no good, the more they tried, the more they quickened their pace to their
natural Italian tempo.
They waved their hats and walking-sticks and shouted out slogans:
"Long live socialism! Workers of the world, unite! Down with war
expenditures! Down with the government of war! We want peace!"
Passers-by joined the demonstration. Many of them were wheeling
bicycles. Street vendors pushed their handcarts. The old organ-grinder had
joined them, too. Everything was bathed in the rosy glow of sunset, lending
a theatrical setting to the scene, but still Petya was greatly alarmed. He
squeezed Pavlik's hand, and his alarm was transmitted to Pavlik.
"Petka," he shouted, "this is a revolution!"
"No, it's a demonstration," Petya said. "Who cares-let's run!"
But they were now caught up in the crowd and had no idea how to get out
or which way to run.
Just then they heard loud voices behind them, speaking Russian. A
number of people, including a boy Petya's age in a jacket, were elbowing
their way through the crowd, closer to the marchers. The boy in the jacket
had a high forehead and a duck-like nose with drops of perspiration on it;
he was pushing and shoving with all his might. A thin man with a yellow
moustache above a shaven chin, wearing a cream-coloured summer coat and cap
all awry, apparently the boy's father, had a firm grip on his shoulder and
kept repeating in a hollow bass voice:
"Take it easy, Max, take it easy!" He stretched his long, sinewy neck
over the heads of the crowd and looked sharply ahead; although urging Max to
take it easy, he himself, apparently, was unable to follow this advice. At
times he would turn around and shout to someone behind, accenting his o's in
a Nizhny-Novgorod fashion.
"Come closer, gentlemen! Come closer. Last year these
anarchist-syndicalists were lying on the tracks blocking the way with their
bodies, but look at them today. There's a world of difference in their
tactics!"
"Yes, you're right!" a man in a pince-nez and panama replied rolling
his r's and swallowing the endings of the words. "This proves my point that
although Russia has become the centre of revolution since 1905, still, the
consolidation of the European proletariat is progressing rapidly. I beg your
pardon," he said to Petya in passing, as the sleeve of his ample jacket
brushed against the boy's head.
He was followed by another Russian in a cheap, ill-fitting suit and a
new felt hat on his round, firmly-set head. The new-comer had a bamboo
walking-stick on his arm and forged ahead, cutting his way through the crowd
with his bulging chest; he saw only the demonstrators who seemed to draw his
whole being irrepressibly. His knitted eyebrows, twitching face muscles,
parted lips, and small angry eyes-all seemed strangely familiar to Petya.
The arm with the bamboo cane thrust Petya aside, and the boy had a good
look at the short fingers, the thick, square-cut nails, the white knuckles,
and an anchor tattooed on the bulging muscle between thumb and forefinger.
Petya had no time to wonder why the little faded blue anchor seemed so
familiar or who these Russians were and what they were doing here, because
the crowd swayed and surged first to the right, then to the left, and Petya
caught a glimpse of the three-cornered hats and narrow red stripes on the
trousers of the carabineers at the far end of the street. He saw the black
plumes of the bersaglieri's hats as they passed on the double, rifles at the
ready.
A harsh, menacing bugle blast pierced the air. For a split second a
hush descended on the crowd. It was broken by the sound of shattering glass,
and then everything spun around in a howling, screaming, wailing, running
mass.
Several shots rang out.
Petya and Pavlik were swept away by the stampede; they held hands
tightly, trying to keep together. Petya forgot that they were abroad and at
any minute he expected to see Cossacks gallop out of a side-street, lashing
out left and right with their whips. He thought he was running down Odessa's
Malaya Arnautskaya, an impression heightened by the fact that here, too,
they were treading on scattered chestnuts.
Someone knocked Pavlik over. He fell and skinned his knee, but Petya
pulled him to his feet and dragged him on. Pavlik was so scared that he
forgot to cry, he kept repeating:
"Run! Hurry, let's run!"
Finally, they were swept into a narrow courtyard paved with worn
flagstones and cluttered with dustbins. There were lovely iron grates on the
ground-floor windows. The boys ran under a dirty marble archway, where each
step rang and resounded like a pistol shot, and found themselves out in the
street, opposite a small park on a steep slope. Several people were
scrambling up the dark, weathered stones that covered the slope. This was
all that was left of the crowd that had swept them into the courtyard. The
boys began to climb the slope too, but it was much steeper and higher than
it had seemed. A marble lion's head jutted out of the wall, and a stream of
water spurted from an iron pipe in the lion's mouth into a marble basin.
Petya edged Pavlik towards the basin and tried to push him up. But Pavlik
could not get a grip.
"Come on, climb up!" Petya shouted. "You clumsy ox!" Just then more
people ran out of the marble gateway. These were the Russians-the boy in the
short jacket and the three men Petya had seen in the crowd.
The boy was tugging his father along by the sleeve, but the father kept
stopping and turning back. His fists were clenched and his cap had slid to
the back of his head; a shock of yellow hair showed from under the tilted
peak; his moustache bristled and his blue eyes burned with an angry fire.
"Do you want to be killed? Come on," the boy was saying, as he hung on
to him tightly, "take it easy!"
"Alexei Maximovich, you're much too reckless! You have no right to take
such a risk!" the man in the pince-nez said, rubbing his bruised shoulder.
"I'll be damned if I don't go back and give that long-nosed idiot in
the striped trousers one in the face!" Alexei Maximovich muttered in his
deep voice. "I'll teach him to respect women!" A fit of coughing reduced him
to silence.
The boy in the short jacket was holding on grimly to his father's
sleeve. The man with the anchor on his hand also seemed ready to dash back
into the fray and restrained himself with difficulty.
"Come on, climb, Pavlik!" Petya shouted desperately. At the sound of
his voice the Russians turned to him.
"Look, Russians!" the boy said.
"What are you doing here?" the man in the pince-nez said sternly.
The man with the anchor on his hand scaled the wall as nimbly as a cat,
extended his bamboo cane, and helped the others up, one by one, including
Petya and a tear-stained Pavlik.
It was so calm and peaceful there, it was difficult to imagine that a
few moments before, somewhere nearby, soldiers and carabineers had been
breaking up the demonstration, broken glass had jangled on the pavement,
people had fallen, and the revolvers had barked in the streets.
Alexei Maximovich looked at Petya and Pavlik quizzically.
"Well, young gentlemen of the Russian Empire, and what may you be doing
here?"
Feeling that they were now among fellow-countrymen, the boys' spirits
rose. They kept interrupting each other in their haste to relate their
adventures, but all the while Petya had the feeling that somehow the men-
Alexei Maximovich and the one with the anchor on his hand-were familiar. No
matter how he strained his memory he could not place Alexei Maximovich, but
he soon remembered and recognized the other, although he could not quite
believe it at first.
"Well, well, you travellers, things aren't so bad," Alexei Maximovich
said. "One skinned knee for the two of you. It could have been much worse."
With these words he gathered Pavlik under his arm ' and carried him
over to the fountain. He washed his knee thoroughly, bandaged it swiftly and
tightly with a handkerchief, set the boy down, and told him to walk up and
down.
"Fine! You can return to the ranks now. First rinse your face and paws
in the basin, though, or you'll really frighten your father. By the way,
what's your name?"
"Pavlik."
"And your brother's?"
"Petya."
"Excellent. Max, come over here. I have a job for you. Take these two
Apostles-Peter and Paul-to the post-office, help them buy a stamp, drop the
letter in the letter-box, tell them how to get back to their hotel, and come
back as fast as you can, otherwise we'll miss the boat. Arrivederci, signori
Apostles, bon voyage!" he said, shaking hands with Petya and Pavlik. His
large graceful hand was saffron-yellow from the sun.
"Merci," the well-brought-up Pavlik answered, awkwardly scraping his
bandaged leg.
"Come on," the boy said, shepherding the two of them. "The post-office
is only about five minutes' walk from here."
"You probably don't remember me, but I recognized you," Petya wanted to
say as he went up to the man with the anchor on his hand; however, something
held him back. He said nothing and looked -straight into the man's eyes.
"Maybe he'll recognize me too," he thought anxiously. But the man,
evidently, did not recognize him, though he noticed his blouse, fingered the
material, and said:
"Where was it made?"
"In the tailor's shop of the Naval Battalion," Petya answered.
"I can see that right away. Regulation stuff!"
It seemed to Petya that there was no mirth in his chuckle.
"Come on, fellows, let's go!" the boy said. "We've got to get back to
Capri."
The post-office really was a stone's throw away; however, the boys
managed to talk a few things over on the way.
"What's your name?" Petya asked.
"Max."
"But Max and Moritz, seeing that, climbed the roof to get the hat,"
Petya recited from a well-known illustrated children's book of the day by
Wilhelm Busch.
"Trying to be funny?" Max said menacingly. He was apparently sick of
being teased about his name, and he dug Petya lightly in the ribs.
Of course, in other circumstances, Petya would never have let such a
thing pass, but this time he decided not to make a fuss about it.
"Who's your father?" he asked, changing the subject.
"You mean you don't know my father?" Max appeared to be surprised.
"Why should I know him?" Petya asked.
"Well, because everyone seems to know him," Max mumbled in confusion.
He had a bad habit of mumbling, and he always spoke as if he were sucking on
a sweet.
"Who is he, then?"
"A dyer," Max answered.
"You're fibbing!" Petya said.
"Honestly, he's a dyer," Max insisted, sucking on the imaginary sweet.
"Don't you believe me? Ask anyone. He's a dyer and his name is Peshkov."
"Quit fibbing! Dyers aren't like that."
"There are all kinds of dyers."
"If he's a dyer, what is he doing here, in Italy?"
"He lives here."
"Why doesn't he live in Russia?"
"Curiosity killed the cat."
There was something in the way he said the familiar phrase that
reminded Petya of Gavrik, Near Mills, Terenty, and Sinichkin-of everything
associated in his mind with the word "revolution." Now it had suddenly
reared up before him here, in Naples, in the immobile tram-cars, the running
crowd, the sound of shattering glass, the shots, the sinister blue-black
plumes on the bersaglieri's hats, the flags, the portraits, and, finally, at
the sight of the man with the anchor on his hand, for he had recognized the
sailor from the Potetnkin.
Petya wanted to ask Max how Rodion Zhukov happened to be in Naples,
about the man in the pince-nez, and what they were all doing in Italy, but
at that moment they stopped outside the post-office.
"Let's have the correspondence," Max said.
"What for?" Petya asked suspiciously.
"Come on, hand it over! I haven't time to argue. Where is it going?"
"The postcard's for my aunt in Odessa, the letter's going to Paris."
"To Paris?"
"Yes."
"Then we'll send it express."
"What's express?"
"Hayseed!" Max said, making sucking noises with his tongue. "Express
means express. You know, by non-stop express train. Daddy always sends his
Paris letters by express. Give me the letter."
Petya hesitated for a moment, then pulled the creased envelope from his
pocket. Max snatched it from him, ran over to the window, and began to speak
a rapid, if lisping, Italian.
"What about the money?" Petya shouted, but instead of answering, Max
kicked out his foot several times, as much as to say: keep quiet!
Two minutes later he walked over to Petya and handed him the receipt.
"What about the money?" Petya repeated.
"Silly, I send off a dozen letters every day, and 1 have a whole heap
of stamps. See?" He took out a handful of stamps from his pocket. "When I
stay with Dad I always post his letters for him. But how do you know
Vladimir Ilyich?"
"Who's Vladimir Ilyich?" Petya asked.
"Lenin."
"Who's Lenin?"
"The man who lives in Paris on Rue Marie Rose. Ulyanov. I read the
address on the envelope. The letter's for him, isn't it?"
"Sure it is!" Petya said. "But I didn't write it."
"Did your father tell you to post it?" "No. It was given to me in
Odessa. I was asked to post it." And Petya blushed suddenly. Max nodded his
round head.
"I know what you mean. Don't look so suspicious. We often send letters
to Lenin ourselves. That is, my father writes them and I post them off. And
we always send them express. Now, tell me where you are staying." "At the
Hotel Esplanade."
Max frowned and that made him look more like his father than ever.
"I don't think it's very far from here. Go straight down this street
till you come to a fountain, turn left, cross two more streets and you'll be
right in front of your hotel. Arrivederci, I must run now."
He shook hands with the two boys hurriedly, crossed the street, turned
the corner, and disappeared behind a painted statue of a Madonna in a niche,
adorned with flowers and lemon branches with tiny green lemons on them.
Hand it over," Pavlik said as he winced and rubbed his knee.
"What?"
"Hand it over!" Pavlik repeated and even stretched out his hand. "Hand
over half the lira."
"What are you talking about?"
' "About the lira. The one Daddy gave you for the stamp."
"Oh, so that's what you mean! Well, let me tell you something." And
Petya put his thumb to his nose and waggled his fingers.
"That's thieving," Pavlik said, whining piteously and throwing out
quick glances.
"Shut up!" Petya hissed. "All the Italians are watching us."
"I don't care! Let them all see what a thief you are!" And Pavlik
wailed louder. That was too much for Petya.
"All right," he said dryly. "If that's the kind of pig you are, you can
have half of it. But we'll have to get it changed first."
"No, you give me the lira, and I'll give you fifty centesimos change."
Pavlik rummaged around under his blouse, felt something there, and pulled
out a small silver coin.
"Where did you get that?" Petya asked severely in a good imitation of
Vasily Petrovich's voice.
"I won it from the cook on the Palermo!" Pavlik answered not without
pride.
"How many times have I told you not to gamble, you wretch!"
"Well, what about you? Who yanked all the buttons off Daddy's uniform?"
"That was when I was small."
"Well, I'm small now," Pavlik reasoned.
"Yes, and what a rat you are," Petya said angrily. "Just wait. I'll
tell Daddy all about it!"
"And you'll be a telltale till you die!" Pavlik shouted triumphantly.
"Gelato! Gelato! Gelato!" a heavenly Italian tenor sang out. The boys
saw an ice-cream vendor wheeling along the same kind of green box the Odessa
ice-cream vendors had; the only difference was that this one was much
longer, it was decorated with scenes of Naples, and had four wheels instead
of two.
The boys' eyes met, and at that moment peace was restored as well as a
feeling of deep affection, all based on a passionate desire to disregard
Father's iron rule; never to buy anything in the street and never, never to
eat anything without permission.
They read the same burning question in each other's eyes at that
instant: what was to be done if there were no one to give permission? The
most natural solution was: if there is no one about, we'll have to eat
without permission.
Petya, the linguist, stepped forward and opened his mouth to say
something that started with the words, "Prego, signor..."
But the handsome young ice-cream vendor, with a hat resembling a red
stocking on his curly locks, was a bright fellow. He opened the long box,
and the boys were astounded to see a huge chunk of ice instead of the two
familiar copper containers with tin lids. The ice-cream man took out a
little steel plane and started planing the ice log. Then he packed two
glasses full of ice shavings and poured an artificially bright-green liquid
from a bottle over them.
The boys were fascinated. For some reason, though, it was not at all
sweet, and they soon felt as if they had eaten melted water-colours.
The vendor was not wasting time. He soon had another two glasses ready;
this time he poured something so dazzlingly pink over them that Pavlik
turned green at the memory of the rahat-lakoum he had had in Constantinople.
Petya refused the proffered ices. Using Vasily Petrovich's firm gesture, he
said "Basta!" in faultless Italian, paid the man ten centesimos, and hauled
Pavlik off without another word.
The bad taste of the strange ices was forgotten the moment the boys
came to a booth snuggling against an old stone wall from which a stream of
spring water flowed.
There was a basket of enormous Neapolitan lemons on the counter next to
some jars of powdered sugar and tall glasses.
In a twinkling of an eye the man at the counter had sliced two lemons
in half, put them through a squeezer, and caught the juice in two glasses.
He added powdered sugar to the juice and deftly placed the glasses under the
stream of water. They filled up with something breath-takingly pearly and
foaming at the rims, and the glasses became dimmed. The boys were entranced
the moment their parched lips touched the wonderful beverage.
The sun was setting. A round purple-pink evening cloud hung over the
white square and the fountain. It was so vast that the people, the houses,
and even the church spires seemed tiny beneath it.
There was something awe-inspiring about the beautiful scene. The boys
turned left, as Max had told them, and ran homewards, but the weird light
cast by the cloud made the city still more alien and unfamiliar. They could
not recognize a single street.
Night was falling rapidly, although the cloud still glowed in the now
purple sky. Whichever way the boys turned, it followed them, its round
crimson edges peeping out from behind the roof-tops. The narrow streets were
fast becoming crowded with people out for a walk, as is the custom in
southern cities towards evening. The air was full of the sound of scuffing
feet on the stone pavements. The heat of the day was replaced by the heat of
the evening, not so dry perhaps, but more stifling.
Streaks of light fell on the pavements from the open doorways of the
cafes and bars. The tinkling of mandolins drifted down from balconies. The
mingled smells of hot coffee, gas, anisette, oysters, fried fish, and lemons
seemed twice as strong. Women fanned their faces, and the ice-cream vendors
and news-boys sang out louder and more melodiously.
Coral-sellers mysteriously appeared in doorways. Petya felt there was
something in the highest degree dangerous and sinful about their bowlers,
shoved down over their sinister eyes, their sugary smiles beneath the dyed
moustaches, their velvet vests and morning coats, their dark bejewelled
fingers, and about the wide, flat boxes hanging round their necks on stout
belts which they supported in front of them while they silently displayed
their treasures to passing ladies: they held out blood-red corals, strings
of smaller corals, and pale-pink ones that seemed almost white and were as
big and smooth as beans; they displayed mounted Pompeii cameos and clusters
of translucent gems. Set out on black velvet and illuminated by the deathly
glare of the gas-lamps, the little stones gave Petya a strange impression of
being tiny inanimate creatures from another planet.
Pavlik was more worried by the hostile eyes of the vendors; he thrust
his hand inside his blouse, clenching his fist tightly over the small
Italian coins there.
One of the side-streets seemed vaguely familiar. The boys turned the
corner and ran along the flagstones up the hill. Suddenly, the houses ended
and they saw Vesuvius. They had apparently approached it from another side,
as it was quite different now: it had only one peak and was gigantic. They
were almost alongside it. The volcano was bathed in the last rays of the
dying sunset, a monstrous cap of sulphurous smoke hung over the peak,
seething with the scorching heat of molten iron, and it seemed as if
Vesuvius was ready to erupt at any minute. The boys ever, thought they heard
an underground tremor.
They were so panic-stricken that they rushed madly downhill and bumped
right into their dishevelled father, who had been searching the streets for
them for the past three hours.
He was so relieved at seeing them he even forgot to scold them. They
were all so exhausted after the day that they flopped on to their beds the
minute they got back and did not even bother to wash up. They slept like
logs, despite the impossible heat, the droning mosquitoes, and the noises
and music coming from the street all night long.
Next morning marked the beginning of an exciting and delightful life
which swept them up and whirled them through cities and hotels until, a
month and a half later, utterly worn out, the travellers recrossed the
Russian border and found themselves home once more.
Although they had followed a well-planned route, whenever Petya looked
back on that journey it always seemed to him to have been a mad jumble of
unrelated travelling impressions, of beautiful scenery, palaces, fountains,
squares and, of course, museums.
The Bacheis had too little money to allow themselves the luxury of
stopping somewhere along the route for an extra day to rest up, look around,
and gather their thoughts and impressions.
For instance, they spent only three days in Naples, but into those
three days they crammed: a boat trip to the Isle of Capri to see the famous
Blue Grotto and, on the way hack, a walk round Sorrento and Castellamrnare;
a visit to the site of the excavations at Pompeii and to Vesuvius, climbing
nearly as high as the crater; they went to practically every museum, art
gallery, and church in Naples, including the famous Aquarium, where the boys
beheld the magic of the submarine world behind the glass cases, illuminated
from above like the stage of a unique theatre. There, in the Mediterranean
Sea water, among the white coral trees and polyps which resembled blue and
red chrysanthemums, giant lobsters crawled over lovely sea-shells and fish
swam up and down like interplanetary dirigibles that had reached Mars from
the Earth.
As they sat in the stuffy railway carriage, about ready to leave Naples
for Rome, Vasily Petrovich looked out of the window and said with some
uncertainty:
"If I'm not mistaken, that's Alexei Maximovich Gorky." He adjusted his
pince-nez, leaned out of the window, and began to scrutinize someone.
"Gorky!" he exclaimed confidently.
Petya stuck his head out under his father's arm. A rather large group
of people were strolling down the platform. They were carrying travelling
bags and speaking loudly in Russian. Petya immediately singled out the tall,
slightly stooped figure of the man who had recently bandaged Pavlik's knee.
Now he knew why the man had seemed so familiar, for he had often seen
his photographs in magazines and on postcards. It was Gorky, the famous
writer. Petya also spotted the sailor carrying a cheap suitcase.
A woman in mourning passed, accompanied by a girl of about thirteen,
evidently her daughter. He caught a glimpse of a small face with serious
eyes and lips pressed tightly together in grief, a dark chestnut braid tied
with a black ribbon and thrown over a thin shoulder.
Then the train pulled out, and the group on the platform slipped
backward. Petya had a last glimpse of Gorky, the sailor, the woman, and the
girl. They were standing beside a train at the other side of the platform.
Apparently, some of the party were leaving, and the others were seeing them
off.
"Gorky! Gorky!" Petya yelled, waving his hat.
The girl turned and looked at Petya. Their eyes met. At that instant a
cloud of acrid smoke enveloped him. Petya shut his eyes, but he was not
quick enough, for a tiny cinder flew into1 his eye and became lodged under
the upper lid.
The subsequent torment killed all the pleasure of the journey from
Naples to Rome.
A nail in your shoe or a cinder in your eye! We have all suffered from
these evils at one time or other. It starts as a slightly unpleasant feeling
and gradually drives the victim frantic with pain.
At first Petya was just uncomfortable from the alien body lodged in his
eye. The eye was watery and he was certain the tears would wash the cinder
out and bring a feeling of blessed relief. But the tears kept streaming down
his face, while the cinder stayed put. It was lodged way up under the lid
and scratched and irritated the eyeball at the slightest movement.
Blinded by tears and feeling that his eye was on fire, Petya rushed up
and down the stuffy carriage, not knowing what to do. In his agony he bumped
into the other passengers. He bruised his knee, but the new pain could not
eliminate the old one.
Father insisted he sit quietly and not rub his eye under any
circumstances, for then the cinder would wash out by itself. But it did not.
Petya began to rub his eye again; the pain became unbearable. He moaned,
screamed, and in his despair beat out a tattoo on the floor with his heels.
With shaking hands Father tried to raise the eyelid and get at the cinder
with the tip of his handkerchief. Petya would not let him. He kept running
back and forth to the wash-room, where he would pour some tepid water from
the wash-basin into his cupped palm and bathe his eye in it. Nothing helped.
It was infinitely worse than a toothache.
In the rare moments when the pain subsided, Petya saw dry, barren
hills, white dust on the highway, level crossings and little huts of the
trackmen behind rickety fences made of old sleepers and surrounded by
sunflowers, hollyhocks, and dirty pigs; all these flashed by the carriage
windows in the glare of the Italian noon. Were it not for the groves of
lovely Italian pines, their spreading branches and almost black needles, one
would think the train was approaching a town in the Ukraine instead of Rome.
All this was bleary and flitting, there was but one impression, one
scene that remained constant: the railway platform in Naples, the group of
people, the woman in mourning, and the girl with the black ribbon in her
chestnut hair. She was embedded in his mind as the cinder in his eye.
All things eventually come to an end. Petya's torment ended too. An old
Italian woman with a coral cross on her wrinkled neck sat at the far end of
the carriage. FOT baggage she had a wicker basket with ducks' heads poking
through the top; she had been reading her prayer-book throughout the
journey, but she had missed nothing of what was going on in the carriage.
When Petya for the tenth time rushed to the wash-room to bathe his eye, she
suddenly reached out and grabbed him with her strong, knotty hands, forced
him down on the bench, got hold of his head, and drew it towards her dark,
hairy, witch-like face.
Without a word she raised his eyelid with nimble fingers, opened her
hot mouth, stuck out her long tongue, and licked the cinder that had been
rubbed into the mucous membrane. Petya instantly felt a wave of relief. The
old woman picked the cinder off her tongue, held it triumphantly between two
fingers for all to see, and said something in Italian; the sentence was
greeted with applause, making the ducks quack boisterously.
Then she kissed Petya on the head, crossed him from left to right, and
returned to her prayer-book.
The train pulled into Rome. Three wandering musicians-a mandolin,
guitar, and violin - played their last piece. Thus, to the strains of "Santa
Lucia" and the grating of brakes, they came to a stop.
Again the Bacheis were surrounded by a noisy crowd of agents and guides
as they made their way to an ancient phaeton. The driver cracked his long
whip over the nags, turned the handle of a Large meter attached to the side
of the box, and they jogged off over the sun-scorched squares of Rome, past
spouting fountains that left greenish strips on the paving stones and, like
the needles of a compass, pointed in the direction of the prevailing south
wind. After his recent torture Petya sat back and took his fill of the
sights. It seemed as if his eyesight had improved threefold. He kept turning
this way and that, so as not. to miss a single detail of the famous city.
The lean driver in a squashed black felt hat smothered them in clouds
of foul smoke from his long cigar. Instead of taking the shortest route to
the hotel, he zigzagged through every street in the city. The centesimos in
the window of the meter mounted, rapidly turning into lire; to distract
their attention from the meter, the driver, with a theatrical gesture,
called out the sights. They passed the Caracalla thermae, St. Angel's
Castle, the Tiber, the Forum, St. Peter's, and the Coliseum.
Father spread out a map of Rome on his lap. One would think he could
not believe his eyes and was seeking a theoretical confirmation of the
obvious fact of the existence of the city of Rome and all its famous
landmarks, so well known from paintings and photographs.
The real Rome was not as magnificent as the descriptions and paintings.
Monotonously lighted by the sun, wilted from the heat, it lay spread out on
its ancient hills beneath the pale-blue sky and seemed much simpler and more
beautiful than one had imagined.
The summer streets were deserted. Papal guards stood watch at the
entrance to Vatican City. They wore uniforms of the Middle Ages and were
armed with halberds. Pavlik, who had been to the Opera with Auntie during
the previous winter, now shouted at the top of his voice:
"Look! Look! Huguenots!"
Before Petya could clap his hand over his brother's mouth he shrilled
still louder, bubbling over with joy and surprise:
"Donbasilios! Look, Donbasilios!"
True enough, two Catholic priests were making their way through the
colonnade of St. Peter's. They wore black soutanes and long hats with the
brims rolled up, and carried umbrellas under their arms; no two men could
have looked more like Don Basilio from The 'Barber of Seville than they.
Several monks crossed the square. A barefoot Franciscan went by,
wearing a crude hair-shirt tied with a cord, for all the world like an
ancient prophet. Plump, jolly Benedictines strolled along, telling their
beads, and the sun shone on their tonsures.
Black-robed nuns passed with lowered heads; they had weird-looking,
huge, snow-white, firmly-starched, light-as-a-feather batiste head-dresses.
A little grey donkey pulled a cart. The cart was at least eight feel
high and had solid wooden wheels that creaked as loudly as the first
primitive carts must have creaked, bringing to Petya's mind a picture of
Hannibal's baggage train, moving through the dust at the golden gates of
Rome.
Just then a carriage on springs, harnessed tandem with four black
horses, flew out of a side-street. The spokes of the wheels spun round,
flashing like lightning in the sun. A behatted cardinal reclined on the
leather cushions. Petya caught a glimpse of his bluish cheeks, heavy
eyebrows, and haughty, cruel eyes, pencilled like an actor's.
The cardinal surveyed the Bachei family and the old driver, who had
whipped the hat off his bald head and folded his hands piously. There was no
telling just what it was the prince of the church thought, but he smiled
cordially, freed his thin rosary-entwined hand from his lace cuff and,
without drawing his fingers together, by an imperceptible movement of his
palm, blessed the travellers. His purple robe flashed past and the carriage
vanished, leaving a faint odour of incense in its wake.
Two weeks later, having crossed and recrossed Italy from one end to the
other, the tourists found themselves in Switzerland, strictly in keeping
with Vasily Petrovich's plan. They decided to stop and rest for a bit before
setting out once more.
To tell the truth, they had had enough of changing trains and being on
the go all the time, but it was almost impossible to stop now, for Father
had been tempted to buy some very reasonable special tickets from a travel
agency in Milan, that entitled them to travel without extra cost on any
railway in Switzerland they cared to within a period of sixty days.
Sixty days was too much as far as the Bacheis were concerned, since the
summer holidays would be over in a month and a half. However, the tickets
were valid for sixty days, and what they lost in time they made up on
Pavlik, as they had given his age as seven and bought only two full-fare
third-class tickets for the three of them.
It was cheating, even if petty, and before Vasily Petrovich agreed to
go through with it he stood for a long time wiping the glasses of his
pince-nez in embarrassment and twisting his neck from side to side. But in
the end the tickets were bought and stamped with the date of purchase, thus
marking the beginning of a strange, restless period when they felt that
every day not spent in a railway carriage was ruinous to their finances.
However, they just had to stop for a rest.
Here they were, sitting in wicker chairs on the open terrace of a
small, inexpensive boarding-house in Ouchy on the shore of Lake Geneva.
Tiers of hotels, parks, and church spires rose on a slant to the rear of
them and disappeared into the clear sky over Lausanne. A strip of sky-blue
water, dotted with winged sails and gulls, shone through the pleasant green
of the gardens and vineyards. Savoy lay before them across the lake, veiled
in a haze of sunshine; there were velvety meadows, gorges, and valleys
adorned by tiny picturesque villages, and above it all, the wild mountain
range that stretched right across the horizon.
Mont Blanc was supposed to be somewhere in the vicinity, but Vasily
Petrovich tried in vain to locate it through his little opera-glasses, for
the outline of the range was obscured by clouds. This was all the more
disappointing since their room was one "with a view of Mont Blanc."
A middle-aged chamber-maid wished the travellers ban matin and set a
tray-the complet-on the table. It consisted of a tea-set, a straw basked of
tiny bits of toast, butter curls, jam and honey; there was also a sugar-bowl
with midget dominoes of sugar so brittle they had to be picked up gingerly
with sugar tongs, as they crumbled at the slightest pressure.
Vasily Petrovich put on his pince-nez and examined the strange,
yellowish sugar closely. Then he picked up a cube, smelled it, tasted it,
and announced that this was real cane-sugar.
Cane-sugar! The discovery astounded the boys. Petya was especially
excited, for he visualized Auntie's amazement and his friends' jealousy when
they found out that he had seen real cane-sugar with his own eyes and had
even had some in his tea, while sitting on a terrace "with a view of Mont
Blanc." That was worth writing about. He pulled out his stationery box, but
the Swiss morning was so heavenly, the stillness so breath-taking, and the
bees hung over the honey pot so motionlessly, that Petya suddenly found he
could not move a finger, let alone begin writing.
He now realized how dead tired he was and how badly he needed a rest.
Scenes of Italy kept flashing through his mind chaotically. He saw St.
Mark's and the lion with its paw on a stone Bible sharply outlined against
the intensely blue sky, and that was Venice. Then light-blue double-decked
tram-cars rounded the beautiful square and the white marble lace-like
cathedral, adorned by two thousand Gothic statues, and that was Milan. He
saw himself in a cloud of dry white dust passing the marble quarries of
Carrara where huge marble panels, cubes, slabs, and chunks that had just
been sawn lay in piles ready for shipment; finally, the many-tiered graceful
Tower of Pisa leaning motionlessly to one side.
Once their train had stopped at a remote siding in the middle of a hot,
beautiful valley, and they could see the cloudy purple mountain range on the
horizon and feel the slight breath of chill Alpine air. Suddenly, they dived
into the Simplon tunnel, twenty-two miles through the heart of a mountain;
there was a sudden darkness, the stale smell of coal, the deafening clamour
of steel, and the black mirrored surfaces of the locked carriage windows
which reflected the sinister, ghastly dimness of the flickering electric
lights in the carriages.
And then, after an endless half-hour of depressing, motionless,
headlong movement, when it seemed as if there was no air left to breathe and
there would never be an end to the infernal darkness pressing in on every
side on the train and the two exhausted engines, then, suddenly, there came
the dazzling rush of daylight, the clatter of falling window-sashes, the
refreshing breeze that tore through the carriages from the Rhone Valley and
blew away the stale smells of the tunnel. Mountains. Glaciers. Valleys.
Wooden chalets with huge round cheeses on the roofs. Herds of red and black
Swiss cows and the melodious clack, instead of tinkle, of the flat wooden
bells in the sunny calm of the station, the white cross on the red Swiss
flag, and a St. Bernard on a huge poster advertising Suchard Chocolate.
Petya was now in a new country, a lovely, toy country.
The voices of people arguing drifted up to them from the terrace below.
They were speaking Russian. At the sound of his native tongue Petya sat
up and listened.
"You cannot ignore the main thesis adopted unanimously at the January
meeting of the Central Committee," a woman said in a shrill voice, stressing
the words "ignore" and "meeting."
"I'm not ignoring it, but..." a man's voice objected softly, with a
veiled note of irony in the clear baritone.
"You're wrong, sir. You are either ignoring it or pretending not to
ignore it."
"Where's your proof?"
"The January meeting was absolutely clear as to the true nature of
Social-Democratic work," a second male voice suddenly joined in. It was the
deep, angry voice of an old smoker who was constantly clearing his throat
and spitting.
"Now, now," the sarcastic baritone said.
The woman's voice became shriller:
"Denial of the illegal Social-Democratic party, belittling its role and
its meaning, attempts to shorten the programme, tactical aims and slogans of
revolutionary Social-Democracy testify to the influence of the bourgeoisie
on the proletariat."
Vasily Petrovich jumped at the words "revolutionary Social-Democracy"
and "proletariat" which had been spoken so loudly that they carried across
the garden. He looked at the children anxiously.
The woman's voice persisted:
"There are people who discard such basic slogans of revolutionary
Marxism as the hegemony of the working class in the fight for socialism and
a democratic revolution!"
"Does that mean me?"
"Yes, it does. You and those like you."
"God knows what's going on here!" Vasily Petrovich mumbled, and his
nose became white from excitement. "Children, go inside this minute!"
But Petya, burning with curiosity, was hanging over the balustrade,
trying to see what was going on on the terrace below.
Through the green ivy-covered lattice he saw a table with a pitcher of
milk on it and several people sitting around in wicker chairs: an
angry-faced woman in a black jacket who looked like a school-teacher, a
consumptive young man in a cotton shirt and a worn coat, and a good-looking
gentleman in a tussore jacket, with a shiny, steel-rimmed pince-nez on his
fleshy Roman nose, through which, at that very moment, the words "now, now,"
were being forced sarcastically.
"You and those like you are the backers of Stolypin's 'workers' party'
and exponents of bourgeois influence on the proletariat, with your call for
a so-called legal or open workers' party!" the woman continued, rapping the
table sharply with her knuckles.
"That's right. Exponents of genuine bourgeois influence," the
consumptive young man rattled off in a hollow voice, as he choked in a fit
of coughing and spat, then struck a match with shaking hands. "And your
'open' workers' party while Stolypin is running things simply means
desertion on the part of those who have renounced the aims of the
revolutionary struggle of the masses against autocracy, the Third Duma, and
all that Stolypin stands for!"
This was too much for Vasily Petrovich. He grabbed Petya by the
shoulders and shoved him into the room, saying:
"Never listen to such things! Stay right here! Pavlik, come in at once!
My God, why must we suffer this! Politics, politics everywhere!"
, When the boys were settled in the room, Vasily Petrovich went out on
the terrace and shouted to the people below in a voice that trembled with
rage:
"I would ask you to choose your words more carefully! At least, you can
refrain from shouting. Remember, there are children here."
The people down below stopped talking. Then a nasal voice staid:
"Comrades, we are being spied upon." His words were followed by a
scraping of chairs, and the woman's voice said:
"There's your 'open' party for you! Why, we aren't safe from the tsar's
spies even in free Switzerland!"
"I say!" Vasily Petrovich shouted threateningly, and he flushed an
angry red.
However, the glass door downstairs was slammed demonstratively; a
confused Vasily Petrovich muttered, "A fine state of affairs, this!" went
into his room, and slammed his door just as demonstratively.
"Daddy, they're Russians, aren't they?" Pavlik whispered. "Are they
anarchists?"
"Don't be silly, they're Social-Democrats!" Petya said.
"I didn't ask you. Daddy, what are they doing here?"
"Stop asking stupid questions!" Father said impatiently. "And stop
worrying about things that don't concern you," he added, looking straight at
Petya.
"But, Daddy," Pavlik persisted, "they're Russians, like us, aren't
they?"
"Yes, yes, they're Russians all right, but they're emigres. Let's have
no more of this," he concluded dryly.
"What are emigres? Are they people who are against the tsar?"
"That's enough!" Father barked resolutely.
And so, the political discussion was ended. That was the last they saw
of the emigres on the floor below.
The episode made a big impression on Petya. Again his thoughts turned
to that strange phenomenon known as "the Russian revolution." His thoughts
were of Russia and the Russians.
Until then he had taken it for granted that all Russians-no matter
whether they were rich or poor, peasants or workers, officials or merchants,
officers or soldiers-were loyal subjects of His Majesty, the Emperor. It was
a concept that was as natural to him as the fact that the Black Sea was a
large mass of salt water or that the sky was a mass of blue air.
But the familiar concept received a jolt during their travels when, to
Petya's surprise, they began to encounter not a few Russians.
He noticed that all Russians abroad were divided into two categories:
tourists and emigres. The tourists were wealthy, very wealthy, and the
Bachei family never really came in contact with them, because they travelled
natural Italian tempo.
They waved their hats and walking-sticks and shouted out slogans:
"Long live socialism! Workers of the world, unite! Down with war
expenditures! Down with the government of war! We want peace!"
Passers-by joined the demonstration. Many of them were wheeling
bicycles. Street vendors pushed their handcarts. The old organ-grinder had
joined them, too. Everything was bathed in the rosy glow of sunset, lending
a theatrical setting to the scene, but still Petya was greatly alarmed. He
squeezed Pavlik's hand, and his alarm was transmitted to Pavlik.
"Petka," he shouted, "this is a revolution!"
"No, it's a demonstration," Petya said. "Who cares-let's run!"
But they were now caught up in the crowd and had no idea how to get out
or which way to run.
Just then they heard loud voices behind them, speaking Russian. A
number of people, including a boy Petya's age in a jacket, were elbowing
their way through the crowd, closer to the marchers. The boy in the jacket
had a high forehead and a duck-like nose with drops of perspiration on it;
he was pushing and shoving with all his might. A thin man with a yellow
moustache above a shaven chin, wearing a cream-coloured summer coat and cap
all awry, apparently the boy's father, had a firm grip on his shoulder and
kept repeating in a hollow bass voice:
"Take it easy, Max, take it easy!" He stretched his long, sinewy neck
over the heads of the crowd and looked sharply ahead; although urging Max to
take it easy, he himself, apparently, was unable to follow this advice. At
times he would turn around and shout to someone behind, accenting his o's in
a Nizhny-Novgorod fashion.
"Come closer, gentlemen! Come closer. Last year these
anarchist-syndicalists were lying on the tracks blocking the way with their
bodies, but look at them today. There's a world of difference in their
tactics!"
"Yes, you're right!" a man in a pince-nez and panama replied rolling
his r's and swallowing the endings of the words. "This proves my point that
although Russia has become the centre of revolution since 1905, still, the
consolidation of the European proletariat is progressing rapidly. I beg your
pardon," he said to Petya in passing, as the sleeve of his ample jacket
brushed against the boy's head.
He was followed by another Russian in a cheap, ill-fitting suit and a
new felt hat on his round, firmly-set head. The new-comer had a bamboo
walking-stick on his arm and forged ahead, cutting his way through the crowd
with his bulging chest; he saw only the demonstrators who seemed to draw his
whole being irrepressibly. His knitted eyebrows, twitching face muscles,
parted lips, and small angry eyes-all seemed strangely familiar to Petya.
The arm with the bamboo cane thrust Petya aside, and the boy had a good
look at the short fingers, the thick, square-cut nails, the white knuckles,
and an anchor tattooed on the bulging muscle between thumb and forefinger.
Petya had no time to wonder why the little faded blue anchor seemed so
familiar or who these Russians were and what they were doing here, because
the crowd swayed and surged first to the right, then to the left, and Petya
caught a glimpse of the three-cornered hats and narrow red stripes on the
trousers of the carabineers at the far end of the street. He saw the black
plumes of the bersaglieri's hats as they passed on the double, rifles at the
ready.
A harsh, menacing bugle blast pierced the air. For a split second a
hush descended on the crowd. It was broken by the sound of shattering glass,
and then everything spun around in a howling, screaming, wailing, running
mass.
Several shots rang out.
Petya and Pavlik were swept away by the stampede; they held hands
tightly, trying to keep together. Petya forgot that they were abroad and at
any minute he expected to see Cossacks gallop out of a side-street, lashing
out left and right with their whips. He thought he was running down Odessa's
Malaya Arnautskaya, an impression heightened by the fact that here, too,
they were treading on scattered chestnuts.
Someone knocked Pavlik over. He fell and skinned his knee, but Petya
pulled him to his feet and dragged him on. Pavlik was so scared that he
forgot to cry, he kept repeating:
"Run! Hurry, let's run!"
Finally, they were swept into a narrow courtyard paved with worn
flagstones and cluttered with dustbins. There were lovely iron grates on the
ground-floor windows. The boys ran under a dirty marble archway, where each
step rang and resounded like a pistol shot, and found themselves out in the
street, opposite a small park on a steep slope. Several people were
scrambling up the dark, weathered stones that covered the slope. This was
all that was left of the crowd that had swept them into the courtyard. The
boys began to climb the slope too, but it was much steeper and higher than
it had seemed. A marble lion's head jutted out of the wall, and a stream of
water spurted from an iron pipe in the lion's mouth into a marble basin.
Petya edged Pavlik towards the basin and tried to push him up. But Pavlik
could not get a grip.
"Come on, climb up!" Petya shouted. "You clumsy ox!" Just then more
people ran out of the marble gateway. These were the Russians-the boy in the
short jacket and the three men Petya had seen in the crowd.
The boy was tugging his father along by the sleeve, but the father kept
stopping and turning back. His fists were clenched and his cap had slid to
the back of his head; a shock of yellow hair showed from under the tilted
peak; his moustache bristled and his blue eyes burned with an angry fire.
"Do you want to be killed? Come on," the boy was saying, as he hung on
to him tightly, "take it easy!"
"Alexei Maximovich, you're much too reckless! You have no right to take
such a risk!" the man in the pince-nez said, rubbing his bruised shoulder.
"I'll be damned if I don't go back and give that long-nosed idiot in
the striped trousers one in the face!" Alexei Maximovich muttered in his
deep voice. "I'll teach him to respect women!" A fit of coughing reduced him
to silence.
The boy in the short jacket was holding on grimly to his father's
sleeve. The man with the anchor on his hand also seemed ready to dash back
into the fray and restrained himself with difficulty.
"Come on, climb, Pavlik!" Petya shouted desperately. At the sound of
his voice the Russians turned to him.
"Look, Russians!" the boy said.
"What are you doing here?" the man in the pince-nez said sternly.
The man with the anchor on his hand scaled the wall as nimbly as a cat,
extended his bamboo cane, and helped the others up, one by one, including
Petya and a tear-stained Pavlik.
It was so calm and peaceful there, it was difficult to imagine that a
few moments before, somewhere nearby, soldiers and carabineers had been
breaking up the demonstration, broken glass had jangled on the pavement,
people had fallen, and the revolvers had barked in the streets.
Alexei Maximovich looked at Petya and Pavlik quizzically.
"Well, young gentlemen of the Russian Empire, and what may you be doing
here?"
Feeling that they were now among fellow-countrymen, the boys' spirits
rose. They kept interrupting each other in their haste to relate their
adventures, but all the while Petya had the feeling that somehow the men-
Alexei Maximovich and the one with the anchor on his hand-were familiar. No
matter how he strained his memory he could not place Alexei Maximovich, but
he soon remembered and recognized the other, although he could not quite
believe it at first.
"Well, well, you travellers, things aren't so bad," Alexei Maximovich
said. "One skinned knee for the two of you. It could have been much worse."
With these words he gathered Pavlik under his arm ' and carried him
over to the fountain. He washed his knee thoroughly, bandaged it swiftly and
tightly with a handkerchief, set the boy down, and told him to walk up and
down.
"Fine! You can return to the ranks now. First rinse your face and paws
in the basin, though, or you'll really frighten your father. By the way,
what's your name?"
"Pavlik."
"And your brother's?"
"Petya."
"Excellent. Max, come over here. I have a job for you. Take these two
Apostles-Peter and Paul-to the post-office, help them buy a stamp, drop the
letter in the letter-box, tell them how to get back to their hotel, and come
back as fast as you can, otherwise we'll miss the boat. Arrivederci, signori
Apostles, bon voyage!" he said, shaking hands with Petya and Pavlik. His
large graceful hand was saffron-yellow from the sun.
"Merci," the well-brought-up Pavlik answered, awkwardly scraping his
bandaged leg.
"Come on," the boy said, shepherding the two of them. "The post-office
is only about five minutes' walk from here."
"You probably don't remember me, but I recognized you," Petya wanted to
say as he went up to the man with the anchor on his hand; however, something
held him back. He said nothing and looked -straight into the man's eyes.
"Maybe he'll recognize me too," he thought anxiously. But the man,
evidently, did not recognize him, though he noticed his blouse, fingered the
material, and said:
"Where was it made?"
"In the tailor's shop of the Naval Battalion," Petya answered.
"I can see that right away. Regulation stuff!"
It seemed to Petya that there was no mirth in his chuckle.
"Come on, fellows, let's go!" the boy said. "We've got to get back to
Capri."
The post-office really was a stone's throw away; however, the boys
managed to talk a few things over on the way.
"What's your name?" Petya asked.
"Max."
"But Max and Moritz, seeing that, climbed the roof to get the hat,"
Petya recited from a well-known illustrated children's book of the day by
Wilhelm Busch.
"Trying to be funny?" Max said menacingly. He was apparently sick of
being teased about his name, and he dug Petya lightly in the ribs.
Of course, in other circumstances, Petya would never have let such a
thing pass, but this time he decided not to make a fuss about it.
"Who's your father?" he asked, changing the subject.
"You mean you don't know my father?" Max appeared to be surprised.
"Why should I know him?" Petya asked.
"Well, because everyone seems to know him," Max mumbled in confusion.
He had a bad habit of mumbling, and he always spoke as if he were sucking on
a sweet.
"Who is he, then?"
"A dyer," Max answered.
"You're fibbing!" Petya said.
"Honestly, he's a dyer," Max insisted, sucking on the imaginary sweet.
"Don't you believe me? Ask anyone. He's a dyer and his name is Peshkov."
"Quit fibbing! Dyers aren't like that."
"There are all kinds of dyers."
"If he's a dyer, what is he doing here, in Italy?"
"He lives here."
"Why doesn't he live in Russia?"
"Curiosity killed the cat."
There was something in the way he said the familiar phrase that
reminded Petya of Gavrik, Near Mills, Terenty, and Sinichkin-of everything
associated in his mind with the word "revolution." Now it had suddenly
reared up before him here, in Naples, in the immobile tram-cars, the running
crowd, the sound of shattering glass, the shots, the sinister blue-black
plumes on the bersaglieri's hats, the flags, the portraits, and, finally, at
the sight of the man with the anchor on his hand, for he had recognized the
sailor from the Potetnkin.
Petya wanted to ask Max how Rodion Zhukov happened to be in Naples,
about the man in the pince-nez, and what they were all doing in Italy, but
at that moment they stopped outside the post-office.
"Let's have the correspondence," Max said.
"What for?" Petya asked suspiciously.
"Come on, hand it over! I haven't time to argue. Where is it going?"
"The postcard's for my aunt in Odessa, the letter's going to Paris."
"To Paris?"
"Yes."
"Then we'll send it express."
"What's express?"
"Hayseed!" Max said, making sucking noises with his tongue. "Express
means express. You know, by non-stop express train. Daddy always sends his
Paris letters by express. Give me the letter."
Petya hesitated for a moment, then pulled the creased envelope from his
pocket. Max snatched it from him, ran over to the window, and began to speak
a rapid, if lisping, Italian.
"What about the money?" Petya shouted, but instead of answering, Max
kicked out his foot several times, as much as to say: keep quiet!
Two minutes later he walked over to Petya and handed him the receipt.
"What about the money?" Petya repeated.
"Silly, I send off a dozen letters every day, and 1 have a whole heap
of stamps. See?" He took out a handful of stamps from his pocket. "When I
stay with Dad I always post his letters for him. But how do you know
Vladimir Ilyich?"
"Who's Vladimir Ilyich?" Petya asked.
"Lenin."
"Who's Lenin?"
"The man who lives in Paris on Rue Marie Rose. Ulyanov. I read the
address on the envelope. The letter's for him, isn't it?"
"Sure it is!" Petya said. "But I didn't write it."
"Did your father tell you to post it?" "No. It was given to me in
Odessa. I was asked to post it." And Petya blushed suddenly. Max nodded his
round head.
"I know what you mean. Don't look so suspicious. We often send letters
to Lenin ourselves. That is, my father writes them and I post them off. And
we always send them express. Now, tell me where you are staying." "At the
Hotel Esplanade."
Max frowned and that made him look more like his father than ever.
"I don't think it's very far from here. Go straight down this street
till you come to a fountain, turn left, cross two more streets and you'll be
right in front of your hotel. Arrivederci, I must run now."
He shook hands with the two boys hurriedly, crossed the street, turned
the corner, and disappeared behind a painted statue of a Madonna in a niche,
adorned with flowers and lemon branches with tiny green lemons on them.
Hand it over," Pavlik said as he winced and rubbed his knee.
"What?"
"Hand it over!" Pavlik repeated and even stretched out his hand. "Hand
over half the lira."
"What are you talking about?"
' "About the lira. The one Daddy gave you for the stamp."
"Oh, so that's what you mean! Well, let me tell you something." And
Petya put his thumb to his nose and waggled his fingers.
"That's thieving," Pavlik said, whining piteously and throwing out
quick glances.
"Shut up!" Petya hissed. "All the Italians are watching us."
"I don't care! Let them all see what a thief you are!" And Pavlik
wailed louder. That was too much for Petya.
"All right," he said dryly. "If that's the kind of pig you are, you can
have half of it. But we'll have to get it changed first."
"No, you give me the lira, and I'll give you fifty centesimos change."
Pavlik rummaged around under his blouse, felt something there, and pulled
out a small silver coin.
"Where did you get that?" Petya asked severely in a good imitation of
Vasily Petrovich's voice.
"I won it from the cook on the Palermo!" Pavlik answered not without
pride.
"How many times have I told you not to gamble, you wretch!"
"Well, what about you? Who yanked all the buttons off Daddy's uniform?"
"That was when I was small."
"Well, I'm small now," Pavlik reasoned.
"Yes, and what a rat you are," Petya said angrily. "Just wait. I'll
tell Daddy all about it!"
"And you'll be a telltale till you die!" Pavlik shouted triumphantly.
"Gelato! Gelato! Gelato!" a heavenly Italian tenor sang out. The boys
saw an ice-cream vendor wheeling along the same kind of green box the Odessa
ice-cream vendors had; the only difference was that this one was much
longer, it was decorated with scenes of Naples, and had four wheels instead
of two.
The boys' eyes met, and at that moment peace was restored as well as a
feeling of deep affection, all based on a passionate desire to disregard
Father's iron rule; never to buy anything in the street and never, never to
eat anything without permission.
They read the same burning question in each other's eyes at that
instant: what was to be done if there were no one to give permission? The
most natural solution was: if there is no one about, we'll have to eat
without permission.
Petya, the linguist, stepped forward and opened his mouth to say
something that started with the words, "Prego, signor..."
But the handsome young ice-cream vendor, with a hat resembling a red
stocking on his curly locks, was a bright fellow. He opened the long box,
and the boys were astounded to see a huge chunk of ice instead of the two
familiar copper containers with tin lids. The ice-cream man took out a
little steel plane and started planing the ice log. Then he packed two
glasses full of ice shavings and poured an artificially bright-green liquid
from a bottle over them.
The boys were fascinated. For some reason, though, it was not at all
sweet, and they soon felt as if they had eaten melted water-colours.
The vendor was not wasting time. He soon had another two glasses ready;
this time he poured something so dazzlingly pink over them that Pavlik
turned green at the memory of the rahat-lakoum he had had in Constantinople.
Petya refused the proffered ices. Using Vasily Petrovich's firm gesture, he
said "Basta!" in faultless Italian, paid the man ten centesimos, and hauled
Pavlik off without another word.
The bad taste of the strange ices was forgotten the moment the boys
came to a booth snuggling against an old stone wall from which a stream of
spring water flowed.
There was a basket of enormous Neapolitan lemons on the counter next to
some jars of powdered sugar and tall glasses.
In a twinkling of an eye the man at the counter had sliced two lemons
in half, put them through a squeezer, and caught the juice in two glasses.
He added powdered sugar to the juice and deftly placed the glasses under the
stream of water. They filled up with something breath-takingly pearly and
foaming at the rims, and the glasses became dimmed. The boys were entranced
the moment their parched lips touched the wonderful beverage.
The sun was setting. A round purple-pink evening cloud hung over the
white square and the fountain. It was so vast that the people, the houses,
and even the church spires seemed tiny beneath it.
There was something awe-inspiring about the beautiful scene. The boys
turned left, as Max had told them, and ran homewards, but the weird light
cast by the cloud made the city still more alien and unfamiliar. They could
not recognize a single street.
Night was falling rapidly, although the cloud still glowed in the now
purple sky. Whichever way the boys turned, it followed them, its round
crimson edges peeping out from behind the roof-tops. The narrow streets were
fast becoming crowded with people out for a walk, as is the custom in
southern cities towards evening. The air was full of the sound of scuffing
feet on the stone pavements. The heat of the day was replaced by the heat of
the evening, not so dry perhaps, but more stifling.
Streaks of light fell on the pavements from the open doorways of the
cafes and bars. The tinkling of mandolins drifted down from balconies. The
mingled smells of hot coffee, gas, anisette, oysters, fried fish, and lemons
seemed twice as strong. Women fanned their faces, and the ice-cream vendors
and news-boys sang out louder and more melodiously.
Coral-sellers mysteriously appeared in doorways. Petya felt there was
something in the highest degree dangerous and sinful about their bowlers,
shoved down over their sinister eyes, their sugary smiles beneath the dyed
moustaches, their velvet vests and morning coats, their dark bejewelled
fingers, and about the wide, flat boxes hanging round their necks on stout
belts which they supported in front of them while they silently displayed
their treasures to passing ladies: they held out blood-red corals, strings
of smaller corals, and pale-pink ones that seemed almost white and were as
big and smooth as beans; they displayed mounted Pompeii cameos and clusters
of translucent gems. Set out on black velvet and illuminated by the deathly
glare of the gas-lamps, the little stones gave Petya a strange impression of
being tiny inanimate creatures from another planet.
Pavlik was more worried by the hostile eyes of the vendors; he thrust
his hand inside his blouse, clenching his fist tightly over the small
Italian coins there.
One of the side-streets seemed vaguely familiar. The boys turned the
corner and ran along the flagstones up the hill. Suddenly, the houses ended
and they saw Vesuvius. They had apparently approached it from another side,
as it was quite different now: it had only one peak and was gigantic. They
were almost alongside it. The volcano was bathed in the last rays of the
dying sunset, a monstrous cap of sulphurous smoke hung over the peak,
seething with the scorching heat of molten iron, and it seemed as if
Vesuvius was ready to erupt at any minute. The boys ever, thought they heard
an underground tremor.
They were so panic-stricken that they rushed madly downhill and bumped
right into their dishevelled father, who had been searching the streets for
them for the past three hours.
He was so relieved at seeing them he even forgot to scold them. They
were all so exhausted after the day that they flopped on to their beds the
minute they got back and did not even bother to wash up. They slept like
logs, despite the impossible heat, the droning mosquitoes, and the noises
and music coming from the street all night long.
Next morning marked the beginning of an exciting and delightful life
which swept them up and whirled them through cities and hotels until, a
month and a half later, utterly worn out, the travellers recrossed the
Russian border and found themselves home once more.
Although they had followed a well-planned route, whenever Petya looked
back on that journey it always seemed to him to have been a mad jumble of
unrelated travelling impressions, of beautiful scenery, palaces, fountains,
squares and, of course, museums.
The Bacheis had too little money to allow themselves the luxury of
stopping somewhere along the route for an extra day to rest up, look around,
and gather their thoughts and impressions.
For instance, they spent only three days in Naples, but into those
three days they crammed: a boat trip to the Isle of Capri to see the famous
Blue Grotto and, on the way hack, a walk round Sorrento and Castellamrnare;
a visit to the site of the excavations at Pompeii and to Vesuvius, climbing
nearly as high as the crater; they went to practically every museum, art
gallery, and church in Naples, including the famous Aquarium, where the boys
beheld the magic of the submarine world behind the glass cases, illuminated
from above like the stage of a unique theatre. There, in the Mediterranean
Sea water, among the white coral trees and polyps which resembled blue and
red chrysanthemums, giant lobsters crawled over lovely sea-shells and fish
swam up and down like interplanetary dirigibles that had reached Mars from
the Earth.
As they sat in the stuffy railway carriage, about ready to leave Naples
for Rome, Vasily Petrovich looked out of the window and said with some
uncertainty:
"If I'm not mistaken, that's Alexei Maximovich Gorky." He adjusted his
pince-nez, leaned out of the window, and began to scrutinize someone.
"Gorky!" he exclaimed confidently.
Petya stuck his head out under his father's arm. A rather large group
of people were strolling down the platform. They were carrying travelling
bags and speaking loudly in Russian. Petya immediately singled out the tall,
slightly stooped figure of the man who had recently bandaged Pavlik's knee.
Now he knew why the man had seemed so familiar, for he had often seen
his photographs in magazines and on postcards. It was Gorky, the famous
writer. Petya also spotted the sailor carrying a cheap suitcase.
A woman in mourning passed, accompanied by a girl of about thirteen,
evidently her daughter. He caught a glimpse of a small face with serious
eyes and lips pressed tightly together in grief, a dark chestnut braid tied
with a black ribbon and thrown over a thin shoulder.
Then the train pulled out, and the group on the platform slipped
backward. Petya had a last glimpse of Gorky, the sailor, the woman, and the
girl. They were standing beside a train at the other side of the platform.
Apparently, some of the party were leaving, and the others were seeing them
off.
"Gorky! Gorky!" Petya yelled, waving his hat.
The girl turned and looked at Petya. Their eyes met. At that instant a
cloud of acrid smoke enveloped him. Petya shut his eyes, but he was not
quick enough, for a tiny cinder flew into1 his eye and became lodged under
the upper lid.
The subsequent torment killed all the pleasure of the journey from
Naples to Rome.
A nail in your shoe or a cinder in your eye! We have all suffered from
these evils at one time or other. It starts as a slightly unpleasant feeling
and gradually drives the victim frantic with pain.
At first Petya was just uncomfortable from the alien body lodged in his
eye. The eye was watery and he was certain the tears would wash the cinder
out and bring a feeling of blessed relief. But the tears kept streaming down
his face, while the cinder stayed put. It was lodged way up under the lid
and scratched and irritated the eyeball at the slightest movement.
Blinded by tears and feeling that his eye was on fire, Petya rushed up
and down the stuffy carriage, not knowing what to do. In his agony he bumped
into the other passengers. He bruised his knee, but the new pain could not
eliminate the old one.
Father insisted he sit quietly and not rub his eye under any
circumstances, for then the cinder would wash out by itself. But it did not.
Petya began to rub his eye again; the pain became unbearable. He moaned,
screamed, and in his despair beat out a tattoo on the floor with his heels.
With shaking hands Father tried to raise the eyelid and get at the cinder
with the tip of his handkerchief. Petya would not let him. He kept running
back and forth to the wash-room, where he would pour some tepid water from
the wash-basin into his cupped palm and bathe his eye in it. Nothing helped.
It was infinitely worse than a toothache.
In the rare moments when the pain subsided, Petya saw dry, barren
hills, white dust on the highway, level crossings and little huts of the
trackmen behind rickety fences made of old sleepers and surrounded by
sunflowers, hollyhocks, and dirty pigs; all these flashed by the carriage
windows in the glare of the Italian noon. Were it not for the groves of
lovely Italian pines, their spreading branches and almost black needles, one
would think the train was approaching a town in the Ukraine instead of Rome.
All this was bleary and flitting, there was but one impression, one
scene that remained constant: the railway platform in Naples, the group of
people, the woman in mourning, and the girl with the black ribbon in her
chestnut hair. She was embedded in his mind as the cinder in his eye.
All things eventually come to an end. Petya's torment ended too. An old
Italian woman with a coral cross on her wrinkled neck sat at the far end of
the carriage. FOT baggage she had a wicker basket with ducks' heads poking
through the top; she had been reading her prayer-book throughout the
journey, but she had missed nothing of what was going on in the carriage.
When Petya for the tenth time rushed to the wash-room to bathe his eye, she
suddenly reached out and grabbed him with her strong, knotty hands, forced
him down on the bench, got hold of his head, and drew it towards her dark,
hairy, witch-like face.
Without a word she raised his eyelid with nimble fingers, opened her
hot mouth, stuck out her long tongue, and licked the cinder that had been
rubbed into the mucous membrane. Petya instantly felt a wave of relief. The
old woman picked the cinder off her tongue, held it triumphantly between two
fingers for all to see, and said something in Italian; the sentence was
greeted with applause, making the ducks quack boisterously.
Then she kissed Petya on the head, crossed him from left to right, and
returned to her prayer-book.
The train pulled into Rome. Three wandering musicians-a mandolin,
guitar, and violin - played their last piece. Thus, to the strains of "Santa
Lucia" and the grating of brakes, they came to a stop.
Again the Bacheis were surrounded by a noisy crowd of agents and guides
as they made their way to an ancient phaeton. The driver cracked his long
whip over the nags, turned the handle of a Large meter attached to the side
of the box, and they jogged off over the sun-scorched squares of Rome, past
spouting fountains that left greenish strips on the paving stones and, like
the needles of a compass, pointed in the direction of the prevailing south
wind. After his recent torture Petya sat back and took his fill of the
sights. It seemed as if his eyesight had improved threefold. He kept turning
this way and that, so as not. to miss a single detail of the famous city.
The lean driver in a squashed black felt hat smothered them in clouds
of foul smoke from his long cigar. Instead of taking the shortest route to
the hotel, he zigzagged through every street in the city. The centesimos in
the window of the meter mounted, rapidly turning into lire; to distract
their attention from the meter, the driver, with a theatrical gesture,
called out the sights. They passed the Caracalla thermae, St. Angel's
Castle, the Tiber, the Forum, St. Peter's, and the Coliseum.
Father spread out a map of Rome on his lap. One would think he could
not believe his eyes and was seeking a theoretical confirmation of the
obvious fact of the existence of the city of Rome and all its famous
landmarks, so well known from paintings and photographs.
The real Rome was not as magnificent as the descriptions and paintings.
Monotonously lighted by the sun, wilted from the heat, it lay spread out on
its ancient hills beneath the pale-blue sky and seemed much simpler and more
beautiful than one had imagined.
The summer streets were deserted. Papal guards stood watch at the
entrance to Vatican City. They wore uniforms of the Middle Ages and were
armed with halberds. Pavlik, who had been to the Opera with Auntie during
the previous winter, now shouted at the top of his voice:
"Look! Look! Huguenots!"
Before Petya could clap his hand over his brother's mouth he shrilled
still louder, bubbling over with joy and surprise:
"Donbasilios! Look, Donbasilios!"
True enough, two Catholic priests were making their way through the
colonnade of St. Peter's. They wore black soutanes and long hats with the
brims rolled up, and carried umbrellas under their arms; no two men could
have looked more like Don Basilio from The 'Barber of Seville than they.
Several monks crossed the square. A barefoot Franciscan went by,
wearing a crude hair-shirt tied with a cord, for all the world like an
ancient prophet. Plump, jolly Benedictines strolled along, telling their
beads, and the sun shone on their tonsures.
Black-robed nuns passed with lowered heads; they had weird-looking,
huge, snow-white, firmly-starched, light-as-a-feather batiste head-dresses.
A little grey donkey pulled a cart. The cart was at least eight feel
high and had solid wooden wheels that creaked as loudly as the first
primitive carts must have creaked, bringing to Petya's mind a picture of
Hannibal's baggage train, moving through the dust at the golden gates of
Rome.
Just then a carriage on springs, harnessed tandem with four black
horses, flew out of a side-street. The spokes of the wheels spun round,
flashing like lightning in the sun. A behatted cardinal reclined on the
leather cushions. Petya caught a glimpse of his bluish cheeks, heavy
eyebrows, and haughty, cruel eyes, pencilled like an actor's.
The cardinal surveyed the Bachei family and the old driver, who had
whipped the hat off his bald head and folded his hands piously. There was no
telling just what it was the prince of the church thought, but he smiled
cordially, freed his thin rosary-entwined hand from his lace cuff and,
without drawing his fingers together, by an imperceptible movement of his
palm, blessed the travellers. His purple robe flashed past and the carriage
vanished, leaving a faint odour of incense in its wake.
Two weeks later, having crossed and recrossed Italy from one end to the
other, the tourists found themselves in Switzerland, strictly in keeping
with Vasily Petrovich's plan. They decided to stop and rest for a bit before
setting out once more.
To tell the truth, they had had enough of changing trains and being on
the go all the time, but it was almost impossible to stop now, for Father
had been tempted to buy some very reasonable special tickets from a travel
agency in Milan, that entitled them to travel without extra cost on any
railway in Switzerland they cared to within a period of sixty days.
Sixty days was too much as far as the Bacheis were concerned, since the
summer holidays would be over in a month and a half. However, the tickets
were valid for sixty days, and what they lost in time they made up on
Pavlik, as they had given his age as seven and bought only two full-fare
third-class tickets for the three of them.
It was cheating, even if petty, and before Vasily Petrovich agreed to
go through with it he stood for a long time wiping the glasses of his
pince-nez in embarrassment and twisting his neck from side to side. But in
the end the tickets were bought and stamped with the date of purchase, thus
marking the beginning of a strange, restless period when they felt that
every day not spent in a railway carriage was ruinous to their finances.
However, they just had to stop for a rest.
Here they were, sitting in wicker chairs on the open terrace of a
small, inexpensive boarding-house in Ouchy on the shore of Lake Geneva.
Tiers of hotels, parks, and church spires rose on a slant to the rear of
them and disappeared into the clear sky over Lausanne. A strip of sky-blue
water, dotted with winged sails and gulls, shone through the pleasant green
of the gardens and vineyards. Savoy lay before them across the lake, veiled
in a haze of sunshine; there were velvety meadows, gorges, and valleys
adorned by tiny picturesque villages, and above it all, the wild mountain
range that stretched right across the horizon.
Mont Blanc was supposed to be somewhere in the vicinity, but Vasily
Petrovich tried in vain to locate it through his little opera-glasses, for
the outline of the range was obscured by clouds. This was all the more
disappointing since their room was one "with a view of Mont Blanc."
A middle-aged chamber-maid wished the travellers ban matin and set a
tray-the complet-on the table. It consisted of a tea-set, a straw basked of
tiny bits of toast, butter curls, jam and honey; there was also a sugar-bowl
with midget dominoes of sugar so brittle they had to be picked up gingerly
with sugar tongs, as they crumbled at the slightest pressure.
Vasily Petrovich put on his pince-nez and examined the strange,
yellowish sugar closely. Then he picked up a cube, smelled it, tasted it,
and announced that this was real cane-sugar.
Cane-sugar! The discovery astounded the boys. Petya was especially
excited, for he visualized Auntie's amazement and his friends' jealousy when
they found out that he had seen real cane-sugar with his own eyes and had
even had some in his tea, while sitting on a terrace "with a view of Mont
Blanc." That was worth writing about. He pulled out his stationery box, but
the Swiss morning was so heavenly, the stillness so breath-taking, and the
bees hung over the honey pot so motionlessly, that Petya suddenly found he
could not move a finger, let alone begin writing.
He now realized how dead tired he was and how badly he needed a rest.
Scenes of Italy kept flashing through his mind chaotically. He saw St.
Mark's and the lion with its paw on a stone Bible sharply outlined against
the intensely blue sky, and that was Venice. Then light-blue double-decked
tram-cars rounded the beautiful square and the white marble lace-like
cathedral, adorned by two thousand Gothic statues, and that was Milan. He
saw himself in a cloud of dry white dust passing the marble quarries of
Carrara where huge marble panels, cubes, slabs, and chunks that had just
been sawn lay in piles ready for shipment; finally, the many-tiered graceful
Tower of Pisa leaning motionlessly to one side.
Once their train had stopped at a remote siding in the middle of a hot,
beautiful valley, and they could see the cloudy purple mountain range on the
horizon and feel the slight breath of chill Alpine air. Suddenly, they dived
into the Simplon tunnel, twenty-two miles through the heart of a mountain;
there was a sudden darkness, the stale smell of coal, the deafening clamour
of steel, and the black mirrored surfaces of the locked carriage windows
which reflected the sinister, ghastly dimness of the flickering electric
lights in the carriages.
And then, after an endless half-hour of depressing, motionless,
headlong movement, when it seemed as if there was no air left to breathe and
there would never be an end to the infernal darkness pressing in on every
side on the train and the two exhausted engines, then, suddenly, there came
the dazzling rush of daylight, the clatter of falling window-sashes, the
refreshing breeze that tore through the carriages from the Rhone Valley and
blew away the stale smells of the tunnel. Mountains. Glaciers. Valleys.
Wooden chalets with huge round cheeses on the roofs. Herds of red and black
Swiss cows and the melodious clack, instead of tinkle, of the flat wooden
bells in the sunny calm of the station, the white cross on the red Swiss
flag, and a St. Bernard on a huge poster advertising Suchard Chocolate.
Petya was now in a new country, a lovely, toy country.
The voices of people arguing drifted up to them from the terrace below.
They were speaking Russian. At the sound of his native tongue Petya sat
up and listened.
"You cannot ignore the main thesis adopted unanimously at the January
meeting of the Central Committee," a woman said in a shrill voice, stressing
the words "ignore" and "meeting."
"I'm not ignoring it, but..." a man's voice objected softly, with a
veiled note of irony in the clear baritone.
"You're wrong, sir. You are either ignoring it or pretending not to
ignore it."
"Where's your proof?"
"The January meeting was absolutely clear as to the true nature of
Social-Democratic work," a second male voice suddenly joined in. It was the
deep, angry voice of an old smoker who was constantly clearing his throat
and spitting.
"Now, now," the sarcastic baritone said.
The woman's voice became shriller:
"Denial of the illegal Social-Democratic party, belittling its role and
its meaning, attempts to shorten the programme, tactical aims and slogans of
revolutionary Social-Democracy testify to the influence of the bourgeoisie
on the proletariat."
Vasily Petrovich jumped at the words "revolutionary Social-Democracy"
and "proletariat" which had been spoken so loudly that they carried across
the garden. He looked at the children anxiously.
The woman's voice persisted:
"There are people who discard such basic slogans of revolutionary
Marxism as the hegemony of the working class in the fight for socialism and
a democratic revolution!"
"Does that mean me?"
"Yes, it does. You and those like you."
"God knows what's going on here!" Vasily Petrovich mumbled, and his
nose became white from excitement. "Children, go inside this minute!"
But Petya, burning with curiosity, was hanging over the balustrade,
trying to see what was going on on the terrace below.
Through the green ivy-covered lattice he saw a table with a pitcher of
milk on it and several people sitting around in wicker chairs: an
angry-faced woman in a black jacket who looked like a school-teacher, a
consumptive young man in a cotton shirt and a worn coat, and a good-looking
gentleman in a tussore jacket, with a shiny, steel-rimmed pince-nez on his
fleshy Roman nose, through which, at that very moment, the words "now, now,"
were being forced sarcastically.
"You and those like you are the backers of Stolypin's 'workers' party'
and exponents of bourgeois influence on the proletariat, with your call for
a so-called legal or open workers' party!" the woman continued, rapping the
table sharply with her knuckles.
"That's right. Exponents of genuine bourgeois influence," the
consumptive young man rattled off in a hollow voice, as he choked in a fit
of coughing and spat, then struck a match with shaking hands. "And your
'open' workers' party while Stolypin is running things simply means
desertion on the part of those who have renounced the aims of the
revolutionary struggle of the masses against autocracy, the Third Duma, and
all that Stolypin stands for!"
This was too much for Vasily Petrovich. He grabbed Petya by the
shoulders and shoved him into the room, saying:
"Never listen to such things! Stay right here! Pavlik, come in at once!
My God, why must we suffer this! Politics, politics everywhere!"
, When the boys were settled in the room, Vasily Petrovich went out on
the terrace and shouted to the people below in a voice that trembled with
rage:
"I would ask you to choose your words more carefully! At least, you can
refrain from shouting. Remember, there are children here."
The people down below stopped talking. Then a nasal voice staid:
"Comrades, we are being spied upon." His words were followed by a
scraping of chairs, and the woman's voice said:
"There's your 'open' party for you! Why, we aren't safe from the tsar's
spies even in free Switzerland!"
"I say!" Vasily Petrovich shouted threateningly, and he flushed an
angry red.
However, the glass door downstairs was slammed demonstratively; a
confused Vasily Petrovich muttered, "A fine state of affairs, this!" went
into his room, and slammed his door just as demonstratively.
"Daddy, they're Russians, aren't they?" Pavlik whispered. "Are they
anarchists?"
"Don't be silly, they're Social-Democrats!" Petya said.
"I didn't ask you. Daddy, what are they doing here?"
"Stop asking stupid questions!" Father said impatiently. "And stop
worrying about things that don't concern you," he added, looking straight at
Petya.
"But, Daddy," Pavlik persisted, "they're Russians, like us, aren't
they?"
"Yes, yes, they're Russians all right, but they're emigres. Let's have
no more of this," he concluded dryly.
"What are emigres? Are they people who are against the tsar?"
"That's enough!" Father barked resolutely.
And so, the political discussion was ended. That was the last they saw
of the emigres on the floor below.
The episode made a big impression on Petya. Again his thoughts turned
to that strange phenomenon known as "the Russian revolution." His thoughts
were of Russia and the Russians.
Until then he had taken it for granted that all Russians-no matter
whether they were rich or poor, peasants or workers, officials or merchants,
officers or soldiers-were loyal subjects of His Majesty, the Emperor. It was
a concept that was as natural to him as the fact that the Black Sea was a
large mass of salt water or that the sky was a mass of blue air.
But the familiar concept received a jolt during their travels when, to
Petya's surprise, they began to encounter not a few Russians.
He noticed that all Russians abroad were divided into two categories:
tourists and emigres. The tourists were wealthy, very wealthy, and the
Bachei family never really came in contact with them, because they travelled