perfumed, surrounded by pillows and boxes of candy, sat in embarrassed
silence, listening to the bombastic speeches of the town fathers. Some of
the men were holding crutches that had been adorned with bows.
Shvetsov, a fourth-grade boy, recited a poem entitled "Belgian
children". Six second-grade boys were lined up behind him to accompany his
recital with various tableaux. The Zemstvo inspector's daughter played "The
Skylark" by Glinka on the piano. The wounded fidgeted and seemed
uncomfortable. The last to perform was the town druggist, an amateur poet
and tenor. Then a tall young blond soldier rose from one of the cots and
cleared his throat shyly.
"Speech! Speech!" everyone shouted, applauding loudly.
When the noise finally died down, the soldier said, "I'd like to
say.... Doctor, Sir, and ladies and gentlemen, and nurses, and everybody
else. Uh, we're very grateful to you for all this, for everything, but we'd
rather, I mean, we've been travelling for three days and three nights, and
we haven't had any sleep, and that's what we really need."
Soldiers were being flogged in the barracks. One officer called another
an Armenian mug at the Officer's Club, and the insulted man shot the
offender point-blank, killing him on the spot. By now the wounded were being
brought in any which way and dumped wherever there was available space.
Then our forces took Peremyshl. A crowd of shopkeepers, shady
characters from the suburbs and a few officials walked through the streets
with a portrait of the tsar like an icon at the head of the column. They
infected the air with howling tricoloured flutterings and the sour stench of
raw liquor. It was quite as if some celebration were being warmed up over a
spirit burner.
Once again the school inspector went from classroom to classroom
carrying his solemn, parted, victorious beard as majestically as if it were
a gonfalon.
We poured out onto the porch of the school building to greet the
demonstrators and, at a signal from the principal, we cheered. There was
something disgusting about the bellowing crowd of demonstrators. It seemed
that they needed but a little push to start rioting and killing. We felt as
if a mindless, suffocating, insurmountable force was engulfing us. It was
like being on the bottom of a pile during a free-for-all, squashed under a
great, crushing, suffocating weight, unable to expand your lungs to cry out.
However, it all ended without incident, not counting a call that night
to my father, to save the life of a "patriot" who had got drunk on wood
alcohol.
The demonstration made an indelible impression on Oska, that great
confuser of things, imitator and day-dreamer, who always managed to find a
new meaning for each object, seeing in each its second soul. His great
passion at the time was an old toilet seat. First, he stuck a samovar pipe
through the hole and made believe it was a Maxim machine-gun. Then he put
the toilet seat on his hobby horse, and it served as a yoke. Though this was
not exactly in the best of taste, still, it was permissible. However, the
day after the demonstration Oska organized a Schwambranian demonstration in
the yard, and this one was truly blasphemous. Klavdia had attached someone's
long drawers with ties at the ankles to a floor brush to serve as a
gonfalon. Oska carried the ill-fated toilet seat, which now served as a
frame for the portrait of the tsar, Nicholas II, Ruler of all Russia, which
he had cut out of a magazine.
The indignant janitor handed the demonstrators over to Papa and
threatened to inform the police, but was quickly pacified by a tip.
"Children are very sensitive to the spirit of the times," the grown-ups
said meaningfully.
The spirit of the times, an offensive spirit, seeped into everything.
That winter the boys of our school and the girls of the Girls School
were all taken to the Army camp to be shown a mock battle. It was a cold,
snowy day.
A colonel explained the battle to the ladies of the philanthropic
society. The ladies warmed their hands in their muffs and oh-ed and ah-ed,
and whenever a shot was fired they clapped their hands to their ears.
However, the battle was very unimpressive and certainly did not resemble the
battle scenes pictured in Niva. Black shapes were crawling across the field.
Fires dotted the scene, blending to produce a smokescreen. Then other fires
were lit. We were told these were signal fires.
From a distance the cross-firing, as it advanced along the lines,
sounded like a pennant flapping in the wind. The stench of the trenches was
overpowering.
"They're attacking," the colonel said.
The dark shapes were running and shouting "Hooray!" very
matter-of-factly.
"The battle is over," the colonel said.
"Which side won?" the spectators inquired, having understood nothing.
The colonel was silent for a moment and then said: "That side." Then he
looked up and warned everyone: "The bomb-thrower is about to go into
action."
Indeed, it did and very loudly at that. The ladies became frightened,
the cabbies' horses bolted, and the cabbies cursed in the direction of the
sky.
The battle was over.
The company that had taken part in the action passed in formation, led
by a sly-looking junior lieutenant. When they came abreast of us the
soldiers burst into a dirty song with a practiced air, some of them
whistling shrilly and straining their cold throats.
The girls exchanged glances. The boys roared. One of the teachers
cleared his throat. The fat headmistress of the Girls School became
indignant.
"Lieutenant!" the colonel shouted. "What's going on? Stop the singing."
Bringing up the rear, stumbling in boots that were much too large and
becoming entangled in the long flaps of his great-coat was a small, puny
soldier. He tried to keep in step, hopping and skipping to keep up, but
still fell behind. The boys recognized him. He was the father of one of the
poor boys.
"Hey, look at that dopey soldier! His son's in the third grade. There
he is!"
Everyone laughed. The little man picked up the flaps of his greatcoat
and set off at a trot as he tried to catch up with his company. His head
bobbed at the end of his long neck. His son stood on the sidelines, staring
at the ground. His face was covered with red blotches.
Oska was waiting for me impatiently when I got home, for he wanted to
hear all about the battle.
"Was there a lot of shooting?"
"I never knew war wasn't one bit nice at all," I replied.
The year was drawing to a close. It was vacation time. On December 31,
1916, our parents went to a New Year's party. Before leaving. Mamma
explained to us at length that "New Year's is not a children's party at all,
and you must go to bed at the usual time".
Oska tooted a sailing signal and sailed off to Schwambrania for the
night. Meanwhile, my friend and classmate Grisha Fedorov came to visit me.
We cracked nuts and played lotto for a while. Then, having nothing else to
do, we went fishing in Papa's fishbowl. Finally, we got bored of this, too,
turned off the light, sat down by the window and, after warming the pane
with our breath, made little holes on the frozen glass and looked out into
the street.
The moon was shining, and dull blue shadows lay across the snow. The
air was full of powdery, brilliant glitter. The street seemed magnificent.
"Let's go for a walk," Grisha said.
However, it was against school rules to be seen out on the street after
seven o'clock in December. Our supervisor Seize'em would go out hunting
schoolboys each night, stomping up and down the streets to find them.
I immediately imagined Seize'em pouncing on us from behind some corner,
his gold eagle-crested buttons glittering as he shouted:
"Silence! What's your name? Stand up straight!"
Such an encounter was nothing to look forward to. It meant a poor mark
for deportment and being left behind in an empty classroom for four hours
after school. Perhaps there would even be something else in store as a New
Year's surprise. Seize'em was a great one for such things.
"Don't worry, he's probably at some New Year's party himself," Grisha
said.
"He's probably stuffing himself someplace."
It didn't take much coaxing for me to give in. We put on our overcoats
and dashed out.
The town's small hotel and the Vesuvius Restaurant were both located
not far from our house. That evening the Vesuvius seemed to be erupting.
Streams of light poured forth from the windows, while the earth trembled
from the dancing within.
At the hitching post outside the hotel we saw an elegant high sleigh
with a velvet seat and a fox-lined lap rug. The runners were of figured
iron. A large dappled grey horse was harnessed to the curved lacquered
shafts. It was Gambit, the famous pacer and the best trotter in town. We had
no trouble recognizing both the horse and the carriage, for they belonged to
Karl Zwanzig, a very wealthy man.
At that moment I had a wild idea.
"You know what, Grisha?" I said, turning cold at my own boldness.
"Let's go for a ride. Zwanzig won't be ready to leave for a long time. We'll
just ride as far as there and around the church, and back again. I know how
to drive."
I didn't have to say it twice, A minute later we had unhitched Gambit,
climbed up onto the high velvet seat and wrapped the furry rug around our
legs,
I picked up the firm, heavy reins, clicked my tongue as cabbies did,
cleared my throat and said in a deep voice: "Giddiyap! Go on, boy!"
Gambit turned, rolled a large eye at me and looked away. I even
imagined he had shrugged contemptuously, if horses did such things.
"I bet he only understands German," Grisha said. Then he shouted: "Hey!
Fortnaus!"
This made no impression on Gambit, either. Finally, I smacked him hard
with the twisted reins. The very same second I was thrown back. If not for
Grisha, who caught me by the belt, I would have sailed right out of the
sleigh. Gambit surged forward and was off. He hadn't bolted. He was trotting
swiftly as he always did, with me grasping the reins tightly as we sped
along the deserted street. What a shame that none of our friends were there
to see us!
"Let's call for Atlantis. He lives right around that corner. We still
have plenty of time," I said and tugged at the left rein. Gambit turned the
corner obediently. There was Atlantis' house.
"Hey, there! Whoa!"
But Gambit did not stop. No matter how hard I pulled at the reins, the
pacer paid no attention to me. He kept on trotting swiftly. Atlantis' house
was soon left far behind.
"Let's not call for him, Grisha. He's not much fun. Let's call for
Labanda instead. He lives over there." I had wound the reins around my hand
in advance and now braced my feet against the front board.
But Gambit did not stop outside Labanda's house either. I was beginning
to worry.
"Listen, Grisha, do you know what to do to make him stop?"
"Whoa! Stop!" he shouted as loudly as he could. We pulled on the reins
together.
However, the powerful pacer paid no attention to our shouts or to the
pull of the reins. He kept trotting faster and faster, racing us along the
dark streets.
"He doesn't understand Russian!" Grisha said in a scared voice. "And we
don't know what 'whoa' is in German. Nobody ever taught us that. You know,
he'll just keep on going. We can't stop him."
"We don't want to ride any more! Stop!" we both shouted.
But Gambit kept on stubbornly.
I tried to recall everything I knew about talking to horses and
everything I had ever read about it.
"Whoa! Stop, boy! Come on, dove!"
But, as ill luck would have it, I kept thinking of expressions the
likes of which could only be found in some saga, things such as: "0, you
wolf's repast, 0, you sack of grass" or, worse still, expressions to make a
horse go faster: "Git up!... Let's see some life in you!... Here we go!"
Having used up my vocabulary of horse words, I tried some camel words.
"Tratrr, tratrr... chok, chok!" I shouted, imitating the camel drivers.
But Gambit did not understand camel talk.
"Tsob-tsobeh, tsob-tsobeh!" I croaked, recalling the Ukrainian ox-cart
drivers.
That didn't help either.
The bell on Trinity Church began to strike One, two, three times.... It
struck twelve times.
That meant we had ridden into the New Year. Were we just going to go on
driving down the streets like that for the rest of our natural lives? When
would the confounded horse stop?
The moon shone down on us mysteriously. The stillness of the empty
streets, where one year had just ended and another had just begun, seeked
menacing. Were we doomed to riding in this sleigh forever?
I had become panic-stricken.
Suddenly, two rows of highly-polished brass buttons glinted in the
moonlight, appearing from around a corner. It was Seize'em. Gambit was
racing straight at him.
I dropped the reins in terror.
"Silence! What's all the noise about? What's your name? Stand still,
stupid!" Seize'em shrilled.
Then a miracle happened.
Gambit froze in his tracks.
We tumbled out of the sleigh, raced around the horse and, drawing
abreast of the supervisor, tipped our caps politely, grasping the patent
leather visors with our fingertips to bare our unruly heads as we bowed low
to Seize'em, saying: "Good evening, Seize ... Caesar Karpovich!" in unison.
"Happy New Year, Caesar Karpovich!"
Seize'em drew his pince-nez slowly from a case which he took out of his
pocket and settled the lenses on the bridge of his nose.
"Aha!" he beamed. "Two friends. I recognize you! Lovely, just lovely!
Excellent! Magnificent! Now we'll just write both your names down." At this
he took his famous notebook from the inner pocket of his overcoat. "We'll
write down both names. First one, then the other, and they'll both be left
after school as soon as vacation ends. Four hours each, and no dinner. Four
hours for one, and four hours for the other. Happy New Year, children!"
Then Seize'em stared at the sleigh. "One moment, boys. Have you Herr
Zwanzig's permission to take his sleigh? Hm?"
We interrupted each other in our haste to assure him that Herr Zwanzig
had actually asked us to take Gambit for a run to warm him up a bit.
"Excellent," he murmured. "We'll all go back together now and see
whether you are telling the truth or not. Come."
The very notion of finding ourselves in the fiendish sleigh again was
so terrible that we suggested he ride alone, promising to walk along beside
him.
The unsuspecting supervisor clambered up onto the high seat. He tucked
the luxurious fur rug around his legs, picked up the reins, yanked them and
clicked his tongue. When this had no effect, he let the reins fall lightly
on Gambit's bad that very moment we were tossed aside. Clumps of snow flew
into our faces. When we had brushed the snow from our eyes and shaken the
snow off our clothes the careening sleigh was just disappearing around a
bend, with our unfortunate supervisor hanging on for dear life and bellowing
something unintelligible.
Meanwhile, Herr Karl Zwanzig, Gambit's owner, came pounding arc another
corner. His coat was unbuttoned and his tie was askew. He was roaring the
top of his voice: "Help! Morder! Poleez! Shtop dem!"
We could hear a police whistle in the distance.
We never tried to find out how it all ended. Seize'em never said a word
of the night's adventure when we returned to school after our vacation.
Thus did the New Year begin. It was now 1917.
Mamma and Papa had just gone visiting. The front door slammed. The
draught made the doors fly open all through the house. We heard Annushka
turn the light off in the parlour. Then she went back to the kitchen. There
was an eeriness in the quiet that settled on the house. The clock in the
dining room ticked loudly. The wind rattled the windows. I sat down at the
table and pretended to be doing homework. Oska was drawing steamships. There
were very many of them, each had smoke pouring from its stacks. I took his
red-and-blue pencil and be colouring the pronouns in my Latin book, making
all the vowels red and all consonants blue. Suddenly Oska said,
"How do people know that the Earth is round?"
I knew the answer to that question, because it was on the first page of
geography book, and I went into a long explanation about a ship sailing far.
away until it disappeared completely beyond the horizon. Since you couldn't
sit any longer, it meant the Earth was round.
My explanation did not satisfy him.
"Maybe the ship sank? Huh? Maybe it just sank."
"Don't bother me. Can't you see I'm doing my homework?" I continued
colouring the pronouns.
All was silence again.
"I know how people know the Earth's round."
"I'm glad you do."
"Well, I do! It's because the globe is round. There!"
"You're a round-headed ninny, that's what."
Oska pouted. Trouble was brewing. Just then the telephone rang in our
fat consulting room. We raced to be the first to get there. The office was
dark, deserted and scary. I turned on the light. The room immediately
changed its appear;
like a developed negative. The windows had been light, but now they
became dark. The panes had been black, and now they were white. Most
important, however, office no longer frightened us. I picked up the receiver
and spoke in Papa's sc voice:
"Hello?"
It was our favourite Uncle Lyosha, phoning from Saratov. He had not
been us in ages. Mamma had told us that he had gone very far away, but Oska
had eavesdropped and learned that, strangely, he had been put in prison for
against the tsar and the war. Now he had apparently been released. That was
news!
"When are you coming to see us?" we shouted into the phone.
"I will soon," he replied, and I could hear him chuckle. "I want you
Mamma and Papa that I phoned and said there's been a revolution in R There's
a Provisional Government now. The tsar's abdicated. Repeat what I he said to
me, and he sounded excited.
"How did it happen?" I shouted.
"You're too little to understand."
"No, I'm not! Not if you tell me. I'm in the third grade."
And so our uncle, speaking from Saratov on the other side of the Volga,
went on hurriedly to explain the meaning of the war, the revolution,
equality and fraternity to me.
"Are you all through speaking?" a voice interrupted. "Your time is up."
Click! We were disconnected. I stood there, feeling as if I had
suddenly become about three years older, feeling that I was about to burst
from excitement.
I glanced at Oska. He seemed terribly embarrassed. "Shame on you!
What's the use of you knowing the Earth's round?"
"I held in all the time you were talking. It was an accident."
I ran to the kitchen. Annushka had a visitor. He was a wounded soldier
she knew, a man who always looked sullen. There was a small silver St.
George Cross on his chest. I shouted excitedly:
"Annushka! First of all, there's been a revolution, and freedom, and no
more tsar! And, secondly, Oska wet his pants. Find him another pair." I
related everything my uncle had just told me. Then Annushka's soldier-friend
stood up. His left arm was in a sling. He embraced me with his right arm. I
was stunned. He squeezed me hard as he said:
"That's the best piece of news you could have brought us! I can't even
believe it." Then he shook his big fist at someone outside the window and
added, "You'll get what's coming to you now! Our time's come!"
I looked at the window, but saw no one. Meanwhile, the soldier was
saying,
"Pardon me, young man, but this is the best news I've ever heard.
Why.... Good Lord.... Thanks a million!" He sounded as if there was a lump
in his throat.
I went to the dining-room, got up on a chair and knocked on the brass
cover of the stove's air duct. It served as a direct line to Anna and Vera
Zhivilsky who lived upstairs and whose stove was directly above ours. If I
knocked on the cover of our duct they could hear me. I could hear Anna's
voice in the duct.
"Hello!"
"Hello, Anna! I have some great news! There's been a revolution, and
there's a soldier here right now."
"You don't know what I have! Guess."
"Has there been another revolution someplace?"
"No! My godmother gave me a set of doll dishes, and it even has a
creamer."
I slammed down the receiver... that is, I slammed the brass lid shut.
No, they would never understand. I put on my fur hat and coat quickly and
ran to my friend next door. My Latin homework would have to be done some
other time.
SEIZE'EM CHASES THE MOON, OR WHAT THE LEDGER SAID OF THIS
There was a smell of spring in the air. The sky was studded with stars
that glittered like the buttons on the school inspector's tunic. I dashed
down the deserted street. The moon ran along beside me like a dog, stopping
at each and every telegraph pole. The houses all had their shutters closed
tight. How could people be sleeping at a time like this? After there had
been a revolution! I felt like shouting a the top of my voice.
Two rows of gleaming brass buttons were floating towards us. It was
Seize'em The faithful moon and I turned and fled. The moon hid behind the
poles and fences, while I tried to keep well within the shadows they cast.
Alas! He had spotted me.
"Stop! Stop, you scoundrel! Police!" he shrilled. But he had not called
my name, and that meant he had not recognized me. I kept on running. The
moon and Seize'em followed close behind. He was my enemy, but the moon was
my ally.
It darted behind a roof, the better to conceal me.
I was mistaken. Seize'em had recognized me. The next day the following
entry was made on my page in the Deportment Ledger:
"Seen by the inspector out on the street after 7 p.m. Did not stop
running despite having been ordered to."
The moon was not mentioned.
Oska and I escorted Annushka and her soldier-friend into the parlour an
marched up and down, with Annushka's red kerchief tied to Papa's walking
stick The soldier shouldered Oska's toy rifle and brandished it as we all
sang:
Up and down the mountains
Did a schoolboy go,
Shouting, "Down with that old tsar!"
His red flag waving so.
There was a wonderful smell of polished army boots in the parlour. My
brother and I and the soldier had become the best of friends. He let each of
us lick the paper of his home-rolled cigarette.
Oska fidgeted as he sat on the soldier's lap. Finally, he said: "Who's
strongest, a whale or an elephant? What if they have a fight? Which one'll
win?"
"I don't know. Tell me."
"I don't know, either. And Papa doesn't know, and Uncle doesn't know.
Nobody knows."
We discussed the whale and elephant problem for a while. The soldier
and I said the elephant would win, and just to be spiteful, Annushka said
the whale would. Then the soldier went over to the piano, sat down on the
stool and tried to sing The Marseillaise, accompanying himself by hitting
one single note.
Annushka finally realized it was way past our bedtime.
"At ease!" the soldier said and we tramped off to bed.
OSKA'S SELF-DETERMINATION
Moonbeams had marked the floor of our room off into hopscotch squares.
We might actually have played in them. But we were lying in our beds,
talking about the revolution. I told Oska whatever I had learned from our
uncle and also what I had read in the newspapers about the war, the workers,
the tsar and the pogroms.
Suddenly Oska said, "What's a Jew, Lelya?"
"It's a kind of people. There are all kinds. Like Russians, Americans
and Chinese. And Germans, and Frenchmen. And there are Jews, too."
"Are we Jews? For real, or for make-believe? Give me your word of
honour that we're Jews."
"My word of honour we are."
Oska was stunned by this discovery. He tossed about for quite some
time. I was half-asleep when he whispered, trying not to wake me, "Lelya!"
"What?"
"Is Mamma a Jew, too?"
"Yes. Go to sleep."
As I drifted off to sleep I imagined myself speaking to the Latin
teacher the next day and saying: "We've had enough of the old regime and
being made to line up along the walls. You have no right to do that any
more!"
We slept.
Papa and Mamma returned late that night. I woke up. As is often the
case when people return late from visiting friends or the theatre, they were
tired and irritable.
"That was an excellent cake," Papa was saying. "We never have anything
like it. I wonder where all the money goes?"
I could hear Mamma's surprise at finding the butt of a home-rolled
cigarette in the candle-holder on the piano. Papa went off to gargle. I
heard the tinkle of the glass stopper hitting the water pitcher. Suddenly my
father called my mother in a voice that was unusually loud for such a late
hour. Mamma asked him something. He sounded happy and excited. They had
found my note, telling them the great news. I had written it before going to
bed and had stuck it in the mouth of the pitcher.
They tiptoed into the nursery. Father sat down on the edge of my bed
and put his arm around me. "You spell 'revolution' with an 'o', not an 'a'.
Revolution. Ahh!" he said and tweaked my nose.
Just then Oska woke up. He had apparently been thinking of his great
discovery all the time, even in his sleep.
"Mamma...."
"It's late. Go back to sleep."
"Mamma," he repeated, sitting up in bed, "is our cat a Jew, too?"
" 'GOD SAVE THE TSAR...' PASS THIS ON"
The next morning Annushka woke Oska and me up by singing: "Arise, ye
workingmen, arise! Time for school!"
The workingmen (Oska and I) jumped out of bed. During breakfast I
remembered the Latin pronouns I should have learned by heart: hie, haec,
hoc....
Oska and I left the house together. It was warm. It was thawing. The
cabbies' horses shook their feedbags. Oska, as usual, thought they were
nodding to him. He was a very polite boy, and so he stopped beside each and
every horse, nodded to it and said,
"Good morning, horsie!"
The horses said nothing. The cabbies, who knew Oska by now, said good
morning for them. One horse was drinking from a bucket.
"Do you give him cocoa, too?" Oska wanted to know.
I dashed off to school. Nobody knew a thing yet. I would be the first
to tell them. I whipped off my coat, burst into the classroom and shouted as
I swung my satchel: "Fellows! The tsar's been overthrowed!"
There was a moment of stunned silence.
Seize'em whom I had not noticed, had a fit of coughing and turned red
in the face. He began shouting: "Are you crazy? I'll see to you later!
Hurry! Time for chapel! Line up in pairs."
But the boys surrounded me. They jostled each other and snowed me under
with questions.
The corridor rang from the sound of marching feet. The boys were being
lined up for morning prayers.
The principal, as dried-up, stiff and solemn as ever, strode along the
corridor, his well-pressed legs flashing. The brass buckles jangled.
The priest, as black in his cassock as an ink-blot in a penmanship
notebook, put on his chasuble. The service began.
We stood there whispering. The long grey lines were restless. Everyone
seemed to be whispering.
"There's been a revolution in Petrograd."
"Is that up on top of the map, where the Baltic Sea is?"
"Yes. It's a big circle. You'd even find it on a blank map."
"The history teacher said there's a statue of Peter the Great there.
And the houses are bigger than churches."
"I wonder what a revolution's like?"
"It's like the one in 1905 when we were at war with Japan. People
demonstrated in the streets, and they had red flags, and the Cossacks and
the police used their whips on them. And they shot them, too."
"What rats!"
"Golly, we're going to have a written test today. I'll probably get
another 'D'. Ah, who cares!"
"Our Father who art in Heaven...."
"That takes care of the tsar. They sure got rid of him. It serves him
right! Why'd he get us into the war?"
"Shut up! D'you think there'll be less homework now?"
"...For ever and ever. Amen."
"What grade's the heir in? I'll bet he never gets anything but 'A's'.
He has nothing to worry about. No teacher'll ever give him a hard time."
"Don't worry. Things'11 change now. He'll get his fair share of 'D's',
too. It's about time he finds out what it's all about!"
"Wait! What's the genitive plural? Never mind, I'll copy it off
someone."
A note was being passed along the rows. It had been written by Stepan
Atlantis. (Later the note and Atlantis' name were both entered in the
Ledger.) It read:
"Don't sing 'God save the tsar'. Pass this on."
"Today's chapter is from the Gospel according to Saint Luke."
A shy, freckle-faced third year boy read the parable in a faltering
voice. The inspector prompted him, reading over his shoulder.
The concluding prayer followed: "...for the solace of our parents and
the glory of our Church and Fatherland."
Now, in just another moment! We all tensed. The "ruling classes"
cleared their throats. Harrumph!
The small, long-haired precentor of Trinity Church honked loudly as he
blew his nose. At this a purple vein that resembled a big fat worm bulged in
his scrawny neck. We always expected it to burst. The precentor stuffed his
coloured handkerchief back into his back pocket through the slit in his
worn, shiny frock coat. The tuning fork in his right hand seemed to fly up.
A high metallic "ping" floated above the stuffy corridor. He fixed his
greasy starched collar, extracted his skinny, plucked-looking neck from it,
drew his little eyebrows together and sounded the key in a languorous voice:
"Laa.... Laa-aa."
We waited. The precentor rose up on tiptoe. His arms swooped up,
raising us in song. He began to sing in a high-pitched, screechy voice that
sounded like a finger being run down a window-pane: "God save the tsar...."
The boys were silent. Two or three hesitant voices joined in. Hefty,
who was standing behind the singers, said, as if he were making a mental
note of it: "Well, well...."
The voices wilted.
Meanwhile, the precentor faced the silent choir and waved his arms
wildly. His sugary voice squawked: "Mighty ... and powerful, reign...."
We could contain our laughter no longer. It rose as a great squall. The
teachers tried hard not to join us. The long corridor resounded with rolling
peals of laughter.
The inspector chuckled. Seize'em's stomach jiggled. The first-year boys
shrieked and giggled. The towering overgrown boys bellowed. The janitor
snickered. "Ha-ha ... ho-ho ... ho-ho-ho ... he-he-he ... ah-ha-ha...."
The one exception was the principal. He was as straight and stiff as
ever, though paler than usual. "Silence!" he said and stamped his foot.
Everything seemed squashed into silence beneath his gleaming boot.
At this point Mitya Lamberg, a senior and leader among the older boys,
shouted: "Quiet! I don't have a very strong voice." And he started singing
The Marseillaise.
I was standing on my desk, making a speech. Two boys appeared from
behind the brick stove at the far end of the room. It was the shopkeeper's
son Baldin and the police officer's son Lizarsky. They always stuck
together, reminding us of a boat and barge. Lizarsky, who was short and
stocky and always swung his arms when he walked, would lead the way, towing
lanky, dark-haired Baldin behind. Lizarsky came over to my desk and grabbed
me by the collar.
"What are you yelling about?" He swung at me.
Stepan Gavrya, alias Atlantis, shouldered Lizarsky away. "What's it to
you, you monarchist?"
"Who asked you? Sock'im, Baldy!
Baldin was eating sunflower seeds indifferently. Someone standing in
back of him sang a ditty:
See the boat that tows a barge,
Goodness me!
On the barge are seeds so large,
Diddle-dee!
Baldin shoved his shoulder into Stepan's chest. The usual muttered
conversation followed:
"Who do you think you are?"
"That's none of your business."
"Take it easy."
"Who asked you?"
The fight that followed probably burst into flame from the sparks
Baldin saw. A couple of other "monarchists" came to his aid. A second later
it was a free-for-all. Not until the monitor shouted, "Ma'msele's coming!"
did the two sides retreat to their desks. A truce was declared until the
long recess.
It was a glorious day. It was thawing. Boys were playing mumbly-peg on
the drying walks. A huge spotted pig was scratching its side on a post in
the sun opposite school. Its black spots were like inkblots on a white piece
of blotting paper. We poured out into the yard. There was a sea of sunlight
and not a single policeman in sight.
"Everybody who's against the tsar, over here!" Stepan Gavrya shouted.
"Hey, you monarchists! How many of you are there to a pound when you're
dried?"
"Whoever's for the tsar, over here! Kill the bums!" Lizarsky screeched.
A moment later the air was full of snowballs flying back and forth. The
battle raged. I was soon hit in the eye with such a hard-packed snowball it
made me dizzy. I saw green and purple stars, but our side was winning. The
"monarchists" had been forced back to the gate.
"Surrender!" we shouted.
They managed to get out of the yard. As we raced after them we fell
into a trap.
A junior high school was located nearby. We had always been at war with
the Juniors. They called us squabs and never missed a chance to pick a fight
with us (nor did we). Our "monarchists", those traitors, had gone over to
the Juniors, who did not know what the fight was all about, but fell on us
anyway.
"Kill the squabs! Get the pigeons!" the horde whistled and shouted as
it attacked.
"Wait!" Atlantis shouted. "Wait!"
Everyone stopped. He climbed onto a snowdrift, fell through it, climbed
up again and took off his cap. "Listen, fellows, quit fighting. That's
enough. From now on there's going to be, uh, what's the word, Lenny?
Eternity? No. Fraternity! For everyone. And there won't be any more wars.
What a life! We'll all be on the same side from now on."
He was silent for a moment, not knowing what else to say. Then he
jumped down and went over to one of the Juniors. "Give me five," he said and
shook the boy's hand.
"Hooray!" I shouted, surprising myself.
The boys began to cheer and laugh. Soon we were one happy crowd.
Then the schoolbell pealed angrily.
"Roachius is steaming in!" the monitor shouted and rushed back to his
seat.
The door opened. We stood up noisily. The Latin teacher entered,
bringing in the quiet of the deserted corridor. He went to the lectern and
twirled his stringy, roach-like moustache until the tips bristled.
His gold pince-nez spurred the bridge of his nose and galloped down the
rows until his eye came to rest on my swollen cheek. "What's that supposed
to be?" His slim finger was pointing at me.
I rose, and in a dull, hopeless voice replied, "I hurt myself. I
slipped and fell."
"So you fell, did you? I see.... Poor child. Well, Mister
Revolutionary, march up to the front of the class. So! It's a real beauty.
Have a look, gentlemen! So. What was the homework for today?"
I stood at attention in front of the lectern and said nothing. Roachius
drummed his fingers on the top of a desk. My silence was anguished. It was
full of despair.
"So. So you don't know. I gather you've had no time to look in to it.
You were too busy making a revolution. Sit down. You've just earned yourself
an 'F'."
An indignant murmur filled the classroom. His pen pecked at the ink in
the inkwell, soared over the lectern like a hawk, peered down from above to
find my name in the class journal and....
When the next semester
Does stumble to an end,
The teacher will present me
With another "F', my friend.
The "monarchists" in the last row behind the stove snickered. This was
more than I could bear. I breathed heavily. The boys shuffled their feet.
The teacher's knuckles rapped on the top of the lectern.
"Silence! What's going on here? Do you want to get reported again? We
haven't been strict enough with you!"
When the noise died down I said stubbornly, speaking through my tears,
"But the tsar's been overthrowed anyway."
Our last lesson that day was nature study.
This subject was taught by our favourite teacher, Nikita Pavlovich
Kamyshov, a jolly man with a long moustache. His classes were always
interesting and full of fun. He entered the room with a springy step, waved
us down to our seats and said with a smile: "Well, my doves, what a
situation, hm? There's been a revolution. That's really something."
This encouraged us, and we all began shouting at once.
"Tell us about it! Tell us about the tsar!"
"Shush, my doves!" he said, raising a finger. "Shush! Even though
there's been a revolution, there must be silence above all. Fine. Secondly,
though we are now on to the study of the solid-hoofed species, it is still
too early to speak about the tsar."
Stepan Atlantis raised his hand. All eyes were on him. We expected him
to oblige with a practical joke.
"What is it, Gavrya?"
"Someone's smoking in class."
"I've never known you to be a tattletale. All right, who has dared to
smoke in class?"
"The tsar," Stepan said impudently.
"What? Who did you say?"
"The tsar's smoking. Nicholas II."
Indeed! There was a portrait of the tsar on the wall, and someone,
apparently Stepan, had poked a hole in the comer of the tsar's mouth and
stuck a lighted cigarette in the hole.
The tsar was smoking. We all burst out laughing. The teacher joined us.
Suddenly, he became very serious and raised his hand. The laughter died
down.
"Nicholas Romanoff, leave the room!" he said solemnly. And so the tsar
was banished from the classroom.
There was a high fence between the yard of the Girls School and our
school. There were cracks in the fence. During recess the boys would pass
notes to girls through the cracks. The girls' teachers were always on the
lookout to make sure that we did not come near the fence, but it didn't help
anyway. Close ties existed between the two yards, and they were kept up
through the years.
Once, when the senior boys were having a grand old time, they got hold
of me during recess, swung me and tossed me over the fence into the girls'
yard. The girls flocked around. I was so embarrassed I was ready to cry.
Three minutes later their headmistress got me out of their clutches. She led
me solemnly into our Teachers' Room. My appearance was rather bizarre,
somewhat like that of Kostya Gonchar, the town fool who would deck himself
out in anything gaudy that came to hand. There were flowers in my pocket,
chocolate on my lips, a bright candy wrapper stuck in my belt, a pigeon's
feather in my cockade, a paper devil on a string around my neck, and one
trouser leg was saucily tied with a pink ribbon and bow. All of the boys,
and even the teachers, nearly collapsed at the sight of me. I never went
near the fence again from that day on. That was why, when the boys now
picked me to be a delegate and go over to the girls' side, I remembered the
candy wrapper, the headmistress and the pink bow, and flatly refused.
"Go on!" Stepan Atlantis said. "Why don't you want to? You're the best
man for the job, being as you're so polite. Well, never mind, I'll go
myself, it's easy. After all, somebody has to explain things to them."
And so Stepan climbed over the fence.
We all pressed close to the cracks.
The girls were running around, playing tag, shrieking and laughing
loudly. Stepan jumped down into their yard. "Oh!" they cried, stood still
for a moment and then rushed to the fence like chicks coming to a hen's
clucking. They surrounded him. He saluted and introduced himself as follows:
"Stepan Atlantis." Then he took his hand from his visor for a moment to wipe
his nose. "You can call me Gavrya, but Stepan is better."
"Who does he think he is, climbing over the fence like that? Hooligan!"
a small girl named Foxy said, puckering her lips.
"I'm not a hooligan. I'm a delegate. I'll bet you're all still for the
tsar, aren't you? Ha! What a bunch of ninnies!"
Then Stepan took a deep breath and made a long speech, carefully
choosing his words, for he wanted to sound polite.
"Listen, girls! There was a revolution yesterday, and the tsar was
booted out. I mean, kicked out. None of us sang 'God save the tsar' at
prayers this morning, and we're all for the revolution. I mean, for freedom.
We want to overthrow the principal, too. Are you for freedom or not?"
"What's it like?" Foxy asked.
"That means there won't be a tsar or a principal. They won't make us
stand along the walls any more, and we'll elect whoever we want to be in
charge and tell us what to do. It'll really be great! And we can hang out on
Breshka Street. I mean, walk around there, whenever we want to."
"I guess I'm for freedom," Foxy drawled after some thought. "What about
you, girls?"
The girls were now all for freedom.
Stepan Atlantis came to see me late that evening. He came up the back
stairs and called me out the kitchen. He looked very mysterious. Annushka
was wiping the wet glassware. The glasses squeaked loudly. Stepan glanced at
her, as if taking her into his confidence, and said,
"You know, the teachers want to get rid of Fish-Eye. Honest. I heard
them talking about it. I was walking behind the history teacher and
Roachius, and they were saying they'd report him to the committee. 'Pon my
honour. You know what";
Tomorrow, when we go to that whad-diya-call-it, manifestation, when I
raise my hand, we're all going to shout: 'Down with the principal!' Mind you
don't forget I can't stay. I have to see the other fellows, and I'm dead
beat. Well, reservoir!"* He turned at the door and said threateningly: "And
if Lizarsky opens up his trap again, I'll settle his hash. See if I don't."
There was no school the next day. Both the Boys and the Girls schools
had joined the demonstration in town. The principal phoned in to say he
would not be in due to a bad cold ... cough-cough!
Everything was so unusual, so new and so fascinating. We gathered for
the demonstration. The teachers shook the older pupils' hands. They joked
and talked with them as equals. The Clerks' Club band was blaring. The cream
of our local society, portly officials of the Escise Tax Bureau, the tax
inspector, the railroad officials, the thin-legged telegraph operators and
postal clerks were all marching along in broken lines, vainly trying to keep
in step. There were caps, cockades piping, tabs and silver buttons
everywhere. Everyone was carrying a slip of paper with the words of The
Marseillaise printed on it which had been handed out somewhere along the
line. The officials, having donned their spectacles, peered a their slips as
intently as if this was some piece of business correspondence and sang in
joyless voices.
The mayor, who had already been deposed, appeared on the porch o the
district council office. He was wearing a pair of rubbers over red-and white
felt boots. The ex-mayor took off his hat and said in a hoarse and solemn
silence, listening to the bombastic speeches of the town fathers. Some of
the men were holding crutches that had been adorned with bows.
Shvetsov, a fourth-grade boy, recited a poem entitled "Belgian
children". Six second-grade boys were lined up behind him to accompany his
recital with various tableaux. The Zemstvo inspector's daughter played "The
Skylark" by Glinka on the piano. The wounded fidgeted and seemed
uncomfortable. The last to perform was the town druggist, an amateur poet
and tenor. Then a tall young blond soldier rose from one of the cots and
cleared his throat shyly.
"Speech! Speech!" everyone shouted, applauding loudly.
When the noise finally died down, the soldier said, "I'd like to
say.... Doctor, Sir, and ladies and gentlemen, and nurses, and everybody
else. Uh, we're very grateful to you for all this, for everything, but we'd
rather, I mean, we've been travelling for three days and three nights, and
we haven't had any sleep, and that's what we really need."
Soldiers were being flogged in the barracks. One officer called another
an Armenian mug at the Officer's Club, and the insulted man shot the
offender point-blank, killing him on the spot. By now the wounded were being
brought in any which way and dumped wherever there was available space.
Then our forces took Peremyshl. A crowd of shopkeepers, shady
characters from the suburbs and a few officials walked through the streets
with a portrait of the tsar like an icon at the head of the column. They
infected the air with howling tricoloured flutterings and the sour stench of
raw liquor. It was quite as if some celebration were being warmed up over a
spirit burner.
Once again the school inspector went from classroom to classroom
carrying his solemn, parted, victorious beard as majestically as if it were
a gonfalon.
We poured out onto the porch of the school building to greet the
demonstrators and, at a signal from the principal, we cheered. There was
something disgusting about the bellowing crowd of demonstrators. It seemed
that they needed but a little push to start rioting and killing. We felt as
if a mindless, suffocating, insurmountable force was engulfing us. It was
like being on the bottom of a pile during a free-for-all, squashed under a
great, crushing, suffocating weight, unable to expand your lungs to cry out.
However, it all ended without incident, not counting a call that night
to my father, to save the life of a "patriot" who had got drunk on wood
alcohol.
The demonstration made an indelible impression on Oska, that great
confuser of things, imitator and day-dreamer, who always managed to find a
new meaning for each object, seeing in each its second soul. His great
passion at the time was an old toilet seat. First, he stuck a samovar pipe
through the hole and made believe it was a Maxim machine-gun. Then he put
the toilet seat on his hobby horse, and it served as a yoke. Though this was
not exactly in the best of taste, still, it was permissible. However, the
day after the demonstration Oska organized a Schwambranian demonstration in
the yard, and this one was truly blasphemous. Klavdia had attached someone's
long drawers with ties at the ankles to a floor brush to serve as a
gonfalon. Oska carried the ill-fated toilet seat, which now served as a
frame for the portrait of the tsar, Nicholas II, Ruler of all Russia, which
he had cut out of a magazine.
The indignant janitor handed the demonstrators over to Papa and
threatened to inform the police, but was quickly pacified by a tip.
"Children are very sensitive to the spirit of the times," the grown-ups
said meaningfully.
The spirit of the times, an offensive spirit, seeped into everything.
That winter the boys of our school and the girls of the Girls School
were all taken to the Army camp to be shown a mock battle. It was a cold,
snowy day.
A colonel explained the battle to the ladies of the philanthropic
society. The ladies warmed their hands in their muffs and oh-ed and ah-ed,
and whenever a shot was fired they clapped their hands to their ears.
However, the battle was very unimpressive and certainly did not resemble the
battle scenes pictured in Niva. Black shapes were crawling across the field.
Fires dotted the scene, blending to produce a smokescreen. Then other fires
were lit. We were told these were signal fires.
From a distance the cross-firing, as it advanced along the lines,
sounded like a pennant flapping in the wind. The stench of the trenches was
overpowering.
"They're attacking," the colonel said.
The dark shapes were running and shouting "Hooray!" very
matter-of-factly.
"The battle is over," the colonel said.
"Which side won?" the spectators inquired, having understood nothing.
The colonel was silent for a moment and then said: "That side." Then he
looked up and warned everyone: "The bomb-thrower is about to go into
action."
Indeed, it did and very loudly at that. The ladies became frightened,
the cabbies' horses bolted, and the cabbies cursed in the direction of the
sky.
The battle was over.
The company that had taken part in the action passed in formation, led
by a sly-looking junior lieutenant. When they came abreast of us the
soldiers burst into a dirty song with a practiced air, some of them
whistling shrilly and straining their cold throats.
The girls exchanged glances. The boys roared. One of the teachers
cleared his throat. The fat headmistress of the Girls School became
indignant.
"Lieutenant!" the colonel shouted. "What's going on? Stop the singing."
Bringing up the rear, stumbling in boots that were much too large and
becoming entangled in the long flaps of his great-coat was a small, puny
soldier. He tried to keep in step, hopping and skipping to keep up, but
still fell behind. The boys recognized him. He was the father of one of the
poor boys.
"Hey, look at that dopey soldier! His son's in the third grade. There
he is!"
Everyone laughed. The little man picked up the flaps of his greatcoat
and set off at a trot as he tried to catch up with his company. His head
bobbed at the end of his long neck. His son stood on the sidelines, staring
at the ground. His face was covered with red blotches.
Oska was waiting for me impatiently when I got home, for he wanted to
hear all about the battle.
"Was there a lot of shooting?"
"I never knew war wasn't one bit nice at all," I replied.
The year was drawing to a close. It was vacation time. On December 31,
1916, our parents went to a New Year's party. Before leaving. Mamma
explained to us at length that "New Year's is not a children's party at all,
and you must go to bed at the usual time".
Oska tooted a sailing signal and sailed off to Schwambrania for the
night. Meanwhile, my friend and classmate Grisha Fedorov came to visit me.
We cracked nuts and played lotto for a while. Then, having nothing else to
do, we went fishing in Papa's fishbowl. Finally, we got bored of this, too,
turned off the light, sat down by the window and, after warming the pane
with our breath, made little holes on the frozen glass and looked out into
the street.
The moon was shining, and dull blue shadows lay across the snow. The
air was full of powdery, brilliant glitter. The street seemed magnificent.
"Let's go for a walk," Grisha said.
However, it was against school rules to be seen out on the street after
seven o'clock in December. Our supervisor Seize'em would go out hunting
schoolboys each night, stomping up and down the streets to find them.
I immediately imagined Seize'em pouncing on us from behind some corner,
his gold eagle-crested buttons glittering as he shouted:
"Silence! What's your name? Stand up straight!"
Such an encounter was nothing to look forward to. It meant a poor mark
for deportment and being left behind in an empty classroom for four hours
after school. Perhaps there would even be something else in store as a New
Year's surprise. Seize'em was a great one for such things.
"Don't worry, he's probably at some New Year's party himself," Grisha
said.
"He's probably stuffing himself someplace."
It didn't take much coaxing for me to give in. We put on our overcoats
and dashed out.
The town's small hotel and the Vesuvius Restaurant were both located
not far from our house. That evening the Vesuvius seemed to be erupting.
Streams of light poured forth from the windows, while the earth trembled
from the dancing within.
At the hitching post outside the hotel we saw an elegant high sleigh
with a velvet seat and a fox-lined lap rug. The runners were of figured
iron. A large dappled grey horse was harnessed to the curved lacquered
shafts. It was Gambit, the famous pacer and the best trotter in town. We had
no trouble recognizing both the horse and the carriage, for they belonged to
Karl Zwanzig, a very wealthy man.
At that moment I had a wild idea.
"You know what, Grisha?" I said, turning cold at my own boldness.
"Let's go for a ride. Zwanzig won't be ready to leave for a long time. We'll
just ride as far as there and around the church, and back again. I know how
to drive."
I didn't have to say it twice, A minute later we had unhitched Gambit,
climbed up onto the high velvet seat and wrapped the furry rug around our
legs,
I picked up the firm, heavy reins, clicked my tongue as cabbies did,
cleared my throat and said in a deep voice: "Giddiyap! Go on, boy!"
Gambit turned, rolled a large eye at me and looked away. I even
imagined he had shrugged contemptuously, if horses did such things.
"I bet he only understands German," Grisha said. Then he shouted: "Hey!
Fortnaus!"
This made no impression on Gambit, either. Finally, I smacked him hard
with the twisted reins. The very same second I was thrown back. If not for
Grisha, who caught me by the belt, I would have sailed right out of the
sleigh. Gambit surged forward and was off. He hadn't bolted. He was trotting
swiftly as he always did, with me grasping the reins tightly as we sped
along the deserted street. What a shame that none of our friends were there
to see us!
"Let's call for Atlantis. He lives right around that corner. We still
have plenty of time," I said and tugged at the left rein. Gambit turned the
corner obediently. There was Atlantis' house.
"Hey, there! Whoa!"
But Gambit did not stop. No matter how hard I pulled at the reins, the
pacer paid no attention to me. He kept on trotting swiftly. Atlantis' house
was soon left far behind.
"Let's not call for him, Grisha. He's not much fun. Let's call for
Labanda instead. He lives over there." I had wound the reins around my hand
in advance and now braced my feet against the front board.
But Gambit did not stop outside Labanda's house either. I was beginning
to worry.
"Listen, Grisha, do you know what to do to make him stop?"
"Whoa! Stop!" he shouted as loudly as he could. We pulled on the reins
together.
However, the powerful pacer paid no attention to our shouts or to the
pull of the reins. He kept trotting faster and faster, racing us along the
dark streets.
"He doesn't understand Russian!" Grisha said in a scared voice. "And we
don't know what 'whoa' is in German. Nobody ever taught us that. You know,
he'll just keep on going. We can't stop him."
"We don't want to ride any more! Stop!" we both shouted.
But Gambit kept on stubbornly.
I tried to recall everything I knew about talking to horses and
everything I had ever read about it.
"Whoa! Stop, boy! Come on, dove!"
But, as ill luck would have it, I kept thinking of expressions the
likes of which could only be found in some saga, things such as: "0, you
wolf's repast, 0, you sack of grass" or, worse still, expressions to make a
horse go faster: "Git up!... Let's see some life in you!... Here we go!"
Having used up my vocabulary of horse words, I tried some camel words.
"Tratrr, tratrr... chok, chok!" I shouted, imitating the camel drivers.
But Gambit did not understand camel talk.
"Tsob-tsobeh, tsob-tsobeh!" I croaked, recalling the Ukrainian ox-cart
drivers.
That didn't help either.
The bell on Trinity Church began to strike One, two, three times.... It
struck twelve times.
That meant we had ridden into the New Year. Were we just going to go on
driving down the streets like that for the rest of our natural lives? When
would the confounded horse stop?
The moon shone down on us mysteriously. The stillness of the empty
streets, where one year had just ended and another had just begun, seeked
menacing. Were we doomed to riding in this sleigh forever?
I had become panic-stricken.
Suddenly, two rows of highly-polished brass buttons glinted in the
moonlight, appearing from around a corner. It was Seize'em. Gambit was
racing straight at him.
I dropped the reins in terror.
"Silence! What's all the noise about? What's your name? Stand still,
stupid!" Seize'em shrilled.
Then a miracle happened.
Gambit froze in his tracks.
We tumbled out of the sleigh, raced around the horse and, drawing
abreast of the supervisor, tipped our caps politely, grasping the patent
leather visors with our fingertips to bare our unruly heads as we bowed low
to Seize'em, saying: "Good evening, Seize ... Caesar Karpovich!" in unison.
"Happy New Year, Caesar Karpovich!"
Seize'em drew his pince-nez slowly from a case which he took out of his
pocket and settled the lenses on the bridge of his nose.
"Aha!" he beamed. "Two friends. I recognize you! Lovely, just lovely!
Excellent! Magnificent! Now we'll just write both your names down." At this
he took his famous notebook from the inner pocket of his overcoat. "We'll
write down both names. First one, then the other, and they'll both be left
after school as soon as vacation ends. Four hours each, and no dinner. Four
hours for one, and four hours for the other. Happy New Year, children!"
Then Seize'em stared at the sleigh. "One moment, boys. Have you Herr
Zwanzig's permission to take his sleigh? Hm?"
We interrupted each other in our haste to assure him that Herr Zwanzig
had actually asked us to take Gambit for a run to warm him up a bit.
"Excellent," he murmured. "We'll all go back together now and see
whether you are telling the truth or not. Come."
The very notion of finding ourselves in the fiendish sleigh again was
so terrible that we suggested he ride alone, promising to walk along beside
him.
The unsuspecting supervisor clambered up onto the high seat. He tucked
the luxurious fur rug around his legs, picked up the reins, yanked them and
clicked his tongue. When this had no effect, he let the reins fall lightly
on Gambit's bad that very moment we were tossed aside. Clumps of snow flew
into our faces. When we had brushed the snow from our eyes and shaken the
snow off our clothes the careening sleigh was just disappearing around a
bend, with our unfortunate supervisor hanging on for dear life and bellowing
something unintelligible.
Meanwhile, Herr Karl Zwanzig, Gambit's owner, came pounding arc another
corner. His coat was unbuttoned and his tie was askew. He was roaring the
top of his voice: "Help! Morder! Poleez! Shtop dem!"
We could hear a police whistle in the distance.
We never tried to find out how it all ended. Seize'em never said a word
of the night's adventure when we returned to school after our vacation.
Thus did the New Year begin. It was now 1917.
Mamma and Papa had just gone visiting. The front door slammed. The
draught made the doors fly open all through the house. We heard Annushka
turn the light off in the parlour. Then she went back to the kitchen. There
was an eeriness in the quiet that settled on the house. The clock in the
dining room ticked loudly. The wind rattled the windows. I sat down at the
table and pretended to be doing homework. Oska was drawing steamships. There
were very many of them, each had smoke pouring from its stacks. I took his
red-and-blue pencil and be colouring the pronouns in my Latin book, making
all the vowels red and all consonants blue. Suddenly Oska said,
"How do people know that the Earth is round?"
I knew the answer to that question, because it was on the first page of
geography book, and I went into a long explanation about a ship sailing far.
away until it disappeared completely beyond the horizon. Since you couldn't
sit any longer, it meant the Earth was round.
My explanation did not satisfy him.
"Maybe the ship sank? Huh? Maybe it just sank."
"Don't bother me. Can't you see I'm doing my homework?" I continued
colouring the pronouns.
All was silence again.
"I know how people know the Earth's round."
"I'm glad you do."
"Well, I do! It's because the globe is round. There!"
"You're a round-headed ninny, that's what."
Oska pouted. Trouble was brewing. Just then the telephone rang in our
fat consulting room. We raced to be the first to get there. The office was
dark, deserted and scary. I turned on the light. The room immediately
changed its appear;
like a developed negative. The windows had been light, but now they
became dark. The panes had been black, and now they were white. Most
important, however, office no longer frightened us. I picked up the receiver
and spoke in Papa's sc voice:
"Hello?"
It was our favourite Uncle Lyosha, phoning from Saratov. He had not
been us in ages. Mamma had told us that he had gone very far away, but Oska
had eavesdropped and learned that, strangely, he had been put in prison for
against the tsar and the war. Now he had apparently been released. That was
news!
"When are you coming to see us?" we shouted into the phone.
"I will soon," he replied, and I could hear him chuckle. "I want you
Mamma and Papa that I phoned and said there's been a revolution in R There's
a Provisional Government now. The tsar's abdicated. Repeat what I he said to
me, and he sounded excited.
"How did it happen?" I shouted.
"You're too little to understand."
"No, I'm not! Not if you tell me. I'm in the third grade."
And so our uncle, speaking from Saratov on the other side of the Volga,
went on hurriedly to explain the meaning of the war, the revolution,
equality and fraternity to me.
"Are you all through speaking?" a voice interrupted. "Your time is up."
Click! We were disconnected. I stood there, feeling as if I had
suddenly become about three years older, feeling that I was about to burst
from excitement.
I glanced at Oska. He seemed terribly embarrassed. "Shame on you!
What's the use of you knowing the Earth's round?"
"I held in all the time you were talking. It was an accident."
I ran to the kitchen. Annushka had a visitor. He was a wounded soldier
she knew, a man who always looked sullen. There was a small silver St.
George Cross on his chest. I shouted excitedly:
"Annushka! First of all, there's been a revolution, and freedom, and no
more tsar! And, secondly, Oska wet his pants. Find him another pair." I
related everything my uncle had just told me. Then Annushka's soldier-friend
stood up. His left arm was in a sling. He embraced me with his right arm. I
was stunned. He squeezed me hard as he said:
"That's the best piece of news you could have brought us! I can't even
believe it." Then he shook his big fist at someone outside the window and
added, "You'll get what's coming to you now! Our time's come!"
I looked at the window, but saw no one. Meanwhile, the soldier was
saying,
"Pardon me, young man, but this is the best news I've ever heard.
Why.... Good Lord.... Thanks a million!" He sounded as if there was a lump
in his throat.
I went to the dining-room, got up on a chair and knocked on the brass
cover of the stove's air duct. It served as a direct line to Anna and Vera
Zhivilsky who lived upstairs and whose stove was directly above ours. If I
knocked on the cover of our duct they could hear me. I could hear Anna's
voice in the duct.
"Hello!"
"Hello, Anna! I have some great news! There's been a revolution, and
there's a soldier here right now."
"You don't know what I have! Guess."
"Has there been another revolution someplace?"
"No! My godmother gave me a set of doll dishes, and it even has a
creamer."
I slammed down the receiver... that is, I slammed the brass lid shut.
No, they would never understand. I put on my fur hat and coat quickly and
ran to my friend next door. My Latin homework would have to be done some
other time.
SEIZE'EM CHASES THE MOON, OR WHAT THE LEDGER SAID OF THIS
There was a smell of spring in the air. The sky was studded with stars
that glittered like the buttons on the school inspector's tunic. I dashed
down the deserted street. The moon ran along beside me like a dog, stopping
at each and every telegraph pole. The houses all had their shutters closed
tight. How could people be sleeping at a time like this? After there had
been a revolution! I felt like shouting a the top of my voice.
Two rows of gleaming brass buttons were floating towards us. It was
Seize'em The faithful moon and I turned and fled. The moon hid behind the
poles and fences, while I tried to keep well within the shadows they cast.
Alas! He had spotted me.
"Stop! Stop, you scoundrel! Police!" he shrilled. But he had not called
my name, and that meant he had not recognized me. I kept on running. The
moon and Seize'em followed close behind. He was my enemy, but the moon was
my ally.
It darted behind a roof, the better to conceal me.
I was mistaken. Seize'em had recognized me. The next day the following
entry was made on my page in the Deportment Ledger:
"Seen by the inspector out on the street after 7 p.m. Did not stop
running despite having been ordered to."
The moon was not mentioned.
Oska and I escorted Annushka and her soldier-friend into the parlour an
marched up and down, with Annushka's red kerchief tied to Papa's walking
stick The soldier shouldered Oska's toy rifle and brandished it as we all
sang:
Up and down the mountains
Did a schoolboy go,
Shouting, "Down with that old tsar!"
His red flag waving so.
There was a wonderful smell of polished army boots in the parlour. My
brother and I and the soldier had become the best of friends. He let each of
us lick the paper of his home-rolled cigarette.
Oska fidgeted as he sat on the soldier's lap. Finally, he said: "Who's
strongest, a whale or an elephant? What if they have a fight? Which one'll
win?"
"I don't know. Tell me."
"I don't know, either. And Papa doesn't know, and Uncle doesn't know.
Nobody knows."
We discussed the whale and elephant problem for a while. The soldier
and I said the elephant would win, and just to be spiteful, Annushka said
the whale would. Then the soldier went over to the piano, sat down on the
stool and tried to sing The Marseillaise, accompanying himself by hitting
one single note.
Annushka finally realized it was way past our bedtime.
"At ease!" the soldier said and we tramped off to bed.
OSKA'S SELF-DETERMINATION
Moonbeams had marked the floor of our room off into hopscotch squares.
We might actually have played in them. But we were lying in our beds,
talking about the revolution. I told Oska whatever I had learned from our
uncle and also what I had read in the newspapers about the war, the workers,
the tsar and the pogroms.
Suddenly Oska said, "What's a Jew, Lelya?"
"It's a kind of people. There are all kinds. Like Russians, Americans
and Chinese. And Germans, and Frenchmen. And there are Jews, too."
"Are we Jews? For real, or for make-believe? Give me your word of
honour that we're Jews."
"My word of honour we are."
Oska was stunned by this discovery. He tossed about for quite some
time. I was half-asleep when he whispered, trying not to wake me, "Lelya!"
"What?"
"Is Mamma a Jew, too?"
"Yes. Go to sleep."
As I drifted off to sleep I imagined myself speaking to the Latin
teacher the next day and saying: "We've had enough of the old regime and
being made to line up along the walls. You have no right to do that any
more!"
We slept.
Papa and Mamma returned late that night. I woke up. As is often the
case when people return late from visiting friends or the theatre, they were
tired and irritable.
"That was an excellent cake," Papa was saying. "We never have anything
like it. I wonder where all the money goes?"
I could hear Mamma's surprise at finding the butt of a home-rolled
cigarette in the candle-holder on the piano. Papa went off to gargle. I
heard the tinkle of the glass stopper hitting the water pitcher. Suddenly my
father called my mother in a voice that was unusually loud for such a late
hour. Mamma asked him something. He sounded happy and excited. They had
found my note, telling them the great news. I had written it before going to
bed and had stuck it in the mouth of the pitcher.
They tiptoed into the nursery. Father sat down on the edge of my bed
and put his arm around me. "You spell 'revolution' with an 'o', not an 'a'.
Revolution. Ahh!" he said and tweaked my nose.
Just then Oska woke up. He had apparently been thinking of his great
discovery all the time, even in his sleep.
"Mamma...."
"It's late. Go back to sleep."
"Mamma," he repeated, sitting up in bed, "is our cat a Jew, too?"
" 'GOD SAVE THE TSAR...' PASS THIS ON"
The next morning Annushka woke Oska and me up by singing: "Arise, ye
workingmen, arise! Time for school!"
The workingmen (Oska and I) jumped out of bed. During breakfast I
remembered the Latin pronouns I should have learned by heart: hie, haec,
hoc....
Oska and I left the house together. It was warm. It was thawing. The
cabbies' horses shook their feedbags. Oska, as usual, thought they were
nodding to him. He was a very polite boy, and so he stopped beside each and
every horse, nodded to it and said,
"Good morning, horsie!"
The horses said nothing. The cabbies, who knew Oska by now, said good
morning for them. One horse was drinking from a bucket.
"Do you give him cocoa, too?" Oska wanted to know.
I dashed off to school. Nobody knew a thing yet. I would be the first
to tell them. I whipped off my coat, burst into the classroom and shouted as
I swung my satchel: "Fellows! The tsar's been overthrowed!"
There was a moment of stunned silence.
Seize'em whom I had not noticed, had a fit of coughing and turned red
in the face. He began shouting: "Are you crazy? I'll see to you later!
Hurry! Time for chapel! Line up in pairs."
But the boys surrounded me. They jostled each other and snowed me under
with questions.
The corridor rang from the sound of marching feet. The boys were being
lined up for morning prayers.
The principal, as dried-up, stiff and solemn as ever, strode along the
corridor, his well-pressed legs flashing. The brass buckles jangled.
The priest, as black in his cassock as an ink-blot in a penmanship
notebook, put on his chasuble. The service began.
We stood there whispering. The long grey lines were restless. Everyone
seemed to be whispering.
"There's been a revolution in Petrograd."
"Is that up on top of the map, where the Baltic Sea is?"
"Yes. It's a big circle. You'd even find it on a blank map."
"The history teacher said there's a statue of Peter the Great there.
And the houses are bigger than churches."
"I wonder what a revolution's like?"
"It's like the one in 1905 when we were at war with Japan. People
demonstrated in the streets, and they had red flags, and the Cossacks and
the police used their whips on them. And they shot them, too."
"What rats!"
"Golly, we're going to have a written test today. I'll probably get
another 'D'. Ah, who cares!"
"Our Father who art in Heaven...."
"That takes care of the tsar. They sure got rid of him. It serves him
right! Why'd he get us into the war?"
"Shut up! D'you think there'll be less homework now?"
"...For ever and ever. Amen."
"What grade's the heir in? I'll bet he never gets anything but 'A's'.
He has nothing to worry about. No teacher'll ever give him a hard time."
"Don't worry. Things'11 change now. He'll get his fair share of 'D's',
too. It's about time he finds out what it's all about!"
"Wait! What's the genitive plural? Never mind, I'll copy it off
someone."
A note was being passed along the rows. It had been written by Stepan
Atlantis. (Later the note and Atlantis' name were both entered in the
Ledger.) It read:
"Don't sing 'God save the tsar'. Pass this on."
"Today's chapter is from the Gospel according to Saint Luke."
A shy, freckle-faced third year boy read the parable in a faltering
voice. The inspector prompted him, reading over his shoulder.
The concluding prayer followed: "...for the solace of our parents and
the glory of our Church and Fatherland."
Now, in just another moment! We all tensed. The "ruling classes"
cleared their throats. Harrumph!
The small, long-haired precentor of Trinity Church honked loudly as he
blew his nose. At this a purple vein that resembled a big fat worm bulged in
his scrawny neck. We always expected it to burst. The precentor stuffed his
coloured handkerchief back into his back pocket through the slit in his
worn, shiny frock coat. The tuning fork in his right hand seemed to fly up.
A high metallic "ping" floated above the stuffy corridor. He fixed his
greasy starched collar, extracted his skinny, plucked-looking neck from it,
drew his little eyebrows together and sounded the key in a languorous voice:
"Laa.... Laa-aa."
We waited. The precentor rose up on tiptoe. His arms swooped up,
raising us in song. He began to sing in a high-pitched, screechy voice that
sounded like a finger being run down a window-pane: "God save the tsar...."
The boys were silent. Two or three hesitant voices joined in. Hefty,
who was standing behind the singers, said, as if he were making a mental
note of it: "Well, well...."
The voices wilted.
Meanwhile, the precentor faced the silent choir and waved his arms
wildly. His sugary voice squawked: "Mighty ... and powerful, reign...."
We could contain our laughter no longer. It rose as a great squall. The
teachers tried hard not to join us. The long corridor resounded with rolling
peals of laughter.
The inspector chuckled. Seize'em's stomach jiggled. The first-year boys
shrieked and giggled. The towering overgrown boys bellowed. The janitor
snickered. "Ha-ha ... ho-ho ... ho-ho-ho ... he-he-he ... ah-ha-ha...."
The one exception was the principal. He was as straight and stiff as
ever, though paler than usual. "Silence!" he said and stamped his foot.
Everything seemed squashed into silence beneath his gleaming boot.
At this point Mitya Lamberg, a senior and leader among the older boys,
shouted: "Quiet! I don't have a very strong voice." And he started singing
The Marseillaise.
I was standing on my desk, making a speech. Two boys appeared from
behind the brick stove at the far end of the room. It was the shopkeeper's
son Baldin and the police officer's son Lizarsky. They always stuck
together, reminding us of a boat and barge. Lizarsky, who was short and
stocky and always swung his arms when he walked, would lead the way, towing
lanky, dark-haired Baldin behind. Lizarsky came over to my desk and grabbed
me by the collar.
"What are you yelling about?" He swung at me.
Stepan Gavrya, alias Atlantis, shouldered Lizarsky away. "What's it to
you, you monarchist?"
"Who asked you? Sock'im, Baldy!
Baldin was eating sunflower seeds indifferently. Someone standing in
back of him sang a ditty:
See the boat that tows a barge,
Goodness me!
On the barge are seeds so large,
Diddle-dee!
Baldin shoved his shoulder into Stepan's chest. The usual muttered
conversation followed:
"Who do you think you are?"
"That's none of your business."
"Take it easy."
"Who asked you?"
The fight that followed probably burst into flame from the sparks
Baldin saw. A couple of other "monarchists" came to his aid. A second later
it was a free-for-all. Not until the monitor shouted, "Ma'msele's coming!"
did the two sides retreat to their desks. A truce was declared until the
long recess.
It was a glorious day. It was thawing. Boys were playing mumbly-peg on
the drying walks. A huge spotted pig was scratching its side on a post in
the sun opposite school. Its black spots were like inkblots on a white piece
of blotting paper. We poured out into the yard. There was a sea of sunlight
and not a single policeman in sight.
"Everybody who's against the tsar, over here!" Stepan Gavrya shouted.
"Hey, you monarchists! How many of you are there to a pound when you're
dried?"
"Whoever's for the tsar, over here! Kill the bums!" Lizarsky screeched.
A moment later the air was full of snowballs flying back and forth. The
battle raged. I was soon hit in the eye with such a hard-packed snowball it
made me dizzy. I saw green and purple stars, but our side was winning. The
"monarchists" had been forced back to the gate.
"Surrender!" we shouted.
They managed to get out of the yard. As we raced after them we fell
into a trap.
A junior high school was located nearby. We had always been at war with
the Juniors. They called us squabs and never missed a chance to pick a fight
with us (nor did we). Our "monarchists", those traitors, had gone over to
the Juniors, who did not know what the fight was all about, but fell on us
anyway.
"Kill the squabs! Get the pigeons!" the horde whistled and shouted as
it attacked.
"Wait!" Atlantis shouted. "Wait!"
Everyone stopped. He climbed onto a snowdrift, fell through it, climbed
up again and took off his cap. "Listen, fellows, quit fighting. That's
enough. From now on there's going to be, uh, what's the word, Lenny?
Eternity? No. Fraternity! For everyone. And there won't be any more wars.
What a life! We'll all be on the same side from now on."
He was silent for a moment, not knowing what else to say. Then he
jumped down and went over to one of the Juniors. "Give me five," he said and
shook the boy's hand.
"Hooray!" I shouted, surprising myself.
The boys began to cheer and laugh. Soon we were one happy crowd.
Then the schoolbell pealed angrily.
"Roachius is steaming in!" the monitor shouted and rushed back to his
seat.
The door opened. We stood up noisily. The Latin teacher entered,
bringing in the quiet of the deserted corridor. He went to the lectern and
twirled his stringy, roach-like moustache until the tips bristled.
His gold pince-nez spurred the bridge of his nose and galloped down the
rows until his eye came to rest on my swollen cheek. "What's that supposed
to be?" His slim finger was pointing at me.
I rose, and in a dull, hopeless voice replied, "I hurt myself. I
slipped and fell."
"So you fell, did you? I see.... Poor child. Well, Mister
Revolutionary, march up to the front of the class. So! It's a real beauty.
Have a look, gentlemen! So. What was the homework for today?"
I stood at attention in front of the lectern and said nothing. Roachius
drummed his fingers on the top of a desk. My silence was anguished. It was
full of despair.
"So. So you don't know. I gather you've had no time to look in to it.
You were too busy making a revolution. Sit down. You've just earned yourself
an 'F'."
An indignant murmur filled the classroom. His pen pecked at the ink in
the inkwell, soared over the lectern like a hawk, peered down from above to
find my name in the class journal and....
When the next semester
Does stumble to an end,
The teacher will present me
With another "F', my friend.
The "monarchists" in the last row behind the stove snickered. This was
more than I could bear. I breathed heavily. The boys shuffled their feet.
The teacher's knuckles rapped on the top of the lectern.
"Silence! What's going on here? Do you want to get reported again? We
haven't been strict enough with you!"
When the noise died down I said stubbornly, speaking through my tears,
"But the tsar's been overthrowed anyway."
Our last lesson that day was nature study.
This subject was taught by our favourite teacher, Nikita Pavlovich
Kamyshov, a jolly man with a long moustache. His classes were always
interesting and full of fun. He entered the room with a springy step, waved
us down to our seats and said with a smile: "Well, my doves, what a
situation, hm? There's been a revolution. That's really something."
This encouraged us, and we all began shouting at once.
"Tell us about it! Tell us about the tsar!"
"Shush, my doves!" he said, raising a finger. "Shush! Even though
there's been a revolution, there must be silence above all. Fine. Secondly,
though we are now on to the study of the solid-hoofed species, it is still
too early to speak about the tsar."
Stepan Atlantis raised his hand. All eyes were on him. We expected him
to oblige with a practical joke.
"What is it, Gavrya?"
"Someone's smoking in class."
"I've never known you to be a tattletale. All right, who has dared to
smoke in class?"
"The tsar," Stepan said impudently.
"What? Who did you say?"
"The tsar's smoking. Nicholas II."
Indeed! There was a portrait of the tsar on the wall, and someone,
apparently Stepan, had poked a hole in the comer of the tsar's mouth and
stuck a lighted cigarette in the hole.
The tsar was smoking. We all burst out laughing. The teacher joined us.
Suddenly, he became very serious and raised his hand. The laughter died
down.
"Nicholas Romanoff, leave the room!" he said solemnly. And so the tsar
was banished from the classroom.
There was a high fence between the yard of the Girls School and our
school. There were cracks in the fence. During recess the boys would pass
notes to girls through the cracks. The girls' teachers were always on the
lookout to make sure that we did not come near the fence, but it didn't help
anyway. Close ties existed between the two yards, and they were kept up
through the years.
Once, when the senior boys were having a grand old time, they got hold
of me during recess, swung me and tossed me over the fence into the girls'
yard. The girls flocked around. I was so embarrassed I was ready to cry.
Three minutes later their headmistress got me out of their clutches. She led
me solemnly into our Teachers' Room. My appearance was rather bizarre,
somewhat like that of Kostya Gonchar, the town fool who would deck himself
out in anything gaudy that came to hand. There were flowers in my pocket,
chocolate on my lips, a bright candy wrapper stuck in my belt, a pigeon's
feather in my cockade, a paper devil on a string around my neck, and one
trouser leg was saucily tied with a pink ribbon and bow. All of the boys,
and even the teachers, nearly collapsed at the sight of me. I never went
near the fence again from that day on. That was why, when the boys now
picked me to be a delegate and go over to the girls' side, I remembered the
candy wrapper, the headmistress and the pink bow, and flatly refused.
"Go on!" Stepan Atlantis said. "Why don't you want to? You're the best
man for the job, being as you're so polite. Well, never mind, I'll go
myself, it's easy. After all, somebody has to explain things to them."
And so Stepan climbed over the fence.
We all pressed close to the cracks.
The girls were running around, playing tag, shrieking and laughing
loudly. Stepan jumped down into their yard. "Oh!" they cried, stood still
for a moment and then rushed to the fence like chicks coming to a hen's
clucking. They surrounded him. He saluted and introduced himself as follows:
"Stepan Atlantis." Then he took his hand from his visor for a moment to wipe
his nose. "You can call me Gavrya, but Stepan is better."
"Who does he think he is, climbing over the fence like that? Hooligan!"
a small girl named Foxy said, puckering her lips.
"I'm not a hooligan. I'm a delegate. I'll bet you're all still for the
tsar, aren't you? Ha! What a bunch of ninnies!"
Then Stepan took a deep breath and made a long speech, carefully
choosing his words, for he wanted to sound polite.
"Listen, girls! There was a revolution yesterday, and the tsar was
booted out. I mean, kicked out. None of us sang 'God save the tsar' at
prayers this morning, and we're all for the revolution. I mean, for freedom.
We want to overthrow the principal, too. Are you for freedom or not?"
"What's it like?" Foxy asked.
"That means there won't be a tsar or a principal. They won't make us
stand along the walls any more, and we'll elect whoever we want to be in
charge and tell us what to do. It'll really be great! And we can hang out on
Breshka Street. I mean, walk around there, whenever we want to."
"I guess I'm for freedom," Foxy drawled after some thought. "What about
you, girls?"
The girls were now all for freedom.
Stepan Atlantis came to see me late that evening. He came up the back
stairs and called me out the kitchen. He looked very mysterious. Annushka
was wiping the wet glassware. The glasses squeaked loudly. Stepan glanced at
her, as if taking her into his confidence, and said,
"You know, the teachers want to get rid of Fish-Eye. Honest. I heard
them talking about it. I was walking behind the history teacher and
Roachius, and they were saying they'd report him to the committee. 'Pon my
honour. You know what";
Tomorrow, when we go to that whad-diya-call-it, manifestation, when I
raise my hand, we're all going to shout: 'Down with the principal!' Mind you
don't forget I can't stay. I have to see the other fellows, and I'm dead
beat. Well, reservoir!"* He turned at the door and said threateningly: "And
if Lizarsky opens up his trap again, I'll settle his hash. See if I don't."
There was no school the next day. Both the Boys and the Girls schools
had joined the demonstration in town. The principal phoned in to say he
would not be in due to a bad cold ... cough-cough!
Everything was so unusual, so new and so fascinating. We gathered for
the demonstration. The teachers shook the older pupils' hands. They joked
and talked with them as equals. The Clerks' Club band was blaring. The cream
of our local society, portly officials of the Escise Tax Bureau, the tax
inspector, the railroad officials, the thin-legged telegraph operators and
postal clerks were all marching along in broken lines, vainly trying to keep
in step. There were caps, cockades piping, tabs and silver buttons
everywhere. Everyone was carrying a slip of paper with the words of The
Marseillaise printed on it which had been handed out somewhere along the
line. The officials, having donned their spectacles, peered a their slips as
intently as if this was some piece of business correspondence and sang in
joyless voices.
The mayor, who had already been deposed, appeared on the porch o the
district council office. He was wearing a pair of rubbers over red-and white
felt boots. The ex-mayor took off his hat and said in a hoarse and solemn