But the older Grandpa became the less help did he get from his patron
saint.
Of course, when there was no sail, when the old man's strength was
waning from day to day, and when there was no money to buy meat for bait,
the fish caught would be small and good for nothing, be he the most
miraculous miracle worker the world had ever seen. And so there was no sense
expecting anything of him.
Yes, even the miracle worker was stumped when it came to offsetting old
age and poverty.
For all that, there were times when Grandpa felt bitter and hurt as he
looked at the stern but useless saint. True, he was no expense and hung
there in his corner without disturbing anybody. Oh well, let him hang there:
perhaps he'd do a good turn some day. In time the old man had come to take a
patronising and even somewhat ironical attitude towards the miracle worker.
Returning to the hut with a catch-and the catch these days was almost
always pitifully small-Grandpa would grumble, looking at the embarrassed
miracle worker out of the corner of his eye, "Well, you old codger, so we're
empty-handed again, eh? This is such trash it makes me blush to take it to
market. They're not bullheads but lice."
Then, so as not to hurt the saint's feelings too much, he would add,
"It's only natural. Would a real big bullhead ever go for shrimps? A real,
well-fed bullhead's ready to spit on a shrimp. What a real, well-fed
bullhead wants is meat. But where'll we get it, eh? You can't buy meat with
a miracle, can you? So you see?"
Now, however, the miracle worker was farthest from the old man's
thoughts. He was greatly worried about the sailor. And not so much by his
fever and unconsciousness as by his premonition of mortal danger from some
unnamed source.
Naturally, Grandpa did have an idea of what it was all about, but to
help the man he would have to know a little more.
As luck would have it, however, the sailor was unconscious and
feverish; he lay sprawled out on the patchwork quilt, staring straight in
front of him with open but unseeing eyes.
One of his hands hung down from the bed. On the other, which lay on his
chest, Grandpa saw a blue anchor.
Every now and then the sailor attempted to spring up; moaning, the hot
sweat pouring from him, unconscious, he would bite his hand as though trying
to bite out the anchor, as if once the anchor were gone he would instantly
feel better.
Grandpa forced him to lie down again and wiped his forehead. "Lie down,
now," he urged. "Lie quiet, I tell you. And go to sleep, don't be afraid. Go
to sleep."
Out in the vegetable patch Gavrik was boiling water in a cauldron to
make the sick man some tea. Not real tea, that is, but a brew of the
fragrant herb which Grandpa gathered in the nearby hills in May, and then
dried and used instead of tea.
"TURRET GUN, SHOOT!"
They passed a fitful night.
The sailor tore at the shirt on his chest. He was suffocating.
Grandpa put out the lamp and opened the door to let in fresh air.
The sailor saw the starry sky but he could not understand what it was.
The night breeze blew into the hut and cooled his head.
Gavrik lay in the weeds near the door, his ears attuned to the faintest
rustle. He did not close an eye until morning. His elbow turned numb from
lying on it.
Grandpa made a bed for himself on the earthen floor of the hut but he
did not sleep either; he listened to the crickets, to the waves and to the
moans of the sick man, who from time to time sprang up excitedly and shouted
in a weak, colourless voice, "Turret gun, shoot! Koshuba! Turret, give it to
them!" and other such nonsense.
Grandpa would take him firmly by the shoulders, shake him gently and
whisper straight into his hot, feverish mouth, "Lie quiet. For the sake of
the Lord God himself, don't raise a row. Lie quiet. What a trial!"
Little by little the sailor, grinding his teeth, would quieten down.
Who was this strange patient?
Rodion Zhukov was one of the seven hundred men of the battleship
Potemkin who had gone ashore in Rumania.
He in no way stood out among the other men of the mutinous ship.
From the first minute of the uprising, from that very minute when the
commander of the battleship dropped in horror and despair to his knees
before the crew, when the first rifle shots rang out and the dead bodies of
certain officers were thrown overboard, when the sailor named Matyushenko
ripped off the door of the Admiral's cabin, that very cabin past which they
still could not walk without a feeling of fright-from that very minute
Rodion Zhukov lived, thought, and acted as did most of the other sailors: in
a sort of haze, in a state of feverish exaltation until the time when they
had to surrender to the Rumanians and disembark at Constantsa.
Rodion had never before set foot in a foreign land. And a foreign land,
like useless freedom, is broad and bitter.
The Potemkin stood quite close to the pier.
Among the feluccas, freighters, yawls, yachts and cutters, and side by
side with an emaciated-looking Rumanian cruiser, the grey three-funnelled
battleship was absurdly huge.
The flag of St. Andrew, like a white envelope crossed with blue lines,
still hung aloft, above the gun-turrets, boats and yards.
But suddenly it quivered, fell limp, and slid down in short spurts.
Rodion then took off his sailor cap with both hands and bowed so low
that the ends of the new ribbons of St. George spread out gently over the
dust, like those orange-and-black country flowers.
"It's a dirty shame! Twelve-inch guns, enough ammunition to last a
month, and crack gunners, every mother's son of them. We ought to have
listened to Dorofei Koshuba. He was right when he said we ought to throw the
lousy petty officers overboard, sink the Georgi Pobedonosets and land a
force in Odessa. We would have roused the whole Odessa garrison, all the
workers, the whole Black Sea! Oh, Koshuba, Koshuba, if only we'd listened to
you! What a hell of a mess we're in!"
Rodion bowed to his beloved ship for the last time.
"Never mind," he said through his teeth, "never mind. We won't give in.
We'll rouse the whole of Russia all the same!"
With his last money he bought a civilian outfit, and a few days later,
at night, he reached Russian territory by crossing the estuary of the Danube
near Vilkovo.
His plan was to make his way across the steppe to Akkerman, and then on
a barge or a boat to Odessa. From Odessa it would be simple to reach his
native village of Nerubaiskoye, and there he would decide his next move.
He knew only one thing for certain: that all the roads to the past were
closed to him, that he was cut off once and for all both from the servile
life of a sailor on the tsar's battleship, and from the hard peasant life at
home, in the clay hut with the dark-blue walls and the light-blue
window-frames, standing among pink and yellow hollyhocks.
Now it was either the gallows or going into hiding, starting an
uprising, setting fire to landowners' manors, reaching the city and locating
the revolutionary headquarters.
He began to feel ill on the road but stopping was out of the question
and he continued on his way.
And now.. . . What's the matter with him? Where is he? Why are stars
rocking in the doorway? And are they really stars?
Like a dark sea, night engulfs Rodion.
The stars gather into clusters, flare up, and form a low-lying row of
Quarantine lights before his eyes. The city breaks into commotion. The
trestle bridge in the port bursts into flames. Running men lose their
direction in the raging fire. Rifle volleys smack down on the roadway like
long steel rails.
The night is a rocking ship's deck. The bright circle of a searchlight
skims along the winding shore, making the corners of houses glow white-hot
and windows glare dazzlingly; and out of the darkness it snatches the
figures of running soldiers, ragged red flags, ammunition-wagons,
gun-carriages, overturned horse-trams.
And then he sees himself in the gun-turret. The gunner glues his eye to
the range-finder. The turret revolves smoothly, bringing the empty, shining,
mirror-like, grooved barrel to bear on the city. Stop! Now it is directly on
a line with the blue cupola of the theatre where an imposing general is
holding a war council against the insurgents.
The turret telephone buzzes faintly and monotonously.
Or can that be crickets in the steppe? No, it's the telephone. With a
slow clang the electric hoist brings up a shell from the magazine. It sways
on the chains and comes straight into Rodion's hands.
Or can that be a cool melon instead of a shell? Ah, what a joy to bite
into a juicy melon! But no, it's a shell. "Turret, shoot!"
That very same instant there is a ringing in his ears, as if some giant
hand outside has struck the armour of the turret like a tambourine. There is
a flash of fire. The smell of a burning celluloid comb pours over him.
The entire breadth of the roadstead shudders. The boats begin to rock.
A strip of iron comes down between the ship and the city. An "over".
Rodion's hands are flaming hot. Then again the crickets meander in a
crystal stream among the close-set stars and the weeds.
Or can that chirping be the telephone? Now the second shell crawls out
of the hoist and into Rodion's hands. Now we'll finish off that general!
"Turret, shoot!"
"Lie down and stop your yelling. Want a drink? Lie quiet."
A second strip crosses the bay. Again an "over". But never mind, the
third time we won't miss. And there are plenty of shells. A magazine full of
them.
In his weary hands the third shell feels lighter than a feather and yet
heavier than a house.
Fire it as quickly as possible, send smoke pouring out of that blue
cupola-and then things'll roll along!
But why has the telephone stopped chirping, why have the crickets
stopped tinkling? Have they all dropped dead there overhead?
Or is that the dawn, so quiet and so pink? Smoothly the turret turns
back. "Cease firing!" The shell slips out of his lowered hands and is
carried back into the magazine, with a rattle of the hoist chains. But
no-the cup has slipped from his fingers and water is trickling slowly from
the bed to the floor. And then all is quiet, oh, so quiet.
"What's this? They betrayed freedom, the damned swine! They turned
cowards! Once you start fighting you've got to fight to the end! To leave
not a single stone standing!"
"Shoot, turret gun, shoot!"
"Oh, Lord, oh, St. Nicholas, holy miracle worker! Lie down and drink
some more water. What a misfortune!"
The pink quietness of dawn lays a tender and soothing hand on Rodion's
inflamed cheek. Far away on the gilded bluff the cocks begin to crow.
THE OWNER OF THE SHOOTING GALLERY
After talking things over, grandfather and grandson decided not to show
the sick man to anybody for the time being, let alone send him to the city
hospital, where they would most certainly ask to see his papers.
In Grandpa's opinion the sailor had a plain, ordinary fever, and it
would soon pass. Then it would be up to him to think of what to do next.
Meanwhile it had grown completely light. It was time to take the boat
out again. The sick man no longer slept.
Weakened by his sweating during the night, he lay motionless on his
back, looking up with conscious, attentive eyes at the icon of the miracle
worker and the bunch of fresh cornflowers stuck behind its dark, time-warped
board.
"Your head clear?" asked Grandpa, coming up to the bed.
The patient moved his lips as though trying to say "yes". "Feeling
better?"
He dropped his eyelids in sign of affirmation. Grandpa glanced at the
bread and porridge on the shelf. "Like something to eat?" The sailor shook
his head weakly.
"Well, as you like. Listen, son. We have to go out in the boat for
bullheads, understand? We'll leave you here by yourself and lock the door.
You can trust us. We're Black Sea folk, the same as you. Understand? You lie
here nice and quiet. If anybody knocks, don't say a word. Gavrik and I'll do
our work and then we'll come right back. I'm leaving you a cup of water. If
you feel thirsty take a drink, it won't hurt you. And don't worry about
anything at all. You can depend on us. Understand?"
The old man said "Understand?" after every other word, talking to the
sailor as though he were a child.
The sailor forced a smile to his eyes, and from time to time he dropped
his lids, as if to say, "Don't worry. I understand. Thanks."
The fishermen locked him in and went out in the boat. They returned
four hours later to find everything in order. The patient was asleep.
This time they had had luck.
They had taken about three hundred and fifty fine big bullheads off the
line. Grandpa gave the miracle worker a pleased look, chewed his wrinkled
lips, and remarked, "Not bad. Not at all bad today. They're big ones, even
though we did use shrimps. God bless you."
But the miracle worker, fully conscious of his powers, looked down at
Grandpa sternly, haughtily even, as if he wanted to say, "And you doubted
me, called me an old codger. You're the one who's an old codger."
Grandpa decided to take the bullheads to market himself. It was high
time he had it out with Madam Storozhenko. After all, no matter how much
fish he brought her he always remained in debt and never saw any hard cash.
In that case what was the use of fishing?
Today was just the day for that talk. With these select bullheads he
could look her straight in the eye.
Naturally Gavrik would have liked to go along with him to market. Then,
on the way back, he could see Petya and finally get a drink of kvass at the
corner.
But leaving the sailor alone was risky because this was Sunday and a
crowd of people would probably come down to the beach from the city.
Grandpa lifted the wet fish tank to his shoulder and shuffled off to
market. Gavrik poured fresh water into the cup, covered the sailor's feet
against the flies, hung the padlock on the door, and went out for a stroll.
Not far away, on the beach, were various places of entertainment: a little
restaurant with a garden and a skittle-alley, a shooting gallery, a
merry-go-round, automatic dynamometers, stands where you could buy
soda-water and Turkish delight-in short, a small fair-ground. The place was
a real feast for the boy's eyes.
The morning service had not yet ended. The pealing of church bells
floated above the bluffs.
And every now and then a snow-white cloud as round and bright as that
sound of the bells was wafted across the sky by the breeze, although down at
the beach no wind could be felt at all.
It was early for the real fun, but several well-dressed city people
were hovering about the merry-go-round waiting for the canvas cover to be
taken off.
From the skittle-alley came the slow, cast-iron rumbling of the heavy
ball as it rolled down the narrow board. The ball rolled an awfully long
time and its noise grew fainter and fainter until suddenly, after a short
silence, the soft musical clink of scattered pins came through the yellow
acacias growing by the fence.
Every once in a while a report resounded from the shooting gallery.
Sometimes it would be followed by the crash of a broken bottle, or the whirr
of a moving target.
The shooting gallery lured Gavrik irresistibly.
He walked over to it and stopped near the door. Greedily he breathed in
the smell of gunpowder, a bluish-leaden smell like nothing else on earth. He
could even feel its peculiar sourish and choky taste on his tongue.
And those guns, so tantalising in their special racks! The small butts,
expertly made out of wood as heavy as iron, with a sharp network of lines
cut into it on the places where you held it, so that your hand would not
slip. The thick, long barrel of burnished blue steel with the small hole of
the muzzle, no larger than a pea. The blue steel sight, and the bolt handle
that moved up and down so smoothly and simply.
Even the very richest boys dreamed of owning a gun like that, a Monte
Cristo. This was a word that made your heart miss a beat. It had an
all-embracing meaning: fabulous wealth, happiness, glory, manliness. Owning
a Monte Cristo was even more than having your own bicycle.
A boy who had a Monte Cristo was known far beyond the street in which
he lived. And he was referred to in this way: "You know, the Volodka from
Richelieu Street who has a Monte Cristo."
Gavrik, of course, could never dream of owning a Monte Cristo. Or even
of firing one, for that was terribly dear: five kopeks a shot. You had to be
awfully rich for that.
Gavrik could dream only of aiming from the wonderful gun. Occasionally
the owner of the shooting gallery gave him that pleasure.
Now there was a visitor in the gallery, so it was out of the question.
Perhaps when he left Gavrik would ask the owner, and then. . ..
But the visitor was in no hurry to leave. He stood there with his
sandaled feet planted wide apart and instead of shooting was talking with
the proprietor.
When the proprietor happened to glance his way, Gavrik greeted him
respectfully, "Many happy returns of the day."
He acknowledged the greeting with a dignified nod, as became the owner
of such an unusual place of amusement. That was a lucky sign. It meant he
was in a good mood and might very well let you handle a Monte Cristo.
Encouraged, Gavrik came closer, right into the doorway.
With eager, admiring eyes he examined the pistols hanging above the
counter, the branched rifle-support, and the various mechanical targets, one
of which appealed to him especially.
This was a Japanese battleship, with guns and a flag, riding the garish
green waves of a tin sea. Out of the sea jutted a rod topped by a little
metal circle, and if you hit that circle the battleship broke in two with a
bang and went to the bottom, a fan-shaped tin geyser rising in its place.
Naturally, among the hares with the drums, the ballet dancers, the
anglers with a shoe at the end of their line, and the bottles moving along
one after another on an endless belt, the Japanese battleship held first
place both for the brilliance of its idea and its superb execution.
Everybody knew that only a short while ago the Japanese had sent the
whole Russian fleet to the bottom at Tsushima, and there were always
visitors who thirsted for revenge on the "Japs".
The gallery had, besides, a real fountain. It was set going only when a
visitor asked for it. A celluloid ball put on top of the jet by the
proprietor would be flung up and turned round, then suddenly dropped and
just as suddenly lifted. This was a real miracle, a mystery of nature. To
hit that ball was one of the hardest things in the world. Sometimes men got
so excited they shot at it ten or fifteen times, and almost always they
missed.
But whoever did hit the ball was entitled to an extra shot free of
charge.
"So you say nothing unusual happened here yesterday evening?" the
visitor remarked, continuing the conversation. He was toying with a
beautiful gun; in his huge paws it seemed tiny.
"Not as far as I know." "Hm."
The man ran his eye over the targets. He took off his blue pince-nez,
which left two coral dents on his fleshy nose, and aimed at a hare holding a
drum. But then he changed his mind and lowered the gun.
"Didn't any of the fishermen hereabouts mention anything?"
"Not a thing."
"Hm."
The visitor picked up the Monte Cristo, then lowered it again.
"I heard, though, that a man fell off the Turgenev yesterday evening,
opposite the shore here. Heard anything about that?" "Not a thing."
Gavrik caught his breath sharply. He felt as though a bucket of
ice-cold water had been poured over him. His heart contracted so that he
could no longer hear it. His legs grew limp. He was afraid to move.
"I heard that a man jumped off the steamer, a man the police are
looking for. Just opposite the shore here. Know anything about it?"
"This is the first I've heard of it."
The owner of the shooting gallery was clearly bored to death by this
moustached gossip.
His expression was courteous and dignified, but he was on the verge of
yawning, and he twirled a little green box of cartridges in his fingers. He
thought, and rightly so, that if a man came to shoot he ought to shoot. And
if he wanted to have a chat, that was all right too-but in between shots. A
chat on some interesting topic, naturally, like the races at the velodrome
or the Russo-Japanese war.
Deathly boredom was written all over his seedy face, the face of a
failure, racked by secret passions.
Gavrik felt sorry for him from the bottom of his heart. Like all the
other children, he was for some reason very fond of this man with slanting
side-whiskers, legs as bowed as a dachshund's, and a hairy, heavily tattooed
chest showing through his thin undershirt.
Gavrik knew that although the man made quite a decent living he never
had a kopek to his name. He was always in debt, was always very worried
about something. Rumour had it that he used to be a famous circus rider, and
that once he had struck the owner of the circus across the face with his
whip for having done something mean. He was sacked and black-listed.
Deprived of his livelihood, he took to betting at the horse-races, and this
was his downfall. Now he played at all games of chance; even at pitching
coins with little boys.
He was eternally in the grip of a frightful gambling fever.
It was a known fact that at times he gambled away the clothes he wore.
The shoes he had on, for example, did not belong to him. He had lost them at
the beginning of the summer playing twenty-one, and now when he closed his
place for the night he went home barefoot, carrying under his arm a box with
the rifles and pistols; afraid of gambling them away, he left them for
safekeeping until the morning with a janitor acquaintance of his in Malaya
Arnautskaya Street.
Once, on the beach, Gavrik himself had seen him bet a gentleman fifty
kopeks that he could hit a sparrow on the fly from a Monte Cristo. Of
course, he missed.
What followed was so pitiful that Gavrik felt like crying. With a
shameful show of surprise the man examined the gun for a long time, then
shrugged his shoulders and reached inside his mended jacket. His face was
pale. He brought out a fifty-kopek piece and handed it to the gentleman. The
gentleman laughingly protested that it had all been in fun. But the
proprietor of the shooting gallery suddenly looked at him with such insane,
pathetic and at the same time ominously bloodshot eyes that the gentleman
quickly took the coin, and, embarrassed, put it in the pocket of his pongee
jacket.
That day the shooting gallery did not close for dinner.
"If I were you, sir, I'd try a shot at the ballet dancer and see how
saucily she kicks up her legs," said the proprietor in his Polish accent. He
clearly wanted to put an end to the boring conversation and get the visitor
to shoot.
"It's strange, though, that no one knows anything about it," the latter
said.
Just then he noticed Gavrik. He gave him a quick glance from head to
foot.
"Do you live here, son?"
"Yes," said the boy. His voice was unusually thin.
"Your people fishermen?"
"Yes."
"Why so shy? Come closer, don't be afraid."
Gavrik looked at the coarse, tightly-twirled moustache which was as
black as boot-polish, at the long strip of adhesive plaster across the
cheek, and, terrified, approached the man, mechanically putting one foot in
front of the other.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
"Your father and mother alive?" "No."
"Then who do you live with?" "Grandpa." "Who's he?" "An old man."
"Naturally-but what does he do for a living?" "He catches fish." "A
fisherman, eh?" "Yes, a fisher." "And what are you?" "A boy."
"I can see you're a boy and not a girl. What I'm asking you is what do
you do?"
"Oh, nothing. I help Grandpa."
"That means you go out fishing together, eh?"
"Uh-huh."
"I see. Well, then, how do you fish?"
"Why, we just put out the line for the night, and the next morning we
pull out the bullheads."
"That means you go out to sea in a boat, doesn't it?"
"Uh-huh."
"Every day?"
"What's that?"
"What a little blockhead you are! What I'm asking you is this: do you
go out in the boat every day?"
" 'Course we do."
"Morning and evening?"
"No."
"How's that?"
"Only mornings."
"What about the evening?"
"Well, evenings too."
"Then why do you say only mornings when it's evenings too?"
"No. Evenings we only put out the line. We pull out the bullheads in
the morning."
"I see. That means you go out evenings too."
"No. Evenings we only put it out."
"For God's sake! But to put it out don't you have to go out to sea
first?"
"Course we do. "
"That means you go out evenings too, doesn't it?"
"No, evenings we don't pull out. We only pull out mornings."
"But in the evening you go out to put out the line, don't you?"
" 'Course we do."
"That means you go out evenings too, doesn't it?"
"Uh-huh."
"What a little blockhead you are! A man has to have a good meal under
his belt before he tries talking to you. What makes you so stupid?"
"I'm only a kid."
With an unconcealed sneer the moustached gentleman surveyed Gavrik from
top to toe and then gave him a fillip-quite a smart one-on the head.
"A fine fisherman you are!"
But the boy was by no means a blockhead.
He had immediately sensed a sly and dangerous enemy in this man with
the moustaches. There he was, wandering along the shore asking questions
about the sailor. He was only making believe he'd come in here to shoot. Who
could tell what he really was after? Most likely he was a detective. Why, he
might even find out somehow that the runaway was hiding in their hut!
Perhaps-God forbid!- he had found it out already.
Gavrik had decided at once to act the fool. You couldn't learn much
from a fool.
He twisted his face into the stupid expression he thought a little
half-wit should wear; he goggled his eyes, shifted from foot to foot with
exaggerated embarrassment, and picked at a sore on his lip.
When he saw he was dealing with a hopeless idiot, Moustaches thought it
best to make friends with him first and pump him afterwards.
He reasoned, not without foundation, that children were an inquisitive
and observant lot and knew more than grown-ups about what was going on
around them.
"What's your name, sonny?"
"Gavrik."
"Well, look here, Gavrik, would you like to shoot?"
A warm flush coloured the boy's face to the very tips of his ears. He
instantly collected himself, however. "But I've no money," he said in a
thin, squeaky voice, playing the fool.
"I know that, but it doesn't matter. You can take a shot. I'll pay."
"You're not making fun of me?"
"Don't trust me? Well, look."
With these words Moustaches laid a big brand-new five-kopek piece on
the counter.
"Shoot away."
Gavrik, overcome with happiness, looked in indecision at the
proprietor. But the latter's face had taken on such a strictly formal
expression that an exchange of friendly winks was obviously out of the
question.
He looked at the boy as if he had never seen him before, and, leaning
respectfully over the counter, said, "Which would you prefer to use, young
man? A pistol or a rifle?"
Gavrik was so bowled over by unexpected happiness that he really did
feel like a half-wit now.
"A Monte Cristo," he stammered, a silly grin on his face.
With a flourish the proprietor loaded the gun and handed it to the boy.
Breathing heavily, he glued himself to the counter and aimed at a
bottle. The Japanese battleship appealed to him much more, of course, but he
was afraid of missing. The bottle was a big one.
He tried to prolong the pleasure of aiming as much as possible.
After aiming at the bottle for a while he shifted to a hare, then to
the battleship, and then back to the bottle. He moved the sight from one
bull's-eye to another, swallowing his saliva and thinking in horror that the
moment he fired, the bliss would come to an end.
Finally he took a deep breath and put the rifle down. "You know what,"
he said to Moustaches, with a guilty look at the proprietor, "I think I
won't. I aimed, and that's almost as good. Treat me instead to a drink of
soda water with syrup at the stand. Besides, it'll cost you less."
Moustaches had no objections. Making an effort not to look at the
proprietor, whose expression was a mixture of contempt and ironic
indifference, they set out for the stand.
There Moustaches displayed such generosity that the boy could only
gasp. Instead of water and syrup, which cost two kopeks, he ordered nothing
less than a whole big bottle of Violet Soda, costing eight kopeks.
Gavrik could not believe his eyes when the stand-keeper brought out the
white bottle with the violet label and unwound the thin wire round the cork.
The bottle popped. Not in the coarse way kvass bottles popped, but
gently, with style. The clear water immediately began to foam, and out of
the mouth of the bottle there poured a gas which actually did give off the
delicate fragrance of real violets.
Gavrik carefully picked up the cold bubbling glass with both hands, as
if it were a treasure, and, squinting against the sun, began to drink. He
could feel the sweet-smelling gas shooting up into his nose from his throat.
As he swallowed this magic nectar of the wealthy, he felt that the
whole universe was gazing upon him in this moment of triumph: the sun, the
clouds, the sea, people, dogs, cyclists, the wooden horses of the
merry-go-round, the girl who sold tickets at the municipal bathing beach.
And they were all saying, "Look, look, that boy is drinking Violet Soda!"
A little turquoise lizard had popped out of the weeds to warm its beady
back in the sun, and as it clung to a rock with one paw it squinted up at
him as if it, too, were saying, "Look, isn't he a lucky boy to be drinking
Violet Soda!"
While he drank Gavrik pondered on how to wriggle out of any further
questions Moustaches might ask him. He thought up a whole plan.
"Well, Gavrik, like the Violet Soda?"
"Thanks. Never tasted anything so good in all my life."
"I should think so. Now tell me, did you go out to sea yesterday
evening?"
"Uh-huh."
"Did you see the Turgenev?"
" 'Course! She almost ripped our line to pieces with her wheels."
"A man didn't jump from the ship, did he?"
Moustaches fixed his bushy black eyes on the boy. Gavrik forced his
mouth into a grin. "So help me God, a man did jump off!" he said with
exaggerated excitement. "May I drop dead on the spot! Bango!-right into the
water, and what a splash! And how he swam!"
"Wait a minute. Not making anything up, are you? Which way did he
swim?"
"So help me God I'm not! By the true and holy Cross!"
Although Gavrik knew it was a sin, he quickly crossed himself four
times.
"And then he swam and swam-"
The boy waved his arms to show how the sailor had swum.
"Which way?"
"That way." The boy waved his arm in the direction of the sea.
"And what happened to him after that?"
"After that a boat picked him up."
"A boat? What kind?"
"You know, a big one, a great big Ochakov boat with a sail."
"From hereabouts?"
"No."
"Then where from?"
"From Bolshoi Fontan. Or maybe from Lustdorf. All painted blue, and
half red. A great big one. It picked him up and after that it headed
straight for Lustdorf. By the true and holy-"
"Did you notice the boat's name?"
" 'Course I did: Sonya."
"Sonya, eh? That's fine. Not lying, are you?"
"By the true and holy Cross! May I never be happy in all my life! It
was Sonya, or else Vera."
"Sonya or Vera?"
"Either Sonya or Vera-or else Nadya."
"If you're lying-"
Instead of paying for the drinks, Moustaches whispered something into
the stand-keeper's ear, something that instantly made his expression turn
sour. Then he nodded to the boy and hurriedly set out for the hill,
obviously to take the suburban train to town.
That was just what Gavrik had expected him to do.
A POUND AND A HALF OF RYE BREAD
The sailor had to be warned immediately.
But Gavrik was a smart and cautious boy, and before returning home he
followed Moustaches from a distance until with his own eyes he saw him climb
the hill and turn down the lane.
Only then did he run back to the hut.
The sailor was asleep, but at the click of the padlock he sprang to his
feet and then sat down on the bed, looking at the door with glittering,
frightened eyes.
"Don't be afraid, it's me. Lie down."
The sick man lay down again.
The boy pottered about a long time in the corner, pretending to examine
the hooks of the line, which was folded inside a round wicker basket. He did
not know how to begin so as not to excite the sick man too much.
Finally he came up to the bed and stood there for a while, scratching
one foot with the other.
"Feel better?"
"Yes."
"Your head clear?"
"Yes."
"Hungry?"
This conversation, brief though it was, completely exhausted the
sailor. He shook his head and closed his eyes. The boy let him rest.
After a while he spoke again. "Listen," he said affectionately, in a
low but persistent voice, "was it you jumped from the Turgenev yesterday?"
The sick man opened his eyes and looked up at the boy very intently,
but made no reply.
"Listen to what I'm going to say," Gavrik whispered, sitting down on
the bed. "Only lie quiet and don't get excited."
Then, as circumspectly as he could, he told the sailor about his
acquaintance with the moustached man.
Again the sailor sprang to his feet and sat down on the bed, gripping
the edge of it to hold himself erect. He stared at the boy with round,
motionless eyes. His forehead had become damp. But he did not say a word.
Only once did he break his silence. That was when Gavrik mentioned the
adhesive plaster on Moustaches' cheek.
At this point of the story a mischievous, devil-may-care Ukrainian
twinkle flickered in the sick man's eyes, and he said hoarsely, through his
teeth, "A cat must have scratched him."
Suddenly he began to fidget, and then, steadying himself against the
wall, he stood up on his shaky legs.
"Come on," he muttered, looking round wildly. "Come on, let's go
somewhere. For Christ's sake!" "Get back in bed, uncle, you're sick." "Come
on . . . give me my kit. Where's my kit?" He had evidently forgotten that he
had thrown off his clothes in the sea. His thin hand fumbled helplessly
about the bed. Unshaven, in a white undershirt and drawers, he looked like a
madman.
His appearance was so pathetic, but at the same time so ominous that
Gavrik nearly ran away in fright.
He fought down his fear, however. He put his arms round the sick man's
waist and tried to force him to lie down. "It's for your own good. Lie down,
it's for your own good," he said, almost crying.
"Hands off. I'm going now."
"But how can you go anywhere in your drawers?"
"Give me my kit."
"What are you talking about? What kit? You didn't have any. Now lie
quiet."
"Let me go."
"If you only knew what an awful nuisance you are! You're just like a
baby. Lie down, I tell you!" the boy suddenly cried out in anger, losing his
patience. "Stop acting like a baby!"
The sailor lay back submissively, and Gavrik saw a feverish glaze come
into his eyes again. The sailor began to moan softly, screwing up his face
and arching his back.
"For Christ's sake! Let somebody hide me. Let me go to the Committee.
Can you tell me where the Odessa Committee is? Don't shoot, damn you, or
you'll spoil all the grapes-"
He began to rave.
"Things are in a bad way," thought Gavrik. Just then he heard footsteps
outside. Someone was coming straight to the hut, noisily making his way
through the weeds.
The boy hunched his shoulders, not daring to breathe. A host of
terrifying thoughts raced through his head.
But then suddenly he heard a familiar cough. Grandpa entered the hut.
From the way he dropped the empty fish tank near the door, from the way
he blew his nose and crossed himself long and bitterly as he looked at the
icon of the miracle worker, Gavrik unerringly guessed that he had had a
drink.
This was something Grandpa did only once in a blue moon, when something
out of the ordinary happened- whether good or bad.
Judging by his attitude towards St. Nicholas, the occasion this time
was sooner bad than good.
"Well, Grandpa, buy meat for bait?"
"Meat for bait?"
The old man gave the boy a guileless look and then held a figged thumb
under his nose.
"Here's your meat! Bait it! And thank that old codger of a miracle
worker for it. That's what I get for praying to that old fool, may he burst!
When it comes to catching big-sized bullheads he's on the spot, but when it
comes to getting a decent price for them at the market he's nowhere to be
found! Can you imagine, gentlemen? Thirty kopeks a hundred for bullheads
like that! It's unheard-of!"
"Thirty kopeks a hundred!" the boy exclaimed.
"Thirty kopeks, may I drop dead on the spot! Thirty kopeks for fish
like this?' I says to her. 'Ain't you got no fear of God, Madam
Storozhenko?' 'God's got nothing to do with market prices,' she says to me.
'We've got our own prices and he's got his. And if you don't like my price
you can take your bullheads and sell them to the Jews. Maybe they'll give
you a kopek more. Only first pay me back the eighty kopeks you owe me.' Ever
seen the like? Now tell me, shouldn't I have spit straight in her damned eye
for that? Well, gentlemen, that's just what I did. Right in front of the
whole market, too! So help me God, I filled her eye with spit!"
Grandpa hurriedly crossed himself.
But he was not telling the truth. Naturally, he had not spat in
anybody's eye. He had merely turned pale and begun to tremble from head to
foot, and then he had pulled the fish out of the tank and thrown them into
Madam Storozhenko's basket, muttering, "Here, take 'em, and I hope they
choke you!"
As for Madam Storozhenko, she calmly counted the fish and handed
Grandpa twelve kopeks in sticky coppers. "Now we're quits," she said
briefly.
Grandpa took the money and, boiling with futile rage, went straight to
a spirits shop where he bought himself a bottle of vodka. He scraped off the
red sealing-wax against the grater nailed for the purpose to an acacia tree
near the shop, and then with a shaking hand knocked out the little
paper-wrapped cork.
He poured the vodka down his throat in one go and smashed the thin
bottle against the pavement, although he could have got a kopek for it.
After that he set out for home. On the way he bought his grandson a red
lollipop in the shape of a cock for a kopek-he still imagined Gavrik to be a
little boy-and two very white and very sour rolls for the sick sailor.
With the remaining money he bought a pound and a half of rye bread.
His anger flared up again and again on the way home, and he stopped
about a dozen times to spit furiously this way and that, absolutely
convinced that he was spitting in Madam Storozhenko's accursed eye.
"So help me God!" he said, breathing the sweetish odour of vodka
straight into Gavrik's face and putting the lollipop cock into his hand.
"Ask anybody you like at the market-the whole market saw me spit into her
damned eye! And now, my child, suck this lollipop. It's just as good as
cake."
At this point the old man remembered the patient and began to urge the
rolls on him.
"Let him be, Grandpa. He just fell asleep. Let him rest."
Grandpa carefully laid the rolls on the pillow beside the sailor's head
and said in a whisper, "Shh, shh. Let him rest now. And later, when he wakes
up, he'll eat. He can't eat the rye bread because his stomach is very weak
now, but the rolls are all right for him."
The old man looked down affectionately at the rolls and at the patient,
then shook his head and remarked in a gentle voice, "Look how peacefully he
sleeps. Ah, sailor, sailor, you're in a tight spot."
Then he spread out his jacket in the corner and lay down to rest.
Gavrik went outside, looked round, and closed the door firmly after
him. He had decided to go, without wasting a minute, to Near Mills to see
his brother Terenti.
This decision had come to him the moment he heard the delirious sailor
pronounce the word "Committee". Gavrik did not know exactly what this word
meant, but he had once heard Terenti use it.
MORNING
When Petya woke up, he was amazed to find himself in his city room,
surrounded by furniture and wallpaper he had forgotten during the summer.
A dry sunbeam coming through a crack in the shutter pierced the room.
It cut a diagonal swath through the dusty air from top to bottom. The
sawdusty air-motes of dust and tiny threads and hairs, moving and yet
motionless-was brightly lit by the sunbeam and formed a semi-transparent
wall.
A big autumn fly blazed into colour as it flew through this wall, and
then it just as suddenly became drab again.
There was neither the quack of ducks nor the hysterics of a hen that
had just laid an egg behind the house, neither the silly chatter of turkeys
nor the fresh chirp of a sparrow, swaying almost inside the window on a thin
mulberry branch bent in an arch under its weight.
The noises both inside and outside the flat were altogether different:
they were city noises.
From the dining-room came the faint clatter of chairs being moved.
There was a musical sound-the singing of a glass as it was washed in the
rinsing-bowl. Father's "bearded" voice rang out, with a deep and strange
city note to it. The buzz of the electric bell filled the hall. Doors were
slammed, now the front door, now the kitchen door, and suddenly Petya
discovered that he could tell from the sound which one it was.
Meanwhile from outside, through a room with a window facing the
yard-why, of course, that was Auntie Tatyana's room!-came the singing of the
hawkers. Not for a minute did it cease, for they made their appearance one
after the other, those roving artists of the courtyard stage, each
performing his brief aria.
"Cha-a-arcoal! Cha-a-arcoal!" sang a distant Russian tenor, as if sadly
recalling the gay, carefree days of long ago.
"Cha-a-a-arcoal!"
His place was taken by a comic basso-the grinder:
"Sharpen knives, scissors, razors! Sharpen knives, scissors, razors!
Knives, scissors, razors!"
After the grinder came a tinker, filling the yard with the manly
roulades of his velvety baritone:
"Pots to mend! Kettles and pails to mend!"
A hucksteress with no gift for singing at all ran into the yard, and
the sultry morning air of the city resounded with her burring recitative:
"Pears, apples, tomatoes! Pears, apples, tomatoes!"
An old-clothes man poured out plaintive Jewish couplets:
"I cash clothes! I cash . . . I cash. . .."
Finally, to crown the concert, came a lovely Neapolitan canzonet
performed by a brand-new Nechada barrel-organ and a shrill-voiced street
singer:
The leaves in the wind softly sigh,
Hark to the nightingale's trills!
My love was once simple and shy,
But today she parades in silk frills.
Sing to me,
O dove,
Of my departed love....
"Cha-a-arcoal! Cha-a-arcoal!" sang the Russian tenor the minute the
barrel-organ went away. The concert had begun all over again.
Meanwhile the clatter of droshkies, the rumble of a suburban train and
the blare of an army band came from the street proper.
Into that din there suddenly broke a frightfully familiar whirring
noise, a click and then clear, springy sounds, coming distinctly one after
the other, as though counting something. What could that be? Why, that was
saint.
Of course, when there was no sail, when the old man's strength was
waning from day to day, and when there was no money to buy meat for bait,
the fish caught would be small and good for nothing, be he the most
miraculous miracle worker the world had ever seen. And so there was no sense
expecting anything of him.
Yes, even the miracle worker was stumped when it came to offsetting old
age and poverty.
For all that, there were times when Grandpa felt bitter and hurt as he
looked at the stern but useless saint. True, he was no expense and hung
there in his corner without disturbing anybody. Oh well, let him hang there:
perhaps he'd do a good turn some day. In time the old man had come to take a
patronising and even somewhat ironical attitude towards the miracle worker.
Returning to the hut with a catch-and the catch these days was almost
always pitifully small-Grandpa would grumble, looking at the embarrassed
miracle worker out of the corner of his eye, "Well, you old codger, so we're
empty-handed again, eh? This is such trash it makes me blush to take it to
market. They're not bullheads but lice."
Then, so as not to hurt the saint's feelings too much, he would add,
"It's only natural. Would a real big bullhead ever go for shrimps? A real,
well-fed bullhead's ready to spit on a shrimp. What a real, well-fed
bullhead wants is meat. But where'll we get it, eh? You can't buy meat with
a miracle, can you? So you see?"
Now, however, the miracle worker was farthest from the old man's
thoughts. He was greatly worried about the sailor. And not so much by his
fever and unconsciousness as by his premonition of mortal danger from some
unnamed source.
Naturally, Grandpa did have an idea of what it was all about, but to
help the man he would have to know a little more.
As luck would have it, however, the sailor was unconscious and
feverish; he lay sprawled out on the patchwork quilt, staring straight in
front of him with open but unseeing eyes.
One of his hands hung down from the bed. On the other, which lay on his
chest, Grandpa saw a blue anchor.
Every now and then the sailor attempted to spring up; moaning, the hot
sweat pouring from him, unconscious, he would bite his hand as though trying
to bite out the anchor, as if once the anchor were gone he would instantly
feel better.
Grandpa forced him to lie down again and wiped his forehead. "Lie down,
now," he urged. "Lie quiet, I tell you. And go to sleep, don't be afraid. Go
to sleep."
Out in the vegetable patch Gavrik was boiling water in a cauldron to
make the sick man some tea. Not real tea, that is, but a brew of the
fragrant herb which Grandpa gathered in the nearby hills in May, and then
dried and used instead of tea.
"TURRET GUN, SHOOT!"
They passed a fitful night.
The sailor tore at the shirt on his chest. He was suffocating.
Grandpa put out the lamp and opened the door to let in fresh air.
The sailor saw the starry sky but he could not understand what it was.
The night breeze blew into the hut and cooled his head.
Gavrik lay in the weeds near the door, his ears attuned to the faintest
rustle. He did not close an eye until morning. His elbow turned numb from
lying on it.
Grandpa made a bed for himself on the earthen floor of the hut but he
did not sleep either; he listened to the crickets, to the waves and to the
moans of the sick man, who from time to time sprang up excitedly and shouted
in a weak, colourless voice, "Turret gun, shoot! Koshuba! Turret, give it to
them!" and other such nonsense.
Grandpa would take him firmly by the shoulders, shake him gently and
whisper straight into his hot, feverish mouth, "Lie quiet. For the sake of
the Lord God himself, don't raise a row. Lie quiet. What a trial!"
Little by little the sailor, grinding his teeth, would quieten down.
Who was this strange patient?
Rodion Zhukov was one of the seven hundred men of the battleship
Potemkin who had gone ashore in Rumania.
He in no way stood out among the other men of the mutinous ship.
From the first minute of the uprising, from that very minute when the
commander of the battleship dropped in horror and despair to his knees
before the crew, when the first rifle shots rang out and the dead bodies of
certain officers were thrown overboard, when the sailor named Matyushenko
ripped off the door of the Admiral's cabin, that very cabin past which they
still could not walk without a feeling of fright-from that very minute
Rodion Zhukov lived, thought, and acted as did most of the other sailors: in
a sort of haze, in a state of feverish exaltation until the time when they
had to surrender to the Rumanians and disembark at Constantsa.
Rodion had never before set foot in a foreign land. And a foreign land,
like useless freedom, is broad and bitter.
The Potemkin stood quite close to the pier.
Among the feluccas, freighters, yawls, yachts and cutters, and side by
side with an emaciated-looking Rumanian cruiser, the grey three-funnelled
battleship was absurdly huge.
The flag of St. Andrew, like a white envelope crossed with blue lines,
still hung aloft, above the gun-turrets, boats and yards.
But suddenly it quivered, fell limp, and slid down in short spurts.
Rodion then took off his sailor cap with both hands and bowed so low
that the ends of the new ribbons of St. George spread out gently over the
dust, like those orange-and-black country flowers.
"It's a dirty shame! Twelve-inch guns, enough ammunition to last a
month, and crack gunners, every mother's son of them. We ought to have
listened to Dorofei Koshuba. He was right when he said we ought to throw the
lousy petty officers overboard, sink the Georgi Pobedonosets and land a
force in Odessa. We would have roused the whole Odessa garrison, all the
workers, the whole Black Sea! Oh, Koshuba, Koshuba, if only we'd listened to
you! What a hell of a mess we're in!"
Rodion bowed to his beloved ship for the last time.
"Never mind," he said through his teeth, "never mind. We won't give in.
We'll rouse the whole of Russia all the same!"
With his last money he bought a civilian outfit, and a few days later,
at night, he reached Russian territory by crossing the estuary of the Danube
near Vilkovo.
His plan was to make his way across the steppe to Akkerman, and then on
a barge or a boat to Odessa. From Odessa it would be simple to reach his
native village of Nerubaiskoye, and there he would decide his next move.
He knew only one thing for certain: that all the roads to the past were
closed to him, that he was cut off once and for all both from the servile
life of a sailor on the tsar's battleship, and from the hard peasant life at
home, in the clay hut with the dark-blue walls and the light-blue
window-frames, standing among pink and yellow hollyhocks.
Now it was either the gallows or going into hiding, starting an
uprising, setting fire to landowners' manors, reaching the city and locating
the revolutionary headquarters.
He began to feel ill on the road but stopping was out of the question
and he continued on his way.
And now.. . . What's the matter with him? Where is he? Why are stars
rocking in the doorway? And are they really stars?
Like a dark sea, night engulfs Rodion.
The stars gather into clusters, flare up, and form a low-lying row of
Quarantine lights before his eyes. The city breaks into commotion. The
trestle bridge in the port bursts into flames. Running men lose their
direction in the raging fire. Rifle volleys smack down on the roadway like
long steel rails.
The night is a rocking ship's deck. The bright circle of a searchlight
skims along the winding shore, making the corners of houses glow white-hot
and windows glare dazzlingly; and out of the darkness it snatches the
figures of running soldiers, ragged red flags, ammunition-wagons,
gun-carriages, overturned horse-trams.
And then he sees himself in the gun-turret. The gunner glues his eye to
the range-finder. The turret revolves smoothly, bringing the empty, shining,
mirror-like, grooved barrel to bear on the city. Stop! Now it is directly on
a line with the blue cupola of the theatre where an imposing general is
holding a war council against the insurgents.
The turret telephone buzzes faintly and monotonously.
Or can that be crickets in the steppe? No, it's the telephone. With a
slow clang the electric hoist brings up a shell from the magazine. It sways
on the chains and comes straight into Rodion's hands.
Or can that be a cool melon instead of a shell? Ah, what a joy to bite
into a juicy melon! But no, it's a shell. "Turret, shoot!"
That very same instant there is a ringing in his ears, as if some giant
hand outside has struck the armour of the turret like a tambourine. There is
a flash of fire. The smell of a burning celluloid comb pours over him.
The entire breadth of the roadstead shudders. The boats begin to rock.
A strip of iron comes down between the ship and the city. An "over".
Rodion's hands are flaming hot. Then again the crickets meander in a
crystal stream among the close-set stars and the weeds.
Or can that chirping be the telephone? Now the second shell crawls out
of the hoist and into Rodion's hands. Now we'll finish off that general!
"Turret, shoot!"
"Lie down and stop your yelling. Want a drink? Lie quiet."
A second strip crosses the bay. Again an "over". But never mind, the
third time we won't miss. And there are plenty of shells. A magazine full of
them.
In his weary hands the third shell feels lighter than a feather and yet
heavier than a house.
Fire it as quickly as possible, send smoke pouring out of that blue
cupola-and then things'll roll along!
But why has the telephone stopped chirping, why have the crickets
stopped tinkling? Have they all dropped dead there overhead?
Or is that the dawn, so quiet and so pink? Smoothly the turret turns
back. "Cease firing!" The shell slips out of his lowered hands and is
carried back into the magazine, with a rattle of the hoist chains. But
no-the cup has slipped from his fingers and water is trickling slowly from
the bed to the floor. And then all is quiet, oh, so quiet.
"What's this? They betrayed freedom, the damned swine! They turned
cowards! Once you start fighting you've got to fight to the end! To leave
not a single stone standing!"
"Shoot, turret gun, shoot!"
"Oh, Lord, oh, St. Nicholas, holy miracle worker! Lie down and drink
some more water. What a misfortune!"
The pink quietness of dawn lays a tender and soothing hand on Rodion's
inflamed cheek. Far away on the gilded bluff the cocks begin to crow.
THE OWNER OF THE SHOOTING GALLERY
After talking things over, grandfather and grandson decided not to show
the sick man to anybody for the time being, let alone send him to the city
hospital, where they would most certainly ask to see his papers.
In Grandpa's opinion the sailor had a plain, ordinary fever, and it
would soon pass. Then it would be up to him to think of what to do next.
Meanwhile it had grown completely light. It was time to take the boat
out again. The sick man no longer slept.
Weakened by his sweating during the night, he lay motionless on his
back, looking up with conscious, attentive eyes at the icon of the miracle
worker and the bunch of fresh cornflowers stuck behind its dark, time-warped
board.
"Your head clear?" asked Grandpa, coming up to the bed.
The patient moved his lips as though trying to say "yes". "Feeling
better?"
He dropped his eyelids in sign of affirmation. Grandpa glanced at the
bread and porridge on the shelf. "Like something to eat?" The sailor shook
his head weakly.
"Well, as you like. Listen, son. We have to go out in the boat for
bullheads, understand? We'll leave you here by yourself and lock the door.
You can trust us. We're Black Sea folk, the same as you. Understand? You lie
here nice and quiet. If anybody knocks, don't say a word. Gavrik and I'll do
our work and then we'll come right back. I'm leaving you a cup of water. If
you feel thirsty take a drink, it won't hurt you. And don't worry about
anything at all. You can depend on us. Understand?"
The old man said "Understand?" after every other word, talking to the
sailor as though he were a child.
The sailor forced a smile to his eyes, and from time to time he dropped
his lids, as if to say, "Don't worry. I understand. Thanks."
The fishermen locked him in and went out in the boat. They returned
four hours later to find everything in order. The patient was asleep.
This time they had had luck.
They had taken about three hundred and fifty fine big bullheads off the
line. Grandpa gave the miracle worker a pleased look, chewed his wrinkled
lips, and remarked, "Not bad. Not at all bad today. They're big ones, even
though we did use shrimps. God bless you."
But the miracle worker, fully conscious of his powers, looked down at
Grandpa sternly, haughtily even, as if he wanted to say, "And you doubted
me, called me an old codger. You're the one who's an old codger."
Grandpa decided to take the bullheads to market himself. It was high
time he had it out with Madam Storozhenko. After all, no matter how much
fish he brought her he always remained in debt and never saw any hard cash.
In that case what was the use of fishing?
Today was just the day for that talk. With these select bullheads he
could look her straight in the eye.
Naturally Gavrik would have liked to go along with him to market. Then,
on the way back, he could see Petya and finally get a drink of kvass at the
corner.
But leaving the sailor alone was risky because this was Sunday and a
crowd of people would probably come down to the beach from the city.
Grandpa lifted the wet fish tank to his shoulder and shuffled off to
market. Gavrik poured fresh water into the cup, covered the sailor's feet
against the flies, hung the padlock on the door, and went out for a stroll.
Not far away, on the beach, were various places of entertainment: a little
restaurant with a garden and a skittle-alley, a shooting gallery, a
merry-go-round, automatic dynamometers, stands where you could buy
soda-water and Turkish delight-in short, a small fair-ground. The place was
a real feast for the boy's eyes.
The morning service had not yet ended. The pealing of church bells
floated above the bluffs.
And every now and then a snow-white cloud as round and bright as that
sound of the bells was wafted across the sky by the breeze, although down at
the beach no wind could be felt at all.
It was early for the real fun, but several well-dressed city people
were hovering about the merry-go-round waiting for the canvas cover to be
taken off.
From the skittle-alley came the slow, cast-iron rumbling of the heavy
ball as it rolled down the narrow board. The ball rolled an awfully long
time and its noise grew fainter and fainter until suddenly, after a short
silence, the soft musical clink of scattered pins came through the yellow
acacias growing by the fence.
Every once in a while a report resounded from the shooting gallery.
Sometimes it would be followed by the crash of a broken bottle, or the whirr
of a moving target.
The shooting gallery lured Gavrik irresistibly.
He walked over to it and stopped near the door. Greedily he breathed in
the smell of gunpowder, a bluish-leaden smell like nothing else on earth. He
could even feel its peculiar sourish and choky taste on his tongue.
And those guns, so tantalising in their special racks! The small butts,
expertly made out of wood as heavy as iron, with a sharp network of lines
cut into it on the places where you held it, so that your hand would not
slip. The thick, long barrel of burnished blue steel with the small hole of
the muzzle, no larger than a pea. The blue steel sight, and the bolt handle
that moved up and down so smoothly and simply.
Even the very richest boys dreamed of owning a gun like that, a Monte
Cristo. This was a word that made your heart miss a beat. It had an
all-embracing meaning: fabulous wealth, happiness, glory, manliness. Owning
a Monte Cristo was even more than having your own bicycle.
A boy who had a Monte Cristo was known far beyond the street in which
he lived. And he was referred to in this way: "You know, the Volodka from
Richelieu Street who has a Monte Cristo."
Gavrik, of course, could never dream of owning a Monte Cristo. Or even
of firing one, for that was terribly dear: five kopeks a shot. You had to be
awfully rich for that.
Gavrik could dream only of aiming from the wonderful gun. Occasionally
the owner of the shooting gallery gave him that pleasure.
Now there was a visitor in the gallery, so it was out of the question.
Perhaps when he left Gavrik would ask the owner, and then. . ..
But the visitor was in no hurry to leave. He stood there with his
sandaled feet planted wide apart and instead of shooting was talking with
the proprietor.
When the proprietor happened to glance his way, Gavrik greeted him
respectfully, "Many happy returns of the day."
He acknowledged the greeting with a dignified nod, as became the owner
of such an unusual place of amusement. That was a lucky sign. It meant he
was in a good mood and might very well let you handle a Monte Cristo.
Encouraged, Gavrik came closer, right into the doorway.
With eager, admiring eyes he examined the pistols hanging above the
counter, the branched rifle-support, and the various mechanical targets, one
of which appealed to him especially.
This was a Japanese battleship, with guns and a flag, riding the garish
green waves of a tin sea. Out of the sea jutted a rod topped by a little
metal circle, and if you hit that circle the battleship broke in two with a
bang and went to the bottom, a fan-shaped tin geyser rising in its place.
Naturally, among the hares with the drums, the ballet dancers, the
anglers with a shoe at the end of their line, and the bottles moving along
one after another on an endless belt, the Japanese battleship held first
place both for the brilliance of its idea and its superb execution.
Everybody knew that only a short while ago the Japanese had sent the
whole Russian fleet to the bottom at Tsushima, and there were always
visitors who thirsted for revenge on the "Japs".
The gallery had, besides, a real fountain. It was set going only when a
visitor asked for it. A celluloid ball put on top of the jet by the
proprietor would be flung up and turned round, then suddenly dropped and
just as suddenly lifted. This was a real miracle, a mystery of nature. To
hit that ball was one of the hardest things in the world. Sometimes men got
so excited they shot at it ten or fifteen times, and almost always they
missed.
But whoever did hit the ball was entitled to an extra shot free of
charge.
"So you say nothing unusual happened here yesterday evening?" the
visitor remarked, continuing the conversation. He was toying with a
beautiful gun; in his huge paws it seemed tiny.
"Not as far as I know." "Hm."
The man ran his eye over the targets. He took off his blue pince-nez,
which left two coral dents on his fleshy nose, and aimed at a hare holding a
drum. But then he changed his mind and lowered the gun.
"Didn't any of the fishermen hereabouts mention anything?"
"Not a thing."
"Hm."
The visitor picked up the Monte Cristo, then lowered it again.
"I heard, though, that a man fell off the Turgenev yesterday evening,
opposite the shore here. Heard anything about that?" "Not a thing."
Gavrik caught his breath sharply. He felt as though a bucket of
ice-cold water had been poured over him. His heart contracted so that he
could no longer hear it. His legs grew limp. He was afraid to move.
"I heard that a man jumped off the steamer, a man the police are
looking for. Just opposite the shore here. Know anything about it?"
"This is the first I've heard of it."
The owner of the shooting gallery was clearly bored to death by this
moustached gossip.
His expression was courteous and dignified, but he was on the verge of
yawning, and he twirled a little green box of cartridges in his fingers. He
thought, and rightly so, that if a man came to shoot he ought to shoot. And
if he wanted to have a chat, that was all right too-but in between shots. A
chat on some interesting topic, naturally, like the races at the velodrome
or the Russo-Japanese war.
Deathly boredom was written all over his seedy face, the face of a
failure, racked by secret passions.
Gavrik felt sorry for him from the bottom of his heart. Like all the
other children, he was for some reason very fond of this man with slanting
side-whiskers, legs as bowed as a dachshund's, and a hairy, heavily tattooed
chest showing through his thin undershirt.
Gavrik knew that although the man made quite a decent living he never
had a kopek to his name. He was always in debt, was always very worried
about something. Rumour had it that he used to be a famous circus rider, and
that once he had struck the owner of the circus across the face with his
whip for having done something mean. He was sacked and black-listed.
Deprived of his livelihood, he took to betting at the horse-races, and this
was his downfall. Now he played at all games of chance; even at pitching
coins with little boys.
He was eternally in the grip of a frightful gambling fever.
It was a known fact that at times he gambled away the clothes he wore.
The shoes he had on, for example, did not belong to him. He had lost them at
the beginning of the summer playing twenty-one, and now when he closed his
place for the night he went home barefoot, carrying under his arm a box with
the rifles and pistols; afraid of gambling them away, he left them for
safekeeping until the morning with a janitor acquaintance of his in Malaya
Arnautskaya Street.
Once, on the beach, Gavrik himself had seen him bet a gentleman fifty
kopeks that he could hit a sparrow on the fly from a Monte Cristo. Of
course, he missed.
What followed was so pitiful that Gavrik felt like crying. With a
shameful show of surprise the man examined the gun for a long time, then
shrugged his shoulders and reached inside his mended jacket. His face was
pale. He brought out a fifty-kopek piece and handed it to the gentleman. The
gentleman laughingly protested that it had all been in fun. But the
proprietor of the shooting gallery suddenly looked at him with such insane,
pathetic and at the same time ominously bloodshot eyes that the gentleman
quickly took the coin, and, embarrassed, put it in the pocket of his pongee
jacket.
That day the shooting gallery did not close for dinner.
"If I were you, sir, I'd try a shot at the ballet dancer and see how
saucily she kicks up her legs," said the proprietor in his Polish accent. He
clearly wanted to put an end to the boring conversation and get the visitor
to shoot.
"It's strange, though, that no one knows anything about it," the latter
said.
Just then he noticed Gavrik. He gave him a quick glance from head to
foot.
"Do you live here, son?"
"Yes," said the boy. His voice was unusually thin.
"Your people fishermen?"
"Yes."
"Why so shy? Come closer, don't be afraid."
Gavrik looked at the coarse, tightly-twirled moustache which was as
black as boot-polish, at the long strip of adhesive plaster across the
cheek, and, terrified, approached the man, mechanically putting one foot in
front of the other.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
"Your father and mother alive?" "No."
"Then who do you live with?" "Grandpa." "Who's he?" "An old man."
"Naturally-but what does he do for a living?" "He catches fish." "A
fisherman, eh?" "Yes, a fisher." "And what are you?" "A boy."
"I can see you're a boy and not a girl. What I'm asking you is what do
you do?"
"Oh, nothing. I help Grandpa."
"That means you go out fishing together, eh?"
"Uh-huh."
"I see. Well, then, how do you fish?"
"Why, we just put out the line for the night, and the next morning we
pull out the bullheads."
"That means you go out to sea in a boat, doesn't it?"
"Uh-huh."
"Every day?"
"What's that?"
"What a little blockhead you are! What I'm asking you is this: do you
go out in the boat every day?"
" 'Course we do."
"Morning and evening?"
"No."
"How's that?"
"Only mornings."
"What about the evening?"
"Well, evenings too."
"Then why do you say only mornings when it's evenings too?"
"No. Evenings we only put out the line. We pull out the bullheads in
the morning."
"I see. That means you go out evenings too."
"No. Evenings we only put it out."
"For God's sake! But to put it out don't you have to go out to sea
first?"
"Course we do. "
"That means you go out evenings too, doesn't it?"
"No, evenings we don't pull out. We only pull out mornings."
"But in the evening you go out to put out the line, don't you?"
" 'Course we do."
"That means you go out evenings too, doesn't it?"
"Uh-huh."
"What a little blockhead you are! A man has to have a good meal under
his belt before he tries talking to you. What makes you so stupid?"
"I'm only a kid."
With an unconcealed sneer the moustached gentleman surveyed Gavrik from
top to toe and then gave him a fillip-quite a smart one-on the head.
"A fine fisherman you are!"
But the boy was by no means a blockhead.
He had immediately sensed a sly and dangerous enemy in this man with
the moustaches. There he was, wandering along the shore asking questions
about the sailor. He was only making believe he'd come in here to shoot. Who
could tell what he really was after? Most likely he was a detective. Why, he
might even find out somehow that the runaway was hiding in their hut!
Perhaps-God forbid!- he had found it out already.
Gavrik had decided at once to act the fool. You couldn't learn much
from a fool.
He twisted his face into the stupid expression he thought a little
half-wit should wear; he goggled his eyes, shifted from foot to foot with
exaggerated embarrassment, and picked at a sore on his lip.
When he saw he was dealing with a hopeless idiot, Moustaches thought it
best to make friends with him first and pump him afterwards.
He reasoned, not without foundation, that children were an inquisitive
and observant lot and knew more than grown-ups about what was going on
around them.
"What's your name, sonny?"
"Gavrik."
"Well, look here, Gavrik, would you like to shoot?"
A warm flush coloured the boy's face to the very tips of his ears. He
instantly collected himself, however. "But I've no money," he said in a
thin, squeaky voice, playing the fool.
"I know that, but it doesn't matter. You can take a shot. I'll pay."
"You're not making fun of me?"
"Don't trust me? Well, look."
With these words Moustaches laid a big brand-new five-kopek piece on
the counter.
"Shoot away."
Gavrik, overcome with happiness, looked in indecision at the
proprietor. But the latter's face had taken on such a strictly formal
expression that an exchange of friendly winks was obviously out of the
question.
He looked at the boy as if he had never seen him before, and, leaning
respectfully over the counter, said, "Which would you prefer to use, young
man? A pistol or a rifle?"
Gavrik was so bowled over by unexpected happiness that he really did
feel like a half-wit now.
"A Monte Cristo," he stammered, a silly grin on his face.
With a flourish the proprietor loaded the gun and handed it to the boy.
Breathing heavily, he glued himself to the counter and aimed at a
bottle. The Japanese battleship appealed to him much more, of course, but he
was afraid of missing. The bottle was a big one.
He tried to prolong the pleasure of aiming as much as possible.
After aiming at the bottle for a while he shifted to a hare, then to
the battleship, and then back to the bottle. He moved the sight from one
bull's-eye to another, swallowing his saliva and thinking in horror that the
moment he fired, the bliss would come to an end.
Finally he took a deep breath and put the rifle down. "You know what,"
he said to Moustaches, with a guilty look at the proprietor, "I think I
won't. I aimed, and that's almost as good. Treat me instead to a drink of
soda water with syrup at the stand. Besides, it'll cost you less."
Moustaches had no objections. Making an effort not to look at the
proprietor, whose expression was a mixture of contempt and ironic
indifference, they set out for the stand.
There Moustaches displayed such generosity that the boy could only
gasp. Instead of water and syrup, which cost two kopeks, he ordered nothing
less than a whole big bottle of Violet Soda, costing eight kopeks.
Gavrik could not believe his eyes when the stand-keeper brought out the
white bottle with the violet label and unwound the thin wire round the cork.
The bottle popped. Not in the coarse way kvass bottles popped, but
gently, with style. The clear water immediately began to foam, and out of
the mouth of the bottle there poured a gas which actually did give off the
delicate fragrance of real violets.
Gavrik carefully picked up the cold bubbling glass with both hands, as
if it were a treasure, and, squinting against the sun, began to drink. He
could feel the sweet-smelling gas shooting up into his nose from his throat.
As he swallowed this magic nectar of the wealthy, he felt that the
whole universe was gazing upon him in this moment of triumph: the sun, the
clouds, the sea, people, dogs, cyclists, the wooden horses of the
merry-go-round, the girl who sold tickets at the municipal bathing beach.
And they were all saying, "Look, look, that boy is drinking Violet Soda!"
A little turquoise lizard had popped out of the weeds to warm its beady
back in the sun, and as it clung to a rock with one paw it squinted up at
him as if it, too, were saying, "Look, isn't he a lucky boy to be drinking
Violet Soda!"
While he drank Gavrik pondered on how to wriggle out of any further
questions Moustaches might ask him. He thought up a whole plan.
"Well, Gavrik, like the Violet Soda?"
"Thanks. Never tasted anything so good in all my life."
"I should think so. Now tell me, did you go out to sea yesterday
evening?"
"Uh-huh."
"Did you see the Turgenev?"
" 'Course! She almost ripped our line to pieces with her wheels."
"A man didn't jump from the ship, did he?"
Moustaches fixed his bushy black eyes on the boy. Gavrik forced his
mouth into a grin. "So help me God, a man did jump off!" he said with
exaggerated excitement. "May I drop dead on the spot! Bango!-right into the
water, and what a splash! And how he swam!"
"Wait a minute. Not making anything up, are you? Which way did he
swim?"
"So help me God I'm not! By the true and holy Cross!"
Although Gavrik knew it was a sin, he quickly crossed himself four
times.
"And then he swam and swam-"
The boy waved his arms to show how the sailor had swum.
"Which way?"
"That way." The boy waved his arm in the direction of the sea.
"And what happened to him after that?"
"After that a boat picked him up."
"A boat? What kind?"
"You know, a big one, a great big Ochakov boat with a sail."
"From hereabouts?"
"No."
"Then where from?"
"From Bolshoi Fontan. Or maybe from Lustdorf. All painted blue, and
half red. A great big one. It picked him up and after that it headed
straight for Lustdorf. By the true and holy-"
"Did you notice the boat's name?"
" 'Course I did: Sonya."
"Sonya, eh? That's fine. Not lying, are you?"
"By the true and holy Cross! May I never be happy in all my life! It
was Sonya, or else Vera."
"Sonya or Vera?"
"Either Sonya or Vera-or else Nadya."
"If you're lying-"
Instead of paying for the drinks, Moustaches whispered something into
the stand-keeper's ear, something that instantly made his expression turn
sour. Then he nodded to the boy and hurriedly set out for the hill,
obviously to take the suburban train to town.
That was just what Gavrik had expected him to do.
A POUND AND A HALF OF RYE BREAD
The sailor had to be warned immediately.
But Gavrik was a smart and cautious boy, and before returning home he
followed Moustaches from a distance until with his own eyes he saw him climb
the hill and turn down the lane.
Only then did he run back to the hut.
The sailor was asleep, but at the click of the padlock he sprang to his
feet and then sat down on the bed, looking at the door with glittering,
frightened eyes.
"Don't be afraid, it's me. Lie down."
The sick man lay down again.
The boy pottered about a long time in the corner, pretending to examine
the hooks of the line, which was folded inside a round wicker basket. He did
not know how to begin so as not to excite the sick man too much.
Finally he came up to the bed and stood there for a while, scratching
one foot with the other.
"Feel better?"
"Yes."
"Your head clear?"
"Yes."
"Hungry?"
This conversation, brief though it was, completely exhausted the
sailor. He shook his head and closed his eyes. The boy let him rest.
After a while he spoke again. "Listen," he said affectionately, in a
low but persistent voice, "was it you jumped from the Turgenev yesterday?"
The sick man opened his eyes and looked up at the boy very intently,
but made no reply.
"Listen to what I'm going to say," Gavrik whispered, sitting down on
the bed. "Only lie quiet and don't get excited."
Then, as circumspectly as he could, he told the sailor about his
acquaintance with the moustached man.
Again the sailor sprang to his feet and sat down on the bed, gripping
the edge of it to hold himself erect. He stared at the boy with round,
motionless eyes. His forehead had become damp. But he did not say a word.
Only once did he break his silence. That was when Gavrik mentioned the
adhesive plaster on Moustaches' cheek.
At this point of the story a mischievous, devil-may-care Ukrainian
twinkle flickered in the sick man's eyes, and he said hoarsely, through his
teeth, "A cat must have scratched him."
Suddenly he began to fidget, and then, steadying himself against the
wall, he stood up on his shaky legs.
"Come on," he muttered, looking round wildly. "Come on, let's go
somewhere. For Christ's sake!" "Get back in bed, uncle, you're sick." "Come
on . . . give me my kit. Where's my kit?" He had evidently forgotten that he
had thrown off his clothes in the sea. His thin hand fumbled helplessly
about the bed. Unshaven, in a white undershirt and drawers, he looked like a
madman.
His appearance was so pathetic, but at the same time so ominous that
Gavrik nearly ran away in fright.
He fought down his fear, however. He put his arms round the sick man's
waist and tried to force him to lie down. "It's for your own good. Lie down,
it's for your own good," he said, almost crying.
"Hands off. I'm going now."
"But how can you go anywhere in your drawers?"
"Give me my kit."
"What are you talking about? What kit? You didn't have any. Now lie
quiet."
"Let me go."
"If you only knew what an awful nuisance you are! You're just like a
baby. Lie down, I tell you!" the boy suddenly cried out in anger, losing his
patience. "Stop acting like a baby!"
The sailor lay back submissively, and Gavrik saw a feverish glaze come
into his eyes again. The sailor began to moan softly, screwing up his face
and arching his back.
"For Christ's sake! Let somebody hide me. Let me go to the Committee.
Can you tell me where the Odessa Committee is? Don't shoot, damn you, or
you'll spoil all the grapes-"
He began to rave.
"Things are in a bad way," thought Gavrik. Just then he heard footsteps
outside. Someone was coming straight to the hut, noisily making his way
through the weeds.
The boy hunched his shoulders, not daring to breathe. A host of
terrifying thoughts raced through his head.
But then suddenly he heard a familiar cough. Grandpa entered the hut.
From the way he dropped the empty fish tank near the door, from the way
he blew his nose and crossed himself long and bitterly as he looked at the
icon of the miracle worker, Gavrik unerringly guessed that he had had a
drink.
This was something Grandpa did only once in a blue moon, when something
out of the ordinary happened- whether good or bad.
Judging by his attitude towards St. Nicholas, the occasion this time
was sooner bad than good.
"Well, Grandpa, buy meat for bait?"
"Meat for bait?"
The old man gave the boy a guileless look and then held a figged thumb
under his nose.
"Here's your meat! Bait it! And thank that old codger of a miracle
worker for it. That's what I get for praying to that old fool, may he burst!
When it comes to catching big-sized bullheads he's on the spot, but when it
comes to getting a decent price for them at the market he's nowhere to be
found! Can you imagine, gentlemen? Thirty kopeks a hundred for bullheads
like that! It's unheard-of!"
"Thirty kopeks a hundred!" the boy exclaimed.
"Thirty kopeks, may I drop dead on the spot! Thirty kopeks for fish
like this?' I says to her. 'Ain't you got no fear of God, Madam
Storozhenko?' 'God's got nothing to do with market prices,' she says to me.
'We've got our own prices and he's got his. And if you don't like my price
you can take your bullheads and sell them to the Jews. Maybe they'll give
you a kopek more. Only first pay me back the eighty kopeks you owe me.' Ever
seen the like? Now tell me, shouldn't I have spit straight in her damned eye
for that? Well, gentlemen, that's just what I did. Right in front of the
whole market, too! So help me God, I filled her eye with spit!"
Grandpa hurriedly crossed himself.
But he was not telling the truth. Naturally, he had not spat in
anybody's eye. He had merely turned pale and begun to tremble from head to
foot, and then he had pulled the fish out of the tank and thrown them into
Madam Storozhenko's basket, muttering, "Here, take 'em, and I hope they
choke you!"
As for Madam Storozhenko, she calmly counted the fish and handed
Grandpa twelve kopeks in sticky coppers. "Now we're quits," she said
briefly.
Grandpa took the money and, boiling with futile rage, went straight to
a spirits shop where he bought himself a bottle of vodka. He scraped off the
red sealing-wax against the grater nailed for the purpose to an acacia tree
near the shop, and then with a shaking hand knocked out the little
paper-wrapped cork.
He poured the vodka down his throat in one go and smashed the thin
bottle against the pavement, although he could have got a kopek for it.
After that he set out for home. On the way he bought his grandson a red
lollipop in the shape of a cock for a kopek-he still imagined Gavrik to be a
little boy-and two very white and very sour rolls for the sick sailor.
With the remaining money he bought a pound and a half of rye bread.
His anger flared up again and again on the way home, and he stopped
about a dozen times to spit furiously this way and that, absolutely
convinced that he was spitting in Madam Storozhenko's accursed eye.
"So help me God!" he said, breathing the sweetish odour of vodka
straight into Gavrik's face and putting the lollipop cock into his hand.
"Ask anybody you like at the market-the whole market saw me spit into her
damned eye! And now, my child, suck this lollipop. It's just as good as
cake."
At this point the old man remembered the patient and began to urge the
rolls on him.
"Let him be, Grandpa. He just fell asleep. Let him rest."
Grandpa carefully laid the rolls on the pillow beside the sailor's head
and said in a whisper, "Shh, shh. Let him rest now. And later, when he wakes
up, he'll eat. He can't eat the rye bread because his stomach is very weak
now, but the rolls are all right for him."
The old man looked down affectionately at the rolls and at the patient,
then shook his head and remarked in a gentle voice, "Look how peacefully he
sleeps. Ah, sailor, sailor, you're in a tight spot."
Then he spread out his jacket in the corner and lay down to rest.
Gavrik went outside, looked round, and closed the door firmly after
him. He had decided to go, without wasting a minute, to Near Mills to see
his brother Terenti.
This decision had come to him the moment he heard the delirious sailor
pronounce the word "Committee". Gavrik did not know exactly what this word
meant, but he had once heard Terenti use it.
MORNING
When Petya woke up, he was amazed to find himself in his city room,
surrounded by furniture and wallpaper he had forgotten during the summer.
A dry sunbeam coming through a crack in the shutter pierced the room.
It cut a diagonal swath through the dusty air from top to bottom. The
sawdusty air-motes of dust and tiny threads and hairs, moving and yet
motionless-was brightly lit by the sunbeam and formed a semi-transparent
wall.
A big autumn fly blazed into colour as it flew through this wall, and
then it just as suddenly became drab again.
There was neither the quack of ducks nor the hysterics of a hen that
had just laid an egg behind the house, neither the silly chatter of turkeys
nor the fresh chirp of a sparrow, swaying almost inside the window on a thin
mulberry branch bent in an arch under its weight.
The noises both inside and outside the flat were altogether different:
they were city noises.
From the dining-room came the faint clatter of chairs being moved.
There was a musical sound-the singing of a glass as it was washed in the
rinsing-bowl. Father's "bearded" voice rang out, with a deep and strange
city note to it. The buzz of the electric bell filled the hall. Doors were
slammed, now the front door, now the kitchen door, and suddenly Petya
discovered that he could tell from the sound which one it was.
Meanwhile from outside, through a room with a window facing the
yard-why, of course, that was Auntie Tatyana's room!-came the singing of the
hawkers. Not for a minute did it cease, for they made their appearance one
after the other, those roving artists of the courtyard stage, each
performing his brief aria.
"Cha-a-arcoal! Cha-a-arcoal!" sang a distant Russian tenor, as if sadly
recalling the gay, carefree days of long ago.
"Cha-a-a-arcoal!"
His place was taken by a comic basso-the grinder:
"Sharpen knives, scissors, razors! Sharpen knives, scissors, razors!
Knives, scissors, razors!"
After the grinder came a tinker, filling the yard with the manly
roulades of his velvety baritone:
"Pots to mend! Kettles and pails to mend!"
A hucksteress with no gift for singing at all ran into the yard, and
the sultry morning air of the city resounded with her burring recitative:
"Pears, apples, tomatoes! Pears, apples, tomatoes!"
An old-clothes man poured out plaintive Jewish couplets:
"I cash clothes! I cash . . . I cash. . .."
Finally, to crown the concert, came a lovely Neapolitan canzonet
performed by a brand-new Nechada barrel-organ and a shrill-voiced street
singer:
The leaves in the wind softly sigh,
Hark to the nightingale's trills!
My love was once simple and shy,
But today she parades in silk frills.
Sing to me,
O dove,
Of my departed love....
"Cha-a-arcoal! Cha-a-arcoal!" sang the Russian tenor the minute the
barrel-organ went away. The concert had begun all over again.
Meanwhile the clatter of droshkies, the rumble of a suburban train and
the blare of an army band came from the street proper.
Into that din there suddenly broke a frightfully familiar whirring
noise, a click and then clear, springy sounds, coming distinctly one after
the other, as though counting something. What could that be? Why, that was