the clock! The very same dining-room clock which, according to family
legend, Daddy had won in a lottery when he was courting Mummy.
And to think that he had forgotten it! Why, of course, that was the
clock! It was striking the hour. He lost count, but he gathered nevertheless
that it was very late-ten or eleven.
Goodness! In the country he used to get up at seven!
Petya sprang out of bed, threw on his clothes, washed himself-in a
bathroom!-and walked into the dining-room, squinting against the sun which
lay on the parquet in hot bars.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" exclaimed Auntie, shaking her
head and at the same time smiling with pleasure at the sight of her tall,
sunburned nephew. "It's eleven o'clock. We purposely didn't wake you-we
wanted to see how long you'd lounge in bed, you country loafer. But that's
all right, after your long journey. And now sit down, don't dawdle. With
milk or without? In a glass or in your own cup?"
Why, naturally! How had he ever forgotten? His cup! Why, of course, he
had his own cup, a porcelain cup with forget-me-nots and an inscription in
gold letters, "Happy Birthday"-last year's gift from Dunya.
And look-the samovar! That, too, he had forgotten. And there were the
buns warming on its handles. The pear-shaped sugar bowl of white metal. The
sugar tongs in the shape of a stork.
Look-there was the acorn bell on a cord under the hanging lamp! And the
lamp itself, with the round little counterweight, filled with shot, above
the white shade!
And look-what was that in Father's hands? Why, a newspaper! And to
think he'd forgotten such things existed! It was the Odessky Listok, with
the picture of a smoking locomotive above the railway timetable, and a
smoking ship above the boat timetable. (And among the ads, a lady in a
corset!) And here were the Niva and Zadushevnoye Slovo. How many magazines
had piled up during the summer!
In a word, Petya found himself surrounded by such a host of old
novelties that he didn't know where to look first.
Pavlik, though, had got up at the crack of dawn and by now was fully at
home in the new-old surroundings. He had long since drunk his milk, and at
the moment was busy harnessing Kudlatka to a coach made up of chairs.
Every now and then he ran from room to room with a worried look on his
face, blowing his horn to summon the imaginary passengers.
Petya jumped to his feet: he had remembered!
"Oh, Auntie! Yesterday I didn't have time to tell you! You simply can't
imagine what happened. Now I'll tell you the story-only Pavlik, you mustn't
interrupt."
"But I know all about it."
Petya turned pale.
"About the coach?"
"Yes."
"The boat too?"
"Yes."
"And how he jumped straight into the sea?"
"I know the whole story."
"Who told you?"
"Father."
"Oh, Daddy!" Petya cried out in despair, stamping his feet. "Why did
you tell the story when you know I can tell it much better than you! Now
you've spoiled it all!"
Petya was almost crying. He had completely forgotten that he was a big
boy now, and was to go to school the next day.
He began to whine. "Auntie Tatyana, do let me tell you the story all
over again. I'll tell it much better."
But Auntie's nose suddenly turned red and tears came to her eyes. She
pressed her fingers to her temples. "Oh please, please, don't," she said in
a suffering voice. "I simply can't bear to hear it again. How can people who
call themselves Christians have the heart to torture one another so?"
She turned away, dabbing at her nose with a tiny lace handkerchief.
Petya glanced in fright at Father. Father sat very grave and very
still, looking towards the window. Tears seemed to be glistening in his
eyes, too.
Petya couldn't make head or tail of it. All he did know was that here,
at least, he would not have a chance to tell the story of yesterday's
adventures.
He gulped down his tea and went out into the yard in search of an
audience.
The janitor listened to the story with galling indifference! "Well,
what of it?" he remarked. "Worse things happen."
There was not another soul to whom he could tell the story. Nusya
Kogan, the shopkeeper's boy, who lived in the same house, was away on a
visit to his uncle at Kuyalnitsky Bay. Volodka Dibsky had moved away. The
others had not yet returned from the country.
Gavrik had left a message with Dunya that he would drop in today, but
there was no sign of him yet. Gavrik was the one to tell the story to! What
if he went to the beach to look up Gavrik?
Petya was not allowed to go to the beach by himself, but the temptation
was too great.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, circled about nonchalantly under
the windows, and then sauntered out into the street with the same
nonchalance, so as not to arouse any suspicion. After walking up and down in
front of the house for appearance's sake, he turned the corner and set off
at a gallop for the beach.
Halfway down the street where the warm sea baths stood, he ran into a
barefoot boy. There was something familiar about him. . . . Who could he be?
It was Gavrik himself!
WORD OF HONOUR
"Gavrik!"
"Petya!"
It was with these brief exclamations of surprise and joy-and with
nothing more-that the bosom friends greeted each other.
They did not hug each other, or squeeze each other's hands, or look
into each other's eyes, as girls undoubtedly would have done in their place.
They did not ask about each other's health, or shout with glee, or make
a fuss about it.
They acted the way men should, men of the Black Sea coast: they
expressed their feelings in curt, restrained exclamations and then at once
got down to essentials, as if they had parted only the day before.
"Where to?"
"To the beach. What about you?"
"To Near Mills, to my brother's."
"What for?"
"I have to. Want to come along?"
"Near Mills?"
"Why not?"
"Near Mills-"
Petya had never been in Near Mills. He knew only that it was awfully
far away, "at the other end of the world".
In his imagination, Near Mills was a mournful place inhabited by widows
and orphans. Its name always cropped up in connection with some misfortune
or other.
The concept "Near Mills" was associated most frequently of all with a
case of sudden death. People would say: "Have you heard the sad news?
Angelika Ivanovna's husband died suddenly and left her without a kopek.
She's given up her place in Marazlievskaya Street and gone to live in Near
Mills."
From Near Mills there was no return. And if anybody ever did return
from there, it was in the form of a shadow, and not for long-for an hour, no
more.
People would say: "Yesterday Angelika Ivanovna-you know, the one whose
husband died suddenly last year- came from Near Mills to pay us a visit. She
stayed an hour, no more. You would hardly recognise her. A mere shadow-"
Once Petya had gone with Father to the funeral of a schoolmaster who
had died suddenly, and at the grave the priest said words which filled him
with awe-about an "abode of the righteous, where they will repose", or
something of the sort.
There could not be the slightest doubt, of course, that "abode of the
righteous" stood for Near Mills, where the relatives of the departed came
somehow or other to "repose".
Petya had a vivid mental picture of this sad abode with its multitude
of windmills among which "reposed" the shadows of widows in black shawls and
orphans in patched frocks.
Naturally, going to Near Mills without permission was a dreadful thing
to do. It was much worse than raiding the pantry for jam; worse, even, than
bringing home a dead rat inside his shirt. It was a real crime.
Petya was dying to accompany Gavrik to the weird land of mournful
windmills and see the shadows of widows with his own eyes, but he could not
make up his mind right off.
The struggle with his conscience lasted about ten minutes.
But his waverings, need it be said, in no way prevented him from
walking along the street at Gavrik's side and breathlessly recounting his
travel adventures.
So that by the time Petya emerged victorious in the violent battle with
his conscience-now a thoroughly crushed conscience-he and Gavrik had covered
quite a distance.
Among the boys of the Black Sea coast, indifference towards everything
under the sun was considered the height of good form. Petya was therefore
astonished to see his story make a tremendous impression upon Gavrik. Not
once did Gavrik spit contemptuously over his shoulder, not once did he say,
"Tell it to your grandmother". Moreover, it seemed to Petya that Gavrik was
a bit frightened-which he at once put down to his talent as a story-teller.
Enacting the terrifying scene, Petya turned red in the face.
"Then this one hauls off and slams him right in the mug with a stick
with a nail in it!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "It's the honest
truth! And then that one yells 'Stop! Stop!' so loud you can hear him all
over the Turgenev. You can spit in my eye if I'm lying. And then this one
jumps on the rail and dives right into the sea- plunk!-and the spray flies
up as high as the fourth storey, may I fall down dead if it doesn't! By the
true and holy Cross!"
So expressively did Petya jump about and swing his arms that he
overturned a basket of string-beans in front of a grocer's shop, and they
had to run two streets with their tongues hanging out to escape the
proprietor.
"What was the first one like?" asked Gavrik. "Did he have an anchor on
his hand?"
" 'Course he did!" Petya shouted excitedly, panting for breath.
"Here?" Gavrik pointed to the place on his hand.
" 'Course! But how do you know?"
"As if I've never seen sailors!" muttered Gavrik, and he spat on the
ground just like a grown-up.
Petya looked at his friend with envy, and then he spat too. But he did
not shoot out his spittle as expertly as Gavrik. Instead of flying a long
way it dropped limply on his knee, and he had to wipe it off with his
sleeve.
Petya decided to polish up on his spitting there and then. He practised
so diligently all the way that the next morning his lips were chapped and
eating melon was painful.
"What about the other one?" Gavrik asked. "Was he in sandals and did de
wear glasses?"
"Pince-nez."
"Call 'em what you like."
"But how do you know?"
"As if I've never seen 'tecs!"
When he finished his story Petya wetted his lips with his tongue and
started it all over again from the beginning without pausing to catch his
breath.
Gavrik was going through unimaginable torments. Compared with what he
knew, Petya's adventures weren't worth a fig! He'd just like to see Petya's
face if he hinted that at this very moment the mysterious sailor was in
their hut.
But he had to keep silent and listen to Petya's blabber for a second
time. It was more than human flesh could bear.
What if he did drop a hint? Just a teeny one. No, no, not for anything!
Petya would never keep it to himself. But suppose he made him give his word
of honour? No, he'd let it out all the same. What if he made him cross
himself in front of a church? Yes, in that case he probably wouldn't tell
anybody.
In a word, Gavrik was torn by doubts.
The temptation was so great that every now and then he had to press his
lips together with his fingers to keep from talking.
Nothing helped, however. He wanted more than ever to tell his secret.
In the meantime, Petya rattled on, showing how the coach had been
travelling, how the frightful sailor had jumped out of the vineyard and
attacked the coachman, how he, Petya, had yelled at him, and how the sailor
had hidden under the seat.
This was too much.
"Give me your word of honour you won't tell anybody!"
"Word of honour," said Petya quickly, without blinking an eye.
"Swear it!"
"So help me God, by the true and holy Cross! What is it?"
"It's a secret."
"Well?"
"You won't tell anybody?"
"May I never move from this spot if I do!"
"Swear by your happiness!"
"May I never be happy in all my life!" Petya said willingly. He was so
curious he swallowed his saliva in big gulps. "May my eyes drop out of their
sockets!" he added hurriedly, to give it more weight. "Well?"
Gavrik walked along in silence for a while, breathing heavily and
spitting on the ground. The struggle with temptation was still going on
inside him, and temptation was gaining the upper hand.
"Petya," he said hoarsely, "make the sign of the Cross in front of a
church."
Petya, burning with impatience, looked round for a church.
The boys were at that moment walking past the limestone wall of Old
Christian Cemetery. Along the wall sat vendors of wreaths and memorials, and
over it could be seen the tops of old acacia trees and the marble wings of
sorrowing angels.
(Near Mills must indeed be next door to death, if the road to it ran
past a graveyard!)
In the dusty, pale-lilac sky, beyond the acacias and the angels, hung
the blue cupola of the cemetery church, topped by a golden cross.
Petya faced the church and crossed himself fervently.
"By the true and holy Cross, I won't tell a soul!" he said with
conviction. "Well?"
"Listen, Petya-"
Gavrik bit his lips and then began to chew the back of his hand. Tears
stood in his eyes.
"Listen, Petya. Eat some earth to swear you won't tell!"
Petya studied the ground. Near the wall he saw earth that was fairly
clean and looked suitable. He scratched some up with his fingernails. Then,
sticking out a tongue as fresh and pink as boiled sausage, he placed a pinch
of the earth on it. Eyes popping, he stared questioningly at Gavrik.
"Eat it!" Gavrik said darkly.
Petya closed his eyes tight and conscientiously chewed the earth.
At that instant they heard a strange clinking noise in the road.
Two soldiers with black shoulder straps, their swords bared, were
leading a convict in chains. The third soldier of the escort detail walked
behind, carrying a revolver and a thick delivery register with a
marbled-paper cover. The convict wore a skull cap of army cloth and a robe
of the same material, under which grey drawers were visible. He walked with
his head bent.
The rattling leg-irons were covered by the drawers, but the long chain
of the handcuffs hung in front and clinked as it beat against the man's
knees.
From time to time he raised the chain, with the gesture of a priest
raising the hem of his robe as he crosses a puddle. Clean-shaven and
grey-faced, he looked somehow like a soldier or a sailor.
You could see he was very much ashamed at having to walk down the
roadway in broad daylight in that condition. He kept his eyes on the ground.
The soldiers seemed ashamed too, but they angrily looked up instead of
down, so as not to meet the eyes of the passers-by.
The boys stopped. They gaped at the visorless caps the soldiers wore
tilted to one side, at their blue revolver cords, and at the gleaming white
blades of the swords in their swinging hands. The sun made a dazzling glare
on the tips of the swords.
"Keep moving," the soldier carrying the register gruffly ordered the
boys, without looking at them. "Locking's not allowed."
The convict was led past.
Petya wiped his tongue on his sleeve. "Well?" he said.
"Well what?"
"Well, now tell me."
Suddenly Gavrik glared at Petya. Then he bent his arm with a fierce
gesture and shoved his patched elbow under his friend's nose. "There, lick
that!" Petya couldn't believe his eyes.
"But I ate earth!" he said, his lips trembling. He was nearly crying.
A wild, crafty gleam came into Gavrik's eyes. He squatted down and span
round like a top, chanting in an insulting voice:
Fooled you once,
Fooled you twice.
Tell your Mum
I fooled you nice.
Petya saw that he had been tricked. Gavrik obviously had no secret to
tell and had only wanted to poke fun at him by making him eat earth. That
was insulting, of course, but bearable.
Next time he'd play a trick on Gavrik that would make him sorry. He'd
see!
"Never mind, you skunk-I'll pay you back!" Petya remarked with dignity.
After that the two friends continued on their way as though nothing had
happened- except that every once in a while Gavrik would suddenly dance a
jig on his bare heels and chant:
Fooled you once,
Fooled you twice.
Tell your Mum
I fooled you nice.
NEAR MILLS
They had a lot of fun on the way, and they saw many interesting things.
Petya had never imagined the city was so big. The unfamiliar streets
gradually became poorer and poorer. Occasionally they passed shops with
merchandise standing right on the pavement, under the acacias. There were
cheap iron bedsteads, striped mattresses, kitchen stools, stacks of huge red
pillows, besoms made of millet stalks, mops and upholstery springs. There
was a great deal of everything, and it was all big, new, and obviously
cheap.
Beyond the cemetery stretched firewood yards. They gave off a hot and
somewhat sourish smell of oak, a smell which was surprisingly pleasant.
After that were fodder shops-oats, hay and bran- with uncommonly large
scales on iron chains. The weights were huge-like those in the circus.
Next came timberyards where planks were seasoning. Here, too, there was
a strong hot odour of sawn wood. This was pine, though, and instead of being
sourish the smell was dry and fragrant and turpentinish.
It was easy to see that the closer they came to Near Mills the coarser
and uglier everything round them was.
Gone were the elegant "Artificial Mineral Water Bars" with their
gleaming nickel-plated whirligigs and jars of coloured syrup standing in
rows. Their place was taken by food shops with blue signs-a herring on a
fork-and taverns through whose open doors could be seen white egg-shaped
tea-pots on shelves; the tea-pots were decorated with crude flowers which
looked more like vegetables. Instead of handsome droshkies, drays rumbled
over the uneven roadway littered with hay and bran.
But as to finds, there were many more in this part of the city than in
the familiar districts. Every now and then the boys came upon a horseshoe,
or a screw, or an empty cigarette packet in the dust.
Whenever they spotted a find they raced for it, jostling and pushing
each other as they ran.
"Halves!" they screamed.
Or, "Finding's keeping!"
Depending upon what had been shouted first the find was regarded,
sacredly and inviolably, as either private property or held in common.
There were so many finds that at last they stopped picking them up,
making an exception only in the case of cigarette packets.
These they needed for the game called "pictures". The packets had
different values, depending upon the picture printed on the top. A picture
of a man or woman counted for five, an animal for one, and a house for
fifty.
Every Odessa boy was certain to have a deck of such packet tops in his
pocket.
There was also a game with sweets wrappers, but this was played mostly
by girls, and also by boys who were still babies, that is, who were under
five.
Gavrik and Petya, of course, had long looked upon sweets wrappers with
the greatest scorn. They played only with cigarette pasteboards.
For some reason or other Gipsies and Swallows were the favourite brands
in the seaside districts.
What the smokers of the seaside districts found in those cigarettes was
a great puzzle. They were the worst cigarettes imaginable. Gipsies had a
bright lacquered picture of a dark-eyed Gipsy girl with a smoking cigarette
between her red lips and a rose in her blue hair. It was worth a mere five,
and even that was stretching a point, for the Gipsy girl was shown only from
the waist up.
Swallows had a picture of three miserable birds, and they were worth
still less than Gipsies-only three.
There were some fools who even smoked Zephyrs, which had no picture at
all, but only letters. Nobody ever played for Zephyr tops. And the strangest
part of it all was that those cigarettes cost more than any others.
One had to be an absolute idiot to buy such trash. The boys spat in
disgust whenever they came across a Zephyr packet.
Petya and Gavrik burned with impatience to grow up and start smoking.
They would not make fools of themselves. They would buy only Kerches, a
superior brand with a whole picture on the packet: a port town and a harbour
with a lot of ships in it.
Even the biggest experts did not know exactly how to price Kerches.
There was a difference of opinion on the value of the ships. At any rate, in
round numbers Kerches were quoted on the street exchange at about five
hundred.
The boys were unusually lucky.
One might have thought all the smokers near the cemetery had specially
set out to make Petya and Gavrik rich, for they smoked Kerches exclusively.
The boys tumbled over each other picking them up. At first they
couldn't believe their eyes. It was just like a dream where you found a
three-ruble note at every other step.
Soon their pockets were filled to overflowing. They were now so rich
that wealth lost its joys. They were surfeited.
Beside a tall narrow factory wall, on whose sooty bricks were painted
letters so huge it was impossible to read them at close range, the boys
played several rounds of the game, tossing the pictures and waiting to see
which side came up.
There was no particular zest to it, however. With so many pictures,
neither of them minded losing, and that took all the fun out of playing.
As they strolled on the city changed in appearance and character every
minute.
For a time a cemetery and prison atmosphere predominated. That gave way
to a warehouse and tavern atmosphere. Then came the factories.
Now the railway dominated the scene. Warehouses, block-signal stations,
semaphores.. . . Finally, the road was barred by a striped level-crossing
that dropped right before their noses.
A pointsman carrying a green flag came out of his signal box. A whistle
blew. A cloud of white steam shot up behind the trees, and past the
entranced boys puffed a real engine, a big one, pushing a tender before it.
Oh, what a sight it was! That in itself was worth leaving home without
permission.
How busily the connecting rods clicked along, how melodiously the rails
sang, and how irresistible was the magnetism of those wheels flashing
dizzily past, surrounded by a thick and yet almost transparent covering of
steam.
The soul was bewitched, was seized with a mad urge, was drawn into the
inhuman, inexorable movement of the machine, while the body resisted the
temptation with all its might and drew back, petrified with horror, deserted
for an instant by its soul, which had already flung itself under the wheels!
Pale, tiny, the boys stood with shining eyes, their little fists
clenched and their feet planted wide apart; they could feel their scalps
turning cold.
How terrifying, and at the same time how jolly!
Gavrik, true, was familiar with this emotion, but Petya was
experiencing it for the first time. He was so thrilled that at first he paid
no attention to the fact that in the driver's place at the oval window was a
soldier, in a visorless cap with a red band, and that on the tender stood
another soldier, belted with cartridge pouches and holding a rifle. The
minute the engine disappeared round the turn the boys ran up the embankment
and pressed their ears against the hot, white-polished rails, which rang out
like a brass band.
The joy of pressing his ear against the rail over which a real engine
had passed-and no more than an instant before-was that not worth having left
home without permission, was that not worth suffering any possible
punishment?
"Why was a soldier there instead of the driver?" asked Petya as they
continued on their way when they had finished listening to the noise of the
rails and had gathered flints from the roadbed.
"Looks like the railwaymen are on strike again," Gavrik replied
unwillingly.
"On strike? What's that?"
"A strike's a strike," said Gavrik in a still glummer voice. "They
don't go to work. Soldiers run the trains instead."
"Don't soldiers strike too?"
"No. They're not allowed to. If they tried it they'd land in a
punishment battalion in no time."
"But otherwise they'd strike?"
"What d'you think?"
"Does your brother Terenti strike?"
"Depends. . . ."
"But why does he do it?"
"Because. Stop pestering me. Look-there's the Odessa Goods Station. And
over there is Near Mills."
Petya stretched his neck and looked this way and that, but not a single
mill could he see. There were neither windmills nor watermills.
What he did see was: a water tower, the yellow fence of the Odessa
Goods Station, red railway carriages, a hospital train with a Red Cross flag
painted on it, piles of goods covered with tarpaulin, sentries. . . .
"But where's Near Mills?"
"There it is, just behind the railway shops, you blockhead."
Petya said nothing: he was afraid of being tricked again.
He twisted his head for such a long time that his collar rubbed a sore
spot on his neck, but still he did not see any windmills.
Strange!
Gavrik, though, was not the least surprised at their absence. He walked
briskly down a narrow path, past a long sooty wall of huge windows with
little square panes, many of them broken.
By this time Petya was rather tired. He dragged after Gavrik, shuffling
his shoes over the grass, dark from the dust and soot. Every now and then
iron shavings, evidently thrown outside through the window, rustled
underfoot.
Gavrik got up on his toes and looked into a window.
"Look, Petya, the carriage shops. This is where Terenti works. Did you
ever see the place? Come and look."
Petya stood on tiptoe next to Gavrik and looked in through a broken
pane.
He saw a vast stretch of dusty air and the tiny clouded squares of the
windows opposite. Broad belts hung down; everywhere stood big, uninteresting
contraptions with little wheels. The place was strewn with metal shavings.
The sunlight coming through the dusty windows lay in pale slanting squares
all over the endless floor.
And in all that huge and weird block of space there was not a single
living soul.
The place was filled, from top to bottom, with such a deathly,
supernatural silence that Petya became frightened.
"Nobody there," he said in a barely audible whisper.
Gavrik, infected by Petya's mood, replied by moving his lips almost
soundlessly, "Probably on strike again."
"Hey there, get away from those windows!" a rough voice suddenly
shouted from somewhere above.
They turned round with a start. Beside them stood a sentry with a
rolled greatcoat over his shoulder and a rifle in his hand. He was so close
that Petya clearly smelt the dreadful odours of army cabbage soup and boot
polish.
The soldier's cartridge pouches of bright-yellow leather - heavy,
creaking, and probably full of real bullets- were ominously close, and in
general he was so tremendous that his two rows of brass buttons ran upwards
to a dizzying height, right to the sky.
"I'm done for!" thought Petya in horror. He felt that at any moment he
might do that shamefully unpleasant thing very small children usually do
when overcome by fright.
"Hook it!" cried Gavrik in a thin voice and darted past the soldier.
Petya dashed headlong after his friend. He thought he heard the
soldier's boots stamping after him, and so he ran with every ounce of energy
he could muster. But the sound of the boots did not fall behind. His eyes
saw nothing but the flashing brown soles of Gavrik's feet in front of him.
His heart thumped loud and fast. The soldier was still close behind.
The wind roared in his ears.
Only after he had run not less than a mile did Petya realise that what
he heard was not the soldier's boots but his straw hat flapping against his
back.
The boys gasped for breath. Hot sweat poured down their temples and
dripped from their chins.
But a quick change came over Gavrik and Petya the minute they made
certain the soldier was nowhere in sight. With an expression of total
indifference they carelessly shoved their hands in their pockets and
continued their way at a leisurely pace.
By their entire manner they were telling each other that nothing at all
had happened-and even if something had happened it was a trifling matter not
worth talking about.
For quite a while now they had been walking along a broad unpaved road.
Although the fences and houses had lanterns like those in the city, with
numbers on them, and there were the signs of shops and workshops, and even a
corner chemist's with coloured pitchers and a golden eagle, it looked more
like a village lane than a city street.
"Well, where's that Near Mills of yours?" Petya asked in a sour voice.
"This is it. Can't you see?"
"Where?"
"What do you mean where? Here."
"Here?"
"Of course.
"But where are the mills?"
"You're a funny bloke," said Gavrik patronisingly. "Ever see a fountain
at the Fontan? You're talking like a baby. Asking questions without knowing
what you're asking!"
Petya was silenced. Gavrik was absolutely right. Maly Fontan, Bolshoi
Fontan and Sredny Fontan didn't have any fountains at all. It was just a
case of "that's what it's called".
This place was called Mills but actually it had no mills.
The mills, though, were only a trifle. Where were the shadows of
changed widows and pale little orphan girls in patched frocks? Where were
the ghostly grey sky and the weeping willows? Where was the weird, mournful
land from which there was no return?
No use asking Gavrik!
To his utter disillusionment Petya saw neither widows, nor weeping
willows, nor a grey sky. The sky, as a matter of fact, was hot and windy and
the same bright colour as the blue the laundress used.
In the yards of the houses stood bright-green mulberry trees and
acacias. Belated pumpkin blossoms gleamed in the vegetable patches. Over the
curly grass walked geese, turning their silly heads to the right and left
like the soldiers on Kulikovo Field.
From a smithy came the clang of hammers and the swish of bellows.
All this, of course, was very interesting in its own lights, but it was
difficult to give up the idea of a shadowy world where, in some mysterious
manner, "reposed" the relatives of men who had died suddenly.
In the innermost recesses of Petya's mind, the struggle continued for a
long time-between the shadowy picture of imaginary mills where people
"reposed", and the real, brightly-coloured picture of the railwaymen's
settlement known as Near Mills, where Gavrik's brother Terenti lived.
UNCLE GAVRIK
"Here we are."
Gavrik pushed open the wicket with his foot, and the two friends walked
into a parched-looking front garden bordered with purple irises. A huge dog
with straw-coloured eyebrows immediately rushed at them.
"Down, Rudko!" shouted Gavrik. "Didn't recognise me, eh?"
The dog sniffed, recognised the boy, and gave a sad smile: he had got
excited for nothing. Then he rolled his shaggy tail up into a loop, stuck
out his tongue and ran, panting, to the back of the yard. Behind him dragged
his clanging chain, fastened to a wire strung high overhead.
A frightened woman peered from the wooden entrance-way of the clay hut.
When she saw it was the boys, she turned and said, wiping her hands on
her print apron, "Everything's all right. It's your brother come to see
you."
Behind her appeared a tall man in a striped sailor's jersey, the
sleeves of which were cut short just below shoulders as thick as a
wrestler's.
But the shy look on his face, pock-marked and covered all over with
tiny drops of sweat, did not in the least go with his athletic build. His
figure was powerful, sort of frightening, even, but his face was just the
opposite- gentle, and almost womanish.
The man tightened his belt and walked up to the boys.
"This is Petya, from Kanatnaya and the corner of Kulikovo Field," said
Gavrik, indicating his friend with a casual nod. "A schoolmaster's kid. He's
all right."
Terenti gave Petya a passing glance and then fixed his small, twinkling
eyes on Gavrik. "Now where are those shoes I bought you at Easter? Why must
you walk about like a tramp from Duke's Gardens?"
Gavrik gave a long sad whistle. "Ah, those shoes-"
"You're a tramp, nothing but a little tramp!"
Shaking his head, Terenti went to the back of the house. The boys
followed him.
There, to his indescribable delight, Petya saw a whole tinsmith's shop
set up on an old kitchen table under a mulberry tree. It even had a hissing
blowlamp. A strong, clipped, blue flame burst from its short muzzle, like
from a tiny cannon.
Judging by the baby's zinc bath-tub leaning upside down against the
tree and by the soldering iron in Terenti's hand, he was busy at a job.
"Repair work?" asked Gavrik, spitting on the ground exactly like a
grown-up.
"Uh-huh."
"Nothing doing at the shops?"
Ignoring the question, Terenti put the soldering iron into the flame of
the blowlamp and attentively watched it grow hot. "That's all right," he
muttered. "Don't you worry on our account. I can always find enough work for
us to keep body and soul together."
Gavrik sat down on a stool, crossed his bare legs, which did not reach
to the ground, braced his hands on his knee and, rocking slowly back and
forth, began to "talk shop" with his big brother.
Wrinkling his peeling nose and pulling together his eyebrows, which
were completely bleached from the sun and the salt water, Gavrik conveyed
best regards from Grandpa, informed Terenti of the price bullheads were
fetching, and waxed indignant about Madam Storozhenko, who was "such a bitch
and has us by the throat all the time and never gives people a chance to
breathe", and more in the same vein.
Terenti nodded agreement, in the meantime carefully passing the tip of
the hot iron across a strip of solder, which melted like butter.
At first glance there might seem nothing unusual, let alone strange, in
the fact that one brother had paid a visit to another and was telling him
about his affairs. But considering Gavrik's worried air, and also the
distance he had had to come for no other purpose than to talk to his
brother, it would not be difficult to guess that Gavrik had an important
matter on his mind.
Terenti looked at him questioningly several times, but Gavrik indicated
Petya with an unobtrusive wink and calmly talked on.
As to Petya, he was so absorbed in the wonderful spectacle of soldering
that he forgot everything in the world. He watched round-eyed as the huge
shears cut through the thick zinc like so much paper.
One of the most fascinating occupations of Odessa boys was to gather
round a tinsmith in the middle of a courtyard and watch him practise his
magic art. But there they watched a stranger, a man who was here one minute
and gone the next, something like a sleight-of-hand artist on the stage.
Quickly and skilfully he would do his work of soldering a tea-kettle, then
roll up his pieces of tin into a tube, strap it over his shoulder, pick up
his brazier and walk out of the yard, calling, "Pots to mend, kettles to
mend!"
Here, however, Petya was watching someone he knew, his friend's
brother, an artist who displayed his skill at home, to a chosen few. At any
moment he could ask, "I say there, what's in that little iron box? Is it
acid?" without getting a rude answer like "Run along, young 'un, you're in
the way". No, this was quite, quite different. From sheer delight Petya
stuck out his tongue-which was not at all becoming in such a big boy. It is
likely that he never would have left that table under the mulberry tree had
he not suddenly noticed a girl with a baby in her arms approaching.
With an effort she held up to Gavrik the plump one-year-old infant, who
had two shining white teeth in his little coral mouth.
"Look who's come, goo-goo! Gavrik's come, goo-goo! Now say, 'Hello,
Uncle Gavrik.' Goo-goo!"
With an extraordinarily grave expression Gavrik reached inside his
shirt and, to Petya's boundless amazement, produced a red lollipop in the
shape of a cock.
To carry about such a treasure for three hours without tasting it, and
what's more without showing it, was something only a person with incredible
willpower could do!
Gavrik held out the sweet to the child. "Here," he said.
"Take it, Zhenechka," urged the girl, raising the child up close to the
lollipop. "Take it with your little hand. See what a present Uncle Gavrik's
brought you? Take the cock in your hand. That's right, that's the way. And
now say, 'Thank you, dear Uncle.' Well, say it, 'Thank you, dear Uncle.' "
The child gripped the bright red lollipop tight in his grimy chubby
little hand and blew big bubbles from his mouth. His light-blue eyes stared
blankly at his uncle.
"See? That means he's saying, 'Thank you, Uncle'," said the girl, her
eyes fixed enviously on the sweet. "But you mustn't put it in your mouth
right off. Play with it first. And then after your porridge you can have the
lollipop," she continued sensibly, casting quick curious glances at the
handsome young stranger in a straw hat and new shoes with buttons.
"This is Petya, from Kanatnaya and the corner of Kulikovo," said
Gavrik. "Why don't you go and play with him, Motya?"
The girl became so excited that she turned pale.
Hugging the child close, she edged away backwards, looking
distrustfully at Petya, until she bumped into her father's leg.
Terenti patted the girl on the shoulder and straightened the beruffled
white bonnet on her close-cropped head. "Play with the boy, Motya," he said.
"Show him the Russo-Japanese pictures I bought you when you were lying sick
in bed. Play with him, my pet, and give Zhenechka to Mama." '
Motya rubbed her back against her father's leg and then turned up a
face red with embarrassment. Her eyes were full of tears; her tiny turquoise
earrings were trembling.
Earrings such as those, Petya had noticed, were usually worn by
milkwomen.
"Don't be afraid, my pet. He won't fight with you."
Motya obediently took the child into the house. She returned holding
herself as stiff as a poker, with her cheeks drawn in and her expression
frightfully grave.
She stopped about four paces away from Petya, took a deep breath, and,
stammering and looking to the side, said in an unnaturally thin voice, "If
you like, I'll show you my Russo-Japanese pictures."
"Very well," said Petya in a hoarse, careless voice- the voice demanded
by good form when speaking to little girls. At the same time he
painstakingly, and rather successfully, spat over his shoulder.
"Come along, then."
Not without a certain amount of coquetry the girl turned her back to
Petya and, moving her shoulders much more than was necessary, went, skipping
now and then, to the back of the yard. There, behind the cellar, she had her
doll household.
Petya swaggered along behind. As he looked at the hollow in Motya's
thin neck and the little triangle of hair above it, he grew so excited that
his knees wobbled.
One could not, of course, call it passionate love. But that it would
develop into a serious love affair was beyond all doubt.
LOVE
To tell the truth, Petya had been in love many times in the course of
his life. First of all, that little brunette- Verochka, wasn't it?-whom he
had met at a Christmas party last year in the home of one of Father's
colleagues. He had been in love with her all evening; they had sat next to
each other at the table, and then, when the candles were put out, they
crawled under the Christmas tree in the dark, and the floor was slippery
from the fir needles.
It was love at first sight. When, at half past eight, they made ready
to take her home, he was overwhelmed with despair. So much so that at the
sight of her braids and ribbons vanishing under her hood and fur coat he
began to whimper and misbehave.
Then and there he vowed to love her to the grave. In parting he
bestowed upon her the cardboard mandolin given him from the Christmas tree,
and four nuts: three gold and one silver.
But two days passed, and nothing remained of that love affair except
bitter regret of having so foolishly lost the mandolin.
Then, of course, in the country he had fallen in love with Zoya, the
girl who wore the pink stockings of a fairy; he even kissed her, by the
waterbutt under the apricot tree. But falling in love with Zoya turned out
to be a mistake, for the very next day she cheated so brazenly at croquet
that he was forced to rap her over the shins with his mallet. After that,
naturally, a love affair was out of the question.
Then there had been his fleeting passion for the lovely girl on the
steamer, the one who was travelling first class and had argued all the way
with her father, Lord Glenarvan.
But all that did not count. Who, after all, has not experienced such
heedless attachments?
Motya was another matter entirely. Besides being a girl, besides having
turquoise earrings, besides turning so frightfully pale and red and moving
her thin little shoulder-blades so adorably-besides all that, she was the
sister of a pal. Actually, of course, not a sister but a niece. But
considering Gavrik's age, she was the same as a sister. His friend's sister!
Can anything make a girl more attractive and lovable than the fact that she
is a friend's sister? Does not this in itself contain the seed of inevitable
love?
Petya was smitten. By the time they reached the cellar, he was over
head and ears in love.
However, to prevent Motya from guessing it he assumed a nasty,
high-handed, indifferent manner.
No sooner had Motya politely displayed her dolls, neatly tucked in
their little beds, and the little stove with real pots and pans, only little
ones, which her father had made from scraps of zinc, than Petya-though, to
tell the truth, he found them awfully nice-spat contemptuously through his
teeth and, with an insulting snicker, asked, "I say, Motya, why is your hair
cut so short?"
"I had typhus," Motya replied in a thin, hurt voice, and she gave such
a deep sigh that a tiny peep, like a bird's, sounded in her throat. "Do you
want to see my pictures?"
Petya condescended.
They sat down on the ground side by side and began to look at the
patriotic coloured lithographs, most of them depicting naval battles.
A sticky, dark-blue sky was criss-crossed with thin searchlight rays.
Broken masts topped by Japanese flags were crashing down. Out of the
sharp-edged waves rose the white jets of explosions. Shells burst in the air
like stars.
A Japanese cruiser was sinking; its sharp nose was tilted, and it was
enveloped in yellow-red flames. Little yellow-faced men were tumbling into
the sea.
"Jappies!" breathed the enchanted girl as she crawled round the picture
on her knees.
"Not Jappies but Japs," Petya corrected her sternly. He knew what was
what in politics.
In another picture a dashing Cossack with red stripes down the sides of
his breeches and a high black fur cap worn at an angle had just sliced off
the nose of a Japanese who had stuck his head up from behind a hill.
A thick stream of blood gushed in an arc from the face of the Japanese
soldier. His stubby orange-coloured nose with its two black nostrils lay all
by itself on the hill, and this sent the children into peals of laughter.
"Don't poke your nose where it doesn't belong!" cried Petya, laughing
and beating his hands against the warm dry earth spotted with white hen
droppings.
"Don't poke your nose!" chanted Motya, looking over her shoulder at the
handsome boy and wrinkling her thin sharp nose, which was as motley as
Gavrik's.
The third picture showed the same Cossack and the same hill, on the
other side of which the puttees of a fleeing Japanese could now be seen. At
legend, Daddy had won in a lottery when he was courting Mummy.
And to think that he had forgotten it! Why, of course, that was the
clock! It was striking the hour. He lost count, but he gathered nevertheless
that it was very late-ten or eleven.
Goodness! In the country he used to get up at seven!
Petya sprang out of bed, threw on his clothes, washed himself-in a
bathroom!-and walked into the dining-room, squinting against the sun which
lay on the parquet in hot bars.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" exclaimed Auntie, shaking her
head and at the same time smiling with pleasure at the sight of her tall,
sunburned nephew. "It's eleven o'clock. We purposely didn't wake you-we
wanted to see how long you'd lounge in bed, you country loafer. But that's
all right, after your long journey. And now sit down, don't dawdle. With
milk or without? In a glass or in your own cup?"
Why, naturally! How had he ever forgotten? His cup! Why, of course, he
had his own cup, a porcelain cup with forget-me-nots and an inscription in
gold letters, "Happy Birthday"-last year's gift from Dunya.
And look-the samovar! That, too, he had forgotten. And there were the
buns warming on its handles. The pear-shaped sugar bowl of white metal. The
sugar tongs in the shape of a stork.
Look-there was the acorn bell on a cord under the hanging lamp! And the
lamp itself, with the round little counterweight, filled with shot, above
the white shade!
And look-what was that in Father's hands? Why, a newspaper! And to
think he'd forgotten such things existed! It was the Odessky Listok, with
the picture of a smoking locomotive above the railway timetable, and a
smoking ship above the boat timetable. (And among the ads, a lady in a
corset!) And here were the Niva and Zadushevnoye Slovo. How many magazines
had piled up during the summer!
In a word, Petya found himself surrounded by such a host of old
novelties that he didn't know where to look first.
Pavlik, though, had got up at the crack of dawn and by now was fully at
home in the new-old surroundings. He had long since drunk his milk, and at
the moment was busy harnessing Kudlatka to a coach made up of chairs.
Every now and then he ran from room to room with a worried look on his
face, blowing his horn to summon the imaginary passengers.
Petya jumped to his feet: he had remembered!
"Oh, Auntie! Yesterday I didn't have time to tell you! You simply can't
imagine what happened. Now I'll tell you the story-only Pavlik, you mustn't
interrupt."
"But I know all about it."
Petya turned pale.
"About the coach?"
"Yes."
"The boat too?"
"Yes."
"And how he jumped straight into the sea?"
"I know the whole story."
"Who told you?"
"Father."
"Oh, Daddy!" Petya cried out in despair, stamping his feet. "Why did
you tell the story when you know I can tell it much better than you! Now
you've spoiled it all!"
Petya was almost crying. He had completely forgotten that he was a big
boy now, and was to go to school the next day.
He began to whine. "Auntie Tatyana, do let me tell you the story all
over again. I'll tell it much better."
But Auntie's nose suddenly turned red and tears came to her eyes. She
pressed her fingers to her temples. "Oh please, please, don't," she said in
a suffering voice. "I simply can't bear to hear it again. How can people who
call themselves Christians have the heart to torture one another so?"
She turned away, dabbing at her nose with a tiny lace handkerchief.
Petya glanced in fright at Father. Father sat very grave and very
still, looking towards the window. Tears seemed to be glistening in his
eyes, too.
Petya couldn't make head or tail of it. All he did know was that here,
at least, he would not have a chance to tell the story of yesterday's
adventures.
He gulped down his tea and went out into the yard in search of an
audience.
The janitor listened to the story with galling indifference! "Well,
what of it?" he remarked. "Worse things happen."
There was not another soul to whom he could tell the story. Nusya
Kogan, the shopkeeper's boy, who lived in the same house, was away on a
visit to his uncle at Kuyalnitsky Bay. Volodka Dibsky had moved away. The
others had not yet returned from the country.
Gavrik had left a message with Dunya that he would drop in today, but
there was no sign of him yet. Gavrik was the one to tell the story to! What
if he went to the beach to look up Gavrik?
Petya was not allowed to go to the beach by himself, but the temptation
was too great.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, circled about nonchalantly under
the windows, and then sauntered out into the street with the same
nonchalance, so as not to arouse any suspicion. After walking up and down in
front of the house for appearance's sake, he turned the corner and set off
at a gallop for the beach.
Halfway down the street where the warm sea baths stood, he ran into a
barefoot boy. There was something familiar about him. . . . Who could he be?
It was Gavrik himself!
WORD OF HONOUR
"Gavrik!"
"Petya!"
It was with these brief exclamations of surprise and joy-and with
nothing more-that the bosom friends greeted each other.
They did not hug each other, or squeeze each other's hands, or look
into each other's eyes, as girls undoubtedly would have done in their place.
They did not ask about each other's health, or shout with glee, or make
a fuss about it.
They acted the way men should, men of the Black Sea coast: they
expressed their feelings in curt, restrained exclamations and then at once
got down to essentials, as if they had parted only the day before.
"Where to?"
"To the beach. What about you?"
"To Near Mills, to my brother's."
"What for?"
"I have to. Want to come along?"
"Near Mills?"
"Why not?"
"Near Mills-"
Petya had never been in Near Mills. He knew only that it was awfully
far away, "at the other end of the world".
In his imagination, Near Mills was a mournful place inhabited by widows
and orphans. Its name always cropped up in connection with some misfortune
or other.
The concept "Near Mills" was associated most frequently of all with a
case of sudden death. People would say: "Have you heard the sad news?
Angelika Ivanovna's husband died suddenly and left her without a kopek.
She's given up her place in Marazlievskaya Street and gone to live in Near
Mills."
From Near Mills there was no return. And if anybody ever did return
from there, it was in the form of a shadow, and not for long-for an hour, no
more.
People would say: "Yesterday Angelika Ivanovna-you know, the one whose
husband died suddenly last year- came from Near Mills to pay us a visit. She
stayed an hour, no more. You would hardly recognise her. A mere shadow-"
Once Petya had gone with Father to the funeral of a schoolmaster who
had died suddenly, and at the grave the priest said words which filled him
with awe-about an "abode of the righteous, where they will repose", or
something of the sort.
There could not be the slightest doubt, of course, that "abode of the
righteous" stood for Near Mills, where the relatives of the departed came
somehow or other to "repose".
Petya had a vivid mental picture of this sad abode with its multitude
of windmills among which "reposed" the shadows of widows in black shawls and
orphans in patched frocks.
Naturally, going to Near Mills without permission was a dreadful thing
to do. It was much worse than raiding the pantry for jam; worse, even, than
bringing home a dead rat inside his shirt. It was a real crime.
Petya was dying to accompany Gavrik to the weird land of mournful
windmills and see the shadows of widows with his own eyes, but he could not
make up his mind right off.
The struggle with his conscience lasted about ten minutes.
But his waverings, need it be said, in no way prevented him from
walking along the street at Gavrik's side and breathlessly recounting his
travel adventures.
So that by the time Petya emerged victorious in the violent battle with
his conscience-now a thoroughly crushed conscience-he and Gavrik had covered
quite a distance.
Among the boys of the Black Sea coast, indifference towards everything
under the sun was considered the height of good form. Petya was therefore
astonished to see his story make a tremendous impression upon Gavrik. Not
once did Gavrik spit contemptuously over his shoulder, not once did he say,
"Tell it to your grandmother". Moreover, it seemed to Petya that Gavrik was
a bit frightened-which he at once put down to his talent as a story-teller.
Enacting the terrifying scene, Petya turned red in the face.
"Then this one hauls off and slams him right in the mug with a stick
with a nail in it!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "It's the honest
truth! And then that one yells 'Stop! Stop!' so loud you can hear him all
over the Turgenev. You can spit in my eye if I'm lying. And then this one
jumps on the rail and dives right into the sea- plunk!-and the spray flies
up as high as the fourth storey, may I fall down dead if it doesn't! By the
true and holy Cross!"
So expressively did Petya jump about and swing his arms that he
overturned a basket of string-beans in front of a grocer's shop, and they
had to run two streets with their tongues hanging out to escape the
proprietor.
"What was the first one like?" asked Gavrik. "Did he have an anchor on
his hand?"
" 'Course he did!" Petya shouted excitedly, panting for breath.
"Here?" Gavrik pointed to the place on his hand.
" 'Course! But how do you know?"
"As if I've never seen sailors!" muttered Gavrik, and he spat on the
ground just like a grown-up.
Petya looked at his friend with envy, and then he spat too. But he did
not shoot out his spittle as expertly as Gavrik. Instead of flying a long
way it dropped limply on his knee, and he had to wipe it off with his
sleeve.
Petya decided to polish up on his spitting there and then. He practised
so diligently all the way that the next morning his lips were chapped and
eating melon was painful.
"What about the other one?" Gavrik asked. "Was he in sandals and did de
wear glasses?"
"Pince-nez."
"Call 'em what you like."
"But how do you know?"
"As if I've never seen 'tecs!"
When he finished his story Petya wetted his lips with his tongue and
started it all over again from the beginning without pausing to catch his
breath.
Gavrik was going through unimaginable torments. Compared with what he
knew, Petya's adventures weren't worth a fig! He'd just like to see Petya's
face if he hinted that at this very moment the mysterious sailor was in
their hut.
But he had to keep silent and listen to Petya's blabber for a second
time. It was more than human flesh could bear.
What if he did drop a hint? Just a teeny one. No, no, not for anything!
Petya would never keep it to himself. But suppose he made him give his word
of honour? No, he'd let it out all the same. What if he made him cross
himself in front of a church? Yes, in that case he probably wouldn't tell
anybody.
In a word, Gavrik was torn by doubts.
The temptation was so great that every now and then he had to press his
lips together with his fingers to keep from talking.
Nothing helped, however. He wanted more than ever to tell his secret.
In the meantime, Petya rattled on, showing how the coach had been
travelling, how the frightful sailor had jumped out of the vineyard and
attacked the coachman, how he, Petya, had yelled at him, and how the sailor
had hidden under the seat.
This was too much.
"Give me your word of honour you won't tell anybody!"
"Word of honour," said Petya quickly, without blinking an eye.
"Swear it!"
"So help me God, by the true and holy Cross! What is it?"
"It's a secret."
"Well?"
"You won't tell anybody?"
"May I never move from this spot if I do!"
"Swear by your happiness!"
"May I never be happy in all my life!" Petya said willingly. He was so
curious he swallowed his saliva in big gulps. "May my eyes drop out of their
sockets!" he added hurriedly, to give it more weight. "Well?"
Gavrik walked along in silence for a while, breathing heavily and
spitting on the ground. The struggle with temptation was still going on
inside him, and temptation was gaining the upper hand.
"Petya," he said hoarsely, "make the sign of the Cross in front of a
church."
Petya, burning with impatience, looked round for a church.
The boys were at that moment walking past the limestone wall of Old
Christian Cemetery. Along the wall sat vendors of wreaths and memorials, and
over it could be seen the tops of old acacia trees and the marble wings of
sorrowing angels.
(Near Mills must indeed be next door to death, if the road to it ran
past a graveyard!)
In the dusty, pale-lilac sky, beyond the acacias and the angels, hung
the blue cupola of the cemetery church, topped by a golden cross.
Petya faced the church and crossed himself fervently.
"By the true and holy Cross, I won't tell a soul!" he said with
conviction. "Well?"
"Listen, Petya-"
Gavrik bit his lips and then began to chew the back of his hand. Tears
stood in his eyes.
"Listen, Petya. Eat some earth to swear you won't tell!"
Petya studied the ground. Near the wall he saw earth that was fairly
clean and looked suitable. He scratched some up with his fingernails. Then,
sticking out a tongue as fresh and pink as boiled sausage, he placed a pinch
of the earth on it. Eyes popping, he stared questioningly at Gavrik.
"Eat it!" Gavrik said darkly.
Petya closed his eyes tight and conscientiously chewed the earth.
At that instant they heard a strange clinking noise in the road.
Two soldiers with black shoulder straps, their swords bared, were
leading a convict in chains. The third soldier of the escort detail walked
behind, carrying a revolver and a thick delivery register with a
marbled-paper cover. The convict wore a skull cap of army cloth and a robe
of the same material, under which grey drawers were visible. He walked with
his head bent.
The rattling leg-irons were covered by the drawers, but the long chain
of the handcuffs hung in front and clinked as it beat against the man's
knees.
From time to time he raised the chain, with the gesture of a priest
raising the hem of his robe as he crosses a puddle. Clean-shaven and
grey-faced, he looked somehow like a soldier or a sailor.
You could see he was very much ashamed at having to walk down the
roadway in broad daylight in that condition. He kept his eyes on the ground.
The soldiers seemed ashamed too, but they angrily looked up instead of
down, so as not to meet the eyes of the passers-by.
The boys stopped. They gaped at the visorless caps the soldiers wore
tilted to one side, at their blue revolver cords, and at the gleaming white
blades of the swords in their swinging hands. The sun made a dazzling glare
on the tips of the swords.
"Keep moving," the soldier carrying the register gruffly ordered the
boys, without looking at them. "Locking's not allowed."
The convict was led past.
Petya wiped his tongue on his sleeve. "Well?" he said.
"Well what?"
"Well, now tell me."
Suddenly Gavrik glared at Petya. Then he bent his arm with a fierce
gesture and shoved his patched elbow under his friend's nose. "There, lick
that!" Petya couldn't believe his eyes.
"But I ate earth!" he said, his lips trembling. He was nearly crying.
A wild, crafty gleam came into Gavrik's eyes. He squatted down and span
round like a top, chanting in an insulting voice:
Fooled you once,
Fooled you twice.
Tell your Mum
I fooled you nice.
Petya saw that he had been tricked. Gavrik obviously had no secret to
tell and had only wanted to poke fun at him by making him eat earth. That
was insulting, of course, but bearable.
Next time he'd play a trick on Gavrik that would make him sorry. He'd
see!
"Never mind, you skunk-I'll pay you back!" Petya remarked with dignity.
After that the two friends continued on their way as though nothing had
happened- except that every once in a while Gavrik would suddenly dance a
jig on his bare heels and chant:
Fooled you once,
Fooled you twice.
Tell your Mum
I fooled you nice.
NEAR MILLS
They had a lot of fun on the way, and they saw many interesting things.
Petya had never imagined the city was so big. The unfamiliar streets
gradually became poorer and poorer. Occasionally they passed shops with
merchandise standing right on the pavement, under the acacias. There were
cheap iron bedsteads, striped mattresses, kitchen stools, stacks of huge red
pillows, besoms made of millet stalks, mops and upholstery springs. There
was a great deal of everything, and it was all big, new, and obviously
cheap.
Beyond the cemetery stretched firewood yards. They gave off a hot and
somewhat sourish smell of oak, a smell which was surprisingly pleasant.
After that were fodder shops-oats, hay and bran- with uncommonly large
scales on iron chains. The weights were huge-like those in the circus.
Next came timberyards where planks were seasoning. Here, too, there was
a strong hot odour of sawn wood. This was pine, though, and instead of being
sourish the smell was dry and fragrant and turpentinish.
It was easy to see that the closer they came to Near Mills the coarser
and uglier everything round them was.
Gone were the elegant "Artificial Mineral Water Bars" with their
gleaming nickel-plated whirligigs and jars of coloured syrup standing in
rows. Their place was taken by food shops with blue signs-a herring on a
fork-and taverns through whose open doors could be seen white egg-shaped
tea-pots on shelves; the tea-pots were decorated with crude flowers which
looked more like vegetables. Instead of handsome droshkies, drays rumbled
over the uneven roadway littered with hay and bran.
But as to finds, there were many more in this part of the city than in
the familiar districts. Every now and then the boys came upon a horseshoe,
or a screw, or an empty cigarette packet in the dust.
Whenever they spotted a find they raced for it, jostling and pushing
each other as they ran.
"Halves!" they screamed.
Or, "Finding's keeping!"
Depending upon what had been shouted first the find was regarded,
sacredly and inviolably, as either private property or held in common.
There were so many finds that at last they stopped picking them up,
making an exception only in the case of cigarette packets.
These they needed for the game called "pictures". The packets had
different values, depending upon the picture printed on the top. A picture
of a man or woman counted for five, an animal for one, and a house for
fifty.
Every Odessa boy was certain to have a deck of such packet tops in his
pocket.
There was also a game with sweets wrappers, but this was played mostly
by girls, and also by boys who were still babies, that is, who were under
five.
Gavrik and Petya, of course, had long looked upon sweets wrappers with
the greatest scorn. They played only with cigarette pasteboards.
For some reason or other Gipsies and Swallows were the favourite brands
in the seaside districts.
What the smokers of the seaside districts found in those cigarettes was
a great puzzle. They were the worst cigarettes imaginable. Gipsies had a
bright lacquered picture of a dark-eyed Gipsy girl with a smoking cigarette
between her red lips and a rose in her blue hair. It was worth a mere five,
and even that was stretching a point, for the Gipsy girl was shown only from
the waist up.
Swallows had a picture of three miserable birds, and they were worth
still less than Gipsies-only three.
There were some fools who even smoked Zephyrs, which had no picture at
all, but only letters. Nobody ever played for Zephyr tops. And the strangest
part of it all was that those cigarettes cost more than any others.
One had to be an absolute idiot to buy such trash. The boys spat in
disgust whenever they came across a Zephyr packet.
Petya and Gavrik burned with impatience to grow up and start smoking.
They would not make fools of themselves. They would buy only Kerches, a
superior brand with a whole picture on the packet: a port town and a harbour
with a lot of ships in it.
Even the biggest experts did not know exactly how to price Kerches.
There was a difference of opinion on the value of the ships. At any rate, in
round numbers Kerches were quoted on the street exchange at about five
hundred.
The boys were unusually lucky.
One might have thought all the smokers near the cemetery had specially
set out to make Petya and Gavrik rich, for they smoked Kerches exclusively.
The boys tumbled over each other picking them up. At first they
couldn't believe their eyes. It was just like a dream where you found a
three-ruble note at every other step.
Soon their pockets were filled to overflowing. They were now so rich
that wealth lost its joys. They were surfeited.
Beside a tall narrow factory wall, on whose sooty bricks were painted
letters so huge it was impossible to read them at close range, the boys
played several rounds of the game, tossing the pictures and waiting to see
which side came up.
There was no particular zest to it, however. With so many pictures,
neither of them minded losing, and that took all the fun out of playing.
As they strolled on the city changed in appearance and character every
minute.
For a time a cemetery and prison atmosphere predominated. That gave way
to a warehouse and tavern atmosphere. Then came the factories.
Now the railway dominated the scene. Warehouses, block-signal stations,
semaphores.. . . Finally, the road was barred by a striped level-crossing
that dropped right before their noses.
A pointsman carrying a green flag came out of his signal box. A whistle
blew. A cloud of white steam shot up behind the trees, and past the
entranced boys puffed a real engine, a big one, pushing a tender before it.
Oh, what a sight it was! That in itself was worth leaving home without
permission.
How busily the connecting rods clicked along, how melodiously the rails
sang, and how irresistible was the magnetism of those wheels flashing
dizzily past, surrounded by a thick and yet almost transparent covering of
steam.
The soul was bewitched, was seized with a mad urge, was drawn into the
inhuman, inexorable movement of the machine, while the body resisted the
temptation with all its might and drew back, petrified with horror, deserted
for an instant by its soul, which had already flung itself under the wheels!
Pale, tiny, the boys stood with shining eyes, their little fists
clenched and their feet planted wide apart; they could feel their scalps
turning cold.
How terrifying, and at the same time how jolly!
Gavrik, true, was familiar with this emotion, but Petya was
experiencing it for the first time. He was so thrilled that at first he paid
no attention to the fact that in the driver's place at the oval window was a
soldier, in a visorless cap with a red band, and that on the tender stood
another soldier, belted with cartridge pouches and holding a rifle. The
minute the engine disappeared round the turn the boys ran up the embankment
and pressed their ears against the hot, white-polished rails, which rang out
like a brass band.
The joy of pressing his ear against the rail over which a real engine
had passed-and no more than an instant before-was that not worth having left
home without permission, was that not worth suffering any possible
punishment?
"Why was a soldier there instead of the driver?" asked Petya as they
continued on their way when they had finished listening to the noise of the
rails and had gathered flints from the roadbed.
"Looks like the railwaymen are on strike again," Gavrik replied
unwillingly.
"On strike? What's that?"
"A strike's a strike," said Gavrik in a still glummer voice. "They
don't go to work. Soldiers run the trains instead."
"Don't soldiers strike too?"
"No. They're not allowed to. If they tried it they'd land in a
punishment battalion in no time."
"But otherwise they'd strike?"
"What d'you think?"
"Does your brother Terenti strike?"
"Depends. . . ."
"But why does he do it?"
"Because. Stop pestering me. Look-there's the Odessa Goods Station. And
over there is Near Mills."
Petya stretched his neck and looked this way and that, but not a single
mill could he see. There were neither windmills nor watermills.
What he did see was: a water tower, the yellow fence of the Odessa
Goods Station, red railway carriages, a hospital train with a Red Cross flag
painted on it, piles of goods covered with tarpaulin, sentries. . . .
"But where's Near Mills?"
"There it is, just behind the railway shops, you blockhead."
Petya said nothing: he was afraid of being tricked again.
He twisted his head for such a long time that his collar rubbed a sore
spot on his neck, but still he did not see any windmills.
Strange!
Gavrik, though, was not the least surprised at their absence. He walked
briskly down a narrow path, past a long sooty wall of huge windows with
little square panes, many of them broken.
By this time Petya was rather tired. He dragged after Gavrik, shuffling
his shoes over the grass, dark from the dust and soot. Every now and then
iron shavings, evidently thrown outside through the window, rustled
underfoot.
Gavrik got up on his toes and looked into a window.
"Look, Petya, the carriage shops. This is where Terenti works. Did you
ever see the place? Come and look."
Petya stood on tiptoe next to Gavrik and looked in through a broken
pane.
He saw a vast stretch of dusty air and the tiny clouded squares of the
windows opposite. Broad belts hung down; everywhere stood big, uninteresting
contraptions with little wheels. The place was strewn with metal shavings.
The sunlight coming through the dusty windows lay in pale slanting squares
all over the endless floor.
And in all that huge and weird block of space there was not a single
living soul.
The place was filled, from top to bottom, with such a deathly,
supernatural silence that Petya became frightened.
"Nobody there," he said in a barely audible whisper.
Gavrik, infected by Petya's mood, replied by moving his lips almost
soundlessly, "Probably on strike again."
"Hey there, get away from those windows!" a rough voice suddenly
shouted from somewhere above.
They turned round with a start. Beside them stood a sentry with a
rolled greatcoat over his shoulder and a rifle in his hand. He was so close
that Petya clearly smelt the dreadful odours of army cabbage soup and boot
polish.
The soldier's cartridge pouches of bright-yellow leather - heavy,
creaking, and probably full of real bullets- were ominously close, and in
general he was so tremendous that his two rows of brass buttons ran upwards
to a dizzying height, right to the sky.
"I'm done for!" thought Petya in horror. He felt that at any moment he
might do that shamefully unpleasant thing very small children usually do
when overcome by fright.
"Hook it!" cried Gavrik in a thin voice and darted past the soldier.
Petya dashed headlong after his friend. He thought he heard the
soldier's boots stamping after him, and so he ran with every ounce of energy
he could muster. But the sound of the boots did not fall behind. His eyes
saw nothing but the flashing brown soles of Gavrik's feet in front of him.
His heart thumped loud and fast. The soldier was still close behind.
The wind roared in his ears.
Only after he had run not less than a mile did Petya realise that what
he heard was not the soldier's boots but his straw hat flapping against his
back.
The boys gasped for breath. Hot sweat poured down their temples and
dripped from their chins.
But a quick change came over Gavrik and Petya the minute they made
certain the soldier was nowhere in sight. With an expression of total
indifference they carelessly shoved their hands in their pockets and
continued their way at a leisurely pace.
By their entire manner they were telling each other that nothing at all
had happened-and even if something had happened it was a trifling matter not
worth talking about.
For quite a while now they had been walking along a broad unpaved road.
Although the fences and houses had lanterns like those in the city, with
numbers on them, and there were the signs of shops and workshops, and even a
corner chemist's with coloured pitchers and a golden eagle, it looked more
like a village lane than a city street.
"Well, where's that Near Mills of yours?" Petya asked in a sour voice.
"This is it. Can't you see?"
"Where?"
"What do you mean where? Here."
"Here?"
"Of course.
"But where are the mills?"
"You're a funny bloke," said Gavrik patronisingly. "Ever see a fountain
at the Fontan? You're talking like a baby. Asking questions without knowing
what you're asking!"
Petya was silenced. Gavrik was absolutely right. Maly Fontan, Bolshoi
Fontan and Sredny Fontan didn't have any fountains at all. It was just a
case of "that's what it's called".
This place was called Mills but actually it had no mills.
The mills, though, were only a trifle. Where were the shadows of
changed widows and pale little orphan girls in patched frocks? Where were
the ghostly grey sky and the weeping willows? Where was the weird, mournful
land from which there was no return?
No use asking Gavrik!
To his utter disillusionment Petya saw neither widows, nor weeping
willows, nor a grey sky. The sky, as a matter of fact, was hot and windy and
the same bright colour as the blue the laundress used.
In the yards of the houses stood bright-green mulberry trees and
acacias. Belated pumpkin blossoms gleamed in the vegetable patches. Over the
curly grass walked geese, turning their silly heads to the right and left
like the soldiers on Kulikovo Field.
From a smithy came the clang of hammers and the swish of bellows.
All this, of course, was very interesting in its own lights, but it was
difficult to give up the idea of a shadowy world where, in some mysterious
manner, "reposed" the relatives of men who had died suddenly.
In the innermost recesses of Petya's mind, the struggle continued for a
long time-between the shadowy picture of imaginary mills where people
"reposed", and the real, brightly-coloured picture of the railwaymen's
settlement known as Near Mills, where Gavrik's brother Terenti lived.
UNCLE GAVRIK
"Here we are."
Gavrik pushed open the wicket with his foot, and the two friends walked
into a parched-looking front garden bordered with purple irises. A huge dog
with straw-coloured eyebrows immediately rushed at them.
"Down, Rudko!" shouted Gavrik. "Didn't recognise me, eh?"
The dog sniffed, recognised the boy, and gave a sad smile: he had got
excited for nothing. Then he rolled his shaggy tail up into a loop, stuck
out his tongue and ran, panting, to the back of the yard. Behind him dragged
his clanging chain, fastened to a wire strung high overhead.
A frightened woman peered from the wooden entrance-way of the clay hut.
When she saw it was the boys, she turned and said, wiping her hands on
her print apron, "Everything's all right. It's your brother come to see
you."
Behind her appeared a tall man in a striped sailor's jersey, the
sleeves of which were cut short just below shoulders as thick as a
wrestler's.
But the shy look on his face, pock-marked and covered all over with
tiny drops of sweat, did not in the least go with his athletic build. His
figure was powerful, sort of frightening, even, but his face was just the
opposite- gentle, and almost womanish.
The man tightened his belt and walked up to the boys.
"This is Petya, from Kanatnaya and the corner of Kulikovo Field," said
Gavrik, indicating his friend with a casual nod. "A schoolmaster's kid. He's
all right."
Terenti gave Petya a passing glance and then fixed his small, twinkling
eyes on Gavrik. "Now where are those shoes I bought you at Easter? Why must
you walk about like a tramp from Duke's Gardens?"
Gavrik gave a long sad whistle. "Ah, those shoes-"
"You're a tramp, nothing but a little tramp!"
Shaking his head, Terenti went to the back of the house. The boys
followed him.
There, to his indescribable delight, Petya saw a whole tinsmith's shop
set up on an old kitchen table under a mulberry tree. It even had a hissing
blowlamp. A strong, clipped, blue flame burst from its short muzzle, like
from a tiny cannon.
Judging by the baby's zinc bath-tub leaning upside down against the
tree and by the soldering iron in Terenti's hand, he was busy at a job.
"Repair work?" asked Gavrik, spitting on the ground exactly like a
grown-up.
"Uh-huh."
"Nothing doing at the shops?"
Ignoring the question, Terenti put the soldering iron into the flame of
the blowlamp and attentively watched it grow hot. "That's all right," he
muttered. "Don't you worry on our account. I can always find enough work for
us to keep body and soul together."
Gavrik sat down on a stool, crossed his bare legs, which did not reach
to the ground, braced his hands on his knee and, rocking slowly back and
forth, began to "talk shop" with his big brother.
Wrinkling his peeling nose and pulling together his eyebrows, which
were completely bleached from the sun and the salt water, Gavrik conveyed
best regards from Grandpa, informed Terenti of the price bullheads were
fetching, and waxed indignant about Madam Storozhenko, who was "such a bitch
and has us by the throat all the time and never gives people a chance to
breathe", and more in the same vein.
Terenti nodded agreement, in the meantime carefully passing the tip of
the hot iron across a strip of solder, which melted like butter.
At first glance there might seem nothing unusual, let alone strange, in
the fact that one brother had paid a visit to another and was telling him
about his affairs. But considering Gavrik's worried air, and also the
distance he had had to come for no other purpose than to talk to his
brother, it would not be difficult to guess that Gavrik had an important
matter on his mind.
Terenti looked at him questioningly several times, but Gavrik indicated
Petya with an unobtrusive wink and calmly talked on.
As to Petya, he was so absorbed in the wonderful spectacle of soldering
that he forgot everything in the world. He watched round-eyed as the huge
shears cut through the thick zinc like so much paper.
One of the most fascinating occupations of Odessa boys was to gather
round a tinsmith in the middle of a courtyard and watch him practise his
magic art. But there they watched a stranger, a man who was here one minute
and gone the next, something like a sleight-of-hand artist on the stage.
Quickly and skilfully he would do his work of soldering a tea-kettle, then
roll up his pieces of tin into a tube, strap it over his shoulder, pick up
his brazier and walk out of the yard, calling, "Pots to mend, kettles to
mend!"
Here, however, Petya was watching someone he knew, his friend's
brother, an artist who displayed his skill at home, to a chosen few. At any
moment he could ask, "I say there, what's in that little iron box? Is it
acid?" without getting a rude answer like "Run along, young 'un, you're in
the way". No, this was quite, quite different. From sheer delight Petya
stuck out his tongue-which was not at all becoming in such a big boy. It is
likely that he never would have left that table under the mulberry tree had
he not suddenly noticed a girl with a baby in her arms approaching.
With an effort she held up to Gavrik the plump one-year-old infant, who
had two shining white teeth in his little coral mouth.
"Look who's come, goo-goo! Gavrik's come, goo-goo! Now say, 'Hello,
Uncle Gavrik.' Goo-goo!"
With an extraordinarily grave expression Gavrik reached inside his
shirt and, to Petya's boundless amazement, produced a red lollipop in the
shape of a cock.
To carry about such a treasure for three hours without tasting it, and
what's more without showing it, was something only a person with incredible
willpower could do!
Gavrik held out the sweet to the child. "Here," he said.
"Take it, Zhenechka," urged the girl, raising the child up close to the
lollipop. "Take it with your little hand. See what a present Uncle Gavrik's
brought you? Take the cock in your hand. That's right, that's the way. And
now say, 'Thank you, dear Uncle.' Well, say it, 'Thank you, dear Uncle.' "
The child gripped the bright red lollipop tight in his grimy chubby
little hand and blew big bubbles from his mouth. His light-blue eyes stared
blankly at his uncle.
"See? That means he's saying, 'Thank you, Uncle'," said the girl, her
eyes fixed enviously on the sweet. "But you mustn't put it in your mouth
right off. Play with it first. And then after your porridge you can have the
lollipop," she continued sensibly, casting quick curious glances at the
handsome young stranger in a straw hat and new shoes with buttons.
"This is Petya, from Kanatnaya and the corner of Kulikovo," said
Gavrik. "Why don't you go and play with him, Motya?"
The girl became so excited that she turned pale.
Hugging the child close, she edged away backwards, looking
distrustfully at Petya, until she bumped into her father's leg.
Terenti patted the girl on the shoulder and straightened the beruffled
white bonnet on her close-cropped head. "Play with the boy, Motya," he said.
"Show him the Russo-Japanese pictures I bought you when you were lying sick
in bed. Play with him, my pet, and give Zhenechka to Mama." '
Motya rubbed her back against her father's leg and then turned up a
face red with embarrassment. Her eyes were full of tears; her tiny turquoise
earrings were trembling.
Earrings such as those, Petya had noticed, were usually worn by
milkwomen.
"Don't be afraid, my pet. He won't fight with you."
Motya obediently took the child into the house. She returned holding
herself as stiff as a poker, with her cheeks drawn in and her expression
frightfully grave.
She stopped about four paces away from Petya, took a deep breath, and,
stammering and looking to the side, said in an unnaturally thin voice, "If
you like, I'll show you my Russo-Japanese pictures."
"Very well," said Petya in a hoarse, careless voice- the voice demanded
by good form when speaking to little girls. At the same time he
painstakingly, and rather successfully, spat over his shoulder.
"Come along, then."
Not without a certain amount of coquetry the girl turned her back to
Petya and, moving her shoulders much more than was necessary, went, skipping
now and then, to the back of the yard. There, behind the cellar, she had her
doll household.
Petya swaggered along behind. As he looked at the hollow in Motya's
thin neck and the little triangle of hair above it, he grew so excited that
his knees wobbled.
One could not, of course, call it passionate love. But that it would
develop into a serious love affair was beyond all doubt.
LOVE
To tell the truth, Petya had been in love many times in the course of
his life. First of all, that little brunette- Verochka, wasn't it?-whom he
had met at a Christmas party last year in the home of one of Father's
colleagues. He had been in love with her all evening; they had sat next to
each other at the table, and then, when the candles were put out, they
crawled under the Christmas tree in the dark, and the floor was slippery
from the fir needles.
It was love at first sight. When, at half past eight, they made ready
to take her home, he was overwhelmed with despair. So much so that at the
sight of her braids and ribbons vanishing under her hood and fur coat he
began to whimper and misbehave.
Then and there he vowed to love her to the grave. In parting he
bestowed upon her the cardboard mandolin given him from the Christmas tree,
and four nuts: three gold and one silver.
But two days passed, and nothing remained of that love affair except
bitter regret of having so foolishly lost the mandolin.
Then, of course, in the country he had fallen in love with Zoya, the
girl who wore the pink stockings of a fairy; he even kissed her, by the
waterbutt under the apricot tree. But falling in love with Zoya turned out
to be a mistake, for the very next day she cheated so brazenly at croquet
that he was forced to rap her over the shins with his mallet. After that,
naturally, a love affair was out of the question.
Then there had been his fleeting passion for the lovely girl on the
steamer, the one who was travelling first class and had argued all the way
with her father, Lord Glenarvan.
But all that did not count. Who, after all, has not experienced such
heedless attachments?
Motya was another matter entirely. Besides being a girl, besides having
turquoise earrings, besides turning so frightfully pale and red and moving
her thin little shoulder-blades so adorably-besides all that, she was the
sister of a pal. Actually, of course, not a sister but a niece. But
considering Gavrik's age, she was the same as a sister. His friend's sister!
Can anything make a girl more attractive and lovable than the fact that she
is a friend's sister? Does not this in itself contain the seed of inevitable
love?
Petya was smitten. By the time they reached the cellar, he was over
head and ears in love.
However, to prevent Motya from guessing it he assumed a nasty,
high-handed, indifferent manner.
No sooner had Motya politely displayed her dolls, neatly tucked in
their little beds, and the little stove with real pots and pans, only little
ones, which her father had made from scraps of zinc, than Petya-though, to
tell the truth, he found them awfully nice-spat contemptuously through his
teeth and, with an insulting snicker, asked, "I say, Motya, why is your hair
cut so short?"
"I had typhus," Motya replied in a thin, hurt voice, and she gave such
a deep sigh that a tiny peep, like a bird's, sounded in her throat. "Do you
want to see my pictures?"
Petya condescended.
They sat down on the ground side by side and began to look at the
patriotic coloured lithographs, most of them depicting naval battles.
A sticky, dark-blue sky was criss-crossed with thin searchlight rays.
Broken masts topped by Japanese flags were crashing down. Out of the
sharp-edged waves rose the white jets of explosions. Shells burst in the air
like stars.
A Japanese cruiser was sinking; its sharp nose was tilted, and it was
enveloped in yellow-red flames. Little yellow-faced men were tumbling into
the sea.
"Jappies!" breathed the enchanted girl as she crawled round the picture
on her knees.
"Not Jappies but Japs," Petya corrected her sternly. He knew what was
what in politics.
In another picture a dashing Cossack with red stripes down the sides of
his breeches and a high black fur cap worn at an angle had just sliced off
the nose of a Japanese who had stuck his head up from behind a hill.
A thick stream of blood gushed in an arc from the face of the Japanese
soldier. His stubby orange-coloured nose with its two black nostrils lay all
by itself on the hill, and this sent the children into peals of laughter.
"Don't poke your nose where it doesn't belong!" cried Petya, laughing
and beating his hands against the warm dry earth spotted with white hen
droppings.
"Don't poke your nose!" chanted Motya, looking over her shoulder at the
handsome boy and wrinkling her thin sharp nose, which was as motley as
Gavrik's.
The third picture showed the same Cossack and the same hill, on the
other side of which the puttees of a fleeing Japanese could now be seen. At