Shrovetide.
On the left ran the high clay shore of Novorossia.
As for Moustaches, he was furtively examining something he held in his
hand.
Petya stole up to him from behind, stood on tiptoe, and saw it. It was
a small, passport-size photograph of a sailor in full uniform; his cap was
tilted at a swaggerish angle, and on its band was the inscription:
That was the very same sailor, the one with the anchor on his hand.
And here Petya suddenly realised, in a flash of insight, what was
strange about Moustaches' appearance: like the man with the anchor,
Moustaches was in disguise.
"MAN OVERBOARD!"
A fair wind was blowing. To help the engine along and to make up for
the time lost during loading, the captain ordered a sail to be set.
Not a single holiday celebration, not a single present, could have
thrown Petya into such raptures as did that trifle.
On second thought, a fine trifle!
An engine and a sail at one and the same time on one and the same ship!
A packet-boat and frigate combined!
I dare say that you, comrades, would also be delighted if you suddenly
had the good fortune to make a sea voyage on a real steamer that was under
sail into the bargain.
Even in those days sails were set only on the oldest steamers, and on
the rarest occasions at that. Nowadays it is never done at all.
So you can easily imagine how Petya felt about it.
Naturally, Moustaches and the runaway flew out of his mind at once. He
stood in the bow, gazing in a trance at the barefoot deck-hand who was
pulling, rather lazily, a neatly folded sail out of the hatchway.
Petya knew perfectly well that this was a jib. All the same he went up
to the mate, who, because there were no other seamen, was helping to set the
sail.
"I say there, tell me please, is that a jib?"
"It is."
The mate's tone was decidedly gruff, but Petya was not the least
offended. He knew very well that a real sea dog was bound to be somewhat
gruff. Otherwise what kind of sea-faring man was he?
Petya looked at the passengers with a restrained superior smile and
again addressed the mate, casually, as man to man: "Now tell me, please,
what other kinds of sails are there? How about the mainsail and foresail?"
"Get out of the way," the mate said, with the expression of a man whose
tooth has suddenly begun to ache. "Run along to your Mama in the cabin."
"My Mama's dead," Petya told the rude fellow with sad pride. "We're
travelling with Father."
To that the mate made no reply, and the conversation ended.
Finally the jib was set.
The little ship ploughed on faster than ever. Odessa was now tangibly
near. The white spit of the Sukhoi Liman came into sight ahead.
The shallow water of this estuary was such a dense and dark blue that
it gave off a reddish glow.
Then the slate roofs of Lustdorf, the German quarter, and the tall
rough-hewn church with the weather-vane on its spire appeared.
And after that came the villas, orchards, vegetable gardens, bathing
beaches, towers, lighthouses.
First there was the famous Kovalevsky tower, a tower with a legend.
A rich man by the name of Kovalevsky decided to build, at his own risk,
a water-supply system for the city. It would have brought him vast profit.
For every drink of water they took, people would have to pay Mr. Kovalevsky
as much as he wanted. You see, the only source of good drinking water near
Odessa was on Mr.Kovalevsky's land. But the water lay very deep, and to get
it a tremendous water tower had to be built. That was a big job for • a
single man to handle. But since Mr. Kovalevsky did not want to share his
future profits with anyone, he began to build the tower on his own. The work
turned out to cost much more than he had thought it would. His relatives
pleaded with him to give up his mad idea, but he had already put so much
money into it that he would not back out. He went on with the work. When the
tower was three-quarters built he ran out of money. But by mortgaging all
his houses and his lands, he managed to finish the tower. It was a huge
thing, and it looked like a chessboard castle enlarged thousands of times.
On Sundays whole families used to come from Odessa to look at the wonder.
But the tower alone was not enough, of course. Machines had to be ordered
from abroad; holes had to be drilled, mains had to be laid. Mr. Kovalevsky
grew desperate. He ran to the merchants and bankers of Odessa for a loan. He
offered a fabulous rate of interest. He promised them dividends such as they
had never dreamed of. He begged, he went down on his knees, he wept. But the
rich merchants and bankers would not forgive him for having refused to take
them in as partners from the beginning. They were deaf to his pleas. Not a
kopek did he get from anybody. He was completely ruined, broken, crushed.
The water-main became an obsession with him. All day long he used to pace,
like a madman, round and round the tower which had swallowed his whole
fortune, racking his brains for a way to raise money. Little by little he
went out of his mind. One fine day he climbed to the very top of the
accursed tower and jumped down. That had happened about fifty years earlier,
but the tower, blackened with age, still stood overlooking the sea not far
from the rich commercial city, as a grim warning and a ghastly monument to
insatiable human greed.
Then the new white lighthouse appeared, and after it the old one, now
no longer in service.
Lit up by the pink sun setting into the golden chain of suburban
acacias, they looked so distinct, so near- and, above all, so familiar-as
they towered over the bluffs, that Petya was ready to blow into the jib as
hard as he could, if only that would make the ship arrive sooner.
From here on he knew every inch of the coast. Bolshoi Fontan, Sredny
Fontan, Maly Fontan, the high, steep shore overgrown with scratch weed, wild
rose, lilac, and hawthorn.
The big rocks standing in the water in the shadow of the bluffs, rocks
green with slime halfway up their sides, and on them the swimmers and the
anglers with their bamboo poles.
And here was Arcadia, the restaurant on piles, with its band-stand-from
a distance so small, no bigger than a prompter's box-its brightly-coloured
sunshades, and the table-cloths across which the cool wind was scurrying.
Each new detail which met the boy's eyes was fresher and more interesting
than the one before. They had not been forgotten. No! They could be
forgotten no more than he could forget his own name! They had somehow merely
slipped from his memory for a time. Now they were suddenly rushing back, the
way a boy rushes home after having gone out without permission.
They came racing back, more and more of them all the time, one
overtaking the other.
They seemed to be shouting to him, in eager rivalry:
"Greetings, Petya! So you're back at last! How we've missed you! Come
now, don't you recognise us? Take a good look: this is me, your favourite
summer resort, Marazli. How you loved to walk over my splendidly clipped
emerald lawns, strictly forbidden though that was! How you loved to examine
my marble statues, over which big snails with four little
horns-'lavriks-pavliks', you called them-used to crawl, leaving behind a
slimy trail! Look how I've grown during the summer! Look how thick my
chestnut trees have become! What gorgeous dahlias and peonies are in bloom
in my flower-beds! What magnificent August butterflies you'll see alighting
in the dark shadows of my garden walks!"
"And here am I, Otrada! Surely you haven't forgotten my bathing beach,
my shooting gallery, my skittle-alley! Look at me: while you were gone we
put up a wonderful merry-go-round, with boats and horses. And a stone's
throw away lives your old friend Gavrik. He's counting the hours until your
return. So hurry, hurry!"'
"I'm here too, Petya! How do you do? Don't you recognise Langeron? Look
at all the flat-bottomed fishing boats pulled up on my beach, and at all the
fishing nets drying on crossed oars! Wasn't it here, in my sand, that last
year you found two kopeks and then drank four whole glasses-it was so much
you actually had to force it down -of sour kvass, and it tickled your nose
and nipped your tongue? Don't you recognise the kvass stand? Why, here it is
at the edge of the bluff, as large as life, amidst the weeds that have grown
so high during the summer! You don't even need binoculars to see it!"
"And here am I! I'm here too! Hello, Petya! Ah, if you only knew what's
been going on here in Odessa while you were away! Hello! Hello!"
As they approached the city the wind grew quieter and warmer.
Now the sun had disappeared altogether. Only the top of the mast and
the tiny red peak of the weather-vane still glowed in the absolutely clear
pink sky.
The jib was taken in.
The pounding of the ship's engine raised a loud echo among the bluffs
and crags of the shore. Up the mast crept the pale-yellow top lantern.
In thought Petya was already ashore, in Odessa.
Had anybody told him that only a short while before, that very morning,
in fact, he had almost cried when bidding farewell to the farm, he never
would have believed it.
The farm? Which farm? He had already forgotten it. It had ceased to
exist for him-until the next summer.
Quick, quick! To the cabin, to hurry Daddy and to put their things
together!
Petya spun about, ready to run. But then he froze in horror. The sailor
with the anchor on his hand was sitting on the steps of the bow-ladder, and
Moustaches was walking directly towards him, hands in pockets, without his
pince-nez, his sandals squeaking.
He came up to the sailor, leaned over him, and said, in a voice neither
loud nor soft, "Zhukov?"
"What about Zhukov?" the sailor said in a low, strained voice. He
turned visibly pale and stood up.
"Sit down. Be quiet. Sit down, I tell you."
The sailor continued to stand. A faint smile trembled on his ashen
lips.
Moustaches frowned. "From the Potemkin? How do you do, my dear chap.
You might at least have changed your boots. And us waiting for you all this
long time. Well, what have you to say for yourself, Rodion Zhukov? The
game's up, eh?"
With these words Moustaches gripped the sailor by the sleeve.
The sailor's face contorted.
"Hands off!" he cried in a terrible voice. He shifted his weight and
slammed his fist into Moustaches' chest with all his might. "Keep your hands
off a sick man!"
The sleeve ripped.
"Stop!"
But it was too late.
The sailor had torn himself free and was running down the deck, weaving
in and out among the baskets, crates, and passengers. Moustaches ran after
him.
An onlooker might have thought these two grown men were playing tag.
They dived, one after the other, into the passage-way next to the
engine-room and then bobbed up on the other side. They ran up the ladder,
their soles drumming and sliding on the slippery brass steps.
"Stop! Grab him!" cried Moustaches, wheezing heavily.
The sailor now carried a batten which he had torn loose somewhere on
the way.
"Grab him! Grab him!"
The passengers, frightened and curious, gathered in a cluster on the
deck. There was a piercing blast from a policeman's whistle.
The sailor cleared a high hatchway in one leap. He dodged Moustaches,
who had run round the hatchway, jumped back over it, and then hopped on a
bench. From the bench he sprang to the rail, grasped the ensign staff, and
struck Moustaches across the face with the batten as hard as he could. Then
he jumped into the sea.
Spray showered up over the stern.
"Oh!"
The passengers, every single one of them, reeled back as if a gust of
wind had caught them.
Moustaches ran back and forth in front of the rail. "Catch him! He'll
get away!" he cried hoarsely, holding his hands to his face. "Catch him!
He'll get away!"
The mate ran up the ladder three steps at a time with a life-belt.
"Man overboard!"
The passengers reeled forward towards the rail, as if now a gust of
wind had caught them from behind.
Petya squeezed through to the rail. Amid the whipped egg-white of the
foam, the sailor's head bobbed up and down with the waves like a float. He
was already a good way off, and he was swimming.
Not towards the ship, but away from it, working his arms and legs as
fast as he could. After every three or four strokes he turned back a tense,
angry face.
The mate saw that the man who was overboard had not the slightest
desire to be "saved". On the contrary, he was plainly trying to put as much
distance as possible between himself and his saviours. Besides, he was an
excellent swimmer and the shore was relatively near.
And so, everything was in order.
There was no cause for worry.
In vain did Moustaches tug at the mate's sleeve, make fierce eyes, and
demand that the ship be stopped and a boat lowered.
"He's a political criminal. You'll answer for this!"
The mate shrugged his shoulders phlegmatically. "It's none of my
business. I have no orders. Speak to the captain."
The captain merely waved his hand. "We're late as it is. It's out of
the question, my good man. Why should we? We'll be mooring in half an hour
and then you can go and catch your political chappie. This steamship line is
a private company. It doesn't go in for politics, and we have no
instructions on that score."
Swearing under his breath, Moustaches, his face battered, headed for
the place where the gangway would be set, forcing his way through the crowd
of third-class passengers preparing to disembark.
He roughly pushed aside the frightened people; he stepped on their feet
and kicked their baskets, and finally reached the rail so as to get off
first, the moment the ship moored.
By now the sailor's head could barely be seen in the waves amid the
markers swaying above the fishing nets.
ODESSA BY NIGHT
The shore darkened quickly; it turned a light blue, then a deep blue,
then purple. On land, evening had already come. At sea it was still light.
The glossy swell reflected a clear sky. But here, too, evening was making
itself felt.
The signal lanterns on the paddle-boxes had been lit without the boy's
noticing it, and their bulging glass sides, in the daytime so dark and thick
one could never guess their colour, now gleamed green and red; they did not
throw any light as yet, but they definitely glowed.
All at once the dark-blue city, with its cupola-shaped theatre roof and
the colonnade of the Vorontsov Palace, loomed in front of them, shutting out
half the horizon.
The watery stars of the wharf lamps were palely reflected in the
light-coloured, absolutely motionless lake of the harbour. It was into the
harbour that the Turgenev now turned, closely skirting the thick tower of
the lighthouse-really not a very big one at all-which had a bell and a
ladder.
Down in the engine-room the captain's bell ting-a-linged for the last
time.
"Slow!"
The narrow little steamer slid quickly and noiselessly past the
three-storey bows of the ocean-going ships of the Dobrovolny Merchant Line
standing in a row inside the breakwater. Petya had to crane his neck in
order to study their monstrous anchors.
Those were ships!
"Stop!"
Without slowing down, carried along by her momentum, the Turgenev cut
obliquely across the harbour, in complete silence; she bore down on the
wharf as if she would crash into it any minute.
Two long creases stretched back from her sharp bow, making stripes like
a mackerel's in the water.
Along the sides the water gurgled softly.
Heat poured from the advancing city as from an oven.
All of a sudden Petya saw a funnel and two masts sticking out of the
mirror-like surface. They floated by as close to the ship's side as could
be-black, frightful, dead.
The passengers crowding at the rail gave a gasp.
"They scuttled her," someone said in a low voice.
"Who?" the boy wanted to ask, horror-struck. But just then he saw an
even more gruesome sight: the charred iron skeleton of a ship leaning
against a charred wharf.
"They burned her," the same voice said, more softly than before.
Now the wharf was upon them.
"Astern!"
The paddle-wheels began to clatter again, revolving in the opposite
direction. Little whirlpools scurried across the water.
The wharf drifted away and somehow shifted about, and then, very
slowly, it approached again, but from the other side.
Over the heads of the passengers shot a coiled rope, unwinding as it
flew.
Petya felt a slight jolt; it had been softened by the rope fender.
The gangway was shoved up from the wharf. The first to run down it was
Moustaches. He immediately disappeared in the crowd.
Our travellers waited their turn, and before long they were slowly
walking down the gangway to the wharf.
Petya was surprised to see a policeman and several civilians standing
at the foot of the gangway. They were looking closely, very closely, at
everyone coming down. They looked at Father, who thrust forward a quivering
beard and mechanically buttoned his coat. He tightened his grip on Pavlik's
hand, and his face took on exactly the same unpleasant expression as it had
in the coach that morning when he was talking to the soldier.
They took a cab. Pavlik was put on the folding seat in front, while
Petya sat next to Father on the main seat, quite like a grown-up.
As they drove out they saw a sentry with a rifle and with
cartridge-pouches at his belt standing by the gate. That was something
altogether new.
"Why is a sentry standing there, Daddy?" Petya asked in a whisper.
"For God's sake!" Father said irritably, with a jerk of his neck. "All
you do is ask questions. How should I know? If he's standing there it means
he's standing there. And you're to sit quiet."
Petya saw that no questions were to be asked, and also that there was
no call to take offence at Father's irritability.
But when, at the railway crossing, he saw the trestle bridge burned to
the ground, the mounds of charred sleepers, the twisted rails hanging in the
air, and the wheels of overturned railway carriages-when he saw that scene
of frozen chaos he cried out breathlessly, "Oh, what's that? Look! I say
there, cabby, what's that?"
"Set fire to it, they did," the cab-driver said mysteriously, shaking
his head in the firm beaver-cloth hat, but whether in condemnation or
approval was not clear.
They drove past the famous Odessa Stairway.
Up at the top of its triangle, in the space between the silhouettes of
the two semi-circular symmetrical palaces, the small figure of the Due de
Richelieu stood outlined against the light evening sky, his arm stretched
out in antique mode towards the sea.
The three-armed street lamps along the boulevard gleamed. From the
terrace of an open-air restaurant came the strains of music. The first pale
star trembled in the sky over the chestnut trees and the gravel of the
boulevard.
Somewhere up above, Petya knew, beyond the Nikolayev Boulevard, lay the
bright, noisy, luring, unapproachable, intangible place which was referred
to in the Batchei family circle with contemptuous respect as "the Centre".
In the Centre lived "the rich", those special beings who travelled
first class, who could go to the theatre every day, who for some strange
reason had their dinner at seven o'clock in the evening, who kept a chef
instead of a cook and a bonne instead of a nursemaid, and often even "kept
their own horses"-something indeed beyond human imagination.
The Batcheis, of course, did not live in "the Centre".
The droshky rumbled over the cobblestones of Karantinnaya Street and
then, turning right, drove up the hill to the city proper.
Petya was unaccustomed to the city after his summer's absence.
He was deafened by the clang of horseshoes, which drew sparks from the
cobbles, by the clatter of wheels, by the jangle of the horse-trams, by the
squeaking of shoes and the firm tapping of walking sticks on the dark-blue
slabs of the pavement.
The crisp sadness of autumn's tints had long ago gilded the farm, the
harvested fields, the wide-open steppe. But here, in the city, summer still
reigned, rich and luxuriant.
The languid heat of evening hung in the breathless air of the
acacia-lined streets.
Through the open doors of grocers' shops Petya could see the little
yellow tongues of oil lamps throwing their light on jars of coloured
sugar-plums.
Right on the pavement, under the acacias, lay mountains of
water-melons-glossy greenish-black Tumans with waxy bald spots, and long
bright Monasteries with striped sides.
Every now and then there appeared the gleaming vision of a corner fruit
shop. In the dazzling glare of the new incandescent lamps, a Persian could
be seen fanning magnificent Crimean fruit with rustling plumes of
tissue-paper. There were large purple plums covered with a turquoise bloom,
and those very expensive luscious brown Beurre Alexander pears.
They drove past mansions, and, through the ironwork fences entwined
with wild vines, Petya could see, in the light pouring from the windows,
beds of luxurious dahlias, begonias and nasturtiums, with plump moths
fluttering above them.
From the railway station came the whistle of steam-engines.
Then they passed the familiar chemist's shop.
Behind the large plate-glass window with its gilded glass letters
gleamed two crystal pears, one full of a bright violet liquid and the other
a green liquid. Petya was convinced they were poison. It was from this
chemist's the horrible oxygen pillows had been brought to Mummy when she was
dying. What a frightful snoring sound they had made near Mummy's
medicine-blackened lips!
Pavlik was fast asleep. Father took him in his arms. Pavlik's head
swayed and bobbed up and down. His heavy little bare legs kept slipping off
Father's lap. But his fingers tightly gripped the bag with the treasured
moneybox.
In that state he was handed over into the arms of Dunya, the cook, who
was waiting in the street for her masters when the cab finally pulled up at
the gate with the triangular little lantern in which the house number glowed
dimly.
"Welcome home! Welcome home!"
Petya, still feeling the roll of the deck under his feet, ran into the
entrance-way.
What a huge, deserted staircase!
Bright and echoing. How many lamps! At every landing a paraffin lamp in
a cast-iron fixture, and over each lamp a little hood swaying lazily in a
circle of light.
Brightly polished brass plates on the doors. Coconut fibre doormats. A
pram.
Petya had completely forgotten these things, and they now appeared
before his wondering eyes in all their original novelty.
He would have to get used to them again.
From somewhere above there came the sharp resounding click of a key,
followed by the slamming of a door and then by quick voices. Each
exclamation rang out like a pistol shot.
The gay bravura notes of a grand piano came, muffled, through a wall.
With compelling chords, music was reminding the boy of its existence.
And then-goodness me! Who was that?
A forgotten but frightfully familiar lady in a dark-blue silk dress
with a lace collar and lace cuffs came running out through the door. Her
eyes were red from tears, excited, happy; her lips were stretched in
laughter. Her chin trembled, but whether from laughing or crying Petya
couldn't quite be sure.
"Pavlik!"
She tore him from the cook's arms.
"Good gracious! How heavy you've become!"
Pavlik opened eyes turned absolutely black from sleep and remarked, in
surprise, but with profound indifference, "Ah, Auntie?"
Then he fell asleep again.
Why, of course, this was Auntie Tatyana! Dear, precious Auntie Tatyana,
whom he knew so well but who had simply slipped out of his memory. How could
he have failed to recognise her?
"Petya? How huge you are!"
"Do you know what happened to us, Auntie?" Petya began at once.
"Auntie, you don't know anything about it! But Auntie, only listen to what
happened to us. Why, Auntie, you're not listening! Auntie, you're not
listening!"
"Very well, very well. Wait a minute. Go inside first. Where's Vasili
Petrovich?" "Here I am." Father was coming up the stairs.
"Well, here we are. How do you do, Tatyana Ivanovna."
"Welcome home, welcome home! Come in. Were you seasick?"
"Not a bit. We had an excellent trip. Have you any small change? The
driver can't change a three-ruble note."
"I'll take care of that. Don't worry about it. Petya, don't trip me up.
You'll tell me later. Dunya, be a dear and run down and pay the cabby.
You'll find some money on my dressing-table."
The hall into which Petya walked seemed spacious and dim and so strange
that at first he failed to recognise even the tall swarthy boy in the straw
hat who had suddenly appeared, as if from nowhere, inside the walnut frame
of the forgotten but familiar pier-glass lit up by the forgotten but
familiar lamp.
But Petya, of all people, should have recognised him instantly, for
that boy was himself.
10
AT HOME
On the farm there had been a little room with whitewashed walls and
three camp-beds covered with light cotton counterpanes.
An iron washstand. A pine table. A chair. A candle in a glass shade.
Green latticed shutters. Floorboards bare of paint from constant scrubbing.
How nice and cool it had been, after eating his fill of clotted milk
and grey whole-meal bread, to fall asleep in that sad, empty room to the
soothing noise of the sea! Here everything was different.
Here there was a big flat with papered walls and rooms crowded with
furniture in loose-covers.
The wallpaper was old, and in each room it had a different design; the
furniture was different in each room too.
The bouquets and lozenges on the wallpaper made the rooms seem smaller.
The furniture here was called "suites", and it muffled the sound of
footsteps and voices. Here, lamps were carried from room to room. In the
parlour stood rubber plants with stiff, waxy leaves. Their new shoots stuck
out like sharp little daggers sheathed in saffian covers.
When the lamps were moved their light passed from one mirror to
another. The vase on top of the piano shook every time a droshky drove down
the street. The clatter of the wheels connected the house with the city.
Petya wanted to finish his tea as quickly as possible. He was dying to
run out into the courtyard, for at least a minute, to see the boys and learn
the news.
But it was already very late-after nine. All the boys were probably
asleep long ago.
He was anxious to tell Auntie Tatyana, or at least Dunya, about the
runaway sailor. But they were busy; they were making the beds, fluffing
pillows, taking heavy, slippery sheets out of the chest of drawers, carrying
lamps from room to room.
Petya followed Auntie Tatyana about. "Why won't you listen to me,
Auntie?" he pleaded, stepping on her train. "Please listen."
"You can see I'm busy."
"But Auntie, it won't take long."
"You'll tell me tomorrow."
"Oh, Auntie, don't be so mean! Please let me tell you. Please, Auntie."
"Don't get in my way, Petya. Go and tell it to Dunya."
Petya shambled off glumly to the kitchen, where green onions grew in a
wooden box on the windowsill.
Dunya was hastily pressing a pillow-case on an ironing-board covered
with a strip of coarse woollen cloth from an army greatcoat. Thick steam
rose from the iron.
"Dunya, listen to what happened to us," Petya began in a plaintive
voice, gazing at the taut glossy skin on Dunya's bare forearm.
"Don't stand so near, Master Petya. God knows I don't want to burn you
with this hot iron."
"But all you have to do is listen."
"Go and tell it to your aunt."
"Auntie doesn't want to listen. I'll tell you instead. Du-unya,
please."
"Tell it to the Master."
"Oh, how stupid you are! Father knows all about it."
"Tomorrow, Master Petya, tomorrow."
"But I want to tell you today."
"Please get away from my elbow. Aren't there enough rooms in the house
for you? Why do you have to poke your nose into the kitchen?"
"I'll only tell you about it, Dunya dear, and then I'll go right away.
Word of honour. By the true and holy Cross."
"What a trial you are! Everything was so quiet until you came back!"
Dunya planked the iron down on the stove, caught up the ironed
pillow-case and ran into the next room so impetuously that a breeze passed
through the kitchen.
Petya sadly rubbed his eyes with his fists. Suddenly he was taken with
such a fit of yawning that he barely managed to drag himself to his bed,
where, powerless to unglue his eyes, he pulled off his sailor blouse like a
blind man.
The instant his hot cheek touched the pillow he dropped off into a
sleep so sound that he did not feel Father's beard when he came, as was his
custom, to kiss him goodnight.
Pavlik, however, caused a good deal of bother. He had fallen into such
a deep sleep in the cab that Father and Auntie Tatyana had quite a job
undressing him.
But the moment they put the child to bed he opened eyes that were
absolutely fresh and looked round in astonishment.
"Have we got there yet?"
Auntie Tatyana kissed him tenderly on his hot crimson cheek.
"Yes, my pet. Sleep."
But Pavlik, it appeared, had had a good sleep, and now he was in a mood
for talking.
"Is that you, Auntie?"
"Yes, my chick. Go to sleep."
Pavlik lay for a long time with wide-open, attentive eyes-eyes now as
dark as olives-listening to the unfamiliar noises of the city flat.
"Auntie, what's making that noise?" he finally said in a frightened
whisper.
"Which noise?"
"That snoring noise."
"That's the water in the tap, my pet."
"Is it blowing its nose?"
"Yes. Now go to sleep."
"What's making that whistle?"
"That's a steam-engine."
"Where?"
"Have you really forgotten? At the station just opposite. Go to sleep."
"Why is there music?"
"Someone is playing the piano upstairs. Don't you remember how people
play the piano?"
Pavlik was silent for a long time.
One might have thought him to be asleep, except that his eyes shone
distinctly in the greenish glow of the night lamp on the chest of drawers.
They were following with horror the long rays moving back and forth across
the ceiling.
"What's that, Auntie?"
"Those are the lanterns of droshkies passing by outside. Close your
eyes."
"And what's that?"
A huge death's-head moth fluttered with ominous thumpings in a corner
near the ceiling.
"That's a moth. Go to sleep."
"Will it bite?"
"No, it won't bite. Go to sleep."
"I don't want to sleep. I'm afraid."
"What are you afraid of? Stop imagining things. A big boy like you.
Tsk-tsk-tsk!"
Pavlik took a deep, luxurious, quivering breath and caught Auntie's
hand in his two hot little hands. "Did you see the Gipsy?" he whispered.
"No, I didn't."
"Did you see the Wolf?"
"No. Go to sleep."
"Did you see the Chimney-Sweep?"
"No, I didn't. You can go to sleep without worrying about a single
thing."
Again the boy took a deep, luxurious breath, turned over on his other
cheek, and cupped his palm under it.
"Auntie," he mumbled, closing his eyes, "give me the dummy."
"What? I thought you stopped using a dummy long ago."
The "dummy" was the special little clean handkerchief which Pavlik was
accustomed to sucking in bed and without which he could not fall asleep.
"Dum-m-m-my. . ." the boy whimpered capriciously.
But Auntie Tatyana did not give him the handkerchief. He was a big boy
now. High time he stopped that.
Thereupon Pavlik, continuing to whine, stuffed a corner of the pillow
into his mouth and got it all wet; he smiled lazily as his eyes glued
together. Suddenly, with a flash of horror, he thought of his moneybox: what
if robbers had stolen it? But he had no energy left for worrying.
He fell into a peaceful sleep.
GAVRIK
That same day another boy, Gavrik-the one we mentioned while describing
the coast near Odessa- woke at dawn from the cold.
He was sleeping on the shore, near the boat, his head on a smooth sea
stone and his face covered with his grandfather's old jacket. The jacket did
not reach to his feet.
At night it was warm, but towards morning it turned cool. Gavrik's bare
feet became chilled. In his sleep he pulled the jacket from his head and
wound it round his feet. Then his head began to feel cold.
He started shivering but he did not give in. He tried to fight the
cold. He was unable to fall asleep again, however.
Nothing for it but to get up!
Reluctantly Gavrik opened his eyes. He saw a glossy lemon sea and the
glow of a murky cherry-coloured dawn in a cloudless grey sky. It was going
to be a hot day. But until the sun came up there was no use even thinking
about warmth. Of course, Gavrik could very well have slept in the hut, with
Grandpa. There it was warm and soft. But show me the boy who will pass by
the delightful chance of sleeping on the seashore under the open sky!
Every now and then a wave laps the beach, so softly that it can barely
be heard. It breaks and then draws back, lazily dragging pebbles along with
it.
The next wave waits a while and then it laps the shore too, and again
pebbles are dragged back.
The silvery-black sky is strewn with August stars. The split sleeve of
the Milky Way hangs overhead like a vision of a river in the sky.
The sky is reflected in the sea so fully, so richly, that, when you lie
on the warm pebbles with your head thrown back, you simply cannot tell which
is up and which is down; it's as though you are suspended in the middle of a
starry abyss.
Shooting stars streak across the sky in all directions.
In the weeds, crickets chirp. On the bluffs, far, far away, dogs bark.
At first the stars seem to be standing still. But they aren't. When you
look at them a long time you can see the whole vault of the sky turning.
Some of the stars drop behind the villas. Others, new ones, come up out of
the sea.
The breeze changes from warm to cool.
The sky grows whiter, more transparent. The sea darkens. The morning
star is reflected in its dark surface like a little moon.
At the villas, the cocks crow sleepily for the third time. Day is
breaking.
How can anybody sleep under a roof on a night like that!
Gavrik rose, stretched himself with relish, rolled up his trousers and,
yawning, walked into the water up to his ankles.
Had he lost his mind? His feet were blue from the cold, and here he
stepped into the sea, the very sight of which was enough to give one the
shivers.
But the boy knew what he was doing. The water only looked cold.
Actually it was very warm, much warmer than the air. He was simply warming
his feet.
Then he washed himself and blew his nose into the sea so loudly that
several big-headed fry sleeping peacefully near the shore scattered to right
and left and slithered away into deep water.
Yawning and squinting against the rising sun. Gavrik took up the hem of
his shirt and dried his face-a mottled little face with a lilac-pink nose
which was peeling like a new potato.
"Urrmph, urrmph, urrmph," he grunted, exactly like a grown-up.
Unhurriedly he made the sign of the cross over his mouth, in which two front
teeth were still missing, picked up the jacket, and started up the hill with
the rolling gait of an Odessa fisherman.
He pushed his way through a thick growth of weeds. They sprinkled his
wet feet and his trousers with the yellow dust of their pollen.
The hut stood about thirty paces from the beach on a hill of red clay
spotted with glistening crystals of shale.
It was actually nothing but a shanty crudely knocked together out of
various old pieces of wood-parts of painted planks from boats, boxes,
plywood, and masts.
The roof was flat and made of clay, and weeds and tomatoes grew on it.
Grandma, when she was still alive, always used to whitewash the hut
twice a year, at Easter and Our Saviour's Day, in order somehow to hide its
poverty from people. But then Grandma died, and for three years now no one
had whitewashed the hut. Its walls had peeled and turned dark. Here and
there, though, there were still faint traces of whitewash in the old wood.
They constantly reminded Gavrik of Grandma and of her life, a life less
lasting even than whitewash.
Gavrik was an orphan. His father he did not remember at all. Of his
mother he had a hazy memory: a steaming trough, red hands, a Kiev signet
ring on a smooth swollen finger, and a mass of soap bubbles with rainbows in
them flying round the metal combs in her hair.
Grandpa was already up. He was walking through the tiny weed-grown,
refuse-strewn vegetable patch, where a few late pumpkin flowers
gleamed-large orange-coloured fleshy and hairy flowers with a sweet liquid
at the bottom of their transparent cups.
Grandpa was gathering tomatoes in his shirt; the shirt had been washed
so often that it had lost all colour, but now, in the glow of the rising
sun, it was a delicate pink.
Between the turned-up shirt and the baggy trousers there showed a strip
of lean brown stomach with the black dimple of the navel.
Very few tomatoes were left in the patch. They had eaten nearly all of
them. Grandpa managed to find eight little yellowish ones. That was all
there were.
The old man walked along with his grey head bent and his chin,
smooth-shaven like a soldier's, against his chest. He turned aside the weeds
with his bare feet, hoping to find something there. But he found nothing.
A pullet with a piece of rag round her leg ran after Grandpa, pecking
occasionally at the ground and making the little umbrellas of fennel up
above tremble. Grandfather and grandson did not greet each other or wish
each other good morning. But that did not mean they had quarrelled. On the
contrary, they were great friends.
It was simply that the new morning promised nothing but hard work and
cares. There was no use deceiving each other with empty wishes.
"We've eaten them all; there's none left," Grandpa muttered, as if
continuing a conversation left off the day before. "Just think of it. Eight
tomatoes-call that food? It's a joke!"
Gavrik put his hand to his eyes and looked at the sun. "Are we going?"
"We'll have to," said Grandpa. He came out of the vegetable patch.
They went into the hut and slowly drank some water from a bucket neatly
covered with a clean board.
The old man gave a grunt, and Gavrik grunted too. The grandfather
tightened his belt another notch, and the grandson did likewise.
Grandpa took a chunk of yesterday's bread from the shelf and tied it,
together with the tomatoes, in a cotton kerchief with black polka dots.
Then, with a small flat keg of water under his arm, he walked out of
the hut and hung a padlock on the door.
This was an unnecessary precaution. In the first place, there was
nothing to steal, and in the second place, who would stoop so low as to rob
paupers?
Gavrik took the oars from the roof and heaved them up on his small but
sturdy shoulder.
A busy day lay ahead of grandfather and grandson. Two days before, a
storm had raged. The waves had torn the line. The fish were keeping away.
They had had no catch. And there was not a kopek left.
Yesterday the sea had calmed down and they had set the line for the
night.
Today they had to pull it out, get the fish to market in time, bait the
line, and in the evening set it again without fail, so as not to miss the
good weather.
They dragged the boat across the pebbly beach and carefully pushed it
into the sea.
Gavrik, standing knee-deep in the water, put the fish tank-a
boat-shaped box with small holes in it-in the stern and gave the boat a
strong push. He ran along with it a few paces and then stretched himself out
prone on its side; he dangled his feet above the sliding water, and
glistening drops fell from them.
Only after the boat had moved out about five yards did he crawl in and
sit down at the oar next to Grandpa.
Each worked one oar. That was easy, and besides it was fun to see who
could outpull the other. But they both wore indifferent frowns on their
faces and merely grunted from time to time.
Gavrik felt a pleasant glow in the palms of his hands. When his oar was
in the transparent green of the sea it seemed broken. The narrow blade moved
tautly through the water, sending back little eddies.
The boat went ahead in spurts, swerving now to the right, now to the
left. First the grandfather leaned on his oar, and then the grandson.
"Oo-oof!" grunted Grandpa, pulling with all his strength.
The boat veered sharply to the left.
Gavrik gave a louder "Oo-oof!" and the boat veered to the right.
The grandfather braced a bare foot with a gnarled big toe against the
thwart and took short sharp strokes. The grandson did not let himself be
outdone. He braced both feet and bit his lip.
"Bet you can't outpull me, Grandpa," Gavrik said through set teeth, the
sweat pouring from him.
Grandpa grunted. He was breathing heavily.
"Bet I can. "
"Not on your life."
"We'll see." 'We'll see."
But though Grandpa leaned on his oar as hard as he could, nothing came
of it. He wasn't the man he used to be! Besides, his grandson had grown to
be quite a fellow. He was small, true enough, but as stubborn as they came!
Not afraid to challenge his own grandfather!
Grandpa gave angry frowns as he glanced sidewise from under his
grizzled brows at the boy beside him. But his old watery eyes twinkled with
merriment and wonder.
And so, neither outdoing the other, they rowed to the place about a
mile from shore where the faded little flags of their line were bobbing up
and down on corks amid the waves.
By this time the sea was covered with fishing boats out for the catch.
The blue beauty Nadya and Vera, a new boat, passed by under full sail,
her flat notched bottom rearing one-third out of the water and slapping down
hard against the waves.
Sprawled carelessly in the stern, with a black sunflower seed stuck to
his lip, lay Fedya, a fisherman from Maly Fontan whom Gavrik knew well.
From under the oilcloth peak of his navy-blue cap with anchor-design
buttons there lazily looked out a pair of fine, languid eyes almost
completely covered by a spray-darkened forelock.
Fedya lay with the weight of his back against the sharply turned tiller
and did not even deign a glance at Grandpa's pathetic little boat.
But when Fedya's brother Vasya, who was wearing a short-sleeved striped
jersey, caught sight of Gavrik he stopped unwinding the fishing line and,
shielding his eyes against the sun with his hand, cried out, "Ahoy, Gavrik
old man! Don't give in! Hold on to the water and you'll never drown!"
The Nadya and Vera sped by, dousing grandfather and grandson with a
fountain of spray.
Of course, no offence had been meant. It was a friendly practical joke.
Still, Grandpa pretended he had not heard a word; in his heart of hearts he
was hurt.
For there was a time when Grandpa, too, had owned an excellent boat
with a new, strong sail. He used to fish for mackerel. And what catches!
There were days when Grandma, rest her soul, took two or three hundred to
market.
But now his life was over. All he had left was a pauper's hut on the
shore and an old boat without a sail.
The sail had gone to pay the doctors during Grandma's illness. But all
for nothing: she had died anyway. Now he would never be able to get a sail
like that again.
And what kind of fishing was this without a sail? It was a joke!
Catching bullheads with a line. Ah, me!
Gavrik guessed what Grandpa was thinking about, but gave no sign. On
the contrary, to divert the old man from his bitter thoughts he busied
himself with the line. He began pulling up the first flag.
On the left ran the high clay shore of Novorossia.
As for Moustaches, he was furtively examining something he held in his
hand.
Petya stole up to him from behind, stood on tiptoe, and saw it. It was
a small, passport-size photograph of a sailor in full uniform; his cap was
tilted at a swaggerish angle, and on its band was the inscription:
That was the very same sailor, the one with the anchor on his hand.
And here Petya suddenly realised, in a flash of insight, what was
strange about Moustaches' appearance: like the man with the anchor,
Moustaches was in disguise.
"MAN OVERBOARD!"
A fair wind was blowing. To help the engine along and to make up for
the time lost during loading, the captain ordered a sail to be set.
Not a single holiday celebration, not a single present, could have
thrown Petya into such raptures as did that trifle.
On second thought, a fine trifle!
An engine and a sail at one and the same time on one and the same ship!
A packet-boat and frigate combined!
I dare say that you, comrades, would also be delighted if you suddenly
had the good fortune to make a sea voyage on a real steamer that was under
sail into the bargain.
Even in those days sails were set only on the oldest steamers, and on
the rarest occasions at that. Nowadays it is never done at all.
So you can easily imagine how Petya felt about it.
Naturally, Moustaches and the runaway flew out of his mind at once. He
stood in the bow, gazing in a trance at the barefoot deck-hand who was
pulling, rather lazily, a neatly folded sail out of the hatchway.
Petya knew perfectly well that this was a jib. All the same he went up
to the mate, who, because there were no other seamen, was helping to set the
sail.
"I say there, tell me please, is that a jib?"
"It is."
The mate's tone was decidedly gruff, but Petya was not the least
offended. He knew very well that a real sea dog was bound to be somewhat
gruff. Otherwise what kind of sea-faring man was he?
Petya looked at the passengers with a restrained superior smile and
again addressed the mate, casually, as man to man: "Now tell me, please,
what other kinds of sails are there? How about the mainsail and foresail?"
"Get out of the way," the mate said, with the expression of a man whose
tooth has suddenly begun to ache. "Run along to your Mama in the cabin."
"My Mama's dead," Petya told the rude fellow with sad pride. "We're
travelling with Father."
To that the mate made no reply, and the conversation ended.
Finally the jib was set.
The little ship ploughed on faster than ever. Odessa was now tangibly
near. The white spit of the Sukhoi Liman came into sight ahead.
The shallow water of this estuary was such a dense and dark blue that
it gave off a reddish glow.
Then the slate roofs of Lustdorf, the German quarter, and the tall
rough-hewn church with the weather-vane on its spire appeared.
And after that came the villas, orchards, vegetable gardens, bathing
beaches, towers, lighthouses.
First there was the famous Kovalevsky tower, a tower with a legend.
A rich man by the name of Kovalevsky decided to build, at his own risk,
a water-supply system for the city. It would have brought him vast profit.
For every drink of water they took, people would have to pay Mr. Kovalevsky
as much as he wanted. You see, the only source of good drinking water near
Odessa was on Mr.Kovalevsky's land. But the water lay very deep, and to get
it a tremendous water tower had to be built. That was a big job for • a
single man to handle. But since Mr. Kovalevsky did not want to share his
future profits with anyone, he began to build the tower on his own. The work
turned out to cost much more than he had thought it would. His relatives
pleaded with him to give up his mad idea, but he had already put so much
money into it that he would not back out. He went on with the work. When the
tower was three-quarters built he ran out of money. But by mortgaging all
his houses and his lands, he managed to finish the tower. It was a huge
thing, and it looked like a chessboard castle enlarged thousands of times.
On Sundays whole families used to come from Odessa to look at the wonder.
But the tower alone was not enough, of course. Machines had to be ordered
from abroad; holes had to be drilled, mains had to be laid. Mr. Kovalevsky
grew desperate. He ran to the merchants and bankers of Odessa for a loan. He
offered a fabulous rate of interest. He promised them dividends such as they
had never dreamed of. He begged, he went down on his knees, he wept. But the
rich merchants and bankers would not forgive him for having refused to take
them in as partners from the beginning. They were deaf to his pleas. Not a
kopek did he get from anybody. He was completely ruined, broken, crushed.
The water-main became an obsession with him. All day long he used to pace,
like a madman, round and round the tower which had swallowed his whole
fortune, racking his brains for a way to raise money. Little by little he
went out of his mind. One fine day he climbed to the very top of the
accursed tower and jumped down. That had happened about fifty years earlier,
but the tower, blackened with age, still stood overlooking the sea not far
from the rich commercial city, as a grim warning and a ghastly monument to
insatiable human greed.
Then the new white lighthouse appeared, and after it the old one, now
no longer in service.
Lit up by the pink sun setting into the golden chain of suburban
acacias, they looked so distinct, so near- and, above all, so familiar-as
they towered over the bluffs, that Petya was ready to blow into the jib as
hard as he could, if only that would make the ship arrive sooner.
From here on he knew every inch of the coast. Bolshoi Fontan, Sredny
Fontan, Maly Fontan, the high, steep shore overgrown with scratch weed, wild
rose, lilac, and hawthorn.
The big rocks standing in the water in the shadow of the bluffs, rocks
green with slime halfway up their sides, and on them the swimmers and the
anglers with their bamboo poles.
And here was Arcadia, the restaurant on piles, with its band-stand-from
a distance so small, no bigger than a prompter's box-its brightly-coloured
sunshades, and the table-cloths across which the cool wind was scurrying.
Each new detail which met the boy's eyes was fresher and more interesting
than the one before. They had not been forgotten. No! They could be
forgotten no more than he could forget his own name! They had somehow merely
slipped from his memory for a time. Now they were suddenly rushing back, the
way a boy rushes home after having gone out without permission.
They came racing back, more and more of them all the time, one
overtaking the other.
They seemed to be shouting to him, in eager rivalry:
"Greetings, Petya! So you're back at last! How we've missed you! Come
now, don't you recognise us? Take a good look: this is me, your favourite
summer resort, Marazli. How you loved to walk over my splendidly clipped
emerald lawns, strictly forbidden though that was! How you loved to examine
my marble statues, over which big snails with four little
horns-'lavriks-pavliks', you called them-used to crawl, leaving behind a
slimy trail! Look how I've grown during the summer! Look how thick my
chestnut trees have become! What gorgeous dahlias and peonies are in bloom
in my flower-beds! What magnificent August butterflies you'll see alighting
in the dark shadows of my garden walks!"
"And here am I, Otrada! Surely you haven't forgotten my bathing beach,
my shooting gallery, my skittle-alley! Look at me: while you were gone we
put up a wonderful merry-go-round, with boats and horses. And a stone's
throw away lives your old friend Gavrik. He's counting the hours until your
return. So hurry, hurry!"'
"I'm here too, Petya! How do you do? Don't you recognise Langeron? Look
at all the flat-bottomed fishing boats pulled up on my beach, and at all the
fishing nets drying on crossed oars! Wasn't it here, in my sand, that last
year you found two kopeks and then drank four whole glasses-it was so much
you actually had to force it down -of sour kvass, and it tickled your nose
and nipped your tongue? Don't you recognise the kvass stand? Why, here it is
at the edge of the bluff, as large as life, amidst the weeds that have grown
so high during the summer! You don't even need binoculars to see it!"
"And here am I! I'm here too! Hello, Petya! Ah, if you only knew what's
been going on here in Odessa while you were away! Hello! Hello!"
As they approached the city the wind grew quieter and warmer.
Now the sun had disappeared altogether. Only the top of the mast and
the tiny red peak of the weather-vane still glowed in the absolutely clear
pink sky.
The jib was taken in.
The pounding of the ship's engine raised a loud echo among the bluffs
and crags of the shore. Up the mast crept the pale-yellow top lantern.
In thought Petya was already ashore, in Odessa.
Had anybody told him that only a short while before, that very morning,
in fact, he had almost cried when bidding farewell to the farm, he never
would have believed it.
The farm? Which farm? He had already forgotten it. It had ceased to
exist for him-until the next summer.
Quick, quick! To the cabin, to hurry Daddy and to put their things
together!
Petya spun about, ready to run. But then he froze in horror. The sailor
with the anchor on his hand was sitting on the steps of the bow-ladder, and
Moustaches was walking directly towards him, hands in pockets, without his
pince-nez, his sandals squeaking.
He came up to the sailor, leaned over him, and said, in a voice neither
loud nor soft, "Zhukov?"
"What about Zhukov?" the sailor said in a low, strained voice. He
turned visibly pale and stood up.
"Sit down. Be quiet. Sit down, I tell you."
The sailor continued to stand. A faint smile trembled on his ashen
lips.
Moustaches frowned. "From the Potemkin? How do you do, my dear chap.
You might at least have changed your boots. And us waiting for you all this
long time. Well, what have you to say for yourself, Rodion Zhukov? The
game's up, eh?"
With these words Moustaches gripped the sailor by the sleeve.
The sailor's face contorted.
"Hands off!" he cried in a terrible voice. He shifted his weight and
slammed his fist into Moustaches' chest with all his might. "Keep your hands
off a sick man!"
The sleeve ripped.
"Stop!"
But it was too late.
The sailor had torn himself free and was running down the deck, weaving
in and out among the baskets, crates, and passengers. Moustaches ran after
him.
An onlooker might have thought these two grown men were playing tag.
They dived, one after the other, into the passage-way next to the
engine-room and then bobbed up on the other side. They ran up the ladder,
their soles drumming and sliding on the slippery brass steps.
"Stop! Grab him!" cried Moustaches, wheezing heavily.
The sailor now carried a batten which he had torn loose somewhere on
the way.
"Grab him! Grab him!"
The passengers, frightened and curious, gathered in a cluster on the
deck. There was a piercing blast from a policeman's whistle.
The sailor cleared a high hatchway in one leap. He dodged Moustaches,
who had run round the hatchway, jumped back over it, and then hopped on a
bench. From the bench he sprang to the rail, grasped the ensign staff, and
struck Moustaches across the face with the batten as hard as he could. Then
he jumped into the sea.
Spray showered up over the stern.
"Oh!"
The passengers, every single one of them, reeled back as if a gust of
wind had caught them.
Moustaches ran back and forth in front of the rail. "Catch him! He'll
get away!" he cried hoarsely, holding his hands to his face. "Catch him!
He'll get away!"
The mate ran up the ladder three steps at a time with a life-belt.
"Man overboard!"
The passengers reeled forward towards the rail, as if now a gust of
wind had caught them from behind.
Petya squeezed through to the rail. Amid the whipped egg-white of the
foam, the sailor's head bobbed up and down with the waves like a float. He
was already a good way off, and he was swimming.
Not towards the ship, but away from it, working his arms and legs as
fast as he could. After every three or four strokes he turned back a tense,
angry face.
The mate saw that the man who was overboard had not the slightest
desire to be "saved". On the contrary, he was plainly trying to put as much
distance as possible between himself and his saviours. Besides, he was an
excellent swimmer and the shore was relatively near.
And so, everything was in order.
There was no cause for worry.
In vain did Moustaches tug at the mate's sleeve, make fierce eyes, and
demand that the ship be stopped and a boat lowered.
"He's a political criminal. You'll answer for this!"
The mate shrugged his shoulders phlegmatically. "It's none of my
business. I have no orders. Speak to the captain."
The captain merely waved his hand. "We're late as it is. It's out of
the question, my good man. Why should we? We'll be mooring in half an hour
and then you can go and catch your political chappie. This steamship line is
a private company. It doesn't go in for politics, and we have no
instructions on that score."
Swearing under his breath, Moustaches, his face battered, headed for
the place where the gangway would be set, forcing his way through the crowd
of third-class passengers preparing to disembark.
He roughly pushed aside the frightened people; he stepped on their feet
and kicked their baskets, and finally reached the rail so as to get off
first, the moment the ship moored.
By now the sailor's head could barely be seen in the waves amid the
markers swaying above the fishing nets.
ODESSA BY NIGHT
The shore darkened quickly; it turned a light blue, then a deep blue,
then purple. On land, evening had already come. At sea it was still light.
The glossy swell reflected a clear sky. But here, too, evening was making
itself felt.
The signal lanterns on the paddle-boxes had been lit without the boy's
noticing it, and their bulging glass sides, in the daytime so dark and thick
one could never guess their colour, now gleamed green and red; they did not
throw any light as yet, but they definitely glowed.
All at once the dark-blue city, with its cupola-shaped theatre roof and
the colonnade of the Vorontsov Palace, loomed in front of them, shutting out
half the horizon.
The watery stars of the wharf lamps were palely reflected in the
light-coloured, absolutely motionless lake of the harbour. It was into the
harbour that the Turgenev now turned, closely skirting the thick tower of
the lighthouse-really not a very big one at all-which had a bell and a
ladder.
Down in the engine-room the captain's bell ting-a-linged for the last
time.
"Slow!"
The narrow little steamer slid quickly and noiselessly past the
three-storey bows of the ocean-going ships of the Dobrovolny Merchant Line
standing in a row inside the breakwater. Petya had to crane his neck in
order to study their monstrous anchors.
Those were ships!
"Stop!"
Without slowing down, carried along by her momentum, the Turgenev cut
obliquely across the harbour, in complete silence; she bore down on the
wharf as if she would crash into it any minute.
Two long creases stretched back from her sharp bow, making stripes like
a mackerel's in the water.
Along the sides the water gurgled softly.
Heat poured from the advancing city as from an oven.
All of a sudden Petya saw a funnel and two masts sticking out of the
mirror-like surface. They floated by as close to the ship's side as could
be-black, frightful, dead.
The passengers crowding at the rail gave a gasp.
"They scuttled her," someone said in a low voice.
"Who?" the boy wanted to ask, horror-struck. But just then he saw an
even more gruesome sight: the charred iron skeleton of a ship leaning
against a charred wharf.
"They burned her," the same voice said, more softly than before.
Now the wharf was upon them.
"Astern!"
The paddle-wheels began to clatter again, revolving in the opposite
direction. Little whirlpools scurried across the water.
The wharf drifted away and somehow shifted about, and then, very
slowly, it approached again, but from the other side.
Over the heads of the passengers shot a coiled rope, unwinding as it
flew.
Petya felt a slight jolt; it had been softened by the rope fender.
The gangway was shoved up from the wharf. The first to run down it was
Moustaches. He immediately disappeared in the crowd.
Our travellers waited their turn, and before long they were slowly
walking down the gangway to the wharf.
Petya was surprised to see a policeman and several civilians standing
at the foot of the gangway. They were looking closely, very closely, at
everyone coming down. They looked at Father, who thrust forward a quivering
beard and mechanically buttoned his coat. He tightened his grip on Pavlik's
hand, and his face took on exactly the same unpleasant expression as it had
in the coach that morning when he was talking to the soldier.
They took a cab. Pavlik was put on the folding seat in front, while
Petya sat next to Father on the main seat, quite like a grown-up.
As they drove out they saw a sentry with a rifle and with
cartridge-pouches at his belt standing by the gate. That was something
altogether new.
"Why is a sentry standing there, Daddy?" Petya asked in a whisper.
"For God's sake!" Father said irritably, with a jerk of his neck. "All
you do is ask questions. How should I know? If he's standing there it means
he's standing there. And you're to sit quiet."
Petya saw that no questions were to be asked, and also that there was
no call to take offence at Father's irritability.
But when, at the railway crossing, he saw the trestle bridge burned to
the ground, the mounds of charred sleepers, the twisted rails hanging in the
air, and the wheels of overturned railway carriages-when he saw that scene
of frozen chaos he cried out breathlessly, "Oh, what's that? Look! I say
there, cabby, what's that?"
"Set fire to it, they did," the cab-driver said mysteriously, shaking
his head in the firm beaver-cloth hat, but whether in condemnation or
approval was not clear.
They drove past the famous Odessa Stairway.
Up at the top of its triangle, in the space between the silhouettes of
the two semi-circular symmetrical palaces, the small figure of the Due de
Richelieu stood outlined against the light evening sky, his arm stretched
out in antique mode towards the sea.
The three-armed street lamps along the boulevard gleamed. From the
terrace of an open-air restaurant came the strains of music. The first pale
star trembled in the sky over the chestnut trees and the gravel of the
boulevard.
Somewhere up above, Petya knew, beyond the Nikolayev Boulevard, lay the
bright, noisy, luring, unapproachable, intangible place which was referred
to in the Batchei family circle with contemptuous respect as "the Centre".
In the Centre lived "the rich", those special beings who travelled
first class, who could go to the theatre every day, who for some strange
reason had their dinner at seven o'clock in the evening, who kept a chef
instead of a cook and a bonne instead of a nursemaid, and often even "kept
their own horses"-something indeed beyond human imagination.
The Batcheis, of course, did not live in "the Centre".
The droshky rumbled over the cobblestones of Karantinnaya Street and
then, turning right, drove up the hill to the city proper.
Petya was unaccustomed to the city after his summer's absence.
He was deafened by the clang of horseshoes, which drew sparks from the
cobbles, by the clatter of wheels, by the jangle of the horse-trams, by the
squeaking of shoes and the firm tapping of walking sticks on the dark-blue
slabs of the pavement.
The crisp sadness of autumn's tints had long ago gilded the farm, the
harvested fields, the wide-open steppe. But here, in the city, summer still
reigned, rich and luxuriant.
The languid heat of evening hung in the breathless air of the
acacia-lined streets.
Through the open doors of grocers' shops Petya could see the little
yellow tongues of oil lamps throwing their light on jars of coloured
sugar-plums.
Right on the pavement, under the acacias, lay mountains of
water-melons-glossy greenish-black Tumans with waxy bald spots, and long
bright Monasteries with striped sides.
Every now and then there appeared the gleaming vision of a corner fruit
shop. In the dazzling glare of the new incandescent lamps, a Persian could
be seen fanning magnificent Crimean fruit with rustling plumes of
tissue-paper. There were large purple plums covered with a turquoise bloom,
and those very expensive luscious brown Beurre Alexander pears.
They drove past mansions, and, through the ironwork fences entwined
with wild vines, Petya could see, in the light pouring from the windows,
beds of luxurious dahlias, begonias and nasturtiums, with plump moths
fluttering above them.
From the railway station came the whistle of steam-engines.
Then they passed the familiar chemist's shop.
Behind the large plate-glass window with its gilded glass letters
gleamed two crystal pears, one full of a bright violet liquid and the other
a green liquid. Petya was convinced they were poison. It was from this
chemist's the horrible oxygen pillows had been brought to Mummy when she was
dying. What a frightful snoring sound they had made near Mummy's
medicine-blackened lips!
Pavlik was fast asleep. Father took him in his arms. Pavlik's head
swayed and bobbed up and down. His heavy little bare legs kept slipping off
Father's lap. But his fingers tightly gripped the bag with the treasured
moneybox.
In that state he was handed over into the arms of Dunya, the cook, who
was waiting in the street for her masters when the cab finally pulled up at
the gate with the triangular little lantern in which the house number glowed
dimly.
"Welcome home! Welcome home!"
Petya, still feeling the roll of the deck under his feet, ran into the
entrance-way.
What a huge, deserted staircase!
Bright and echoing. How many lamps! At every landing a paraffin lamp in
a cast-iron fixture, and over each lamp a little hood swaying lazily in a
circle of light.
Brightly polished brass plates on the doors. Coconut fibre doormats. A
pram.
Petya had completely forgotten these things, and they now appeared
before his wondering eyes in all their original novelty.
He would have to get used to them again.
From somewhere above there came the sharp resounding click of a key,
followed by the slamming of a door and then by quick voices. Each
exclamation rang out like a pistol shot.
The gay bravura notes of a grand piano came, muffled, through a wall.
With compelling chords, music was reminding the boy of its existence.
And then-goodness me! Who was that?
A forgotten but frightfully familiar lady in a dark-blue silk dress
with a lace collar and lace cuffs came running out through the door. Her
eyes were red from tears, excited, happy; her lips were stretched in
laughter. Her chin trembled, but whether from laughing or crying Petya
couldn't quite be sure.
"Pavlik!"
She tore him from the cook's arms.
"Good gracious! How heavy you've become!"
Pavlik opened eyes turned absolutely black from sleep and remarked, in
surprise, but with profound indifference, "Ah, Auntie?"
Then he fell asleep again.
Why, of course, this was Auntie Tatyana! Dear, precious Auntie Tatyana,
whom he knew so well but who had simply slipped out of his memory. How could
he have failed to recognise her?
"Petya? How huge you are!"
"Do you know what happened to us, Auntie?" Petya began at once.
"Auntie, you don't know anything about it! But Auntie, only listen to what
happened to us. Why, Auntie, you're not listening! Auntie, you're not
listening!"
"Very well, very well. Wait a minute. Go inside first. Where's Vasili
Petrovich?" "Here I am." Father was coming up the stairs.
"Well, here we are. How do you do, Tatyana Ivanovna."
"Welcome home, welcome home! Come in. Were you seasick?"
"Not a bit. We had an excellent trip. Have you any small change? The
driver can't change a three-ruble note."
"I'll take care of that. Don't worry about it. Petya, don't trip me up.
You'll tell me later. Dunya, be a dear and run down and pay the cabby.
You'll find some money on my dressing-table."
The hall into which Petya walked seemed spacious and dim and so strange
that at first he failed to recognise even the tall swarthy boy in the straw
hat who had suddenly appeared, as if from nowhere, inside the walnut frame
of the forgotten but familiar pier-glass lit up by the forgotten but
familiar lamp.
But Petya, of all people, should have recognised him instantly, for
that boy was himself.
10
AT HOME
On the farm there had been a little room with whitewashed walls and
three camp-beds covered with light cotton counterpanes.
An iron washstand. A pine table. A chair. A candle in a glass shade.
Green latticed shutters. Floorboards bare of paint from constant scrubbing.
How nice and cool it had been, after eating his fill of clotted milk
and grey whole-meal bread, to fall asleep in that sad, empty room to the
soothing noise of the sea! Here everything was different.
Here there was a big flat with papered walls and rooms crowded with
furniture in loose-covers.
The wallpaper was old, and in each room it had a different design; the
furniture was different in each room too.
The bouquets and lozenges on the wallpaper made the rooms seem smaller.
The furniture here was called "suites", and it muffled the sound of
footsteps and voices. Here, lamps were carried from room to room. In the
parlour stood rubber plants with stiff, waxy leaves. Their new shoots stuck
out like sharp little daggers sheathed in saffian covers.
When the lamps were moved their light passed from one mirror to
another. The vase on top of the piano shook every time a droshky drove down
the street. The clatter of the wheels connected the house with the city.
Petya wanted to finish his tea as quickly as possible. He was dying to
run out into the courtyard, for at least a minute, to see the boys and learn
the news.
But it was already very late-after nine. All the boys were probably
asleep long ago.
He was anxious to tell Auntie Tatyana, or at least Dunya, about the
runaway sailor. But they were busy; they were making the beds, fluffing
pillows, taking heavy, slippery sheets out of the chest of drawers, carrying
lamps from room to room.
Petya followed Auntie Tatyana about. "Why won't you listen to me,
Auntie?" he pleaded, stepping on her train. "Please listen."
"You can see I'm busy."
"But Auntie, it won't take long."
"You'll tell me tomorrow."
"Oh, Auntie, don't be so mean! Please let me tell you. Please, Auntie."
"Don't get in my way, Petya. Go and tell it to Dunya."
Petya shambled off glumly to the kitchen, where green onions grew in a
wooden box on the windowsill.
Dunya was hastily pressing a pillow-case on an ironing-board covered
with a strip of coarse woollen cloth from an army greatcoat. Thick steam
rose from the iron.
"Dunya, listen to what happened to us," Petya began in a plaintive
voice, gazing at the taut glossy skin on Dunya's bare forearm.
"Don't stand so near, Master Petya. God knows I don't want to burn you
with this hot iron."
"But all you have to do is listen."
"Go and tell it to your aunt."
"Auntie doesn't want to listen. I'll tell you instead. Du-unya,
please."
"Tell it to the Master."
"Oh, how stupid you are! Father knows all about it."
"Tomorrow, Master Petya, tomorrow."
"But I want to tell you today."
"Please get away from my elbow. Aren't there enough rooms in the house
for you? Why do you have to poke your nose into the kitchen?"
"I'll only tell you about it, Dunya dear, and then I'll go right away.
Word of honour. By the true and holy Cross."
"What a trial you are! Everything was so quiet until you came back!"
Dunya planked the iron down on the stove, caught up the ironed
pillow-case and ran into the next room so impetuously that a breeze passed
through the kitchen.
Petya sadly rubbed his eyes with his fists. Suddenly he was taken with
such a fit of yawning that he barely managed to drag himself to his bed,
where, powerless to unglue his eyes, he pulled off his sailor blouse like a
blind man.
The instant his hot cheek touched the pillow he dropped off into a
sleep so sound that he did not feel Father's beard when he came, as was his
custom, to kiss him goodnight.
Pavlik, however, caused a good deal of bother. He had fallen into such
a deep sleep in the cab that Father and Auntie Tatyana had quite a job
undressing him.
But the moment they put the child to bed he opened eyes that were
absolutely fresh and looked round in astonishment.
"Have we got there yet?"
Auntie Tatyana kissed him tenderly on his hot crimson cheek.
"Yes, my pet. Sleep."
But Pavlik, it appeared, had had a good sleep, and now he was in a mood
for talking.
"Is that you, Auntie?"
"Yes, my chick. Go to sleep."
Pavlik lay for a long time with wide-open, attentive eyes-eyes now as
dark as olives-listening to the unfamiliar noises of the city flat.
"Auntie, what's making that noise?" he finally said in a frightened
whisper.
"Which noise?"
"That snoring noise."
"That's the water in the tap, my pet."
"Is it blowing its nose?"
"Yes. Now go to sleep."
"What's making that whistle?"
"That's a steam-engine."
"Where?"
"Have you really forgotten? At the station just opposite. Go to sleep."
"Why is there music?"
"Someone is playing the piano upstairs. Don't you remember how people
play the piano?"
Pavlik was silent for a long time.
One might have thought him to be asleep, except that his eyes shone
distinctly in the greenish glow of the night lamp on the chest of drawers.
They were following with horror the long rays moving back and forth across
the ceiling.
"What's that, Auntie?"
"Those are the lanterns of droshkies passing by outside. Close your
eyes."
"And what's that?"
A huge death's-head moth fluttered with ominous thumpings in a corner
near the ceiling.
"That's a moth. Go to sleep."
"Will it bite?"
"No, it won't bite. Go to sleep."
"I don't want to sleep. I'm afraid."
"What are you afraid of? Stop imagining things. A big boy like you.
Tsk-tsk-tsk!"
Pavlik took a deep, luxurious, quivering breath and caught Auntie's
hand in his two hot little hands. "Did you see the Gipsy?" he whispered.
"No, I didn't."
"Did you see the Wolf?"
"No. Go to sleep."
"Did you see the Chimney-Sweep?"
"No, I didn't. You can go to sleep without worrying about a single
thing."
Again the boy took a deep, luxurious breath, turned over on his other
cheek, and cupped his palm under it.
"Auntie," he mumbled, closing his eyes, "give me the dummy."
"What? I thought you stopped using a dummy long ago."
The "dummy" was the special little clean handkerchief which Pavlik was
accustomed to sucking in bed and without which he could not fall asleep.
"Dum-m-m-my. . ." the boy whimpered capriciously.
But Auntie Tatyana did not give him the handkerchief. He was a big boy
now. High time he stopped that.
Thereupon Pavlik, continuing to whine, stuffed a corner of the pillow
into his mouth and got it all wet; he smiled lazily as his eyes glued
together. Suddenly, with a flash of horror, he thought of his moneybox: what
if robbers had stolen it? But he had no energy left for worrying.
He fell into a peaceful sleep.
GAVRIK
That same day another boy, Gavrik-the one we mentioned while describing
the coast near Odessa- woke at dawn from the cold.
He was sleeping on the shore, near the boat, his head on a smooth sea
stone and his face covered with his grandfather's old jacket. The jacket did
not reach to his feet.
At night it was warm, but towards morning it turned cool. Gavrik's bare
feet became chilled. In his sleep he pulled the jacket from his head and
wound it round his feet. Then his head began to feel cold.
He started shivering but he did not give in. He tried to fight the
cold. He was unable to fall asleep again, however.
Nothing for it but to get up!
Reluctantly Gavrik opened his eyes. He saw a glossy lemon sea and the
glow of a murky cherry-coloured dawn in a cloudless grey sky. It was going
to be a hot day. But until the sun came up there was no use even thinking
about warmth. Of course, Gavrik could very well have slept in the hut, with
Grandpa. There it was warm and soft. But show me the boy who will pass by
the delightful chance of sleeping on the seashore under the open sky!
Every now and then a wave laps the beach, so softly that it can barely
be heard. It breaks and then draws back, lazily dragging pebbles along with
it.
The next wave waits a while and then it laps the shore too, and again
pebbles are dragged back.
The silvery-black sky is strewn with August stars. The split sleeve of
the Milky Way hangs overhead like a vision of a river in the sky.
The sky is reflected in the sea so fully, so richly, that, when you lie
on the warm pebbles with your head thrown back, you simply cannot tell which
is up and which is down; it's as though you are suspended in the middle of a
starry abyss.
Shooting stars streak across the sky in all directions.
In the weeds, crickets chirp. On the bluffs, far, far away, dogs bark.
At first the stars seem to be standing still. But they aren't. When you
look at them a long time you can see the whole vault of the sky turning.
Some of the stars drop behind the villas. Others, new ones, come up out of
the sea.
The breeze changes from warm to cool.
The sky grows whiter, more transparent. The sea darkens. The morning
star is reflected in its dark surface like a little moon.
At the villas, the cocks crow sleepily for the third time. Day is
breaking.
How can anybody sleep under a roof on a night like that!
Gavrik rose, stretched himself with relish, rolled up his trousers and,
yawning, walked into the water up to his ankles.
Had he lost his mind? His feet were blue from the cold, and here he
stepped into the sea, the very sight of which was enough to give one the
shivers.
But the boy knew what he was doing. The water only looked cold.
Actually it was very warm, much warmer than the air. He was simply warming
his feet.
Then he washed himself and blew his nose into the sea so loudly that
several big-headed fry sleeping peacefully near the shore scattered to right
and left and slithered away into deep water.
Yawning and squinting against the rising sun. Gavrik took up the hem of
his shirt and dried his face-a mottled little face with a lilac-pink nose
which was peeling like a new potato.
"Urrmph, urrmph, urrmph," he grunted, exactly like a grown-up.
Unhurriedly he made the sign of the cross over his mouth, in which two front
teeth were still missing, picked up the jacket, and started up the hill with
the rolling gait of an Odessa fisherman.
He pushed his way through a thick growth of weeds. They sprinkled his
wet feet and his trousers with the yellow dust of their pollen.
The hut stood about thirty paces from the beach on a hill of red clay
spotted with glistening crystals of shale.
It was actually nothing but a shanty crudely knocked together out of
various old pieces of wood-parts of painted planks from boats, boxes,
plywood, and masts.
The roof was flat and made of clay, and weeds and tomatoes grew on it.
Grandma, when she was still alive, always used to whitewash the hut
twice a year, at Easter and Our Saviour's Day, in order somehow to hide its
poverty from people. But then Grandma died, and for three years now no one
had whitewashed the hut. Its walls had peeled and turned dark. Here and
there, though, there were still faint traces of whitewash in the old wood.
They constantly reminded Gavrik of Grandma and of her life, a life less
lasting even than whitewash.
Gavrik was an orphan. His father he did not remember at all. Of his
mother he had a hazy memory: a steaming trough, red hands, a Kiev signet
ring on a smooth swollen finger, and a mass of soap bubbles with rainbows in
them flying round the metal combs in her hair.
Grandpa was already up. He was walking through the tiny weed-grown,
refuse-strewn vegetable patch, where a few late pumpkin flowers
gleamed-large orange-coloured fleshy and hairy flowers with a sweet liquid
at the bottom of their transparent cups.
Grandpa was gathering tomatoes in his shirt; the shirt had been washed
so often that it had lost all colour, but now, in the glow of the rising
sun, it was a delicate pink.
Between the turned-up shirt and the baggy trousers there showed a strip
of lean brown stomach with the black dimple of the navel.
Very few tomatoes were left in the patch. They had eaten nearly all of
them. Grandpa managed to find eight little yellowish ones. That was all
there were.
The old man walked along with his grey head bent and his chin,
smooth-shaven like a soldier's, against his chest. He turned aside the weeds
with his bare feet, hoping to find something there. But he found nothing.
A pullet with a piece of rag round her leg ran after Grandpa, pecking
occasionally at the ground and making the little umbrellas of fennel up
above tremble. Grandfather and grandson did not greet each other or wish
each other good morning. But that did not mean they had quarrelled. On the
contrary, they were great friends.
It was simply that the new morning promised nothing but hard work and
cares. There was no use deceiving each other with empty wishes.
"We've eaten them all; there's none left," Grandpa muttered, as if
continuing a conversation left off the day before. "Just think of it. Eight
tomatoes-call that food? It's a joke!"
Gavrik put his hand to his eyes and looked at the sun. "Are we going?"
"We'll have to," said Grandpa. He came out of the vegetable patch.
They went into the hut and slowly drank some water from a bucket neatly
covered with a clean board.
The old man gave a grunt, and Gavrik grunted too. The grandfather
tightened his belt another notch, and the grandson did likewise.
Grandpa took a chunk of yesterday's bread from the shelf and tied it,
together with the tomatoes, in a cotton kerchief with black polka dots.
Then, with a small flat keg of water under his arm, he walked out of
the hut and hung a padlock on the door.
This was an unnecessary precaution. In the first place, there was
nothing to steal, and in the second place, who would stoop so low as to rob
paupers?
Gavrik took the oars from the roof and heaved them up on his small but
sturdy shoulder.
A busy day lay ahead of grandfather and grandson. Two days before, a
storm had raged. The waves had torn the line. The fish were keeping away.
They had had no catch. And there was not a kopek left.
Yesterday the sea had calmed down and they had set the line for the
night.
Today they had to pull it out, get the fish to market in time, bait the
line, and in the evening set it again without fail, so as not to miss the
good weather.
They dragged the boat across the pebbly beach and carefully pushed it
into the sea.
Gavrik, standing knee-deep in the water, put the fish tank-a
boat-shaped box with small holes in it-in the stern and gave the boat a
strong push. He ran along with it a few paces and then stretched himself out
prone on its side; he dangled his feet above the sliding water, and
glistening drops fell from them.
Only after the boat had moved out about five yards did he crawl in and
sit down at the oar next to Grandpa.
Each worked one oar. That was easy, and besides it was fun to see who
could outpull the other. But they both wore indifferent frowns on their
faces and merely grunted from time to time.
Gavrik felt a pleasant glow in the palms of his hands. When his oar was
in the transparent green of the sea it seemed broken. The narrow blade moved
tautly through the water, sending back little eddies.
The boat went ahead in spurts, swerving now to the right, now to the
left. First the grandfather leaned on his oar, and then the grandson.
"Oo-oof!" grunted Grandpa, pulling with all his strength.
The boat veered sharply to the left.
Gavrik gave a louder "Oo-oof!" and the boat veered to the right.
The grandfather braced a bare foot with a gnarled big toe against the
thwart and took short sharp strokes. The grandson did not let himself be
outdone. He braced both feet and bit his lip.
"Bet you can't outpull me, Grandpa," Gavrik said through set teeth, the
sweat pouring from him.
Grandpa grunted. He was breathing heavily.
"Bet I can. "
"Not on your life."
"We'll see." 'We'll see."
But though Grandpa leaned on his oar as hard as he could, nothing came
of it. He wasn't the man he used to be! Besides, his grandson had grown to
be quite a fellow. He was small, true enough, but as stubborn as they came!
Not afraid to challenge his own grandfather!
Grandpa gave angry frowns as he glanced sidewise from under his
grizzled brows at the boy beside him. But his old watery eyes twinkled with
merriment and wonder.
And so, neither outdoing the other, they rowed to the place about a
mile from shore where the faded little flags of their line were bobbing up
and down on corks amid the waves.
By this time the sea was covered with fishing boats out for the catch.
The blue beauty Nadya and Vera, a new boat, passed by under full sail,
her flat notched bottom rearing one-third out of the water and slapping down
hard against the waves.
Sprawled carelessly in the stern, with a black sunflower seed stuck to
his lip, lay Fedya, a fisherman from Maly Fontan whom Gavrik knew well.
From under the oilcloth peak of his navy-blue cap with anchor-design
buttons there lazily looked out a pair of fine, languid eyes almost
completely covered by a spray-darkened forelock.
Fedya lay with the weight of his back against the sharply turned tiller
and did not even deign a glance at Grandpa's pathetic little boat.
But when Fedya's brother Vasya, who was wearing a short-sleeved striped
jersey, caught sight of Gavrik he stopped unwinding the fishing line and,
shielding his eyes against the sun with his hand, cried out, "Ahoy, Gavrik
old man! Don't give in! Hold on to the water and you'll never drown!"
The Nadya and Vera sped by, dousing grandfather and grandson with a
fountain of spray.
Of course, no offence had been meant. It was a friendly practical joke.
Still, Grandpa pretended he had not heard a word; in his heart of hearts he
was hurt.
For there was a time when Grandpa, too, had owned an excellent boat
with a new, strong sail. He used to fish for mackerel. And what catches!
There were days when Grandma, rest her soul, took two or three hundred to
market.
But now his life was over. All he had left was a pauper's hut on the
shore and an old boat without a sail.
The sail had gone to pay the doctors during Grandma's illness. But all
for nothing: she had died anyway. Now he would never be able to get a sail
like that again.
And what kind of fishing was this without a sail? It was a joke!
Catching bullheads with a line. Ah, me!
Gavrik guessed what Grandpa was thinking about, but gave no sign. On
the contrary, to divert the old man from his bitter thoughts he busied
himself with the line. He began pulling up the first flag.