
of  expectation there  was  already  trickling  the  sound  of  irresistible
movement, not so much heard as sensed.
     Swaying on their new crutches, the wounded, their  faces overgrown with
beards, hobbled along the streets. They wore shaggy Manchurian fur caps  and
the  St.  George Cross  was pinned  to  the  army  coats  slung  over  their
shoulders.
     Factory  workers who  arrived from Central  Russia brought rumours of a
general strike. In the crowds  near the police stations there  was  talk  of
violence. In  the crowds  near the  university and the women's college there
was talk  of freedom.  In the crowds near the Ghen factory there was talk of
an armed uprising.
     On a day in late  September  a big white ship steamed into the  harbour
carrying the  body  of  General Kondratenko, who  had been  killed  at  Port
Arthur.
     For almost a year the huge box, containing a leaden coffin and weighing
nearly a ton, had travelled foreign lands and seas before it finally reached
its homeland.
     In the port it was placed on a  gun carriage and driven along the broad
avenues of Odessa to the railway station.
     Gavrik watched the sombre  procession. The pale September  sun fell  on
the funeral vestments of the  priests, on the  cavalry, the police in  white
gloves, the crepe ribbons on the street gas lamps.
     Torch-bearers in black three-cornered hats  edged  with silver  carried
glass lanterns on poles, and the pale  flames  of the candles could scarcely
be seen in the daylight.
     Army bands  played uninterruptedly but  with  painful  slowness,  their
music mingling with the chanting of the cathedral choir.
     Harmonious  but so  insufferably  high  as  to  be  almost shrill,  the
melancholy children's voices floated up tremulously to the arches  of wilted
acacia trees. Pale  sunshine  filtered through  the lilac clouds of incense.
Slowly-oh, so slowly!-the gun carriage,  and the huge black box covered with
wreaths  and  ribbons high on top  of it, moved down  the middle of  Pushkin
Street between lines of soldiers towards the railway station.
     As the procession came  level with the garden in front of the station a
university student sprang up on the iron fence. Waving above his shaggy head
a  faded  student cap  with a band  that  had  once been blue,  he  shouted:
"Comrades!"
     In that vast silent crowd  his voice seemed weak, scarcely audible. But
the  word  he had shouted-"Comrades"-was  so incredible,  so  unfamiliar, so
challenging that it was  heard by all, and every  single head  turned in the
direction of the little figure clinging to the massive fence.
     "Comrades!  Remember  Port  Arthur!  Remember  Tsushima!  Remember  the
bloodshed of  January  the 9th. The Tsar  and  his underlings  have  brought
Russia to  unbelievable  shame, to unprecedented  ruin and poverty!  But the
great Russian people carry on  and will continue to  carry on! Down with the
autocracy!"
     Policemen  had already laid hands on  the student but  he clung to  the
fence and, waving his cap, shouted quickly, frenziedly, determined to finish
his speech:
     "Down with the autocracy! Long live liberty! Long live the re-"
     Gavrik saw him dragged down and led away. The tolling  of bells floated
over the city. The hoofs of the cavalry horses clattered on the pavement.
     General  Kondratenko's  coffin  was placed in a funeral carriage of the
St. Petersburg train. The bands  crashed into  their  final notes. "Pre-sent
a-a-arms!" The train pulled out.
     Slowly the funeral carriage  sailed past the fence of gleaming bayonets
held at attention, carrying the black box with the cross on the lid past the
Odessa Goods Station,  past the suburbs  sprinkled with  motionless  crowds,
past  the silent  stations  and flag-stations-moving  across  the  whole  of
Russia, northwards to  St.  Petersburg. Together  with this train of sorrow,
the spectre of the lost war moved across Russia.
     During those few days it  seemed to Petya as  if there had been a death
in  the house. Everyone walked about softly.  No one spoke much. A  crumpled
handkerchief lay on Auntie  Tatyana's toilet table. Immediately after dinner
Father silently put a green shade over the lamp and sat correcting copybooks
until late at night, every now and then dropping his pince-nez and polishing
the lenses with the lining of his jacket.
     Petya became  a quiet  lad.  Instead of the circles and  cones  of  his
homework  he sketched in his drawing-book the  Battle of Turenchen  and  the
sharp-nosed cruiser Retvizan surrounded by fountains of water from exploding
Japanese mines. Pavlik alone was irrepressible. He would harness Kudlatka to
a chair  turned upside  down and,  blowing furiously on a painted  tin horn,
drag "Kondratenko's funeral" up and down the passage.
     As he was getting ready  for  bed one night, Petya heard  the voices of
Father and Auntie Tatyana from the dining-room.
     "Life  is  unbearable,  simply  unbearable!" Auntie Tatyana was  saying
through her nose, as  though she had a cold,  although Petya knew very  well
she didn't.
     He paused to listen.
     "It's literally impossible to breathe!"  Auntie Tatyana went on,  tears
in her voice. "Really,  don't  you feel it, Vasili Petrovich? In their place
I'd be ashamed  to look people in the face.  But they-my God!-they act as if
everything were as it should be. I was walking down the French Boulevard and
I  couldn't believe  my eyes. A  gorgeous turnout:  dapple-grey  trotters, a
landau driven by a soldier  wearing white gloves. All glitter and dazzle. In
the carriage sat  two ladies  in  white  nurses' caps with  red  crosses, in
velvet  and sable  cloaks, with  diamonds  this size on  their fingers,  and
lorgnettes, and painted eyebrows, and eyes shining from belladonna. Opposite
them  were two  elegant  adjutants,  their  swords  like  mirrors, and  with
cigarette holders between their glistening white teeth.  And oh how  gay and
merry! Now,  who do you think  they  were? Madam Caulbars  and her  daughter
driving out to  Arcadia  with their admirers,  while all Russia is literally
drenched  in  blood  and  tears! What do you  say  to  that?  Just  think of
it-diamonds  that size! And where did they get them? They  stole and robbed,
and stuffed their pockets! Ugh, how I hate all that-forgive my frankness-all
that  scum! While three-quarters  of the country are starving; while  entire
districts are dying out.
     I can't stand it any longer! I haven't the strength! Can't you see?"
     Petya heard passionate sobbing.
     "Calm yourself, Tatyana Ivanovna. But what can we do? What can we do?"
     "How should I know? Protest, demand, shout, go into the streets-"
     "I beg you-I understand-but tell me, what can we do?"
     "What can we  do?" Auntie Tatyana  exclaimed suddenly in  a high, clear
voice. "Everything! If we only want to  and aren't afraid. We can  tell  the
scoundrel to his face that he is  a scoundrel, the thief that he is a thief,
the coward that he is a coward. But instead we stay at home and keep silent.
My God,  my God, it's horrible to think of what unfortunate Russia  has come
to! Stupid generals, stupid ministers, a stupid Tsar."
     "Please, Tatyana Ivanovna, the children will hear!"
     "Splendid!  Let  them know the kind  of  country  they live in. They'll
thank  us  for  it  later.  Let  them know that  their Tsar  is a fool and a
drunkard,  who's  been  beaten  over the head with a bamboo cane, besides. A
degenerate!  And  the finest men in  the country, the  most honest, the most
educated, the cleverest, are rotting in prison, in penal servitude-"
     Father tiptoed into the nursery  to see if the  boys were asleep. Petya
closed his eyes and breathed deeply and evenly. Father bent over him, kissed
him on  the  cheek with trembling lips, and tiptoed out of the room, closing
the door tight behind him.
     But the voices filtered in from the dining-room for a long time.
     Petya could not fall asleep. Back and forth across  the  ceiling  moved
bars of light from the street. Hoofs clattered. The windows rattled faintly.
     It seemed to the boy that the  glittering landau of Madam Caulbars, the
woman who  had stolen so much money and so many diamonds from  the  treasury
(the treasury was a wrought-iron box on wheels),  was driving back and forth
beneath the window.

        32
     FOG

     That  evening,  many  things Petya  had  never  before  suspected  were
revealed to him.
     Before, there  had  been  certain  conceptions  so  well  known and  so
indisputable that there was never any reason to think about them.
     For  example,  Russia.  It  had  always   been  perfectly   clear   and
indisputable that Russia was the best, the strongest, and the most beautiful
country in the world. How, otherwise, could one  explain the  fact that they
lived in Russia?
     Or Father. Father was the cleverest, the  kindest, the  most manly, and
the most educated person in the world.
     Or the  Tsar. The  Tsar was  the  Tsar. It went without saying that the
Tsar was  the wisest, the richest,  and the most powerful man in  the world.
How, otherwise, could one explain the fact that Russia belonged to  him  and
not to some other tsar or king, say the French king?
     And then, of course, there was God. About him absolutely nothing had to
be said because everything was so clear.
     But  now?  It  suddenly turned  out that  Russia was  unfortunate, that
besides  Father there were others who were the finest men in the country and
were  rotting in penal servitude, that  the Tsar was a  fool and  a drunkard
and, besides,  had been  beaten over the head  with a bamboo cane. On top of
all that, the ministers were stupid, the generals were stupid, and it turned
out that  Russia  had not defeated Japan-although up until now there had not
been the slightest doubt that it had-but just the opposite.
     But  the  main thing was that it was  Father and Auntie Tatyana who had
been  talking about  all this. Lately, though, Petya had begun to  suspect a
thing or two himself.
     Decent, sober  folk were  put in jail. The police had even locked  up a
wonderful  old man like  Gavrik's  grandfather, and were beating him, what's
more.  The sailor  had jumped off the ship. Soldiers had stopped  the coach.
There were guards posted at  the port. The trestle  bridge had burnt down. A
battleship had shelled the city.
     No,  it  was quite obvious that life was not at all the gay,  pleasant,
carefree thing it had been just the very shortest while ago.
     Petya was dying to ask Auntie Tatyana who  had beaten the Tsar over the
head with a bamboo cane, and why. Especially, why with a bamboo cane? But he
already understood that there were  things better not spoken of, that it was
better  to keep silent and pretend to know nothing. The more so since Auntie
remained her good-natured, bantering,  competent self, in no way showing the
feelings she had so openly revealed on that one evening.
     October was approaching.
     The acacia trees were almost bare of leaves. Storms raged at sea.
     You had to have the lamp on when you got up and dressed.
     For weeks at a time fog lay over the city. In the fog, people and trees
looked like drawings on frosted glass.
     Lamps put out at nine in the morning were lighted again at  five in the
afternoon. It  drizzled. At times  the rain stopped, the wind blew  away the
fog, and then a red  dawn flamed  for a long time  in a sky as clear as ice,
beyond the  railway station,  beyond  the market, beyond the  spikes  of the
fences, beyond  the bare branches of the trees, thickly peppered with crows'
nests as big and black as Manchurian fur caps.
     Hands froze without  gloves. The earth hardened. A terrifying emptiness
and transparency hung over the garrets. In those brief hours silence reigned
everywhere from  earth  to sky. The city was cut off from  Kulikovo Field by
the  transparent wall of silence. It had moved infinitely far away, with its
alarming rumours, its  secrets, its  anticipation of events  to come. It was
clearly visible, in sharp focus; at  the same time it was dreadfully remote,
as though seen through the wrong end of the opera-glasses.
     But then the  weather changed, the sky grew dark, and  an  impenetrable
fog  moved in from  the sea. Nothing  was visible two paces away.  The dark,
weird evening was followed by a black night.
     A  raw  wind  blew  from  the  sea.  From   the  port  came  the  dark,
awe-inspiring  voice  of  the foghorn.  It  began with bass  notes  and then
suddenly rose in a  chromatic scale, at dizzying speed, to a penetrating but
smooth wail of inhuman pitch. It was as if  a death-dealing  projectile were
tearing through the murky sky with a blood-curdling wail.
     On such evenings Petya  could not overcome a feeling of horror whenever
he  approached  the  window,  opened the  shutters, and looked out  into the
street.
     The vast, wild expanse of Kulikovo Field was pitch-dark. It merged with
the city in the foggy gloom, sharing its mysteries, mysteries that seemed to
be stealing silently from street lamp to street lamp, muffled in fog.
     The shadows of rare pedestrians glided past. Occasionally a policeman's
whistle sounded, faint and long drawn out. A double watch of sentries was on
duty at the  Army Staff building.  The heavy tread  of a patrol came through
the darkness.
     There might  be someone lying  in  wait at every  corner. At any moment
something might happen-something unforeseen and terrible.
     One evening something actually did happen.
     At about ten o'clock Dunya, who had gone to the shop for paraffin, came
running into the dining-room,  without  taking off her shawl  and said  that
five minutes ago a sentry had shot himself in  the vacant lot, near the wall
of the  Army Staff  building. She  related the gory details: the soldier had
taken off one of his boots, put the muzzle of his gun in his mouth, and then
pulled the  trigger with his  big toe. The back of  his head was blown  off.
Dunya  stood  there, pale  as death, with ashen  lips, nervously  tying  and
untying a knot in the fringe of her woolly shawl.
     "They say he didn't  even leave a note," she said after a long silence.
"That's awful. Probably he couldn't write."
     Auntie Tatyana pressed her knuckles against her temples as  hard as she
could.
     "Oh, why talk of a note!" she exclaimed, tears of vexation in her eyes.
She laid  her head  on the table-cloth beside a saucer of  tea in  which the
swaying dining-room lamp with its white shade was reflected in every detail,
but in miniature. "Why talk of a note! The thing is clear enough as it is!"
     From the  kitchen  window, which looked  out  on the vacant lot,  Petya
watched the roaming lamps of an ambulance and the shadows of people.
     The boy  sat on the icy windowsill in the empty kitchen, trembling with
fear and cold, his face pressed to the rain-washed windowpane. He was unable
to  tear  his eyes away from the  darkness, which still seemed to  be filled
with the presence of death.
     That night Petya could not fall asleep  for a long time. He kept seeing
in his  imagination  the terrifying corpse of the barefoot  soldier in  full
sentry  kit, with  the  back  of his head  shattered  and  his face blue and
mysteriously immobile.
     But the  next morning,  despite the horror,  he  could  not  resist the
temptation of having a look at the terrible spot.
     An  inexplicable force drew  him to the  vacant lot. On his way  to the
Gymnasium  he turned  off in  that  direction and  cautiously,  as though in
church, tiptoed across the grass, wet and  rotting from the rain and fog, up
in the place where a few curious people were already standing.
     Near  the wall of the Army Staff building he saw, in the damp earth,  a
dent the size of a human head. It was full  of rain water  tinted pink.  The
dead soldier's head must have struck that spot.
     That was the only trace of what had happened the evening before.
     Petya raised the collar of his Gymnasium  overcoat. Shivering  from the
dampness in the air, he stood for some  time gazing at the dent. Suddenly he
noticed  a  small disc on  the ground  near his  feet. He picked  it up  and
trembled with  joy.  It was  a five-kopek piece, black  and  spotted, with a
turquoise mould covering the place where the eagle should have been.
     Naturally, the find was  accidental and had  no  bearing whatsoever  on
what had taken place. The coin  had probably lain there since summer. It may
have  been lost by factory workers playing  pitch-and-toss, or  it  may have
fallen out of the pocket  of  some beggar woman who spent the  night in  the
bushes. However,  the  coin  immediately  acquired  in  the  boy's  eyes  an
importance  bordering on the magic, and  this besides the fact that here was
wealth: an entire five kopeks!
     Petya's  father never  gave him money,  feeling that money might easily
corrupt him. So that finding the  five-kopek piece raised  Petya to  seventh
heaven.
     That day, magically brightened by the find, was one P long  holiday for
the boy.
     In  class the coin passed from hand  to hand. Among  Petya's classmates
there were lads experienced in such matters, and they swore, turning towards
the cupola  of the St. Panteleimon Church and  crossing themselves,  that it
was  without any doubt a  magic  five-kopek  piece, a younger brother of the
magic  ruble  in the fairy-tale. It  should bring Petya unbelievable riches,
they said.
     One of the boys even  offered his lunch, together with his lunch basket
and a penknife  thrown  in, in  exchange  for the  talisman. Petya naturally
refused with a scornful laugh. Only a  total idiot would have agreed to such
an exchange!
     After school Petya raced home. He had  to show his  find to one and all
at home and in the yard as soon as possible.
     What was his joy when he saw Gavrik in the yard!
     Gavrik was on his  knees,  surrounded by a group of squatting children.
He was teaching them the popular game of lugs.
     Petya hardly had time to give his friend, whom he had not seen for such
a long time, a proper  greeting before he was caught up by the  game.  First
they played  a trial  game,  using Gavrik's lugs. This merely fanned Petya's
excitement.
     "Gavrik, lend me ten of them,"  he  begged, stretching out a  hand that
trembled  with impatience. "As soon as I  win I'll pay you back, by the true
and holy Cross I will!"
     "Hands  off! I've heard that  tale  before," Gavrik replied  darkly. He
dropped  the lugs into his grey baize pouch and neatly  tied it with a piece
of string. "Lugs aren't pictures. They cost money. I can sell  you  some  if
you like."
     Petya did not take the slightest offence. He understood very well  that
friendship was one thing but that every game had its inviolable rules. Since
lugs cost money you had to pay money for them, and friendship had nothing to
do with the matter. Such was the iron law of the street.
     But what was he to do?
     He was dying to play. A storm of indecision shook him. For no more than
a minute he hesitated,  then reached into his pocket and held out the famous
five-kopek piece to Gavrik.
     Gavrik  gave the suspicious-looking  coin  a thorough  examination  and
shook his head.
     "Nobody'll take it."
     "They will too!"
     "No, they won't!"
     "You're a fool!"
     "You're another! Take it to the shop and change it!"
     "Go yourself."
     "Why should I! It's your money."
     "They're your lugs."
     "I don't care if you buy any or not."
     "Neither do I."
     Gavrik calmly put the bag  in  his pocket and spat indifferently far to
one side through his teeth. At that Petya ran to the shop  and asked to have
his five-kopek piece changed. While Izzy  the Dizzy held the suspicious coin
up  close  to  his  weak eyes  the  boy lived through a  score  of  the most
humiliating emotions, chief among them the  cowardly impatience of the thief
selling stolen goods.
     It wouldn't  have surprised Petya  at all  if at  that moment policemen
with swords had marched into the shop and dragged  him off to the  jail in a
carriage for being a party to some secret and shameful crime.
     At last Izzy the Dizzy threw  the coin into the cashbox and  carelessly
tossed  five one-kopek pieces on the scales. Petya rushed  back to the yard,
where Gavrik was now selling lugs to the other boys. Spending all his money,
Petya bought several lugs of different denominations.
     They began to play. Petya forgot everything in the world.
     By  the  time darkness fell, Petya was  left without a single lug. What
made  it  still more awful  was  the fact that at the beginning he  had  had
amazing luck-there had been no room in  his pockets for all the lugs he  had
won.
     But now, alas, he had neither money nor lugs.
     Petya was close  to tears. He was in the depths of despair. Gavrik took
pity on  his  friend, and lent him two cheap  lugs with which to recoup  his
losses. But Petya was too reckless and impatient, and within five minutes he
had lost both. He was no match for Gavrik.
     Gavrik  carelessly dropped his fabulous winnings into his pouch and set
off for home, saying that he would come again the next day.

        33
     LUGS

     How many of them there were!
     The  fat student  tens  with  superimposed eagles  riveted on them. The
golden  officers' fives  with the  eagles embossed. The brown buttons of the
commercial school with Mercury's wand entwined by snakes and with the cheeky
little  winged  cap.  The  light-coloured  mariners'  buttons  with  crossed
anchors. The post-and-telegraph ones  with  green  streaks  of lightning and
bugles. The artillery  men's buttons with guns on them. The lawyers' buttons
with columns of laws. The brass livery buttons as big as a fifty-kopek piece
and  decorated with lions. The fat threes from civil servants' uniforms. The
thin clerks' "lemons"  which  hummed  like  mosquitoes when they were struck
during the  game. The fat  ordinary  buttons  from  Gymnasium overcoats with
silver-plated hollows rubbed red in the middle.
     For one brief and happy moment all these fabulous treasures, the entire
heraldry of the Russian Empire, were concentrated in Petya's hands.
     His palms could still feel  the different shapes  of the lugs and their
solid leaden weight, but now he was completely bankrupt, ruined, cast to the
winds. Who had talked about a magic five-kopek piece?!
     Lugs, and nothing but lugs-that was all  Petya could think of now. They
were constantly before his eyes, like the dream vision of a  fortune. At the
dinner  table he gazed absently into his plate of soup, where at least three
hundred tiny lamp-shades were reflected in the globules of fat, but what  he
saw were three hundred sparkling lugs with golden eagles.
     He looked  in disgust at the buttons on his father's  jacket. They were
cloth-covered. Absolutely worthless.
     In fact,  today  he had discovered that he lived in a  poverty-stricken
family; there was not a single decent button in the whole flat.
     Auntie Tatyana immediately noticed her nephew's strange mood.
     "What's  the  matter  with  you  today?" she  asked,  examining Petya's
unusually excited face with a searching glance. "The boys in the yard didn't
go for you, by any chance?"
     Petya shook his head angrily.
     "Or is it poor marks in school again? If so, out with it, but don't sit
there suffering."
     "Leave me alone! I don't see why you all have to pick on me!"
     "You aren't ill by any chance, are you?"
     "Oh, lor'!"
     Petya began to whimper at all this questioning.
     "Very well. If you don't want to tell me you needn't. Suffer as much as
you like."
     Petya really was  suffering. He was racking his brains for a way to get
the money he needed  for next  day's  game. He slept badly, tormented by the
desire  to  recoup his  losses as  quickly as  possible. In  the  morning he
decided upon a subtle scheme.
     For a long time he hovered affectionately at his  father's side, poking
his head up under his  father's elbow and planting  kisses on his red porous
neck,  which had  a fresh, soapy smell. Father stroked the little  scholar's
stubbly head and pressed it to the jacket with the disgusting buttons.
     "What is it, Petya, what is it, my little man?"
     That  was just the  question Petya  had been waiting for,  that and the
gentle  tremor in  his father's  voice, telling him  that now  he could  get
whatever he wanted.
     "Daddy,"  he  said,  squirming  and adjusting  his  belt  with  feigned
shyness, "Daddy, I want five kopeks."
     "What for?" Even in  his gentlest moods Father never lost  sight of his
strict principles of upbringing.
     "I need it badly."
     "You must tell my why."
     "I need it, that's all."
     "But tell me why. I must know how you  plan to spend that sum of money.
If it's for  something  useful and necessary I shall  be glad to  give it to
you, but if  it's for something bad I shan't.  So tell  me now. What  do you
need the money for?"
     How could  Petya tell Father  that  he needed the money to gamble with?
That was quite out of the question.
     So  he  pulled the  frank expression  of a well-mannered boy  who wants
something for his sweet tooth.
     "I'll buy some chocolate," he mumbled.
     "Chocolate? Splendid! I could hardly object to that."
     Petya beamed.
     Father  rose and without a  word  walked over to the desk. He opened it
and handed the stunned boy a bar of chocolate with a picture on the wrapper.
The wrapper  was  sealed like  an envelope,  with five blobs of sealing  wax
printed on it.
     Petya took the chocolate, tears in his eyes.
     "Thank you, Daddy dear," he mumbled.
     He set off for the Gymnasium with a broken heart.
     Still, it was better than nothing. Perhaps he would be able to swap the
chocolate for some lugs.
     That day, however, Petya had no opportunity to play lugs.
     Hardly had  he passed Kulikovo Field and entered Novorybnaya Street, in
which  the  Gymnasium  stood,  when  he  noticed  that  some  very  special,
important, and extremely joyous event was taking place in the city.
     Despite the early  hour the streets were full  of people.  All of  them
looked very excited and alert,  although none seemed to be in a hurry to get
anywhere. Most of the  people were standing  in groups near the  gateways of
houses or had gathered round the book-stalls  on the street corners.  On all
sides Petya saw people unfolding newspapers which turned an even greyer grey
in the fine drizzle.
     The national flag of  white, blue, and red had been hung out on all the
houses. By  looking at the flags Petya could guess how rich the householders
were. Some flags were small and faded, with short staffs carelessly attached
to  the gateways.  Others  were huge  and  brand-new, and  had an  edging of
tricoloured cord with elaborate tricoloured tassels reaching all  the way to
the pavement.
     The wind had a hard time of  it to  stir those heavy flags,  which gave
off a distinct odour of dye.
     The Gymnasium was closed. Happy-faced schoolboys  were running down the
street in Petya's direction. The Gymnasium porter, in a white apron over his
winter coat with a  sheepskin collar,  was stringing a  thin  wire among the
trees in front  of  the building. That meant there would be illuminations in
the  evening! There were always illuminations  on holidays, for instance, on
the namedays of His Majesty the Emperor and the members of the royal family.
     In Petya's imagination the three magic words "illuminations", "holiday"
and "nameday" were like the  three facets  of a glass lustre  from a  church
chandelier. Such pendants  had a high value among  the boys of Odessa.  When
you put  the small prism to your eye, the whole world became bright with the
patriotic rainbow of the " Tsar's day .
     But was this a "Tsar's day"? No, it wasn't.  One  always knew when they
were coming by the calendar, and the number  on Father's  calendar today was
black, which meant neither illuminations nor a holiday nor a royal nameday.
     In that case, what was  it all about? Could another heir have been born
to the Tsar, like last year? No, that was impossible. He couldn't have a boy
every year, could he? So it must be something else. But what?
     "I say there, what's today?" Petya asked the porter.
     "Freedom," the porter replied in what to Petya seemed a jesting tone.
     "No, really."
     "Just what I said-freedom."
     "Freedom?"
     "Freedom  to go home today because  there won't be any lessons. They're
cancelled."
     Petya's feelings were hurt.
     "Listen here, porter, I want a straight answer," he said sternly, doing
his best to uphold the dignity of a pupil of the Odessa Fifth Gymnasium.
     "That's just what I gave  you. And  now go home to your  loving parents
and stop bothering a man who has work to do."
     With a  scornful  shrug  of his shoulders Petya  nonchalantly sauntered
away from this porter who  had developed  the disgusting habit of addressing
pupils in the tone of a pedagogue.
     The  policeman to whom,  as a  representative of  the government, Petya
decided to  address his question, looked  the swarthy little boy up and down
and slowly stroked his long red moustaches.
     Then all of  a sudden  he screwed up  his  face  in a typically  Jewish
expression and said with an accent, "Frid'm!"
     Thoroughly crushed, Petya slowly made his way home.
     More and more people were  coming out into the streets. Here  and there
Petya  saw  student  caps, the astrakhan  muffs  of college  girls  and  the
broad-brimmed hats of free-thinkers. Several times again he heard the rather
hazy word "freedom".
     At the corner of Kanatnaya Street his attention was attracted by a knot
of people gathered round a sheet of paper pasted on the  wooden fence of the
firewood yard.
     He made his way forward, and this is what he read:

        SUPREME MANIFESTO

     We, Nikolai the Second,
     by the Grace of God Emperor
     and Autocrat of All the Russias,
     Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland,
     and so on and so forth.
     Riots and disturbances in the capital  cities and in many other  places
of Our Empire have filled Our heart  with great and heavy grief. The weal of
the Russian  Sovereign  is indivisible  from  the weal of  the  people;  the
people's grief  is His grief. The disturbances that have  now broken out may
lead to a profound dislocation of the nation and  may threaten the integrity
and unity of Our State.
     The great oath  of  Royal service  enjoins  Us to strive, with  all the
powers of  Our reason  and authority, for the  earliest  termination  of the
disturbances so dangerous to the State. . . .

     Petya  managed  to  get that  far, but not without  some difficulty; he
stumbled  over  such  strange  and  hazy  words  as  "weal",  "dislocation",
"enjoins" and "earliest termination", and also  the  large number of capital
letters; contrary to  all  rules of  spelling,  they stuck  up  in  the most
unexpected places, like charred stumps after a forest fire.
     The  only thing he could  make  out  of it all  was that the  Tsar  was
evidently in  trouble  and was  asking everyone  to  help him  in any way he
could.
     To tell  the truth, deep down in his heart  Petya felt a bit  sorry for
the  poor Tsar, especially  when he remembered  that someone  had beaten him
over the head with a bamboo cane.
     But  why everybody should  be rejoicing and hanging  out  flags  was  a
mystery. Could  something more cheerful be written farther  on? However,  he
did not have the perseverance to read the Tsar's sad sheet to the end.
     Petya did notice, however, that almost  every person who came up to the
announcement looked first of all for a place in  the middle  which for  some
reason gave him special pleasure. It  was a place he was sure to read aloud,
and then, turning to the others,  he would exclaim  triumphantly: "Aha! It's
actually down in black and white: 'To grant inviolability of person, freedom
of conscience, speech, assembly, and association.' "
     After  this some of  the people, paying  no attention  to the fact that
they were in the street, would  shout "Hurrah!" and kiss those around  them,
just like at Easter.
     Here it was that  the  boy  witnessed a scene which stirred him  to the
depths of his heart.
     A  droshky drove  up  to the crowd, a  gentleman in  a bowler that  was
brand-new but already  crushed jumped lightly from it to  the ground,  put a
pair of crooked pince-nez  to  his nose, quickly  read the wonderful  place,
then kissed the  astounded driver three times on his copper-red beard, flung
himself  into the droshky, and, shouting  at the  top of his  voice, "Half a
ruble for vodka! Drive like hell,  you dog!" disappeared as  suddenly  as he
had appeared.
     In short, it was an extraordinary day in every respect.
     The  sky had cleared. The drizzle stopped. A mother-of-pearl sun  broke
through.
     In the  yard,  Nusya Kogan was  striding up and down importantly in his
black school jacket that had hooks instead of buttons and in a cap without a
badge. He was  dreaming for how he would now be able to enter the Gymnasium,
since there was to be religious freedom, and of the handsome badge  he would
wear on his cap.
     Petya played hopscotch with him for a long time, pausing after each hop
to  describe the horrors of life at the  Gymnasium in an attempt to frighten
Nusya.
     "Then he calls your name and starts questioning you, and you don't know
a thing.  And then he says to you, 'Go to your seat. Sit down!' And then  he
puts a nought opposite your name. That's what it's like!"
     "But what if  I  prepare my lessons well?"  the  sensible Nusya replied
with a confident grin, shrugging his shoulders.
     "Makes no difference," Petya  insisted, hopping  on one leg and pushing
the stone  out of the "Heaven" square with his toe.  "Makes  no  difference!
He'll slap down a nought!"
     Then Petya  treated  Nusya  to a piece of chocolate, and Nusya ran into
the shop and brought out "a handful like that" of raisins.
     Then Petya  was called in to lunch. He invited Nusya to come along with
him. Father was already at home.
     "Ah!" he exclaimed gaily at sight  of Nusya. "So we shall soon have the
pleasure  of  seeing  you  a Gymnasium pupil, young)  man!  Congratulations,
congratulations!"
     Nusya made a polite, dignified bow.
     "Why  not?" he said, dropping his eyes in shy pride and blushing a deep
pink with pleasure.
     Auntie Tatyana  beamed. Father beamed. Pavlik made  loud noises in  the
passage as he played  "freedom". For  a reason he alone knew he covered  the
overturned  chairs,  placed in  a  row,  with  a rug and  crawled under  it,
mercilessly tooting on his horn, without which, to everyone's annoyance, not
a single game was played.
     But  today no one stopped the lad, and  he  played  away to his heart's
content.
     Dunya kept running in from the yard to report  the latest news in town.
That  at the railway station there was a crowd carrying a red  flag, a crowd
so  thick "you couldn't squeeze  through  it". That in  Richelieu Street the
crowd had  cheered a soldier and  had tossed  him up in the  air.  "The poor
thing  flew up  and down, up  and  down!" That  people were running from all
sides to the police  station  where, it  was said,  the prisoners were being
released. "A woman was  running  with a little girl in her arms, and she was
crying for all she  was worth!" That there was a guard of military cadets at
the Army Staff building, and they  weren't letting anyone through to see the
soldiers, and  were driving  people away from the windows.  But  one  daring
fellow did manage to get up  to a  window.  He stood on  a rock and shouted,
"Long  live  freedom!" And  the soldiers replied through the windows,  "Long
live freedom!"
     All this news was accepted joyfully, with eager questions :
     "What about the police?"
     "What did he do?"
     "What did she do?"
     "What did they do?"
     "What's happening in Greek Street?"
     Every once in a while they opened the balcony door and stepped  out, in
spite of the  cold, to see what was going  on  in the street. At  the end of
Kulikovo Field they could make out a dark mass of people and a red flag.
     That  evening  visitors  dropped in, which was something  that had  not
happened  for a long time. They were teachers who taught  in the same school
as Father and  college girls who were acquaintances  of Auntie Tatyana.  The
hall-stand was covered with black  overcoats, capes, broad-brimmed hats  and
little astrakhan caps.
     Petya sat in the kitchen watching the boiled sausage, the  choice  ham,
and the bread being sliced.
     As he dropped  to sleep after that tiring but happy day he could  hear,
from  the dining-room, the  rumble and laughter  of  strange  voices and the
tinkle of spoons.
     Together with the bright ray of light, blue  cigarette  smoke came into
the nursery  from the dining-room. It added to the fresh, warm air something
unusually manly and  free, something they did  not have in  the  house,  for
Father did not smoke.
     Outside  the window  it was much lighter than usual; jelly-like streaks
of light  from the different-coloured  lanterns  were mingled with  the weak
glow from the street lamps.
     Petya  knew  that  now, instead  of the  flags, six-sided lanterns with
panes that were  red-hot and smoky from the candles  burning inside had been
strung on wires between the trees, all over the city.
     Double lines of the same kind of lights stretched all  the way down the
long, straight  Odessa  streets. They beckoned one farther  and farther into
the  mysterious distance of the transformed city, from street to  street, as
though promising  that somewhere, perhaps very near, just  round the corner,
there  was  a  wonderful,  colourful  spectacle  of  remarkable  beauty  and
brilliance.
     But round the  corner there would  be the same long street and the same
rows of lanterns-monotonous, even though they were of different colours, and
just as tired of burning as man was tired of walking between them.
     Red, green, violet,  yellow,  and  blue bars of lights,  bending in the
fog, fell  on  the passers-by,  slid across the house fronts, and gave their
false promises of something new and much more beautiful round the corner.
     All this  wearisome  variety had  always  been called  "royal nameday",
"holiday", or  "Tsar's day",  but today it  was called by a  new word, which
also had a sound of many different colours-"constitution".
     The word "constitution" kept  coming  from the dining-room  amidst  the
rumble-of strange, deep voices and the silvery tinkle of tea spoons.
     Petya fell asleep  to the noise of the gathering, which lasted until an
unusually late hour, probably until nearly midnight.

        34
     IN THE BASEMENT

     As soon  as the rumour  reached  Near Mills that prisoners  were  being
released, Gavrik set off for the police station.
     Terenti, who had  not  slept at home for the past week and had appeared
from  some unknown place  early  that  morning,  walked to the  corner  with
Gavrik. He was gloomy, and so tired that he could scarcely keep on his feet.
     "Go and meet the old man,  of course, Gavrik. Only for the  love of God
don't  bring him here. Because with  all this 'freedom',  may  it  be thrice
damned, there's probably  plenty of snoopers about. One of them will hang on
your tail and then that'll be the  end of  our meeting place,  and a  lot of
people will get into trouble. Clear?"
     Gavrik nodded. "Uh-huh."
     Since he  had come  to live  in  Near  Mills,  Gavrik  had  learned  to
understand a great deal and had found  out many  things.  It was no longer a
secret to him that the strike committee was meeting at Terenti's house.
     Many was the time he had had to sit on the bench beside the gate almost
till dawn, whistling softly whenever strangers came near the house.
     Several times he had seen  the sailor,  who appeared out of nowhere  at
dawn and then quickly disappeared. Now he was hardly recognisable. He wore a
good overcoat and an engineer's cap with the crossed hammers badge.  But the
main  thing was  his foppish little moustache and beard. They changed him so
much that the boy couldn't  believe he was the same  man  he and Grandpa had
pulled out of the sea.
     However, one  look into  those humorous  brown eyes,  at  that fleeting
smile, and at the anchor on his hand caused all doubts to vanish.
     In keeping with the unwritten but  firm  law of Near Mills never  to be
surprised at anything, never to recognise anyone, and to hold  one's tongue,
whenever Gavrik  met the sailor  he pretended he  had never seen him before.
The sailor behaved the same way towards Gavrik.
     Only  once,  when  leaving,  did  he  nod  to  the  boy  as  to an  old
acquaintance, giving  him a wink  and clapping him on the back as he would a
grown-up.
     "Weep no more, Marusya," he sang out, "you will yet be mine!"
     Then, bending  his  head  in the  low doorway, he stepped out into  the
darkness.
     Gavrik sensed that of  all the people who came to see Terenti-from  the
Ghen  factory, from  the  Weinstein  flour-mill, from  the  docks, from  the
Brodsky factory,  and  a great many  other places-the sailor was the one the
authorities most feared and were most anxious to track down.
     He  undoubtedly  belonged to  that glorious  and  mysterious  "fighting
group" about which there was so much talk of late not only in Near Mills but
everywhere in town.
     "Uh-huh," said Gavrik. "Only it's damned cold, and if I don't bring the
old man to Near Mills where else can I take him?"
     Terenti thought  for a moment. "Listen," he said finally.  "First  take
him down to the beach, to the hut.  If anybody shadows you he won't  learn a
thing.  Wait in  the hut till  it's dark, and then carefully go  straight to
this address-only memorise  it: it's 15 Malaya Arnautskaya. Find the janitor
and ask him for Joseph Karlovich. When  you see Joseph Karlovich you say-now
remember this- 'How do you do, Joseph Karlovich? Sophia Petrovna  sent me to
ask if  you've received any letters from Nikolayev.' Then he'll say,  'No, I
haven't had a letter for two months.' Clear?"
     "Uh-huh."
     "Can you repeat it?"
     "Uh-huh."
     "Let's hear it."
     Gavrik  puckered his  forehead  and wrinkled his  nose.  "Well, it's 15
Malaya Arnautskaya," he said, concentrating  as though he were answering  at
an exam.  "I  ask the janitor for Joseph Karlovich,  and then I say, 'How do
you  do,  Joseph Karlovich? Sophia Petrovna sent me to ask  you  if a letter
came from Nikolayev.' And  then he  says, 'I haven't had a  letter  for  two
months.' "
     "Right. After that you needn't be afraid to tell him Terenti  sent you.
Tell biny-to let the old man live at his place for a while, and to feed him.
Later we'll see. I'll drop in. Clear?"
     "Uh-huh."
     "Well, good-bye."
     Terenti returned home, while Gavrik hurried off to the jail.
     He ran for all he was worth, squeezing his  way through the crowd which
became thicker and thicker as he approached the railway station.
     At  Sennaya Square he began to meet men who had been  released from the
jail.  Some were on foot and others rode in droshkies  surrounded by bundles
and baskets as though coming from the railway station; they were accompanied
by relatives and friends, and they waved their hats in the air.
     Crowds  ran  down the street beside the droshkies, chanting, "Long live
freedom! Long live freedom!"
     Near the Alexandrovsky jail, which was surrounded by reinforced details
of  mounted and foot  police, there  was such a huge,  dense crowd that even
Gavrik despaired of making his way through  it. In that crowd  he might very
easily miss Grandpa.
     The mere thought that if this happened Grandpa might bring some snooper
along with him to Near Mills sent the boy into a cold sweat.
     His heart pounding, he dashed down an alley  to bypass  the  crowd.  He
simply had to reach the jail and find Grandpa. Suddenly he saw him two paces
away.
     But good  heavens, could that be Grandpa? Gavrik did not  recognise him
at first.
     Coming  towards him was  a  decrepit old man  with a  beard of  silvery
bristles,  with watery  blue eyes, and  a  sunken, toothless  mouth.  He was
keeping as close as he could to the walls of the houses. His legs were bent,
and they swayed as though  they  were made of cotton wool. He was  shuffling
along with  difficulty in his broken boots, stopping to rest at  every third
step. But for  the basket  that dangled from  the old  man's  trembling hand
Gavrik never would have recognised him.
     The  familiar  wicker  basket with the grimy  canvas cover  immediately
caught the boy's eye. It made his heart contract with pain.
     "Grandpa!" he shouted in a frightened voice. "Grandpa, is that you?"
     The old man did not even give  a  start. Slowly  he stopped  and turned
towards Gavrik a face that expressed neither joy nor excitement, nothing but
submissive resignation. He chewed  his lips  indifferently. His  watery eyes
stared at some point in the distance, and  they were so motionless that  one
might have thought he did not see his grandson.
     "Grandpa, where are  you going?"  Gavrik  asked,  raising  his voice as
though the old man were deaf.
     The old man chewed his lips for a long time before he replied.
     "To Near Mills," he announced in a quiet, normal voice.
     "You can't," Gavrik whispered, glancing  over  his  shoulder.  "Terenti
said for heaven's sake not to go to Near Mills."
     The old  man also glanced over his  shoulder,  but in a  sort  of slow,
indifferent, mechanical way.
     "Come, Grandpa, let's go home and then we'll see."
     Grandpa  obediently turned round, and without saying a word  started to
shuffle in the opposite direction, putting one foot before the other with an
effort.
     Gavrik gave Grandpa his shoulder, and the old man leaned heavily on it.
Slowly they made their way across the restless city  towards the sea, like a
blind man with his guide-the boy in front and the old man behind him.
     The old man stopped frequently to rest. It took them two hours to reach
the shore  from  the  police  station.  Alone,  Gavrik usually covered  that
distance in fifteen minutes.
     The padlock, broken and rusty, lay in the brown weeds near the hut. The
door hung crookedly on the upper hinge,  swaying and  creaking in  the wind.
The autumn rains  had  taken the last traces of Grandma's whitewash from the
blackened boards. The entire roof was covered with burdock stalks:  this was
obviously the work of bird-catchers,  who  had turned  the vacant hut into a
trap.
     Inside,  everything was topsy-turvy. The tattered quilt and the pillow,
damp and smeared with clay, lay in a corner. The little trunk,  however, had
net been touched  and stood  in  its usual place.  Unhurriedly  the old  man
entered his home. He  sat down on the edge of the bed, put the basket on his
knees, and stared impassively at the corner of the wall, paying no attention
whatsoever to the disorder.
     It was as though he had merely dropped in to take a rest,  to sit for a
minute or two and catch his breath, and then slowly to set out again.
     A  strong  cold wind laden with sea spray  blew  in through  the broken
window. A  storm was raging along the deserted coast. The wind carried white
tufts-seagulls and bits of foam-over the echoing cliffs. The  thunder of the
waves resounded in the caves along the shore.
     "Why don't you lie down, Grandpa?"
     Grandpa  obediently lay  down. Gavrik put  a pillow under  his head and
covered  him  with  the  quilt.  The  old  man  pulled up his  legs. He  was
shivering.
     "Never mind,  Grandpa.  As soon as it's dark we'll go  somewhere  else.
Take a rest meanwhile."
     Grandpa  did  not answer.  His  entire  appearance  expressed  complete
indifference  and resignation. Suddenly he  looked at  Gavrik  with swollen,
watery eyes that  seemed  turned wrong side out and said, after chewing  his
sunken lips for a long time, "The boat. Is it safe?"
     Gavrik hastened to assure him  that the boat was in a safe place,  at a
neighbour's. The old man nodded in approval and again fell silent.
     After an hour he turned  over on  his other side  with a grunt. Then he
gave a moan.
     "Does something hurt, Grandpa?"
     "They beat me," the old man said with an apologetic smile,  showing his
pink, toothless gums. "They knocked the guts clean out of me."
     Gavrik hid his face.
     The old man did not say another word until evening. As soon as  it grew
dark the boy said, "Come, Grandpa."
     The  old  man rose, picked up his basket, and  they  set off,  past the
shuttered villas, past the  closed shooting gallery and  restaurant,  to  15
Malaya Arnautskaya Street.
     After asking  the janitor  Gavrik had  no  difficulty in finding Joseph
Karlovich's room in the dark basement. He knocked on a door padded with torn
felt.
     "Who's there?" came a voice that sounded familiar.
     "Does Joseph Karlovich live here?"
     "What do you want?"
     "Open the door, please. Sophia Petrovna sent me."
     The door  was  opened at once, and to his complete astonishment  Gavrik
saw on the threshold the owner of the  shooting gallery, holding a  paraffin
lamp. He looked calmly and somewhat haughtily at the boy.
     "I am Joseph Karlovich. What do you want?" he said, without moving from
the spot.
     "How do you do, Joseph Karlovich?" Gavrik said painstakingly, as though
reciting a well-learned lesson. "Sophia  Petrovna  sent  me to ask you if  a
letter came from Nikolayev."
     The owner of the shooting gallery surveyed the boy from head to foot in
amazement. This took him  all of two minutes,  even though Gavrik was only a
little chap.
     "There  hasn't  been a letter for two  months,"  he said  finally, in a
haughtier tone than before.
     He paused, then shook his head regretfully  and added, "As unpunctual a
lady as ever lived. Isn't it a shame?"
     And in  a  flash his  face assumed the gracious expression  of a Polish
count welcoming a Papal nuncio to his estate. It was  an expression that did
not fit in at all with his  bare feet and the  absence of  a shirt under his
jacket.
     "I beg you humbly  to enter, young man. If I recall correctly, you have
visited my establishment on occasion. What  a pleasant coincidence! And this
old man, I believe, is your grandfather, isn't he? Please come in."
     Grandfather and grandson entered a  cubbyhole whose poverty amazed even
them.
     Never had  Gavrik imagined that this most powerful  and richest of men,
who  owned a shooting  gallery and- just think  of it!-four  Monte  Cristos,
lived in such a place.
     He  stared in  wonder  at the bare walls,  covered with green mould. He
expected to see them hung with rifles and pistols, but he saw only one  nail
from which dangled a pair of incredibly shabby braces that  looked more like
reins than anything else.
     "But where are your rifles?" he exclaimed, almost with horror.
     Joseph  Karlovich  pretended  he had not  heard  the  question.  With a
sweeping gesture he invited them to be seated.
     "Is there something you wish  to tell me?" he asked in a low voice from
the c