been talking about all this. Lately, though, Petya had begun to suspect a
thing or two himself.
Decent, sober folk were put in jail. The police had even locked up a
wonderful old man like Gavrik's grandfather, and were beating him, what's
more. The sailor had jumped off the ship. Soldiers had stopped the coach.
There were guards posted at the port. The trestle bridge had burnt down. A
battleship had shelled the city.
No, it was quite obvious that life was not at all the gay, pleasant,
carefree thing it had been just the very shortest while ago.
Petya was dying to ask Auntie Tatyana who had beaten the Tsar over the
head with a bamboo cane, and why. Especially, why with a bamboo cane? But he
already understood that there were things better not spoken of, that it was
better to keep silent and pretend to know nothing. The more so since Auntie
remained her good-natured, bantering, competent self, in no way showing the
feelings she had so openly revealed on that one evening.
October was approaching.
The acacia trees were almost bare of leaves. Storms raged at sea.
You had to have the lamp on when you got up and dressed.
For weeks at a time fog lay over the city. In the fog, people and trees
looked like drawings on frosted glass.
Lamps put out at nine in the morning were lighted again at five in the
afternoon. It drizzled. At times the rain stopped, the wind blew away the
fog, and then a red dawn flamed for a long time in a sky as clear as ice,
beyond the railway station, beyond the market, beyond the spikes of the
fences, beyond the bare branches of the trees, thickly peppered with crows'
nests as big and black as Manchurian fur caps.
Hands froze without gloves. The earth hardened. A terrifying emptiness
and transparency hung over the garrets. In those brief hours silence reigned
everywhere from earth to sky. The city was cut off from Kulikovo Field by
the transparent wall of silence. It had moved infinitely far away, with its
alarming rumours, its secrets, its anticipation of events to come. It was
clearly visible, in sharp focus; at the same time it was dreadfully remote,
as though seen through the wrong end of the opera-glasses.
But then the weather changed, the sky grew dark, and an impenetrable
fog moved in from the sea. Nothing was visible two paces away. The dark,
weird evening was followed by a black night.
A raw wind blew from the sea. From the port came the dark,
awe-inspiring voice of the foghorn. It began with bass notes and then
suddenly rose in a chromatic scale, at dizzying speed, to a penetrating but
smooth wail of inhuman pitch. It was as if a death-dealing projectile were
tearing through the murky sky with a blood-curdling wail.
On such evenings Petya could not overcome a feeling of horror whenever
he approached the window, opened the shutters, and looked out into the
street.
The vast, wild expanse of Kulikovo Field was pitch-dark. It merged with
the city in the foggy gloom, sharing its mysteries, mysteries that seemed to
be stealing silently from street lamp to street lamp, muffled in fog.
The shadows of rare pedestrians glided past. Occasionally a policeman's
whistle sounded, faint and long drawn out. A double watch of sentries was on
duty at the Army Staff building. The heavy tread of a patrol came through
the darkness.
There might be someone lying in wait at every corner. At any moment
something might happen-something unforeseen and terrible.
One evening something actually did happen.
At about ten o'clock Dunya, who had gone to the shop for paraffin, came
running into the dining-room, without taking off her shawl and said that
five minutes ago a sentry had shot himself in the vacant lot, near the wall
of the Army Staff building. She related the gory details: the soldier had
taken off one of his boots, put the muzzle of his gun in his mouth, and then
pulled the trigger with his big toe. The back of his head was blown off.
Dunya stood there, pale as death, with ashen lips, nervously tying and
untying a knot in the fringe of her woolly shawl.
"They say he didn't even leave a note," she said after a long silence.
"That's awful. Probably he couldn't write."
Auntie Tatyana pressed her knuckles against her temples as hard as she
could.
"Oh, why talk of a note!" she exclaimed, tears of vexation in her eyes.
She laid her head on the table-cloth beside a saucer of tea in which the
swaying dining-room lamp with its white shade was reflected in every detail,
but in miniature. "Why talk of a note! The thing is clear enough as it is!"
From the kitchen window, which looked out on the vacant lot, Petya
watched the roaming lamps of an ambulance and the shadows of people.
The boy sat on the icy windowsill in the empty kitchen, trembling with
fear and cold, his face pressed to the rain-washed windowpane. He was unable
to tear his eyes away from the darkness, which still seemed to be filled
with the presence of death.
That night Petya could not fall asleep for a long time. He kept seeing
in his imagination the terrifying corpse of the barefoot soldier in full
sentry kit, with the back of his head shattered and his face blue and
mysteriously immobile.
But the next morning, despite the horror, he could not resist the
temptation of having a look at the terrible spot.
An inexplicable force drew him to the vacant lot. On his way to the
Gymnasium he turned off in that direction and cautiously, as though in
church, tiptoed across the grass, wet and rotting from the rain and fog, up
in the place where a few curious people were already standing.
Near the wall of the Army Staff building he saw, in the damp earth, a
dent the size of a human head. It was full of rain water tinted pink. The
dead soldier's head must have struck that spot.
That was the only trace of what had happened the evening before.
Petya raised the collar of his Gymnasium overcoat. Shivering from the
dampness in the air, he stood for some time gazing at the dent. Suddenly he
noticed a small disc on the ground near his feet. He picked it up and
trembled with joy. It was a five-kopek piece, black and spotted, with a
turquoise mould covering the place where the eagle should have been.
Naturally, the find was accidental and had no bearing whatsoever on
what had taken place. The coin had probably lain there since summer. It may
have been lost by factory workers playing pitch-and-toss, or it may have
fallen out of the pocket of some beggar woman who spent the night in the
bushes. However, the coin immediately acquired in the boy's eyes an
importance bordering on the magic, and this besides the fact that here was
wealth: an entire five kopeks!
Petya's father never gave him money, feeling that money might easily
corrupt him. So that finding the five-kopek piece raised Petya to seventh
heaven.
That day, magically brightened by the find, was one P long holiday for
the boy.
In class the coin passed from hand to hand. Among Petya's classmates
there were lads experienced in such matters, and they swore, turning towards
the cupola of the St. Panteleimon Church and crossing themselves, that it
was without any doubt a magic five-kopek piece, a younger brother of the
magic ruble in the fairy-tale. It should bring Petya unbelievable riches,
they said.
One of the boys even offered his lunch, together with his lunch basket
and a penknife thrown in, in exchange for the talisman. Petya naturally
refused with a scornful laugh. Only a total idiot would have agreed to such
an exchange!
After school Petya raced home. He had to show his find to one and all
at home and in the yard as soon as possible.
What was his joy when he saw Gavrik in the yard!
Gavrik was on his knees, surrounded by a group of squatting children.
He was teaching them the popular game of lugs.
Petya hardly had time to give his friend, whom he had not seen for such
a long time, a proper greeting before he was caught up by the game. First
they played a trial game, using Gavrik's lugs. This merely fanned Petya's
excitement.
"Gavrik, lend me ten of them," he begged, stretching out a hand that
trembled with impatience. "As soon as I win I'll pay you back, by the true
and holy Cross I will!"
"Hands off! I've heard that tale before," Gavrik replied darkly. He
dropped the lugs into his grey baize pouch and neatly tied it with a piece
of string. "Lugs aren't pictures. They cost money. I can sell you some if
you like."
Petya did not take the slightest offence. He understood very well that
friendship was one thing but that every game had its inviolable rules. Since
lugs cost money you had to pay money for them, and friendship had nothing to
do with the matter. Such was the iron law of the street.
But what was he to do?
He was dying to play. A storm of indecision shook him. For no more than
a minute he hesitated, then reached into his pocket and held out the famous
five-kopek piece to Gavrik.
Gavrik gave the suspicious-looking coin a thorough examination and
shook his head.
"Nobody'll take it."
"They will too!"
"No, they won't!"
"You're a fool!"
"You're another! Take it to the shop and change it!"
"Go yourself."
"Why should I! It's your money."
"They're your lugs."
"I don't care if you buy any or not."
"Neither do I."
Gavrik calmly put the bag in his pocket and spat indifferently far to
one side through his teeth. At that Petya ran to the shop and asked to have
his five-kopek piece changed. While Izzy the Dizzy held the suspicious coin
up close to his weak eyes the boy lived through a score of the most
humiliating emotions, chief among them the cowardly impatience of the thief
selling stolen goods.
It wouldn't have surprised Petya at all if at that moment policemen
with swords had marched into the shop and dragged him off to the jail in a
carriage for being a party to some secret and shameful crime.
At last Izzy the Dizzy threw the coin into the cashbox and carelessly
tossed five one-kopek pieces on the scales. Petya rushed back to the yard,
where Gavrik was now selling lugs to the other boys. Spending all his money,
Petya bought several lugs of different denominations.
They began to play. Petya forgot everything in the world.
By the time darkness fell, Petya was left without a single lug. What
made it still more awful was the fact that at the beginning he had had
amazing luck-there had been no room in his pockets for all the lugs he had
won.
But now, alas, he had neither money nor lugs.
Petya was close to tears. He was in the depths of despair. Gavrik took
pity on his friend, and lent him two cheap lugs with which to recoup his
losses. But Petya was too reckless and impatient, and within five minutes he
had lost both. He was no match for Gavrik.
Gavrik carelessly dropped his fabulous winnings into his pouch and set
off for home, saying that he would come again the next day.
LUGS
How many of them there were!
The fat student tens with superimposed eagles riveted on them. The
golden officers' fives with the eagles embossed. The brown buttons of the
commercial school with Mercury's wand entwined by snakes and with the cheeky
little winged cap. The light-coloured mariners' buttons with crossed
anchors. The post-and-telegraph ones with green streaks of lightning and
bugles. The artillery men's buttons with guns on them. The lawyers' buttons
with columns of laws. The brass livery buttons as big as a fifty-kopek piece
and decorated with lions. The fat threes from civil servants' uniforms. The
thin clerks' "lemons" which hummed like mosquitoes when they were struck
during the game. The fat ordinary buttons from Gymnasium overcoats with
silver-plated hollows rubbed red in the middle.
For one brief and happy moment all these fabulous treasures, the entire
heraldry of the Russian Empire, were concentrated in Petya's hands.
His palms could still feel the different shapes of the lugs and their
solid leaden weight, but now he was completely bankrupt, ruined, cast to the
winds. Who had talked about a magic five-kopek piece?!
Lugs, and nothing but lugs-that was all Petya could think of now. They
were constantly before his eyes, like the dream vision of a fortune. At the
dinner table he gazed absently into his plate of soup, where at least three
hundred tiny lamp-shades were reflected in the globules of fat, but what he
saw were three hundred sparkling lugs with golden eagles.
He looked in disgust at the buttons on his father's jacket. They were
cloth-covered. Absolutely worthless.
In fact, today he had discovered that he lived in a poverty-stricken
family; there was not a single decent button in the whole flat.
Auntie Tatyana immediately noticed her nephew's strange mood.
"What's the matter with you today?" she asked, examining Petya's
unusually excited face with a searching glance. "The boys in the yard didn't
go for you, by any chance?"
Petya shook his head angrily.
"Or is it poor marks in school again? If so, out with it, but don't sit
there suffering."
"Leave me alone! I don't see why you all have to pick on me!"
"You aren't ill by any chance, are you?"
"Oh, lor'!"
Petya began to whimper at all this questioning.
"Very well. If you don't want to tell me you needn't. Suffer as much as
you like."
Petya really was suffering. He was racking his brains for a way to get
the money he needed for next day's game. He slept badly, tormented by the
desire to recoup his losses as quickly as possible. In the morning he
decided upon a subtle scheme.
For a long time he hovered affectionately at his father's side, poking
his head up under his father's elbow and planting kisses on his red porous
neck, which had a fresh, soapy smell. Father stroked the little scholar's
stubbly head and pressed it to the jacket with the disgusting buttons.
"What is it, Petya, what is it, my little man?"
That was just the question Petya had been waiting for, that and the
gentle tremor in his father's voice, telling him that now he could get
whatever he wanted.
"Daddy," he said, squirming and adjusting his belt with feigned
shyness, "Daddy, I want five kopeks."
"What for?" Even in his gentlest moods Father never lost sight of his
strict principles of upbringing.
"I need it badly."
"You must tell my why."
"I need it, that's all."
"But tell me why. I must know how you plan to spend that sum of money.
If it's for something useful and necessary I shall be glad to give it to
you, but if it's for something bad I shan't. So tell me now. What do you
need the money for?"
How could Petya tell Father that he needed the money to gamble with?
That was quite out of the question.
So he pulled the frank expression of a well-mannered boy who wants
something for his sweet tooth.
"I'll buy some chocolate," he mumbled.
"Chocolate? Splendid! I could hardly object to that."
Petya beamed.
Father rose and without a word walked over to the desk. He opened it
and handed the stunned boy a bar of chocolate with a picture on the wrapper.
The wrapper was sealed like an envelope, with five blobs of sealing wax
printed on it.
Petya took the chocolate, tears in his eyes.
"Thank you, Daddy dear," he mumbled.
He set off for the Gymnasium with a broken heart.
Still, it was better than nothing. Perhaps he would be able to swap the
chocolate for some lugs.
That day, however, Petya had no opportunity to play lugs.
Hardly had he passed Kulikovo Field and entered Novorybnaya Street, in
which the Gymnasium stood, when he noticed that some very special,
important, and extremely joyous event was taking place in the city.
Despite the early hour the streets were full of people. All of them
looked very excited and alert, although none seemed to be in a hurry to get
anywhere. Most of the people were standing in groups near the gateways of
houses or had gathered round the book-stalls on the street corners. On all
sides Petya saw people unfolding newspapers which turned an even greyer grey
in the fine drizzle.
The national flag of white, blue, and red had been hung out on all the
houses. By looking at the flags Petya could guess how rich the householders
were. Some flags were small and faded, with short staffs carelessly attached
to the gateways. Others were huge and brand-new, and had an edging of
tricoloured cord with elaborate tricoloured tassels reaching all the way to
the pavement.
The wind had a hard time of it to stir those heavy flags, which gave
off a distinct odour of dye.
The Gymnasium was closed. Happy-faced schoolboys were running down the
street in Petya's direction. The Gymnasium porter, in a white apron over his
winter coat with a sheepskin collar, was stringing a thin wire among the
trees in front of the building. That meant there would be illuminations in
the evening! There were always illuminations on holidays, for instance, on
the namedays of His Majesty the Emperor and the members of the royal family.
In Petya's imagination the three magic words "illuminations", "holiday"
and "nameday" were like the three facets of a glass lustre from a church
chandelier. Such pendants had a high value among the boys of Odessa. When
you put the small prism to your eye, the whole world became bright with the
patriotic rainbow of the " Tsar's day .
But was this a "Tsar's day"? No, it wasn't. One always knew when they
were coming by the calendar, and the number on Father's calendar today was
black, which meant neither illuminations nor a holiday nor a royal nameday.
In that case, what was it all about? Could another heir have been born
to the Tsar, like last year? No, that was impossible. He couldn't have a boy
every year, could he? So it must be something else. But what?
"I say there, what's today?" Petya asked the porter.
"Freedom," the porter replied in what to Petya seemed a jesting tone.
"No, really."
"Just what I said-freedom."
"Freedom?"
"Freedom to go home today because there won't be any lessons. They're
cancelled."
Petya's feelings were hurt.
"Listen here, porter, I want a straight answer," he said sternly, doing
his best to uphold the dignity of a pupil of the Odessa Fifth Gymnasium.
"That's just what I gave you. And now go home to your loving parents
and stop bothering a man who has work to do."
With a scornful shrug of his shoulders Petya nonchalantly sauntered
away from this porter who had developed the disgusting habit of addressing
pupils in the tone of a pedagogue.
The policeman to whom, as a representative of the government, Petya
decided to address his question, looked the swarthy little boy up and down
and slowly stroked his long red moustaches.
Then all of a sudden he screwed up his face in a typically Jewish
expression and said with an accent, "Frid'm!"
Thoroughly crushed, Petya slowly made his way home.
More and more people were coming out into the streets. Here and there
Petya saw student caps, the astrakhan muffs of college girls and the
broad-brimmed hats of free-thinkers. Several times again he heard the rather
hazy word "freedom".
At the corner of Kanatnaya Street his attention was attracted by a knot
of people gathered round a sheet of paper pasted on the wooden fence of the
firewood yard.
He made his way forward, and this is what he read:
We, Nikolai the Second,
by the Grace of God Emperor
and Autocrat of All the Russias,
Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland,
and so on and so forth.
Riots and disturbances in the capital cities and in many other places
of Our Empire have filled Our heart with great and heavy grief. The weal of
the Russian Sovereign is indivisible from the weal of the people; the
people's grief is His grief. The disturbances that have now broken out may
lead to a profound dislocation of the nation and may threaten the integrity
and unity of Our State.
The great oath of Royal service enjoins Us to strive, with all the
powers of Our reason and authority, for the earliest termination of the
disturbances so dangerous to the State. . . .
Petya managed to get that far, but not without some difficulty; he
stumbled over such strange and hazy words as "weal", "dislocation",
"enjoins" and "earliest termination", and also the large number of capital
letters; contrary to all rules of spelling, they stuck up in the most
unexpected places, like charred stumps after a forest fire.
The only thing he could make out of it all was that the Tsar was
evidently in trouble and was asking everyone to help him in any way he
could.
To tell the truth, deep down in his heart Petya felt a bit sorry for
the poor Tsar, especially when he remembered that someone had beaten him
over the head with a bamboo cane.
But why everybody should be rejoicing and hanging out flags was a
mystery. Could something more cheerful be written farther on? However, he
did not have the perseverance to read the Tsar's sad sheet to the end.
Petya did notice, however, that almost every person who came up to the
announcement looked first of all for a place in the middle which for some
reason gave him special pleasure. It was a place he was sure to read aloud,
and then, turning to the others, he would exclaim triumphantly: "Aha! It's
actually down in black and white: 'To grant inviolability of person, freedom
of conscience, speech, assembly, and association.' "
After this some of the people, paying no attention to the fact that
they were in the street, would shout "Hurrah!" and kiss those around them,
just like at Easter.
Here it was that the boy witnessed a scene which stirred him to the
depths of his heart.
A droshky drove up to the crowd, a gentleman in a bowler that was
brand-new but already crushed jumped lightly from it to the ground, put a
pair of crooked pince-nez to his nose, quickly read the wonderful place,
then kissed the astounded driver three times on his copper-red beard, flung
himself into the droshky, and, shouting at the top of his voice, "Half a
ruble for vodka! Drive like hell, you dog!" disappeared as suddenly as he
had appeared.
In short, it was an extraordinary day in every respect.
The sky had cleared. The drizzle stopped. A mother-of-pearl sun broke
through.
In the yard, Nusya Kogan was striding up and down importantly in his
black school jacket that had hooks instead of buttons and in a cap without a
badge. He was dreaming for how he would now be able to enter the Gymnasium,
since there was to be religious freedom, and of the handsome badge he would
wear on his cap.
Petya played hopscotch with him for a long time, pausing after each hop
to describe the horrors of life at the Gymnasium in an attempt to frighten
Nusya.
"Then he calls your name and starts questioning you, and you don't know
a thing. And then he says to you, 'Go to your seat. Sit down!' And then he
puts a nought opposite your name. That's what it's like!"
"But what if I prepare my lessons well?" the sensible Nusya replied
with a confident grin, shrugging his shoulders.
"Makes no difference," Petya insisted, hopping on one leg and pushing
the stone out of the "Heaven" square with his toe. "Makes no difference!
He'll slap down a nought!"
Then Petya treated Nusya to a piece of chocolate, and Nusya ran into
the shop and brought out "a handful like that" of raisins.
Then Petya was called in to lunch. He invited Nusya to come along with
him. Father was already at home.
"Ah!" he exclaimed gaily at sight of Nusya. "So we shall soon have the
pleasure of seeing you a Gymnasium pupil, young) man! Congratulations,
congratulations!"
Nusya made a polite, dignified bow.
"Why not?" he said, dropping his eyes in shy pride and blushing a deep
pink with pleasure.
Auntie Tatyana beamed. Father beamed. Pavlik made loud noises in the
passage as he played "freedom". For a reason he alone knew he covered the
overturned chairs, placed in a row, with a rug and crawled under it,
mercilessly tooting on his horn, without which, to everyone's annoyance, not
a single game was played.
But today no one stopped the lad, and he played away to his heart's
content.
Dunya kept running in from the yard to report the latest news in town.
That at the railway station there was a crowd carrying a red flag, a crowd
so thick "you couldn't squeeze through it". That in Richelieu Street the
crowd had cheered a soldier and had tossed him up in the air. "The poor
thing flew up and down, up and down!" That people were running from all
sides to the police station where, it was said, the prisoners were being
released. "A woman was running with a little girl in her arms, and she was
crying for all she was worth!" That there was a guard of military cadets at
the Army Staff building, and they weren't letting anyone through to see the
soldiers, and were driving people away from the windows. But one daring
fellow did manage to get up to a window. He stood on a rock and shouted,
"Long live freedom!" And the soldiers replied through the windows, "Long
live freedom!"
All this news was accepted joyfully, with eager questions :
"What about the police?"
"What did he do?"
"What did she do?"
"What did they do?"
"What's happening in Greek Street?"
Every once in a while they opened the balcony door and stepped out, in
spite of the cold, to see what was going on in the street. At the end of
Kulikovo Field they could make out a dark mass of people and a red flag.
That evening visitors dropped in, which was something that had not
happened for a long time. They were teachers who taught in the same school
as Father and college girls who were acquaintances of Auntie Tatyana. The
hall-stand was covered with black overcoats, capes, broad-brimmed hats and
little astrakhan caps.
Petya sat in the kitchen watching the boiled sausage, the choice ham,
and the bread being sliced.
As he dropped to sleep after that tiring but happy day he could hear,
from the dining-room, the rumble and laughter of strange voices and the
tinkle of spoons.
Together with the bright ray of light, blue cigarette smoke came into
the nursery from the dining-room. It added to the fresh, warm air something
unusually manly and free, something they did not have in the house, for
Father did not smoke.
Outside the window it was much lighter than usual; jelly-like streaks
of light from the different-coloured lanterns were mingled with the weak
glow from the street lamps.
Petya knew that now, instead of the flags, six-sided lanterns with
panes that were red-hot and smoky from the candles burning inside had been
strung on wires between the trees, all over the city.
Double lines of the same kind of lights stretched all the way down the
long, straight Odessa streets. They beckoned one farther and farther into
the mysterious distance of the transformed city, from street to street, as
though promising that somewhere, perhaps very near, just round the corner,
there was a wonderful, colourful spectacle of remarkable beauty and
brilliance.
But round the corner there would be the same long street and the same
rows of lanterns-monotonous, even though they were of different colours, and
just as tired of burning as man was tired of walking between them.
Red, green, violet, yellow, and blue bars of lights, bending in the
fog, fell on the passers-by, slid across the house fronts, and gave their
false promises of something new and much more beautiful round the corner.
All this wearisome variety had always been called "royal nameday",
"holiday", or "Tsar's day", but today it was called by a new word, which
also had a sound of many different colours-"constitution".
The word "constitution" kept coming from the dining-room amidst the
rumble-of strange, deep voices and the silvery tinkle of tea spoons.
Petya fell asleep to the noise of the gathering, which lasted until an
unusually late hour, probably until nearly midnight.
IN THE BASEMENT
As soon as the rumour reached Near Mills that prisoners were being
released, Gavrik set off for the police station.
Terenti, who had not slept at home for the past week and had appeared
from some unknown place early that morning, walked to the corner with
Gavrik. He was gloomy, and so tired that he could scarcely keep on his feet.
"Go and meet the old man, of course, Gavrik. Only for the love of God
don't bring him here. Because with all this 'freedom', may it be thrice
damned, there's probably plenty of snoopers about. One of them will hang on
your tail and then that'll be the end of our meeting place, and a lot of
people will get into trouble. Clear?"
Gavrik nodded. "Uh-huh."
Since he had come to live in Near Mills, Gavrik had learned to
understand a great deal and had found out many things. It was no longer a
secret to him that the strike committee was meeting at Terenti's house.
Many was the time he had had to sit on the bench beside the gate almost
till dawn, whistling softly whenever strangers came near the house.
Several times he had seen the sailor, who appeared out of nowhere at
dawn and then quickly disappeared. Now he was hardly recognisable. He wore a
good overcoat and an engineer's cap with the crossed hammers badge. But the
main thing was his foppish little moustache and beard. They changed him so
much that the boy couldn't believe he was the same man he and Grandpa had
pulled out of the sea.
However, one look into those humorous brown eyes, at that fleeting
smile, and at the anchor on his hand caused all doubts to vanish.
In keeping with the unwritten but firm law of Near Mills never to be
surprised at anything, never to recognise anyone, and to hold one's tongue,
whenever Gavrik met the sailor he pretended he had never seen him before.
The sailor behaved the same way towards Gavrik.
Only once, when leaving, did he nod to the boy as to an old
acquaintance, giving him a wink and clapping him on the back as he would a
grown-up.
"Weep no more, Marusya," he sang out, "you will yet be mine!"
Then, bending his head in the low doorway, he stepped out into the
darkness.
Gavrik sensed that of all the people who came to see Terenti-from the
Ghen factory, from the Weinstein flour-mill, from the docks, from the
Brodsky factory, and a great many other places-the sailor was the one the
authorities most feared and were most anxious to track down.
He undoubtedly belonged to that glorious and mysterious "fighting
group" about which there was so much talk of late not only in Near Mills but
everywhere in town.
"Uh-huh," said Gavrik. "Only it's damned cold, and if I don't bring the
old man to Near Mills where else can I take him?"
Terenti thought for a moment. "Listen," he said finally. "First take
him down to the beach, to the hut. If anybody shadows you he won't learn a
thing. Wait in the hut till it's dark, and then carefully go straight to
this address-only memorise it: it's 15 Malaya Arnautskaya. Find the janitor
and ask him for Joseph Karlovich. When you see Joseph Karlovich you say-now
remember this- 'How do you do, Joseph Karlovich? Sophia Petrovna sent me to
ask if you've received any letters from Nikolayev.' Then he'll say, 'No, I
haven't had a letter for two months.' Clear?"
"Uh-huh."
"Can you repeat it?"
"Uh-huh."
"Let's hear it."
Gavrik puckered his forehead and wrinkled his nose. "Well, it's 15
Malaya Arnautskaya," he said, concentrating as though he were answering at
an exam. "I ask the janitor for Joseph Karlovich, and then I say, 'How do
you do, Joseph Karlovich? Sophia Petrovna sent me to ask you if a letter
came from Nikolayev.' And then he says, 'I haven't had a letter for two
months.' "
"Right. After that you needn't be afraid to tell him Terenti sent you.
Tell biny-to let the old man live at his place for a while, and to feed him.
Later we'll see. I'll drop in. Clear?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, good-bye."
Terenti returned home, while Gavrik hurried off to the jail.
He ran for all he was worth, squeezing his way through the crowd which
became thicker and thicker as he approached the railway station.
At Sennaya Square he began to meet men who had been released from the
jail. Some were on foot and others rode in droshkies surrounded by bundles
and baskets as though coming from the railway station; they were accompanied
by relatives and friends, and they waved their hats in the air.
Crowds ran down the street beside the droshkies, chanting, "Long live
freedom! Long live freedom!"
Near the Alexandrovsky jail, which was surrounded by reinforced details
of mounted and foot police, there was such a huge, dense crowd that even
Gavrik despaired of making his way through it. In that crowd he might very
easily miss Grandpa.
The mere thought that if this happened Grandpa might bring some snooper
along with him to Near Mills sent the boy into a cold sweat.
His heart pounding, he dashed down an alley to bypass the crowd. He
simply had to reach the jail and find Grandpa. Suddenly he saw him two paces
away.
But good heavens, could that be Grandpa? Gavrik did not recognise him
at first.
Coming towards him was a decrepit old man with a beard of silvery
bristles, with watery blue eyes, and a sunken, toothless mouth. He was
keeping as close as he could to the walls of the houses. His legs were bent,
and they swayed as though they were made of cotton wool. He was shuffling
along with difficulty in his broken boots, stopping to rest at every third
step. But for the basket that dangled from the old man's trembling hand
Gavrik never would have recognised him.
The familiar wicker basket with the grimy canvas cover immediately
caught the boy's eye. It made his heart contract with pain.
"Grandpa!" he shouted in a frightened voice. "Grandpa, is that you?"
The old man did not even give a start. Slowly he stopped and turned
towards Gavrik a face that expressed neither joy nor excitement, nothing but
submissive resignation. He chewed his lips indifferently. His watery eyes
stared at some point in the distance, and they were so motionless that one
might have thought he did not see his grandson.
"Grandpa, where are you going?" Gavrik asked, raising his voice as
though the old man were deaf.
The old man chewed his lips for a long time before he replied.
"To Near Mills," he announced in a quiet, normal voice.
"You can't," Gavrik whispered, glancing over his shoulder. "Terenti
said for heaven's sake not to go to Near Mills."
The old man also glanced over his shoulder, but in a sort of slow,
indifferent, mechanical way.
"Come, Grandpa, let's go home and then we'll see."
Grandpa obediently turned round, and without saying a word started to
shuffle in the opposite direction, putting one foot before the other with an
effort.
Gavrik gave Grandpa his shoulder, and the old man leaned heavily on it.
Slowly they made their way across the restless city towards the sea, like a
blind man with his guide-the boy in front and the old man behind him.
The old man stopped frequently to rest. It took them two hours to reach
the shore from the police station. Alone, Gavrik usually covered that
distance in fifteen minutes.
The padlock, broken and rusty, lay in the brown weeds near the hut. The
door hung crookedly on the upper hinge, swaying and creaking in the wind.
The autumn rains had taken the last traces of Grandma's whitewash from the
blackened boards. The entire roof was covered with burdock stalks: this was
obviously the work of bird-catchers, who had turned the vacant hut into a
trap.
Inside, everything was topsy-turvy. The tattered quilt and the pillow,
damp and smeared with clay, lay in a corner. The little trunk, however, had
net been touched and stood in its usual place. Unhurriedly the old man
entered his home. He sat down on the edge of the bed, put the basket on his
knees, and stared impassively at the corner of the wall, paying no attention
whatsoever to the disorder.
It was as though he had merely dropped in to take a rest, to sit for a
minute or two and catch his breath, and then slowly to set out again.
A strong cold wind laden with sea spray blew in through the broken
window. A storm was raging along the deserted coast. The wind carried white
tufts-seagulls and bits of foam-over the echoing cliffs. The thunder of the
waves resounded in the caves along the shore.
"Why don't you lie down, Grandpa?"
Grandpa obediently lay down. Gavrik put a pillow under his head and
covered him with the quilt. The old man pulled up his legs. He was
shivering.
"Never mind, Grandpa. As soon as it's dark we'll go somewhere else.
Take a rest meanwhile."
Grandpa did not answer. His entire appearance expressed complete
indifference and resignation. Suddenly he looked at Gavrik with swollen,
watery eyes that seemed turned wrong side out and said, after chewing his
sunken lips for a long time, "The boat. Is it safe?"
Gavrik hastened to assure him that the boat was in a safe place, at a
neighbour's. The old man nodded in approval and again fell silent.
After an hour he turned over on his other side with a grunt. Then he
gave a moan.
"Does something hurt, Grandpa?"
"They beat me," the old man said with an apologetic smile, showing his
pink, toothless gums. "They knocked the guts clean out of me."
Gavrik hid his face.
The old man did not say another word until evening. As soon as it grew
dark the boy said, "Come, Grandpa."
The old man rose, picked up his basket, and they set off, past the
shuttered villas, past the closed shooting gallery and restaurant, to 15
Malaya Arnautskaya Street.
After asking the janitor Gavrik had no difficulty in finding Joseph
Karlovich's room in the dark basement. He knocked on a door padded with torn
felt.
"Who's there?" came a voice that sounded familiar.
"Does Joseph Karlovich live here?"
"What do you want?"
"Open the door, please. Sophia Petrovna sent me."
The door was opened at once, and to his complete astonishment Gavrik
saw on the threshold the owner of the shooting gallery, holding a paraffin
lamp. He looked calmly and somewhat haughtily at the boy.
"I am Joseph Karlovich. What do you want?" he said, without moving from
the spot.
"How do you do, Joseph Karlovich?" Gavrik said painstakingly, as though
reciting a well-learned lesson. "Sophia Petrovna sent me to ask you if a
letter came from Nikolayev."
The owner of the shooting gallery surveyed the boy from head to foot in
amazement. This took him all of two minutes, even though Gavrik was only a
little chap.
"There hasn't been a letter for two months," he said finally, in a
haughtier tone than before.
He paused, then shook his head regretfully and added, "As unpunctual a
lady as ever lived. Isn't it a shame?"
And in a flash his face assumed the gracious expression of a Polish
count welcoming a Papal nuncio to his estate. It was an expression that did
not fit in at all with his bare feet and the absence of a shirt under his
jacket.
"I beg you humbly to enter, young man. If I recall correctly, you have
visited my establishment on occasion. What a pleasant coincidence! And this
old man, I believe, is your grandfather, isn't he? Please come in."
Grandfather and grandson entered a cubbyhole whose poverty amazed even
them.
Never had Gavrik imagined that this most powerful and richest of men,
who owned a shooting gallery and- just think of it!-four Monte Cristos,
lived in such a place.
He stared in wonder at the bare walls, covered with green mould. He
expected to see them hung with rifles and pistols, but he saw only one nail
from which dangled a pair of incredibly shabby braces that looked more like
reins than anything else.
"But where are your rifles?" he exclaimed, almost with horror.
Joseph Karlovich pretended he had not heard the question. With a
sweeping gesture he invited them to be seated.
"Is there something you wish to tell me?" he asked in a low voice from
the corner.
Gavrik said that his brother wanted him to take Grandpa in for a while.
"Tell your brother that I shall do everything necessary and that he
needn't have any misgivings," Joseph Karlovich said rapidly. "I have some
connections in town. I believe that sooner or later I shall succeed in
finding him a place as night watchman."
Gavrik left Grandpa with Joseph Karlovich, promising to look in from
time to time, and went out.
"Tell Terenti," the owner of the shooting gallery whispered at the
door, "that Sophia Petrovna wants him to know that she has quite a supply of
nuts, only she regrets they aren't very big ones. Not walnuts. He will
understand. They aren't walnuts. Have him arrange the transportation. Is
that clear?"
"Yes," said Gavrik, who was accustomed to receiving such messages.
"They're not walnuts, and have him send someone for them." "That's right."
Joseph Karlovich rummaged about in the lining of his frightful jacket
and produced a ten-kopek piece.
"Please take this and buy yourself some sweets. I regret that I cannot
offer you anything else. I should, upon my honour, be glad to present you
with a Monte Cristo, but-" Joseph Karlovich sadly spread his hands, and his
passion-ravaged face gave a twitch-"but unfortunately, owing to my
regrettable character, I haven't a single one left."
Gavrik solemnly accepted the ten-kopek piece, thanked him, and went out
into the street, which was lit up by the fitful glow of the illuminations.
A DEBT OF HONOUR
In the morning Petya took two pairs of leather sandals from the
storeroom and on the way to school sold them to an old-clothes man for four
kopeks.
When Gavrik appeared in the afternoon the boys immediately spread out
their lugs. Petya lost everything he had just bought even more quickly than
the first time.
It was easy to see why. The friends were too unevenly matched.
In Gavrik's pouches lay almost all the lugs of the seaside district. He
could afford big risks, while Petya had to treasure each deuce and place
miserly bets, which, as everyone knows, always leads to quick losses.
The next day Petya, no longer able to control himself, stealthily took
sixteen kopeks from the sideboard, change put there by Dunya.
This time he decided to play more wisely and cautiously. The first
thing he needed in order to win was a good king-lug. "
Petya's king-lug was a big and remarkably handsome livery button with
lions and a count's crown on it, but in spite of its beauty it was
worthless: it was too light. What he had to do was make it heavier. He went
to the railway station, made his way over to the sidings, and on a dead end
siding beyond the engine-shed he stripped a lead seal from a goods van,
nearly dying from fright as he did so.
At home he beat the lead into the bowl of his king-lug with a hammer.
Then he went across Kulikovo Field and put the lug on a rail. When he picked
it up after a suburban train had passed over it, the lug was hot and heavy
and wonderfully flattened out. Now it was as good as any of Gavrik's
king-lugs.
Gavrik came soon after, and they began to play. It was a long and
bitter contest.
A good king-lug was not enough, it appeared. Skill was the thing! Petya
ended up by losing everything he had and falling into debt besides.
Gavrik said he would come for the debt tomorrow.
The period that now set in for Petya was like a nightmare.
In the evening, after dinner, Father said calmly, "There was sixteen
kopeks' change on the sideboard. You didn't by any chance take it, did you?"
The blood rushed into Petya's heart and then out of it.
"No," he said with all the indifference he could muster.
"Come now, look me in the eye."
Father took Petya by the chin and turned up his face.
"On my word of honour," said Petya, trying his hardest to look Father
straight in the eye. "By the true and holy Cross."
Turning cold with horror, Petya faced the icon and crossed himself.
He expected a bolt of lightning to come through the ceiling and fell
thing or two himself.
Decent, sober folk were put in jail. The police had even locked up a
wonderful old man like Gavrik's grandfather, and were beating him, what's
more. The sailor had jumped off the ship. Soldiers had stopped the coach.
There were guards posted at the port. The trestle bridge had burnt down. A
battleship had shelled the city.
No, it was quite obvious that life was not at all the gay, pleasant,
carefree thing it had been just the very shortest while ago.
Petya was dying to ask Auntie Tatyana who had beaten the Tsar over the
head with a bamboo cane, and why. Especially, why with a bamboo cane? But he
already understood that there were things better not spoken of, that it was
better to keep silent and pretend to know nothing. The more so since Auntie
remained her good-natured, bantering, competent self, in no way showing the
feelings she had so openly revealed on that one evening.
October was approaching.
The acacia trees were almost bare of leaves. Storms raged at sea.
You had to have the lamp on when you got up and dressed.
For weeks at a time fog lay over the city. In the fog, people and trees
looked like drawings on frosted glass.
Lamps put out at nine in the morning were lighted again at five in the
afternoon. It drizzled. At times the rain stopped, the wind blew away the
fog, and then a red dawn flamed for a long time in a sky as clear as ice,
beyond the railway station, beyond the market, beyond the spikes of the
fences, beyond the bare branches of the trees, thickly peppered with crows'
nests as big and black as Manchurian fur caps.
Hands froze without gloves. The earth hardened. A terrifying emptiness
and transparency hung over the garrets. In those brief hours silence reigned
everywhere from earth to sky. The city was cut off from Kulikovo Field by
the transparent wall of silence. It had moved infinitely far away, with its
alarming rumours, its secrets, its anticipation of events to come. It was
clearly visible, in sharp focus; at the same time it was dreadfully remote,
as though seen through the wrong end of the opera-glasses.
But then the weather changed, the sky grew dark, and an impenetrable
fog moved in from the sea. Nothing was visible two paces away. The dark,
weird evening was followed by a black night.
A raw wind blew from the sea. From the port came the dark,
awe-inspiring voice of the foghorn. It began with bass notes and then
suddenly rose in a chromatic scale, at dizzying speed, to a penetrating but
smooth wail of inhuman pitch. It was as if a death-dealing projectile were
tearing through the murky sky with a blood-curdling wail.
On such evenings Petya could not overcome a feeling of horror whenever
he approached the window, opened the shutters, and looked out into the
street.
The vast, wild expanse of Kulikovo Field was pitch-dark. It merged with
the city in the foggy gloom, sharing its mysteries, mysteries that seemed to
be stealing silently from street lamp to street lamp, muffled in fog.
The shadows of rare pedestrians glided past. Occasionally a policeman's
whistle sounded, faint and long drawn out. A double watch of sentries was on
duty at the Army Staff building. The heavy tread of a patrol came through
the darkness.
There might be someone lying in wait at every corner. At any moment
something might happen-something unforeseen and terrible.
One evening something actually did happen.
At about ten o'clock Dunya, who had gone to the shop for paraffin, came
running into the dining-room, without taking off her shawl and said that
five minutes ago a sentry had shot himself in the vacant lot, near the wall
of the Army Staff building. She related the gory details: the soldier had
taken off one of his boots, put the muzzle of his gun in his mouth, and then
pulled the trigger with his big toe. The back of his head was blown off.
Dunya stood there, pale as death, with ashen lips, nervously tying and
untying a knot in the fringe of her woolly shawl.
"They say he didn't even leave a note," she said after a long silence.
"That's awful. Probably he couldn't write."
Auntie Tatyana pressed her knuckles against her temples as hard as she
could.
"Oh, why talk of a note!" she exclaimed, tears of vexation in her eyes.
She laid her head on the table-cloth beside a saucer of tea in which the
swaying dining-room lamp with its white shade was reflected in every detail,
but in miniature. "Why talk of a note! The thing is clear enough as it is!"
From the kitchen window, which looked out on the vacant lot, Petya
watched the roaming lamps of an ambulance and the shadows of people.
The boy sat on the icy windowsill in the empty kitchen, trembling with
fear and cold, his face pressed to the rain-washed windowpane. He was unable
to tear his eyes away from the darkness, which still seemed to be filled
with the presence of death.
That night Petya could not fall asleep for a long time. He kept seeing
in his imagination the terrifying corpse of the barefoot soldier in full
sentry kit, with the back of his head shattered and his face blue and
mysteriously immobile.
But the next morning, despite the horror, he could not resist the
temptation of having a look at the terrible spot.
An inexplicable force drew him to the vacant lot. On his way to the
Gymnasium he turned off in that direction and cautiously, as though in
church, tiptoed across the grass, wet and rotting from the rain and fog, up
in the place where a few curious people were already standing.
Near the wall of the Army Staff building he saw, in the damp earth, a
dent the size of a human head. It was full of rain water tinted pink. The
dead soldier's head must have struck that spot.
That was the only trace of what had happened the evening before.
Petya raised the collar of his Gymnasium overcoat. Shivering from the
dampness in the air, he stood for some time gazing at the dent. Suddenly he
noticed a small disc on the ground near his feet. He picked it up and
trembled with joy. It was a five-kopek piece, black and spotted, with a
turquoise mould covering the place where the eagle should have been.
Naturally, the find was accidental and had no bearing whatsoever on
what had taken place. The coin had probably lain there since summer. It may
have been lost by factory workers playing pitch-and-toss, or it may have
fallen out of the pocket of some beggar woman who spent the night in the
bushes. However, the coin immediately acquired in the boy's eyes an
importance bordering on the magic, and this besides the fact that here was
wealth: an entire five kopeks!
Petya's father never gave him money, feeling that money might easily
corrupt him. So that finding the five-kopek piece raised Petya to seventh
heaven.
That day, magically brightened by the find, was one P long holiday for
the boy.
In class the coin passed from hand to hand. Among Petya's classmates
there were lads experienced in such matters, and they swore, turning towards
the cupola of the St. Panteleimon Church and crossing themselves, that it
was without any doubt a magic five-kopek piece, a younger brother of the
magic ruble in the fairy-tale. It should bring Petya unbelievable riches,
they said.
One of the boys even offered his lunch, together with his lunch basket
and a penknife thrown in, in exchange for the talisman. Petya naturally
refused with a scornful laugh. Only a total idiot would have agreed to such
an exchange!
After school Petya raced home. He had to show his find to one and all
at home and in the yard as soon as possible.
What was his joy when he saw Gavrik in the yard!
Gavrik was on his knees, surrounded by a group of squatting children.
He was teaching them the popular game of lugs.
Petya hardly had time to give his friend, whom he had not seen for such
a long time, a proper greeting before he was caught up by the game. First
they played a trial game, using Gavrik's lugs. This merely fanned Petya's
excitement.
"Gavrik, lend me ten of them," he begged, stretching out a hand that
trembled with impatience. "As soon as I win I'll pay you back, by the true
and holy Cross I will!"
"Hands off! I've heard that tale before," Gavrik replied darkly. He
dropped the lugs into his grey baize pouch and neatly tied it with a piece
of string. "Lugs aren't pictures. They cost money. I can sell you some if
you like."
Petya did not take the slightest offence. He understood very well that
friendship was one thing but that every game had its inviolable rules. Since
lugs cost money you had to pay money for them, and friendship had nothing to
do with the matter. Such was the iron law of the street.
But what was he to do?
He was dying to play. A storm of indecision shook him. For no more than
a minute he hesitated, then reached into his pocket and held out the famous
five-kopek piece to Gavrik.
Gavrik gave the suspicious-looking coin a thorough examination and
shook his head.
"Nobody'll take it."
"They will too!"
"No, they won't!"
"You're a fool!"
"You're another! Take it to the shop and change it!"
"Go yourself."
"Why should I! It's your money."
"They're your lugs."
"I don't care if you buy any or not."
"Neither do I."
Gavrik calmly put the bag in his pocket and spat indifferently far to
one side through his teeth. At that Petya ran to the shop and asked to have
his five-kopek piece changed. While Izzy the Dizzy held the suspicious coin
up close to his weak eyes the boy lived through a score of the most
humiliating emotions, chief among them the cowardly impatience of the thief
selling stolen goods.
It wouldn't have surprised Petya at all if at that moment policemen
with swords had marched into the shop and dragged him off to the jail in a
carriage for being a party to some secret and shameful crime.
At last Izzy the Dizzy threw the coin into the cashbox and carelessly
tossed five one-kopek pieces on the scales. Petya rushed back to the yard,
where Gavrik was now selling lugs to the other boys. Spending all his money,
Petya bought several lugs of different denominations.
They began to play. Petya forgot everything in the world.
By the time darkness fell, Petya was left without a single lug. What
made it still more awful was the fact that at the beginning he had had
amazing luck-there had been no room in his pockets for all the lugs he had
won.
But now, alas, he had neither money nor lugs.
Petya was close to tears. He was in the depths of despair. Gavrik took
pity on his friend, and lent him two cheap lugs with which to recoup his
losses. But Petya was too reckless and impatient, and within five minutes he
had lost both. He was no match for Gavrik.
Gavrik carelessly dropped his fabulous winnings into his pouch and set
off for home, saying that he would come again the next day.
LUGS
How many of them there were!
The fat student tens with superimposed eagles riveted on them. The
golden officers' fives with the eagles embossed. The brown buttons of the
commercial school with Mercury's wand entwined by snakes and with the cheeky
little winged cap. The light-coloured mariners' buttons with crossed
anchors. The post-and-telegraph ones with green streaks of lightning and
bugles. The artillery men's buttons with guns on them. The lawyers' buttons
with columns of laws. The brass livery buttons as big as a fifty-kopek piece
and decorated with lions. The fat threes from civil servants' uniforms. The
thin clerks' "lemons" which hummed like mosquitoes when they were struck
during the game. The fat ordinary buttons from Gymnasium overcoats with
silver-plated hollows rubbed red in the middle.
For one brief and happy moment all these fabulous treasures, the entire
heraldry of the Russian Empire, were concentrated in Petya's hands.
His palms could still feel the different shapes of the lugs and their
solid leaden weight, but now he was completely bankrupt, ruined, cast to the
winds. Who had talked about a magic five-kopek piece?!
Lugs, and nothing but lugs-that was all Petya could think of now. They
were constantly before his eyes, like the dream vision of a fortune. At the
dinner table he gazed absently into his plate of soup, where at least three
hundred tiny lamp-shades were reflected in the globules of fat, but what he
saw were three hundred sparkling lugs with golden eagles.
He looked in disgust at the buttons on his father's jacket. They were
cloth-covered. Absolutely worthless.
In fact, today he had discovered that he lived in a poverty-stricken
family; there was not a single decent button in the whole flat.
Auntie Tatyana immediately noticed her nephew's strange mood.
"What's the matter with you today?" she asked, examining Petya's
unusually excited face with a searching glance. "The boys in the yard didn't
go for you, by any chance?"
Petya shook his head angrily.
"Or is it poor marks in school again? If so, out with it, but don't sit
there suffering."
"Leave me alone! I don't see why you all have to pick on me!"
"You aren't ill by any chance, are you?"
"Oh, lor'!"
Petya began to whimper at all this questioning.
"Very well. If you don't want to tell me you needn't. Suffer as much as
you like."
Petya really was suffering. He was racking his brains for a way to get
the money he needed for next day's game. He slept badly, tormented by the
desire to recoup his losses as quickly as possible. In the morning he
decided upon a subtle scheme.
For a long time he hovered affectionately at his father's side, poking
his head up under his father's elbow and planting kisses on his red porous
neck, which had a fresh, soapy smell. Father stroked the little scholar's
stubbly head and pressed it to the jacket with the disgusting buttons.
"What is it, Petya, what is it, my little man?"
That was just the question Petya had been waiting for, that and the
gentle tremor in his father's voice, telling him that now he could get
whatever he wanted.
"Daddy," he said, squirming and adjusting his belt with feigned
shyness, "Daddy, I want five kopeks."
"What for?" Even in his gentlest moods Father never lost sight of his
strict principles of upbringing.
"I need it badly."
"You must tell my why."
"I need it, that's all."
"But tell me why. I must know how you plan to spend that sum of money.
If it's for something useful and necessary I shall be glad to give it to
you, but if it's for something bad I shan't. So tell me now. What do you
need the money for?"
How could Petya tell Father that he needed the money to gamble with?
That was quite out of the question.
So he pulled the frank expression of a well-mannered boy who wants
something for his sweet tooth.
"I'll buy some chocolate," he mumbled.
"Chocolate? Splendid! I could hardly object to that."
Petya beamed.
Father rose and without a word walked over to the desk. He opened it
and handed the stunned boy a bar of chocolate with a picture on the wrapper.
The wrapper was sealed like an envelope, with five blobs of sealing wax
printed on it.
Petya took the chocolate, tears in his eyes.
"Thank you, Daddy dear," he mumbled.
He set off for the Gymnasium with a broken heart.
Still, it was better than nothing. Perhaps he would be able to swap the
chocolate for some lugs.
That day, however, Petya had no opportunity to play lugs.
Hardly had he passed Kulikovo Field and entered Novorybnaya Street, in
which the Gymnasium stood, when he noticed that some very special,
important, and extremely joyous event was taking place in the city.
Despite the early hour the streets were full of people. All of them
looked very excited and alert, although none seemed to be in a hurry to get
anywhere. Most of the people were standing in groups near the gateways of
houses or had gathered round the book-stalls on the street corners. On all
sides Petya saw people unfolding newspapers which turned an even greyer grey
in the fine drizzle.
The national flag of white, blue, and red had been hung out on all the
houses. By looking at the flags Petya could guess how rich the householders
were. Some flags were small and faded, with short staffs carelessly attached
to the gateways. Others were huge and brand-new, and had an edging of
tricoloured cord with elaborate tricoloured tassels reaching all the way to
the pavement.
The wind had a hard time of it to stir those heavy flags, which gave
off a distinct odour of dye.
The Gymnasium was closed. Happy-faced schoolboys were running down the
street in Petya's direction. The Gymnasium porter, in a white apron over his
winter coat with a sheepskin collar, was stringing a thin wire among the
trees in front of the building. That meant there would be illuminations in
the evening! There were always illuminations on holidays, for instance, on
the namedays of His Majesty the Emperor and the members of the royal family.
In Petya's imagination the three magic words "illuminations", "holiday"
and "nameday" were like the three facets of a glass lustre from a church
chandelier. Such pendants had a high value among the boys of Odessa. When
you put the small prism to your eye, the whole world became bright with the
patriotic rainbow of the " Tsar's day .
But was this a "Tsar's day"? No, it wasn't. One always knew when they
were coming by the calendar, and the number on Father's calendar today was
black, which meant neither illuminations nor a holiday nor a royal nameday.
In that case, what was it all about? Could another heir have been born
to the Tsar, like last year? No, that was impossible. He couldn't have a boy
every year, could he? So it must be something else. But what?
"I say there, what's today?" Petya asked the porter.
"Freedom," the porter replied in what to Petya seemed a jesting tone.
"No, really."
"Just what I said-freedom."
"Freedom?"
"Freedom to go home today because there won't be any lessons. They're
cancelled."
Petya's feelings were hurt.
"Listen here, porter, I want a straight answer," he said sternly, doing
his best to uphold the dignity of a pupil of the Odessa Fifth Gymnasium.
"That's just what I gave you. And now go home to your loving parents
and stop bothering a man who has work to do."
With a scornful shrug of his shoulders Petya nonchalantly sauntered
away from this porter who had developed the disgusting habit of addressing
pupils in the tone of a pedagogue.
The policeman to whom, as a representative of the government, Petya
decided to address his question, looked the swarthy little boy up and down
and slowly stroked his long red moustaches.
Then all of a sudden he screwed up his face in a typically Jewish
expression and said with an accent, "Frid'm!"
Thoroughly crushed, Petya slowly made his way home.
More and more people were coming out into the streets. Here and there
Petya saw student caps, the astrakhan muffs of college girls and the
broad-brimmed hats of free-thinkers. Several times again he heard the rather
hazy word "freedom".
At the corner of Kanatnaya Street his attention was attracted by a knot
of people gathered round a sheet of paper pasted on the wooden fence of the
firewood yard.
He made his way forward, and this is what he read:
We, Nikolai the Second,
by the Grace of God Emperor
and Autocrat of All the Russias,
Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke of Finland,
and so on and so forth.
Riots and disturbances in the capital cities and in many other places
of Our Empire have filled Our heart with great and heavy grief. The weal of
the Russian Sovereign is indivisible from the weal of the people; the
people's grief is His grief. The disturbances that have now broken out may
lead to a profound dislocation of the nation and may threaten the integrity
and unity of Our State.
The great oath of Royal service enjoins Us to strive, with all the
powers of Our reason and authority, for the earliest termination of the
disturbances so dangerous to the State. . . .
Petya managed to get that far, but not without some difficulty; he
stumbled over such strange and hazy words as "weal", "dislocation",
"enjoins" and "earliest termination", and also the large number of capital
letters; contrary to all rules of spelling, they stuck up in the most
unexpected places, like charred stumps after a forest fire.
The only thing he could make out of it all was that the Tsar was
evidently in trouble and was asking everyone to help him in any way he
could.
To tell the truth, deep down in his heart Petya felt a bit sorry for
the poor Tsar, especially when he remembered that someone had beaten him
over the head with a bamboo cane.
But why everybody should be rejoicing and hanging out flags was a
mystery. Could something more cheerful be written farther on? However, he
did not have the perseverance to read the Tsar's sad sheet to the end.
Petya did notice, however, that almost every person who came up to the
announcement looked first of all for a place in the middle which for some
reason gave him special pleasure. It was a place he was sure to read aloud,
and then, turning to the others, he would exclaim triumphantly: "Aha! It's
actually down in black and white: 'To grant inviolability of person, freedom
of conscience, speech, assembly, and association.' "
After this some of the people, paying no attention to the fact that
they were in the street, would shout "Hurrah!" and kiss those around them,
just like at Easter.
Here it was that the boy witnessed a scene which stirred him to the
depths of his heart.
A droshky drove up to the crowd, a gentleman in a bowler that was
brand-new but already crushed jumped lightly from it to the ground, put a
pair of crooked pince-nez to his nose, quickly read the wonderful place,
then kissed the astounded driver three times on his copper-red beard, flung
himself into the droshky, and, shouting at the top of his voice, "Half a
ruble for vodka! Drive like hell, you dog!" disappeared as suddenly as he
had appeared.
In short, it was an extraordinary day in every respect.
The sky had cleared. The drizzle stopped. A mother-of-pearl sun broke
through.
In the yard, Nusya Kogan was striding up and down importantly in his
black school jacket that had hooks instead of buttons and in a cap without a
badge. He was dreaming for how he would now be able to enter the Gymnasium,
since there was to be religious freedom, and of the handsome badge he would
wear on his cap.
Petya played hopscotch with him for a long time, pausing after each hop
to describe the horrors of life at the Gymnasium in an attempt to frighten
Nusya.
"Then he calls your name and starts questioning you, and you don't know
a thing. And then he says to you, 'Go to your seat. Sit down!' And then he
puts a nought opposite your name. That's what it's like!"
"But what if I prepare my lessons well?" the sensible Nusya replied
with a confident grin, shrugging his shoulders.
"Makes no difference," Petya insisted, hopping on one leg and pushing
the stone out of the "Heaven" square with his toe. "Makes no difference!
He'll slap down a nought!"
Then Petya treated Nusya to a piece of chocolate, and Nusya ran into
the shop and brought out "a handful like that" of raisins.
Then Petya was called in to lunch. He invited Nusya to come along with
him. Father was already at home.
"Ah!" he exclaimed gaily at sight of Nusya. "So we shall soon have the
pleasure of seeing you a Gymnasium pupil, young) man! Congratulations,
congratulations!"
Nusya made a polite, dignified bow.
"Why not?" he said, dropping his eyes in shy pride and blushing a deep
pink with pleasure.
Auntie Tatyana beamed. Father beamed. Pavlik made loud noises in the
passage as he played "freedom". For a reason he alone knew he covered the
overturned chairs, placed in a row, with a rug and crawled under it,
mercilessly tooting on his horn, without which, to everyone's annoyance, not
a single game was played.
But today no one stopped the lad, and he played away to his heart's
content.
Dunya kept running in from the yard to report the latest news in town.
That at the railway station there was a crowd carrying a red flag, a crowd
so thick "you couldn't squeeze through it". That in Richelieu Street the
crowd had cheered a soldier and had tossed him up in the air. "The poor
thing flew up and down, up and down!" That people were running from all
sides to the police station where, it was said, the prisoners were being
released. "A woman was running with a little girl in her arms, and she was
crying for all she was worth!" That there was a guard of military cadets at
the Army Staff building, and they weren't letting anyone through to see the
soldiers, and were driving people away from the windows. But one daring
fellow did manage to get up to a window. He stood on a rock and shouted,
"Long live freedom!" And the soldiers replied through the windows, "Long
live freedom!"
All this news was accepted joyfully, with eager questions :
"What about the police?"
"What did he do?"
"What did she do?"
"What did they do?"
"What's happening in Greek Street?"
Every once in a while they opened the balcony door and stepped out, in
spite of the cold, to see what was going on in the street. At the end of
Kulikovo Field they could make out a dark mass of people and a red flag.
That evening visitors dropped in, which was something that had not
happened for a long time. They were teachers who taught in the same school
as Father and college girls who were acquaintances of Auntie Tatyana. The
hall-stand was covered with black overcoats, capes, broad-brimmed hats and
little astrakhan caps.
Petya sat in the kitchen watching the boiled sausage, the choice ham,
and the bread being sliced.
As he dropped to sleep after that tiring but happy day he could hear,
from the dining-room, the rumble and laughter of strange voices and the
tinkle of spoons.
Together with the bright ray of light, blue cigarette smoke came into
the nursery from the dining-room. It added to the fresh, warm air something
unusually manly and free, something they did not have in the house, for
Father did not smoke.
Outside the window it was much lighter than usual; jelly-like streaks
of light from the different-coloured lanterns were mingled with the weak
glow from the street lamps.
Petya knew that now, instead of the flags, six-sided lanterns with
panes that were red-hot and smoky from the candles burning inside had been
strung on wires between the trees, all over the city.
Double lines of the same kind of lights stretched all the way down the
long, straight Odessa streets. They beckoned one farther and farther into
the mysterious distance of the transformed city, from street to street, as
though promising that somewhere, perhaps very near, just round the corner,
there was a wonderful, colourful spectacle of remarkable beauty and
brilliance.
But round the corner there would be the same long street and the same
rows of lanterns-monotonous, even though they were of different colours, and
just as tired of burning as man was tired of walking between them.
Red, green, violet, yellow, and blue bars of lights, bending in the
fog, fell on the passers-by, slid across the house fronts, and gave their
false promises of something new and much more beautiful round the corner.
All this wearisome variety had always been called "royal nameday",
"holiday", or "Tsar's day", but today it was called by a new word, which
also had a sound of many different colours-"constitution".
The word "constitution" kept coming from the dining-room amidst the
rumble-of strange, deep voices and the silvery tinkle of tea spoons.
Petya fell asleep to the noise of the gathering, which lasted until an
unusually late hour, probably until nearly midnight.
IN THE BASEMENT
As soon as the rumour reached Near Mills that prisoners were being
released, Gavrik set off for the police station.
Terenti, who had not slept at home for the past week and had appeared
from some unknown place early that morning, walked to the corner with
Gavrik. He was gloomy, and so tired that he could scarcely keep on his feet.
"Go and meet the old man, of course, Gavrik. Only for the love of God
don't bring him here. Because with all this 'freedom', may it be thrice
damned, there's probably plenty of snoopers about. One of them will hang on
your tail and then that'll be the end of our meeting place, and a lot of
people will get into trouble. Clear?"
Gavrik nodded. "Uh-huh."
Since he had come to live in Near Mills, Gavrik had learned to
understand a great deal and had found out many things. It was no longer a
secret to him that the strike committee was meeting at Terenti's house.
Many was the time he had had to sit on the bench beside the gate almost
till dawn, whistling softly whenever strangers came near the house.
Several times he had seen the sailor, who appeared out of nowhere at
dawn and then quickly disappeared. Now he was hardly recognisable. He wore a
good overcoat and an engineer's cap with the crossed hammers badge. But the
main thing was his foppish little moustache and beard. They changed him so
much that the boy couldn't believe he was the same man he and Grandpa had
pulled out of the sea.
However, one look into those humorous brown eyes, at that fleeting
smile, and at the anchor on his hand caused all doubts to vanish.
In keeping with the unwritten but firm law of Near Mills never to be
surprised at anything, never to recognise anyone, and to hold one's tongue,
whenever Gavrik met the sailor he pretended he had never seen him before.
The sailor behaved the same way towards Gavrik.
Only once, when leaving, did he nod to the boy as to an old
acquaintance, giving him a wink and clapping him on the back as he would a
grown-up.
"Weep no more, Marusya," he sang out, "you will yet be mine!"
Then, bending his head in the low doorway, he stepped out into the
darkness.
Gavrik sensed that of all the people who came to see Terenti-from the
Ghen factory, from the Weinstein flour-mill, from the docks, from the
Brodsky factory, and a great many other places-the sailor was the one the
authorities most feared and were most anxious to track down.
He undoubtedly belonged to that glorious and mysterious "fighting
group" about which there was so much talk of late not only in Near Mills but
everywhere in town.
"Uh-huh," said Gavrik. "Only it's damned cold, and if I don't bring the
old man to Near Mills where else can I take him?"
Terenti thought for a moment. "Listen," he said finally. "First take
him down to the beach, to the hut. If anybody shadows you he won't learn a
thing. Wait in the hut till it's dark, and then carefully go straight to
this address-only memorise it: it's 15 Malaya Arnautskaya. Find the janitor
and ask him for Joseph Karlovich. When you see Joseph Karlovich you say-now
remember this- 'How do you do, Joseph Karlovich? Sophia Petrovna sent me to
ask if you've received any letters from Nikolayev.' Then he'll say, 'No, I
haven't had a letter for two months.' Clear?"
"Uh-huh."
"Can you repeat it?"
"Uh-huh."
"Let's hear it."
Gavrik puckered his forehead and wrinkled his nose. "Well, it's 15
Malaya Arnautskaya," he said, concentrating as though he were answering at
an exam. "I ask the janitor for Joseph Karlovich, and then I say, 'How do
you do, Joseph Karlovich? Sophia Petrovna sent me to ask you if a letter
came from Nikolayev.' And then he says, 'I haven't had a letter for two
months.' "
"Right. After that you needn't be afraid to tell him Terenti sent you.
Tell biny-to let the old man live at his place for a while, and to feed him.
Later we'll see. I'll drop in. Clear?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, good-bye."
Terenti returned home, while Gavrik hurried off to the jail.
He ran for all he was worth, squeezing his way through the crowd which
became thicker and thicker as he approached the railway station.
At Sennaya Square he began to meet men who had been released from the
jail. Some were on foot and others rode in droshkies surrounded by bundles
and baskets as though coming from the railway station; they were accompanied
by relatives and friends, and they waved their hats in the air.
Crowds ran down the street beside the droshkies, chanting, "Long live
freedom! Long live freedom!"
Near the Alexandrovsky jail, which was surrounded by reinforced details
of mounted and foot police, there was such a huge, dense crowd that even
Gavrik despaired of making his way through it. In that crowd he might very
easily miss Grandpa.
The mere thought that if this happened Grandpa might bring some snooper
along with him to Near Mills sent the boy into a cold sweat.
His heart pounding, he dashed down an alley to bypass the crowd. He
simply had to reach the jail and find Grandpa. Suddenly he saw him two paces
away.
But good heavens, could that be Grandpa? Gavrik did not recognise him
at first.
Coming towards him was a decrepit old man with a beard of silvery
bristles, with watery blue eyes, and a sunken, toothless mouth. He was
keeping as close as he could to the walls of the houses. His legs were bent,
and they swayed as though they were made of cotton wool. He was shuffling
along with difficulty in his broken boots, stopping to rest at every third
step. But for the basket that dangled from the old man's trembling hand
Gavrik never would have recognised him.
The familiar wicker basket with the grimy canvas cover immediately
caught the boy's eye. It made his heart contract with pain.
"Grandpa!" he shouted in a frightened voice. "Grandpa, is that you?"
The old man did not even give a start. Slowly he stopped and turned
towards Gavrik a face that expressed neither joy nor excitement, nothing but
submissive resignation. He chewed his lips indifferently. His watery eyes
stared at some point in the distance, and they were so motionless that one
might have thought he did not see his grandson.
"Grandpa, where are you going?" Gavrik asked, raising his voice as
though the old man were deaf.
The old man chewed his lips for a long time before he replied.
"To Near Mills," he announced in a quiet, normal voice.
"You can't," Gavrik whispered, glancing over his shoulder. "Terenti
said for heaven's sake not to go to Near Mills."
The old man also glanced over his shoulder, but in a sort of slow,
indifferent, mechanical way.
"Come, Grandpa, let's go home and then we'll see."
Grandpa obediently turned round, and without saying a word started to
shuffle in the opposite direction, putting one foot before the other with an
effort.
Gavrik gave Grandpa his shoulder, and the old man leaned heavily on it.
Slowly they made their way across the restless city towards the sea, like a
blind man with his guide-the boy in front and the old man behind him.
The old man stopped frequently to rest. It took them two hours to reach
the shore from the police station. Alone, Gavrik usually covered that
distance in fifteen minutes.
The padlock, broken and rusty, lay in the brown weeds near the hut. The
door hung crookedly on the upper hinge, swaying and creaking in the wind.
The autumn rains had taken the last traces of Grandma's whitewash from the
blackened boards. The entire roof was covered with burdock stalks: this was
obviously the work of bird-catchers, who had turned the vacant hut into a
trap.
Inside, everything was topsy-turvy. The tattered quilt and the pillow,
damp and smeared with clay, lay in a corner. The little trunk, however, had
net been touched and stood in its usual place. Unhurriedly the old man
entered his home. He sat down on the edge of the bed, put the basket on his
knees, and stared impassively at the corner of the wall, paying no attention
whatsoever to the disorder.
It was as though he had merely dropped in to take a rest, to sit for a
minute or two and catch his breath, and then slowly to set out again.
A strong cold wind laden with sea spray blew in through the broken
window. A storm was raging along the deserted coast. The wind carried white
tufts-seagulls and bits of foam-over the echoing cliffs. The thunder of the
waves resounded in the caves along the shore.
"Why don't you lie down, Grandpa?"
Grandpa obediently lay down. Gavrik put a pillow under his head and
covered him with the quilt. The old man pulled up his legs. He was
shivering.
"Never mind, Grandpa. As soon as it's dark we'll go somewhere else.
Take a rest meanwhile."
Grandpa did not answer. His entire appearance expressed complete
indifference and resignation. Suddenly he looked at Gavrik with swollen,
watery eyes that seemed turned wrong side out and said, after chewing his
sunken lips for a long time, "The boat. Is it safe?"
Gavrik hastened to assure him that the boat was in a safe place, at a
neighbour's. The old man nodded in approval and again fell silent.
After an hour he turned over on his other side with a grunt. Then he
gave a moan.
"Does something hurt, Grandpa?"
"They beat me," the old man said with an apologetic smile, showing his
pink, toothless gums. "They knocked the guts clean out of me."
Gavrik hid his face.
The old man did not say another word until evening. As soon as it grew
dark the boy said, "Come, Grandpa."
The old man rose, picked up his basket, and they set off, past the
shuttered villas, past the closed shooting gallery and restaurant, to 15
Malaya Arnautskaya Street.
After asking the janitor Gavrik had no difficulty in finding Joseph
Karlovich's room in the dark basement. He knocked on a door padded with torn
felt.
"Who's there?" came a voice that sounded familiar.
"Does Joseph Karlovich live here?"
"What do you want?"
"Open the door, please. Sophia Petrovna sent me."
The door was opened at once, and to his complete astonishment Gavrik
saw on the threshold the owner of the shooting gallery, holding a paraffin
lamp. He looked calmly and somewhat haughtily at the boy.
"I am Joseph Karlovich. What do you want?" he said, without moving from
the spot.
"How do you do, Joseph Karlovich?" Gavrik said painstakingly, as though
reciting a well-learned lesson. "Sophia Petrovna sent me to ask you if a
letter came from Nikolayev."
The owner of the shooting gallery surveyed the boy from head to foot in
amazement. This took him all of two minutes, even though Gavrik was only a
little chap.
"There hasn't been a letter for two months," he said finally, in a
haughtier tone than before.
He paused, then shook his head regretfully and added, "As unpunctual a
lady as ever lived. Isn't it a shame?"
And in a flash his face assumed the gracious expression of a Polish
count welcoming a Papal nuncio to his estate. It was an expression that did
not fit in at all with his bare feet and the absence of a shirt under his
jacket.
"I beg you humbly to enter, young man. If I recall correctly, you have
visited my establishment on occasion. What a pleasant coincidence! And this
old man, I believe, is your grandfather, isn't he? Please come in."
Grandfather and grandson entered a cubbyhole whose poverty amazed even
them.
Never had Gavrik imagined that this most powerful and richest of men,
who owned a shooting gallery and- just think of it!-four Monte Cristos,
lived in such a place.
He stared in wonder at the bare walls, covered with green mould. He
expected to see them hung with rifles and pistols, but he saw only one nail
from which dangled a pair of incredibly shabby braces that looked more like
reins than anything else.
"But where are your rifles?" he exclaimed, almost with horror.
Joseph Karlovich pretended he had not heard the question. With a
sweeping gesture he invited them to be seated.
"Is there something you wish to tell me?" he asked in a low voice from
the corner.
Gavrik said that his brother wanted him to take Grandpa in for a while.
"Tell your brother that I shall do everything necessary and that he
needn't have any misgivings," Joseph Karlovich said rapidly. "I have some
connections in town. I believe that sooner or later I shall succeed in
finding him a place as night watchman."
Gavrik left Grandpa with Joseph Karlovich, promising to look in from
time to time, and went out.
"Tell Terenti," the owner of the shooting gallery whispered at the
door, "that Sophia Petrovna wants him to know that she has quite a supply of
nuts, only she regrets they aren't very big ones. Not walnuts. He will
understand. They aren't walnuts. Have him arrange the transportation. Is
that clear?"
"Yes," said Gavrik, who was accustomed to receiving such messages.
"They're not walnuts, and have him send someone for them." "That's right."
Joseph Karlovich rummaged about in the lining of his frightful jacket
and produced a ten-kopek piece.
"Please take this and buy yourself some sweets. I regret that I cannot
offer you anything else. I should, upon my honour, be glad to present you
with a Monte Cristo, but-" Joseph Karlovich sadly spread his hands, and his
passion-ravaged face gave a twitch-"but unfortunately, owing to my
regrettable character, I haven't a single one left."
Gavrik solemnly accepted the ten-kopek piece, thanked him, and went out
into the street, which was lit up by the fitful glow of the illuminations.
A DEBT OF HONOUR
In the morning Petya took two pairs of leather sandals from the
storeroom and on the way to school sold them to an old-clothes man for four
kopeks.
When Gavrik appeared in the afternoon the boys immediately spread out
their lugs. Petya lost everything he had just bought even more quickly than
the first time.
It was easy to see why. The friends were too unevenly matched.
In Gavrik's pouches lay almost all the lugs of the seaside district. He
could afford big risks, while Petya had to treasure each deuce and place
miserly bets, which, as everyone knows, always leads to quick losses.
The next day Petya, no longer able to control himself, stealthily took
sixteen kopeks from the sideboard, change put there by Dunya.
This time he decided to play more wisely and cautiously. The first
thing he needed in order to win was a good king-lug. "
Petya's king-lug was a big and remarkably handsome livery button with
lions and a count's crown on it, but in spite of its beauty it was
worthless: it was too light. What he had to do was make it heavier. He went
to the railway station, made his way over to the sidings, and on a dead end
siding beyond the engine-shed he stripped a lead seal from a goods van,
nearly dying from fright as he did so.
At home he beat the lead into the bowl of his king-lug with a hammer.
Then he went across Kulikovo Field and put the lug on a rail. When he picked
it up after a suburban train had passed over it, the lug was hot and heavy
and wonderfully flattened out. Now it was as good as any of Gavrik's
king-lugs.
Gavrik came soon after, and they began to play. It was a long and
bitter contest.
A good king-lug was not enough, it appeared. Skill was the thing! Petya
ended up by losing everything he had and falling into debt besides.
Gavrik said he would come for the debt tomorrow.
The period that now set in for Petya was like a nightmare.
In the evening, after dinner, Father said calmly, "There was sixteen
kopeks' change on the sideboard. You didn't by any chance take it, did you?"
The blood rushed into Petya's heart and then out of it.
"No," he said with all the indifference he could muster.
"Come now, look me in the eye."
Father took Petya by the chin and turned up his face.
"On my word of honour," said Petya, trying his hardest to look Father
straight in the eye. "By the true and holy Cross."
Turning cold with horror, Petya faced the icon and crossed himself.
He expected a bolt of lightning to come through the ceiling and fell