too early for you to hear such things. Eat your halvah. I tell you," and she
turned her bovine eyes on Auntie and lowered her voice, "he is not God's
Anointed, but a plain coward. Instead of shooting and hanging these rabble,
he flew into a panic. How could any man with sense and understanding give
Russia a constitution and allow that disgraceful All-Russian talking-shop in
the Tavrichesky Palace, with Yids spitting dirt at the government and openly
calling for revolution!"
With the last words her voice rose to a sudden scream, so strident that
even the canaries in the neighbouring room were silenced for a little while.
"And they'll get it, mark my words-revolution will come, and very soon,
and then those scum will hang all decent people on the first lamppost. But
I'm not such a fool as to sit here and wait for it. I had enough with my
Chernigov estate. You can all do as you like, but I shall go abroad. I shall
go, and leave a curse on this country with its Social-Democrats and
factions, and resolutions, and strikes, and May Day meetings, and
workers-of-the-world-unite! Take my land and run it as you please-if the
rabble are kind enough to give their permission, that is!"
She was no longer talking, she was screaming at the top of her voice,
and Petya looked with mingled terror and disgust at her eyes, rolling in
frenzy.
"Excuse me," she said suddenly in her ordinary voice. "Will you be so
kind as to pay the second instalment on your note of hand to my lawyer, and
he will forward it to me."
Auntie quickly began preparing to go, pulling on her gloves and
straightening her hat. Madame Vasyutinskaya did not stop her. When they came
out of the house, they noticed open trunks in the little yard ;and coats
hung on ropes to air. Evidently Madame Vasyutinskaya really did intend to
leave.
Soon afterwards, the Bachei family moved to their new home. Not all at
once, however. Vastly Petrovich went first to take possession and have
everything in order before spring came.
Auntie and the boys were to remain in town for a little while longer,
to sub-let the flat and store the furniture.
The boys were still going to school, for the fees had been paid at the
beginning of the year. What they would do the next year depended on the
success of the new venture.
Gavrik often visited them now. He had taken and passed the exams for
three forms as an out-student; Petya was coaching him for the sixth-form
exam, but now he did not refuse the fifty kopeks a lesson.
Gavrik was still working in the Odessa Leaflet print-shop, not as a
printer's devil, however; he was already an apprentice type-setter and
earning quite good wages. Sometimes he came straight from work in the
evening, bringing with him the acrid, alluring smell of the print-shop. He
was very apt at his job and in some ways had already outstripped his master.
When he came to the Bachei home, he was no longer shy and awkward, he bore
himself confidently and one day even brought a half-pound of sweets for tea.
He handed the little package to Auntie, saying, "Allow me to make this
little present. It's my pay-day. They're Abrikosov's caramels, I know you
like them."
The misfortunes of the Bachei family -seemed to have brought Gavrik and
Petya closer together. Gavrik not only sympathized with Petya-he understood
his situation, which was much more important. Incidentally, from beginning
to end of the whole affair he expressed his own very definite views about it
all quite freely.
Vasily Petrovich's dismissal from the Faig establishment, although
unpleasant, was something inevitable, for after all better to starve than to
work for such a parasite, such a blood-sucker. Here, Gavrik fully approved
of Vasily Petrovich's action. But to sell the piano for a song and rent a
farm-this was another matter; he could not believe that a family of
intellectuals would be able to till the soil with their own hands.
"You don't know a thing about it, you'll get calluses and that's all.
Stolypin farmers!" he added with a smile.
Petya had noticed lately that Gavrik linked up everything with
politics.
"Yes, but what was Father to do?" he asked with irritation.
"What he'd done before. Give people learning. That's what a teacher's
job is."
"But if he's not allowed?"
"Eh, brother, they can't forbid anyone to teach folks."
"But what folks? Where are they?"
"He'd find them if he looked for them," said Gavrik evasively. "Well,
let's get on with the lesson."
After their lessons Petya would often walk part of the way home with
Gavrik, sometimes he even went as far as Near Mills. There were many things
they talked of on the way, and Gavrik was not so secretive as formerly.
Petya learned that there was a committee of the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party in the town. It consisted of Beks and Meks. The Beks were the
Bolsheviks and the Meks-the Mensheviks. There was a clear line between them.
Terenty and all his friends belonged to the Beks.
There had been a Party conference in Prague not long before, and at
this conference Ulyanov, who was also called Lenin or Frey, the one who had
been sent the letter by Petya, had defeated the Meks, and now there was a
real revolutionary party of the working class.
"And will there be a revolution?" asked Petya, remembering Madame
Vasyutinskaya and her dreadful eyes that rolled like those of a madwoman.
"All in good time," said Gavrik. "We've got to get our forces together.
Then we'll see."
Once he pulled out of his pocket a dirty canvas bag filled with
something hard, and held it up before Petya's nose.
"See that?" he winked.
"What is it? Buttons for tiddly-winks?" asked Petya, surprised. He had
never thought Gavrik could still go in for silly things like that.
"Aha!" said Gavrik. "Like a game?" And his eyes sparkled slyly. Petya
held out his hand.
"Let's see."
"Hands off," said Gavrik sternly and hid the bag behind his back.
Petya realized that this must be something very different from buttons.
"I suppose it's the kind of buttons that nearly blew up our kitchen
that time," he said, remembering how the pans had leaped on the stove and
the macaroni dangled from the ceiling.
"Not quite, but something like it," said Gavrik, who evidently wanted
to show off but could not make up his mind. "Guess again, you're getting
nearer."
"Show me!" Petya pleaded, burning with curiosity.
"Not now."
"When?"
"Don't be so inquisitive," said Gavrik and pushed the bag deep into his
trouser pocket.
Petya, offended, asked no more but sulked in silence.
When the friends drew level with the depot, however, Gavrik led Petya
behind a corner. He looked round carefully, then pulled out the bag and
unfastened the knotted string with his teeth. He tipped something out on to
his palm and held it under Petya's eyes. His palm was filled with little
metal pieces that smelt strongly of printer's ink.
"Type," he said mysteriously.
Petya did not understand.
"Type for printing. Letters."'
Petya had never seen real type. As a child, it is true, he had been
given a toy printing-set in a flat tin box. There had been several dozen
rubber letters, a frame, a pad soaked with thick ink, and a pair of pincers
for handling the letters. You could set a number of words in the frame and
then stamp them on paper, making printed lines with black strips between
them. But of course, real printing was something quite different.
"And can you set type and print yourself?"
"Of course!"
"And will it be just as clear as in the newspaper?"
"Just as clear."
"Set something, show me."
"Set something, eh?" Gavrik thought a moment. "All right. But let's go
on a bit first."
They went round the depot, crawled under trucks, ran down from the
embankment and found themselves in a deep gully thick with dry weeds from
last year. There they sat down on the ground. From his pocket Gavrik took a
steel thing with a clip which he called a composing-stick and started
quickly setting letter after letter of type in a long line.
He then took a stump of pencil from his pocket and rubbed the lead over
the letters. Again he delved into that bottomless pocket, took out a scrap
of clean newsprint, laid the composing-stick on it and pressed down with his
hand.
"Ready!" He held out the paper to Petya, but without letting go of it.
"Workers of the world, unite!" Petya read these strange words faintly
but clearly printed in real newspaper lettering.
"What's that?" he asked, admiring the deft speed with which Gavrik had
done it all.
"What we've been talking about," said Gavrik; he tore the paper into
minute fragments and let the wind carry them away. "But remember!" He wagged
a finger smelling of kerosene under Petya's nose.
"You needn't worry."
Gavrik went up close to Petya and breathed into his ear, "I've got out
fifteen bags of type like this."
At the end of March Auntie finally managed to sublet the flat on good
terms. Now the furniture had to be taken care of, and then they could
finally move. Gavrik talked it over with Terenty and then suggested that the
furniture be put in their shed at Near Mills to save storage costs; and
Petya could live there too, until the end of the school exams.
This seemed ideal, and Auntie agreed gladly. She herself decided to go
and stay with an old school friend, taking Pavlik with her.
So one fine day two great flat carts called platforms, each drawn by a
pair of horses, drove into the yard. And the Bachei furniture was carried
out.
They had all thought there was a great deal of furniture in the
apartment, they had feared two platforms would not hold it all. It turned
out, however, that the second platform was only half filled. And when tables
and chairs were stood upside down on the platforms and fastened on with
thick ropes, the suites which to Petya had always looked so fine and
expensive, especially the drawing-room suite with its golden silk
upholstery, lost all their grandeur.
The bright sunshine seemed to bring all defects into glaring
prominence, every scratch, crack and tear. The wash-stand looked
particularly forlorn with its broken pedal and the crack right across the
marble. The bronze dining-room lamp became insignificant with the shade and
bronze ball removed and thrown down amid the supporting chains on the floor;
it looked a silly, old-fashioned thing that nobody in their senses would
want. Petya's most unpleasant surprise, however, was the bookcase which had
always been known in the Bachei family as "Vasily Petrovich's library."
Empty of books, lying on its side, it looked miserably small, almost like a
toy, and all the books-the famous Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopaedia,
Karamzin's History of the State of Russia, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoi,
Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Nekrasov, Sheller-Mikhailov and
Pomyalovsky-taken all together, made up about a dozen piles strongly tied
with string. In fact, all these things as they were carried out did not look
like solid, dignified furniture at all, but just old junk.
Petya climbed up beside the driver of the first platform to show him
the way. Dunyasha, her nose swollen with crying, sat on the second, holding
the mirror that reflected the street at a fantastic, dizzy angle.
Auntie, standing by the open gate with Pavlik beside her, crossed
herself and for some reason waved her handkerchief.
All the way Petya was afraid he might meet some of the boys from
school. Although he would never have admitted it even to himself, he was
ashamed of their furniture and ashamed to be taking it to such a poor
quarter of the town as Near Mills. It was not so easy to get accustomed to
the idea that now they too were "poor."
Terenty and Gavrik were not at home, only the Chernoivanenko mother and
daughter were there to meet him. Motya was more excited than anyone else,
she followed each article as it was carried across the front garden into the
shed, which had long been cleared for them.
"Oh, Petya, what beautiful chairs you've got!" she cried in sincere
admiration, and touched the silk upholstery of an armchair, rubbed down in
places so that the white threads showed.
Zhenka appeared with a crowd of boys. They swarmed round the platforms
at once, climbing with bare feet on to the wheels, feeling the bronze ball
from the lamp and turning the taps of the wash-stand; Zhenka himself
actually climbed on to the box, seized the reins, assumed a daredevil
expression and shouted, "Whoa there, damn you!" A few cuffs, however, soon
scattered the whole gang and they tore down the unpaved street, raising
clouds of dust.
When the furniture was stowed in the shed and the platforms drove away,
Dunyasha shouldered a bundle containing her clothes and icons and set off on
foot straight across the steppe to the cottage, which was not far from there
as the crow flies.
"Well, so now you're going to live here with us at Near Mills," said
Motya gaily, then noticed Petya's downcast look and added, "But whit's the
matter? Don't you like it here? You mustn't think it isn't nice, it is, it's
awfully nice. The snowdrops are out on the steppe, just the other side of
the common, and there'll soon be violets in the gullies. We can go and pick
them sometimes. Wouldn't you like it?"
Gavrik soon came home from the print shop and stealthily showed Petya
another bag of type.
"That's the sixteenth," he said with a wink.
"Look out, one of these days you may get caught," said Petya.
"Well, if I'm caught, I'm caught," sighed Gavrik. "Can't be helped."
The next moment, however, he was gaily singing a comic song very
popular on the outskirts of Odessa: "When they caught him, well, they socked
him-hey! hey! hey!"
At first glance there might not seem to be much sense in the words, but
Petya always felt some hidden meaning, some daring, fighting challenge in
that song.
They arranged a nook for Petya among the neatly stacked furniture in
the shed, with bed, table, lamp and bookshelf. There was plenty of room, so
Gavrik brought his own bed in too, to live with Petya.
Terenty came home from work, nodded to Petya and cast a business-like
look round the shed. With \a dissatisfied grunt he rearranged the furniture
to occupy less room and put a brick under the bookcase to stop it wobbling.
When he had finished there was even more space.
"But mind you behave yourselves, no fooling. I know you-you'll start
smoking, or stop each other studying." He turned to Petya. "You'll have to
work hard or they'll fail you, sure as I stand here. They won't forgive your
dad for Blizhensky. They're all the same gang. You'll see that I am right.
Well...."
He slipped the bag of tools off his shoulder, threw off his oily jacket
and went to the bowl standing on a bench by the fence. Motya gave him a
piece of blue-veined washing soap, stepped up on a low stool and poured
water from a jug over his large, black hands. Then he bent his head for her,
and washed face, head and neck, spluttering, ridding himself of metal dust
and smoke. His washing took a long time, he continued until he was as fresh
and pink as a baby pig. Then he took the embroidered towel hanging over
Motya's shoulder and dried himself with the same gusto.
Petya, meanwhile, was digesting with alarm Terenty's final words which
he believed without the faintest hesitation, particularly as he himself had
long felt something cold and threatening in the faces of the director and
school inspector whenever he passed them.
Petya was no longer surprised to find Terenty so well informed about
all their circumstances, even the incident with Blizhensky. He had stopped
regarding Terenty as a plain master mechanic at the railway workshops,
earning good wages, maybe, but still only a workman. Petya understood well
that in Terenty's other, secret life, which was called "Party work," he was
not only bigger and more important than Vasily Petrovich, he was much more
important than the school director, than Mr. Faig, than the head of the
Education Department, perhaps even more important than the Governor of
Odessa, Tolmachov.
They all had supper together. Terenty's wife picked up the prongs and
pulled an iron pot out of the stove, country-style. The pot contained
cabbage soup without meat. It was followed by a pan of potatoes fried in
sunflower oil. Everything was eaten with wooden spoons. The rye bread was
fresh and very fragrant. A head of garlic and some pods of red pepper were
on the table, but only Terenty and Gavrik took any; they put the red pepper
in the cabbage soup and rubbed the garlic on the crust of bread.
Petya, not to be outdone by his friend, also took a polished, fiery-red
pod of pepper, put it in his soup and mashed it.
"Oh, don't!" said Motya in a frightened whisper.
But Petya had already managed to swallow a mouthful of the soup and was
now sitting, tears in his eyes, his tongue thrust out, feeling as though he
breathed fire.
"Maybe you'd like some garlic too?" asked Gavrik innocently.
"Go to hell!" said Petya with difficulty, wiping the tears from his
eyes.
When they rose from table, Petya, like a well-brought-up boy, crossed
himself before the dark icon of St. Nicholas-the one he had seen as a boy in
Grandad Chernoivanenko's hut, bowed first to the mistress of the house, then
to the master and said, "Thank you most humbly." To which the mistress
answered kindly, "Good health go with it. Excuse the supper."
That was how Petya's life in Near Mills began.
They rose at six in the morning and washed in the yard, pouring cold
water from the well over each other from a jug, ate a piece of black bread
spread with plum jelly and washed it down with tea.
Then the three men-Terenty, Gavrik and Petya-set off for work. They
went out of the gate together just as the factory whistles sounded from all
sides in a long-drawn-out, imperative yet indifferent wail. The mist of a
March morning trembled from their monotonous chorus.
Gates creaked and banged all over Near Mills and the streets filled
with men hurrying to work. There were more and more of them, they overtook
one another, greeted one another in passing, gathered into small groups.
Terenty walked quickly, in silence, his tools clanking softly in his
bag. Petya and Gavrik could hardly keep up with him. Most of the workers
greeted Terenty and he replied, mechanically raising the little cap like
cyclist's wear from his big, round head. Soon he joined a large group
turning into a side-street while Petya and Gavrik went straight on together.
They parted company at the station, Petya turning right to the school
while Gavrik, casually raising one large finger to the peak of a cap exactly
like Terenty's, went on through the town to the print-shop.
All the time he was at school Petya had a strange feeling of
awkwardness, timidity, alienation. He kept away from the other boys. When
the long recess came, he looked for Pavlik, and the two brothers walked
silently up and down the corridors, holding each other's bells. Pavlik's
face was very serious, even grim.
On returning to Near Mills, Petya went into the shed and settled down
to his lessons, working with desperate intensity as though preparing for
battle.
In the evening Terenty and Gavrik came home and they all had supper.
After that Petya drilled Gavrik in Latin, and Gavrik in his turn drilled
Motya in all subjects-for she wanted to enter the fourth form at school.
It was eleven when they finally went to bed. Petya and Gavrik put out
the lamp and then lay talking in the dark. Although, to be exact, it was
Petya who did most of the talking. Gavrik had little to say, only pushed his
head deeper into the pillow. After the day's work he liked to have a good
sleep.
More than once Petya tried to tell Gavrik about the girl he fell in
love with abroad; he would introduce it with a rapid description of Vesuvius
and the Blue Grotto in Capri with its magical underwater lighting that makes
hands and faces look as though made of blue glass; but when he began to
speak in hints and half-sentences of that wonderful first meeting at the
station in Naples, he found Gavrik was already asleep, even starting to
snore.
Once, however, Petya did manage to tell Gavrik about his romance before
his friend finally dropped off to sleep. "And what happened after that?"
asked Gavrik, more from politeness than interest.
"Nothing," sighed Petya. "We parted for ever." "Well, that's very sad,
of course," said Gavrik, frankly yawning. "What was her name?"
"Her name?" said Petya slowly and mysteriously; it was a very awkward
moment. With a shade of secret grief he said, "Ah, what does a name matter!"
"Well, what was she like, at least-dark or fair?" asked Gavrik.
"Neither dark nor fair, more ... how can I explain? Her hair was sort
of chestnut, or better, dark chestnut," Petya answered with painful
exactitude.
"Uhuh, I understand," mumbled Gavrik. "Well, let's go to sleep."
"No, wait a minute," said Petya, whose imagination was only beginning
to get to work. "Don't go to sleep yet. I want you to advise me, as pal-what
ought I to do now?"
"Write to her," said Gavrik. "You know her address, don't you?"
"Ah, what would that help!" said Petya in grief-stricken accents.
"But if you love her," said Gavrik judicially.
"What's love?" said the disillusioned Petya and quoted Lermontov,
slightly out of place:
But love is no solace-too fleeting it is,
Unequal to life-long devotion.
"In that case, shut up and let me get to sleep," grunted Gavrik,
turning round on the other side and pulling the pillow over his ear.
Not another word could be got from him.
But Petya lay awake for a long time.
He could see the moon like a greenish sickle peeping in through the
tiny window. Time after time he heard the gate creak. There was a murmur of
talk and more than once people came into the little yard and went out again.
"Don't go straight there, go round by the marshalling yard." The voice
was Terenty's, evidently he had had visitors again.
Petya began thinking of that girl, but somehow he could no longer see
her clearly. The picture was hazy- a braid with a black ribbon, a cinder in
his eye, the blizzard in the mountains-and that was all. It seemed that he
had simply forgotten her.
It was rather chilly in the shed. Petya took down his Swiss cape from
the wall and spread it over his bed. Now he saw himself as the lonely
traveller in a poor shepherd's hut. There he lay, rolled in his cape,
forgotten by all, with a broken heart and a tormented soul. And she whom he
so loved, at this very moment perhaps she was.... Petya made a last
desperate effort to picture what she could be doing, but instead found his
mind drifting to quite different thoughts-thoughts of the corning exams, the
new life waiting for him on the farm, and strangest thing of all-thoughts of
Motya. Really, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to go out to the steppe with
her sometime to pick snowdrops.
It had never before entered his head that Motya could possibly be the
heroine of a romance. But now it seemed the most natural thing in the world,
he was surprised he had not thought of it. After all, she was pretty, she
loved him-of that Petya had no doubt whatsoever, and most important of all,
she was always there, at hand.
These thoughts induced a pleasant excitement, and instead of going to
sleep in tears, Petya drifted into slumber with a Languid, self-satisfied
smile and wakened with a feeling of something new and extremely pleasant.
Instead of sitting down to his lessons when he came home from school,
he sought out Motya, who was helping her mother make potato cakes, and went
straight to the point.
"Well, how about it?" he said with a condescending smile.
"How about what?" asked Motya, diffident as always when talking to
Petya.
"Have you forgotten?"
"What?" Motya repeated even more diffidently, and glanced up at the boy
from under her brows with sweet, innocent eyes.
"I thought you intended to go and pick snowdrops."
She blushed and her fingers began crumbling the edge of a potato cake.
"Do you mean it?"
"Of course. But if you don't want to go, well, it doesn't matter."
"Mummy, can you manage without me?" asked Motya. "I promised to show
Petya where the snowdrops and violets grow."
"Go along, children, go and gather your flowers," said her mother
affectionately.
Motya ran behind the curtain, unfastening her apron as she went. She
put on her best goatskin shoes and the coat she had rather grown out of
during the winter, and flung her braid over her shoulder. She was terribly
excited, and a faint dew of perspiration appeared on her neat nose.
Meanwhile, Petya, deliberately unhurried, strode nonchalantly to the
shed, put on his cloak, picked up his alpenstock and presented himself to
Motya in his sombre glory-somewhat spoiled by the school cap.
"Well, let's go," said Petya with all the grand indifference he could
muster.
"Yes, let's go," Motya answered in a very small voice, her head down,
and led the way to the gate, her new shoes squeaking loudly.
While they crossed the common where the cows were already grazing on
last year's grass, Petya turned over the very important question of which
Motya was to be- Olga or Tatyana? In any case he, of course, remained
Yevgeny Onegin. He selected the old version of Yevgeny Onegin as the
easiest, to avoid too much trouble. Motya was not worth anything more
complicated. Now he must decide quickly whether she would be Olga or
Tatyana, and then make a beginning.
In appearance she was not a bit like Tatyana, she would make a much
better Olga-if it weren't for that coat with its too short sleeves, of
course, and those dreadful squeaking shoes that could surely be heard all
over Near Mills.
Here was the end of the common, time to start. Petya quickly merged
Tatyana and Olga, getting quite a suitable hybrid whom he could preach to in
the best Onegin style:
And, in some quiet place apart
Instruct the lady of his heart. . .
and yet whose hand he could tenderly press; and best of all there would
be no need for kissing, the very thought of which made Petya thoroughly
uncomfortable.
He would continue to be Onegin but with a faint touch of Lensky which,
however, should not hamper him in following the great rule:
A woman's love for us increases .
The less we love her, sooth to say. . .
It could become a splendid romance. It was rather a drawback, of
course, that he really did like Motya. That was quite out of place if he
were to be Onegin. But Petya resolved to treat his feelings with contempt,
and as soon as they were out on the steppe he said sternly, "Motya, I've
something very serious to say to you."
The girl's heart turned over and she halted, alarmed by his grim look.
"Have you ever loved anyone?" asked Petya with still greater sternness.
"Yes," answered Motya in a small voice.
Petya's face showed an involuntary smile of self-satisfaction, but on
the instant he banished it and asked, looking straight into her eyes,
"Who?"
"A lot of people," answered Motya simply.
Petya bit back the word "fool," that nearly slipped out, and set to
work patiently explaining what love was, what it meant in general and what
it meant in particular. Motya understood and flushed crimson.
"Well then?" Petya asked insistently.
"You know for yourself," Motya whispered almost inaudibly, raising
happy, tear-filled eyes to his face.
She was so sweet in that moment that Petya was ready to fall in love
with her, very much like Lensky with Olga, in spite of the squeaking shoes
and the coat bought on the market. But such a very easy victory could not
satisfy him, it was too commonplace.
"So I can count on your friendship?" he asked.
"Yes, of course," said Motya. "Always."
"Then I must tell you my secret. Only promise that it shall remain
between ourselves."
"I give my word, I swear it by the true Cross," said Motya and quickly
crossed herself several times. "May I die here on this spot if I ever say a
word."
"I have fallen in love," said Petya mournfully.
He stood in silence for a moment, then told Motya about his romance,
word for word as he had told it to Gavrik in the shed.
Motya listened in silence, her arms hanging despondently, and when he
finished she asked in a voice unlike her own, "What is her name?"
"What does a name matter!" Petya answered.
"And you love her very, very much?" said Motya in lifeless tones.
"That's just it," Petya answered.
"I wish you all happiness," said Motya in a barely audible voice.
"Yes, but I want your advice as a friend-what ought I to do now? How
should I act?"
"Write her a letter if you love her so much."
"But what is love? 'Love is no solace-too fleeting it is, unequal to
life-long devotion,'" said Petya, in a. somewhat dramatic sing-song.
"I wish you all happiness," said Motya. Her eyes suddenly narrowed like
a cat's, almost frightening Petya. Then she turned and walked rapidly back
the way they had come.
"Stop, where are you going? What about the snowdrops?" Petya called
out.
"I wish you all happiness," she said again, without turning.
Petya ran after her, the cape hampered him but he overtook her. She
flung off the hand he put on her shoulder and quickened her steps.
"Silly girl, I was only joking, can't you understand I was joking?
Can't you take a joke?" Petya mumbled. "Why do you have to lose your temper
like that?"
Now that she was angry he liked her twice as much as before.
Motya ran all the way across the common and only slowed her pace to a
walk when she reached the street.
Petya walked beside her, protesting:
"I was only joking. Can't you understand that? Silly girl, to lose your
temper this way!"
"I've not lost my temper," she said quietly.
The storm of jealousy had passed, she was the old Motya again.
"Let's make up, then," Petya proposed.
"But I haven't quarrelled with you," she answered. She even forced a
faint smile because she did not want people to see them quarrelling in the
street.
Petya was embarrassed but inwardly triumphant. Taken all round it had
been an excellent love scene.
It was Zhenya who spoiled it all. He had long been watching them,
together with his faithful followers. And now the whole gang of boys
followed them at a cautious distance chanting in chorus, "Spoony, spoony,
krssy-kissy-coo!"
One day at the beginning of April Gavrik came home from the print-shop
much later than usual. Petya was in the shed going over his geometry.
"Soldiers have fired on the workers at the Lena gold-fields," Gavrik
said before he was properly inside, and without removing his cap crossed
over and sat down on the edge of his bed.
Petya already knew from the talk he had heard in Near Mills that far
away in Siberia, in the dense taiga by the Lena River, there were
gold-fields where workers lived in horrible conditions. He also knew that at
one of the worst of these, the workers had been on strike ever since
February and had even sent deputations to the other fields. The strike was
led by the Beks, while the Meks were trying to persuade the workers to call
off the strike and make peace with the management. But the workers would not
listen to the Meks and the strike spread. Over six thousand were out. That
was the last news which had come by devious routes from the banks of the
Lena.
Now Gavrik sat, his hands between his knees, staring at the green shade
of the lamp that was reflected in his fixed eyes. His breathing was slow but
deep, like a succession of sighs-evidently he had hurried home from the
print-shop.
At first Petya did not take in the full significance of Gavrik's words.
It had been said so simply, almost without expression: "Soldiers have fired
on the workers." He looked again at Gavrik, at his frozen, haggard face, and
realization flooded his mind.
"How-how did they fire?" he asked, feeling his face stiffen like
Gavrik's.
"Just like that. Quite simple," said Gavrik roughly. "From rifles.
Company, aim! Fire!"
"How do you know?"
"I set the dispatch myself. Nonpareil, six point. It came in three
hours ago. It's to be in today's issue- if they don't take it out. You can
expect any dirt from them. Well, I'm off," he said, rising with a jerk.
"Where are you going?"
"To Terenty at the workshops. Seems he's doing overtime on the
night-shift."
With that Gavrik turned and went.
Petya felt he could not bear it alone in the shed, he ran after Gavrik
and overtook him by the gate. Silently they walked together through the
transparent darkness of the April night. The first apple blossom was out in
the gardens, but in Siberia it was still winter with hard frost, and the
Lena River lay ice-bound under its covering of snow.
Petya had come out without a coat and soon felt chilly. He thrust his
hands into the sleeves of his school jacket and huddled his elbows to him as
he walked beside Gavrik. A church clock somewhere struck eleven. In the
houses everyone was asleep and the windows were dark; the only lamp was the
electric light at the gates of the railway workshops, that cast its
reflection on the lines. The watchman was dozing, the bottom of his
sheepskin peeped through the open door of his shelter.
Petya and Gavrik went round the locomotive shop, and peered through the
dusty glass, broken here and there. Petya could see the flickering light of
a furnace, and the great bulk of an engine slung in chains from the roof.
Workers walked about beneath it. Petya at once recognized Terenty, carrying
an oily steel connecting-rod on his shoulder, one hand steadying an end
wrapped in a black rag.
A railway engineer in a uniform cap and a tunic with shoulder-straps
stood, feet astride, at one side, holding a large blueprint as though it
were a newspaper he was reading.
All this Petya had seen many times before, it contained nothing
unusual, still less menacing. But now a chill of fear ran through him. He
felt that any moment those chains might snap and the pendant engine crash
down with all its giant weight upon the men standing underneath. For an
instant the picture was so real before him that he shut his eyes.
But at that moment Gavrik put two fingers into his mouth and whistled.
Terenty turned and looked at the dark glass of the window that dimly
reflected the electric lights in the shop. Then with a smooth heavy movement
of his great body he slid the rod from his shoulder and carried it on
outstretched arms away to the side. Soon after that he appeared round the
corner and came up to the boys.
"What's the matter?" he asked Gavrik, but looked at Petya.
"Soldiers have fired on the workers at the Lena gold-fields," said
Gavrik in a low voice. "A dispatch came from Irkutsk today. I ran off eight
copies just in case." He handed Terenty a sheet of fresh proofs.
Terenty turned his back to the lighted window and read the dispatch.
Petya could not see the expression of his face but felt it must be dreadful.
Suddenly Terenty bent, snatched up a piece of clinker from the ground and
flung it against the wall with such force that it shattered to fragments.
For some time he stood breathing heavily, mastering himself, then he
led Gavrik aside and they talked quickly for a moment.
On the way back Gavrik several times left Petya and disappeared for a
little while. Once Petya saw him go to somebody's gate and thrust a white
paper into the crack. He guessed that this was a copy of the dispatch.
They returned to their shed, put out the light and went to bed, but it
was a long time before the boys could sleep. Petya found himself listening
fearfully to the sounds of the night. He had the feeling that something
terrible was going to begin. Shouting crowds would run down the street, a
fire would break out somewhere, there would be revolver shots. But
everything was quiet.
The pointsman's horn sounded from the railway crossing; then a goods
train passed. A cart rattled along the uneven road a long way off, he could
hear an empty bucket banging under it. Then came the third cock-crow,
prolonged and sleepy, caught up by bird after bird throughout Near Mills.
That was followed by the factory whistles and then the creaking of gates.
The day passed as usual. At recess, however, Petya noticed some of the
big boys reading a newspaper under the stairs, and heard the whispered
words, "There's trouble at the Lena gold-fields."
Gavrik came home even later than the previous day- he had waited for
the latest news-and brought a big bundle of proofs with him. They were of
dispatches giving the details of the Lena massacre. Five hundred killed and
wounded. Petya went cold with horror.
Night came. Terenty said a few words to Gavrik, then they both went
out. Petya wanted to go too, but they refused to take him. Left alone, he
went to bed, pulled his cape right over his head and fell asleep. Soon,
however, he was awake again.
Everything was very quiet. Petya lay on his back, eyes open, trying to
picture five hundred killed and wounded. But it was impossible, no matter
how he strained his imagination. All he could see was an indistinct picture
of a snow-covered field strewn with the dark forms of dead workers. The
meaning of the picture was immeasurably worse than the picture itself and
this inconsistency tormented Petya, and would let him think of nothing else.
Suddenly it occurred to him that five hundred was just the number of
pupils and teachers at his school. He pictured the corridors, staircases,
class-rooms, gym and the assembly hall full of dead and wounded pupils and
teachers, the pools of blood on the tile floors, the screams, the groans,
the confusion....
A shudder ran through him.
But still it was not the same, because this was only fancy while that
had been real. Those bodies were real, not imaginary, and Petya started to
remember all the dead bodies he had seen.
He remembered Mother in her coffin, looking like a bride, her lips
blackened from medicine and a strip of paper on her forehead. He remembered
Uncle Misha in his frock-coat, his arms with their bony white hands crossed
on his breast. He remembered Vitya Seroshevsky, one of the boys in the
fourth form who had died of diphtheria, looking like a large doll in his
blue uniform. Grandad- Mother's father-with his bald head reflecting the
light of the candles. An infantry general who had been taken past the house
in an open coffin on a gun-carriage, with all his decorations carried on a
velvet cushion in front.
But none of these had been killed, they had died a natural death, they
were taken to the cemetery with wreaths and incense and music and singing
and lanterns on crape-swathed staffs. However dreadful they might look,
these motionless forms still bore human semblance amid all the funereal
trappings, and they could not give Petya any idea of those hundreds who lay
prone in the snow, and his torment continued.
Suddenly he saw again what had long been thrust away into the very back
of his memory and hardly ever came to the surface, because it was so much
more terrible than anything else.
Petya remembered 1905, Terenty's bandaged head with blood trickling
down his temple, he remembered the room with its smashed furniture full of
the smoke of gunfire, and the man with the indifferent waxen face and a
black hole above the open eye who lay so uncomfortably on the floor among
empty cartridge clips and cartridge eases. He remembered the two Cossacks
galloping past, dragging after them on a rope the corpse of a man Petya
knew, Joseph Karlovich, who owned the shooting-gallery, and leaving a long,
strangely bright trail of red on the grey, dusty road.
Again Petya saw the snow-covered field and the dead bodies. But it no
longer tormented him with unreality, for now he understood the meaning it
held. What it meant was that some people killed others because those others
did not want to be slaves.
Rage flooded Petya. He bit the pillow to hold back tears. But they came
nevertheless. In the morning he rose, weary from a sleepless night, with
dark circles under his eyes, haggard and sombre.
Gavrik and Terenty had not yet come home. Motya, a grey knitted shawl
round her head and shoulders, silently gave him a mug of tea and a hunk of
bread and jam. She 'had not yet combed her hair, she stole fearful looks at
the boy and shivered in the chill of early morning-probably she had not
slept all night either. Her mother was washing clothes out in the yard, with
iridescent soap-bubbles rising from her tub. She mournfully wished Petya
good morning.
On this day Petya set off for school alone. The streets looked just as
they always did. Workers walked in groups on their way to the morning-shift.
They seemed to go faster than usual. Groups knotted together and in some
places formed crowds. Passing them, Petya could feel hostile looks cast at
his cap with its badge, his bright buttons and belt with the uniform buckle.
Although the early sunshine filled the street with warm, rosy light and
the air was clear and fresh with the scents of April, although the little
shunters whistled gaily to one another as usual, an invisible funereal
shadow seemed to lie over everything.
Petya saw the elderly local policeman pacing his beat down the street.
But at the cross-roads he saw another policeman, one he did not know. Petya
greeted the old policeman as usual with a courteous lift of his cap and
passed the stranger with head down; but he could feel the man examining him
from head to foot with fierce eyes in a young, soldierly face.
News-boys were running about the town shouting, "Lena events, full
report, five hundred killed and wounded!"
It was strangely quiet at the school, both at lessons and during
recess. On his way home, before he got to Near Mills, Petya heard a factory
whistle, then another, and a third, until their chorus made the air vibrate.
At the cross-roads where the strange policeman had stood in the
morning, Petya found a thick crowd that swelled with every minute as people
joined it singly or in groups, running out from all the nearby streets,
gardens and waste lots.
He realized that this was a strike, and the men in this crowd were the
workers from various mills and factories who had just downed tools.
He wanted to turn back and go another way, but a fresh crowd swelled up
behind him, carrying him along with it. The two masses of people joined and
Petya found himself in the middle, hemmed in on all sides. He tried to get
out but his satchel hindered him. One strap broke and the satchel slipped
down. With an effort Petya twisted round, slid it off his shoulder and held
it in front of him, pushing away the backs and elbows that pressed against
him.
Petya was too small to see what was going on in front, all he knew was
that he was being carried along somewhere, that the crowd had some definite
objective and that somebody was guiding its movement. He began to feel a
little calmer and with the corner of his satchel straightened the cap that
had been pushed to one side.
The people moved very slowly. There was nothing menacing in their
movement, as Petya had thought at first, rather it was resolute, tense and
business-like.
The factory whistles which had drowned out every other sound gradually
died away, and he could hear the hum of voices.
At last everyone stopped. Petya saw the long roofs of the repair
workshops and felt railway lines under his feet-he stumbled and would have
fallen but for somebody's big, strong hand. Then there was a general move
forward again, and frantic police whistles.
The crowd separated into groups and Petya saw the familiar gates of the
workshops. They were closed and before them the policeman with the fierce
turned her bovine eyes on Auntie and lowered her voice, "he is not God's
Anointed, but a plain coward. Instead of shooting and hanging these rabble,
he flew into a panic. How could any man with sense and understanding give
Russia a constitution and allow that disgraceful All-Russian talking-shop in
the Tavrichesky Palace, with Yids spitting dirt at the government and openly
calling for revolution!"
With the last words her voice rose to a sudden scream, so strident that
even the canaries in the neighbouring room were silenced for a little while.
"And they'll get it, mark my words-revolution will come, and very soon,
and then those scum will hang all decent people on the first lamppost. But
I'm not such a fool as to sit here and wait for it. I had enough with my
Chernigov estate. You can all do as you like, but I shall go abroad. I shall
go, and leave a curse on this country with its Social-Democrats and
factions, and resolutions, and strikes, and May Day meetings, and
workers-of-the-world-unite! Take my land and run it as you please-if the
rabble are kind enough to give their permission, that is!"
She was no longer talking, she was screaming at the top of her voice,
and Petya looked with mingled terror and disgust at her eyes, rolling in
frenzy.
"Excuse me," she said suddenly in her ordinary voice. "Will you be so
kind as to pay the second instalment on your note of hand to my lawyer, and
he will forward it to me."
Auntie quickly began preparing to go, pulling on her gloves and
straightening her hat. Madame Vasyutinskaya did not stop her. When they came
out of the house, they noticed open trunks in the little yard ;and coats
hung on ropes to air. Evidently Madame Vasyutinskaya really did intend to
leave.
Soon afterwards, the Bachei family moved to their new home. Not all at
once, however. Vastly Petrovich went first to take possession and have
everything in order before spring came.
Auntie and the boys were to remain in town for a little while longer,
to sub-let the flat and store the furniture.
The boys were still going to school, for the fees had been paid at the
beginning of the year. What they would do the next year depended on the
success of the new venture.
Gavrik often visited them now. He had taken and passed the exams for
three forms as an out-student; Petya was coaching him for the sixth-form
exam, but now he did not refuse the fifty kopeks a lesson.
Gavrik was still working in the Odessa Leaflet print-shop, not as a
printer's devil, however; he was already an apprentice type-setter and
earning quite good wages. Sometimes he came straight from work in the
evening, bringing with him the acrid, alluring smell of the print-shop. He
was very apt at his job and in some ways had already outstripped his master.
When he came to the Bachei home, he was no longer shy and awkward, he bore
himself confidently and one day even brought a half-pound of sweets for tea.
He handed the little package to Auntie, saying, "Allow me to make this
little present. It's my pay-day. They're Abrikosov's caramels, I know you
like them."
The misfortunes of the Bachei family -seemed to have brought Gavrik and
Petya closer together. Gavrik not only sympathized with Petya-he understood
his situation, which was much more important. Incidentally, from beginning
to end of the whole affair he expressed his own very definite views about it
all quite freely.
Vasily Petrovich's dismissal from the Faig establishment, although
unpleasant, was something inevitable, for after all better to starve than to
work for such a parasite, such a blood-sucker. Here, Gavrik fully approved
of Vasily Petrovich's action. But to sell the piano for a song and rent a
farm-this was another matter; he could not believe that a family of
intellectuals would be able to till the soil with their own hands.
"You don't know a thing about it, you'll get calluses and that's all.
Stolypin farmers!" he added with a smile.
Petya had noticed lately that Gavrik linked up everything with
politics.
"Yes, but what was Father to do?" he asked with irritation.
"What he'd done before. Give people learning. That's what a teacher's
job is."
"But if he's not allowed?"
"Eh, brother, they can't forbid anyone to teach folks."
"But what folks? Where are they?"
"He'd find them if he looked for them," said Gavrik evasively. "Well,
let's get on with the lesson."
After their lessons Petya would often walk part of the way home with
Gavrik, sometimes he even went as far as Near Mills. There were many things
they talked of on the way, and Gavrik was not so secretive as formerly.
Petya learned that there was a committee of the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party in the town. It consisted of Beks and Meks. The Beks were the
Bolsheviks and the Meks-the Mensheviks. There was a clear line between them.
Terenty and all his friends belonged to the Beks.
There had been a Party conference in Prague not long before, and at
this conference Ulyanov, who was also called Lenin or Frey, the one who had
been sent the letter by Petya, had defeated the Meks, and now there was a
real revolutionary party of the working class.
"And will there be a revolution?" asked Petya, remembering Madame
Vasyutinskaya and her dreadful eyes that rolled like those of a madwoman.
"All in good time," said Gavrik. "We've got to get our forces together.
Then we'll see."
Once he pulled out of his pocket a dirty canvas bag filled with
something hard, and held it up before Petya's nose.
"See that?" he winked.
"What is it? Buttons for tiddly-winks?" asked Petya, surprised. He had
never thought Gavrik could still go in for silly things like that.
"Aha!" said Gavrik. "Like a game?" And his eyes sparkled slyly. Petya
held out his hand.
"Let's see."
"Hands off," said Gavrik sternly and hid the bag behind his back.
Petya realized that this must be something very different from buttons.
"I suppose it's the kind of buttons that nearly blew up our kitchen
that time," he said, remembering how the pans had leaped on the stove and
the macaroni dangled from the ceiling.
"Not quite, but something like it," said Gavrik, who evidently wanted
to show off but could not make up his mind. "Guess again, you're getting
nearer."
"Show me!" Petya pleaded, burning with curiosity.
"Not now."
"When?"
"Don't be so inquisitive," said Gavrik and pushed the bag deep into his
trouser pocket.
Petya, offended, asked no more but sulked in silence.
When the friends drew level with the depot, however, Gavrik led Petya
behind a corner. He looked round carefully, then pulled out the bag and
unfastened the knotted string with his teeth. He tipped something out on to
his palm and held it under Petya's eyes. His palm was filled with little
metal pieces that smelt strongly of printer's ink.
"Type," he said mysteriously.
Petya did not understand.
"Type for printing. Letters."'
Petya had never seen real type. As a child, it is true, he had been
given a toy printing-set in a flat tin box. There had been several dozen
rubber letters, a frame, a pad soaked with thick ink, and a pair of pincers
for handling the letters. You could set a number of words in the frame and
then stamp them on paper, making printed lines with black strips between
them. But of course, real printing was something quite different.
"And can you set type and print yourself?"
"Of course!"
"And will it be just as clear as in the newspaper?"
"Just as clear."
"Set something, show me."
"Set something, eh?" Gavrik thought a moment. "All right. But let's go
on a bit first."
They went round the depot, crawled under trucks, ran down from the
embankment and found themselves in a deep gully thick with dry weeds from
last year. There they sat down on the ground. From his pocket Gavrik took a
steel thing with a clip which he called a composing-stick and started
quickly setting letter after letter of type in a long line.
He then took a stump of pencil from his pocket and rubbed the lead over
the letters. Again he delved into that bottomless pocket, took out a scrap
of clean newsprint, laid the composing-stick on it and pressed down with his
hand.
"Ready!" He held out the paper to Petya, but without letting go of it.
"Workers of the world, unite!" Petya read these strange words faintly
but clearly printed in real newspaper lettering.
"What's that?" he asked, admiring the deft speed with which Gavrik had
done it all.
"What we've been talking about," said Gavrik; he tore the paper into
minute fragments and let the wind carry them away. "But remember!" He wagged
a finger smelling of kerosene under Petya's nose.
"You needn't worry."
Gavrik went up close to Petya and breathed into his ear, "I've got out
fifteen bags of type like this."
At the end of March Auntie finally managed to sublet the flat on good
terms. Now the furniture had to be taken care of, and then they could
finally move. Gavrik talked it over with Terenty and then suggested that the
furniture be put in their shed at Near Mills to save storage costs; and
Petya could live there too, until the end of the school exams.
This seemed ideal, and Auntie agreed gladly. She herself decided to go
and stay with an old school friend, taking Pavlik with her.
So one fine day two great flat carts called platforms, each drawn by a
pair of horses, drove into the yard. And the Bachei furniture was carried
out.
They had all thought there was a great deal of furniture in the
apartment, they had feared two platforms would not hold it all. It turned
out, however, that the second platform was only half filled. And when tables
and chairs were stood upside down on the platforms and fastened on with
thick ropes, the suites which to Petya had always looked so fine and
expensive, especially the drawing-room suite with its golden silk
upholstery, lost all their grandeur.
The bright sunshine seemed to bring all defects into glaring
prominence, every scratch, crack and tear. The wash-stand looked
particularly forlorn with its broken pedal and the crack right across the
marble. The bronze dining-room lamp became insignificant with the shade and
bronze ball removed and thrown down amid the supporting chains on the floor;
it looked a silly, old-fashioned thing that nobody in their senses would
want. Petya's most unpleasant surprise, however, was the bookcase which had
always been known in the Bachei family as "Vasily Petrovich's library."
Empty of books, lying on its side, it looked miserably small, almost like a
toy, and all the books-the famous Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopaedia,
Karamzin's History of the State of Russia, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoi,
Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Nekrasov, Sheller-Mikhailov and
Pomyalovsky-taken all together, made up about a dozen piles strongly tied
with string. In fact, all these things as they were carried out did not look
like solid, dignified furniture at all, but just old junk.
Petya climbed up beside the driver of the first platform to show him
the way. Dunyasha, her nose swollen with crying, sat on the second, holding
the mirror that reflected the street at a fantastic, dizzy angle.
Auntie, standing by the open gate with Pavlik beside her, crossed
herself and for some reason waved her handkerchief.
All the way Petya was afraid he might meet some of the boys from
school. Although he would never have admitted it even to himself, he was
ashamed of their furniture and ashamed to be taking it to such a poor
quarter of the town as Near Mills. It was not so easy to get accustomed to
the idea that now they too were "poor."
Terenty and Gavrik were not at home, only the Chernoivanenko mother and
daughter were there to meet him. Motya was more excited than anyone else,
she followed each article as it was carried across the front garden into the
shed, which had long been cleared for them.
"Oh, Petya, what beautiful chairs you've got!" she cried in sincere
admiration, and touched the silk upholstery of an armchair, rubbed down in
places so that the white threads showed.
Zhenka appeared with a crowd of boys. They swarmed round the platforms
at once, climbing with bare feet on to the wheels, feeling the bronze ball
from the lamp and turning the taps of the wash-stand; Zhenka himself
actually climbed on to the box, seized the reins, assumed a daredevil
expression and shouted, "Whoa there, damn you!" A few cuffs, however, soon
scattered the whole gang and they tore down the unpaved street, raising
clouds of dust.
When the furniture was stowed in the shed and the platforms drove away,
Dunyasha shouldered a bundle containing her clothes and icons and set off on
foot straight across the steppe to the cottage, which was not far from there
as the crow flies.
"Well, so now you're going to live here with us at Near Mills," said
Motya gaily, then noticed Petya's downcast look and added, "But whit's the
matter? Don't you like it here? You mustn't think it isn't nice, it is, it's
awfully nice. The snowdrops are out on the steppe, just the other side of
the common, and there'll soon be violets in the gullies. We can go and pick
them sometimes. Wouldn't you like it?"
Gavrik soon came home from the print shop and stealthily showed Petya
another bag of type.
"That's the sixteenth," he said with a wink.
"Look out, one of these days you may get caught," said Petya.
"Well, if I'm caught, I'm caught," sighed Gavrik. "Can't be helped."
The next moment, however, he was gaily singing a comic song very
popular on the outskirts of Odessa: "When they caught him, well, they socked
him-hey! hey! hey!"
At first glance there might not seem to be much sense in the words, but
Petya always felt some hidden meaning, some daring, fighting challenge in
that song.
They arranged a nook for Petya among the neatly stacked furniture in
the shed, with bed, table, lamp and bookshelf. There was plenty of room, so
Gavrik brought his own bed in too, to live with Petya.
Terenty came home from work, nodded to Petya and cast a business-like
look round the shed. With \a dissatisfied grunt he rearranged the furniture
to occupy less room and put a brick under the bookcase to stop it wobbling.
When he had finished there was even more space.
"But mind you behave yourselves, no fooling. I know you-you'll start
smoking, or stop each other studying." He turned to Petya. "You'll have to
work hard or they'll fail you, sure as I stand here. They won't forgive your
dad for Blizhensky. They're all the same gang. You'll see that I am right.
Well...."
He slipped the bag of tools off his shoulder, threw off his oily jacket
and went to the bowl standing on a bench by the fence. Motya gave him a
piece of blue-veined washing soap, stepped up on a low stool and poured
water from a jug over his large, black hands. Then he bent his head for her,
and washed face, head and neck, spluttering, ridding himself of metal dust
and smoke. His washing took a long time, he continued until he was as fresh
and pink as a baby pig. Then he took the embroidered towel hanging over
Motya's shoulder and dried himself with the same gusto.
Petya, meanwhile, was digesting with alarm Terenty's final words which
he believed without the faintest hesitation, particularly as he himself had
long felt something cold and threatening in the faces of the director and
school inspector whenever he passed them.
Petya was no longer surprised to find Terenty so well informed about
all their circumstances, even the incident with Blizhensky. He had stopped
regarding Terenty as a plain master mechanic at the railway workshops,
earning good wages, maybe, but still only a workman. Petya understood well
that in Terenty's other, secret life, which was called "Party work," he was
not only bigger and more important than Vasily Petrovich, he was much more
important than the school director, than Mr. Faig, than the head of the
Education Department, perhaps even more important than the Governor of
Odessa, Tolmachov.
They all had supper together. Terenty's wife picked up the prongs and
pulled an iron pot out of the stove, country-style. The pot contained
cabbage soup without meat. It was followed by a pan of potatoes fried in
sunflower oil. Everything was eaten with wooden spoons. The rye bread was
fresh and very fragrant. A head of garlic and some pods of red pepper were
on the table, but only Terenty and Gavrik took any; they put the red pepper
in the cabbage soup and rubbed the garlic on the crust of bread.
Petya, not to be outdone by his friend, also took a polished, fiery-red
pod of pepper, put it in his soup and mashed it.
"Oh, don't!" said Motya in a frightened whisper.
But Petya had already managed to swallow a mouthful of the soup and was
now sitting, tears in his eyes, his tongue thrust out, feeling as though he
breathed fire.
"Maybe you'd like some garlic too?" asked Gavrik innocently.
"Go to hell!" said Petya with difficulty, wiping the tears from his
eyes.
When they rose from table, Petya, like a well-brought-up boy, crossed
himself before the dark icon of St. Nicholas-the one he had seen as a boy in
Grandad Chernoivanenko's hut, bowed first to the mistress of the house, then
to the master and said, "Thank you most humbly." To which the mistress
answered kindly, "Good health go with it. Excuse the supper."
That was how Petya's life in Near Mills began.
They rose at six in the morning and washed in the yard, pouring cold
water from the well over each other from a jug, ate a piece of black bread
spread with plum jelly and washed it down with tea.
Then the three men-Terenty, Gavrik and Petya-set off for work. They
went out of the gate together just as the factory whistles sounded from all
sides in a long-drawn-out, imperative yet indifferent wail. The mist of a
March morning trembled from their monotonous chorus.
Gates creaked and banged all over Near Mills and the streets filled
with men hurrying to work. There were more and more of them, they overtook
one another, greeted one another in passing, gathered into small groups.
Terenty walked quickly, in silence, his tools clanking softly in his
bag. Petya and Gavrik could hardly keep up with him. Most of the workers
greeted Terenty and he replied, mechanically raising the little cap like
cyclist's wear from his big, round head. Soon he joined a large group
turning into a side-street while Petya and Gavrik went straight on together.
They parted company at the station, Petya turning right to the school
while Gavrik, casually raising one large finger to the peak of a cap exactly
like Terenty's, went on through the town to the print-shop.
All the time he was at school Petya had a strange feeling of
awkwardness, timidity, alienation. He kept away from the other boys. When
the long recess came, he looked for Pavlik, and the two brothers walked
silently up and down the corridors, holding each other's bells. Pavlik's
face was very serious, even grim.
On returning to Near Mills, Petya went into the shed and settled down
to his lessons, working with desperate intensity as though preparing for
battle.
In the evening Terenty and Gavrik came home and they all had supper.
After that Petya drilled Gavrik in Latin, and Gavrik in his turn drilled
Motya in all subjects-for she wanted to enter the fourth form at school.
It was eleven when they finally went to bed. Petya and Gavrik put out
the lamp and then lay talking in the dark. Although, to be exact, it was
Petya who did most of the talking. Gavrik had little to say, only pushed his
head deeper into the pillow. After the day's work he liked to have a good
sleep.
More than once Petya tried to tell Gavrik about the girl he fell in
love with abroad; he would introduce it with a rapid description of Vesuvius
and the Blue Grotto in Capri with its magical underwater lighting that makes
hands and faces look as though made of blue glass; but when he began to
speak in hints and half-sentences of that wonderful first meeting at the
station in Naples, he found Gavrik was already asleep, even starting to
snore.
Once, however, Petya did manage to tell Gavrik about his romance before
his friend finally dropped off to sleep. "And what happened after that?"
asked Gavrik, more from politeness than interest.
"Nothing," sighed Petya. "We parted for ever." "Well, that's very sad,
of course," said Gavrik, frankly yawning. "What was her name?"
"Her name?" said Petya slowly and mysteriously; it was a very awkward
moment. With a shade of secret grief he said, "Ah, what does a name matter!"
"Well, what was she like, at least-dark or fair?" asked Gavrik.
"Neither dark nor fair, more ... how can I explain? Her hair was sort
of chestnut, or better, dark chestnut," Petya answered with painful
exactitude.
"Uhuh, I understand," mumbled Gavrik. "Well, let's go to sleep."
"No, wait a minute," said Petya, whose imagination was only beginning
to get to work. "Don't go to sleep yet. I want you to advise me, as pal-what
ought I to do now?"
"Write to her," said Gavrik. "You know her address, don't you?"
"Ah, what would that help!" said Petya in grief-stricken accents.
"But if you love her," said Gavrik judicially.
"What's love?" said the disillusioned Petya and quoted Lermontov,
slightly out of place:
But love is no solace-too fleeting it is,
Unequal to life-long devotion.
"In that case, shut up and let me get to sleep," grunted Gavrik,
turning round on the other side and pulling the pillow over his ear.
Not another word could be got from him.
But Petya lay awake for a long time.
He could see the moon like a greenish sickle peeping in through the
tiny window. Time after time he heard the gate creak. There was a murmur of
talk and more than once people came into the little yard and went out again.
"Don't go straight there, go round by the marshalling yard." The voice
was Terenty's, evidently he had had visitors again.
Petya began thinking of that girl, but somehow he could no longer see
her clearly. The picture was hazy- a braid with a black ribbon, a cinder in
his eye, the blizzard in the mountains-and that was all. It seemed that he
had simply forgotten her.
It was rather chilly in the shed. Petya took down his Swiss cape from
the wall and spread it over his bed. Now he saw himself as the lonely
traveller in a poor shepherd's hut. There he lay, rolled in his cape,
forgotten by all, with a broken heart and a tormented soul. And she whom he
so loved, at this very moment perhaps she was.... Petya made a last
desperate effort to picture what she could be doing, but instead found his
mind drifting to quite different thoughts-thoughts of the corning exams, the
new life waiting for him on the farm, and strangest thing of all-thoughts of
Motya. Really, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to go out to the steppe with
her sometime to pick snowdrops.
It had never before entered his head that Motya could possibly be the
heroine of a romance. But now it seemed the most natural thing in the world,
he was surprised he had not thought of it. After all, she was pretty, she
loved him-of that Petya had no doubt whatsoever, and most important of all,
she was always there, at hand.
These thoughts induced a pleasant excitement, and instead of going to
sleep in tears, Petya drifted into slumber with a Languid, self-satisfied
smile and wakened with a feeling of something new and extremely pleasant.
Instead of sitting down to his lessons when he came home from school,
he sought out Motya, who was helping her mother make potato cakes, and went
straight to the point.
"Well, how about it?" he said with a condescending smile.
"How about what?" asked Motya, diffident as always when talking to
Petya.
"Have you forgotten?"
"What?" Motya repeated even more diffidently, and glanced up at the boy
from under her brows with sweet, innocent eyes.
"I thought you intended to go and pick snowdrops."
She blushed and her fingers began crumbling the edge of a potato cake.
"Do you mean it?"
"Of course. But if you don't want to go, well, it doesn't matter."
"Mummy, can you manage without me?" asked Motya. "I promised to show
Petya where the snowdrops and violets grow."
"Go along, children, go and gather your flowers," said her mother
affectionately.
Motya ran behind the curtain, unfastening her apron as she went. She
put on her best goatskin shoes and the coat she had rather grown out of
during the winter, and flung her braid over her shoulder. She was terribly
excited, and a faint dew of perspiration appeared on her neat nose.
Meanwhile, Petya, deliberately unhurried, strode nonchalantly to the
shed, put on his cloak, picked up his alpenstock and presented himself to
Motya in his sombre glory-somewhat spoiled by the school cap.
"Well, let's go," said Petya with all the grand indifference he could
muster.
"Yes, let's go," Motya answered in a very small voice, her head down,
and led the way to the gate, her new shoes squeaking loudly.
While they crossed the common where the cows were already grazing on
last year's grass, Petya turned over the very important question of which
Motya was to be- Olga or Tatyana? In any case he, of course, remained
Yevgeny Onegin. He selected the old version of Yevgeny Onegin as the
easiest, to avoid too much trouble. Motya was not worth anything more
complicated. Now he must decide quickly whether she would be Olga or
Tatyana, and then make a beginning.
In appearance she was not a bit like Tatyana, she would make a much
better Olga-if it weren't for that coat with its too short sleeves, of
course, and those dreadful squeaking shoes that could surely be heard all
over Near Mills.
Here was the end of the common, time to start. Petya quickly merged
Tatyana and Olga, getting quite a suitable hybrid whom he could preach to in
the best Onegin style:
And, in some quiet place apart
Instruct the lady of his heart. . .
and yet whose hand he could tenderly press; and best of all there would
be no need for kissing, the very thought of which made Petya thoroughly
uncomfortable.
He would continue to be Onegin but with a faint touch of Lensky which,
however, should not hamper him in following the great rule:
A woman's love for us increases .
The less we love her, sooth to say. . .
It could become a splendid romance. It was rather a drawback, of
course, that he really did like Motya. That was quite out of place if he
were to be Onegin. But Petya resolved to treat his feelings with contempt,
and as soon as they were out on the steppe he said sternly, "Motya, I've
something very serious to say to you."
The girl's heart turned over and she halted, alarmed by his grim look.
"Have you ever loved anyone?" asked Petya with still greater sternness.
"Yes," answered Motya in a small voice.
Petya's face showed an involuntary smile of self-satisfaction, but on
the instant he banished it and asked, looking straight into her eyes,
"Who?"
"A lot of people," answered Motya simply.
Petya bit back the word "fool," that nearly slipped out, and set to
work patiently explaining what love was, what it meant in general and what
it meant in particular. Motya understood and flushed crimson.
"Well then?" Petya asked insistently.
"You know for yourself," Motya whispered almost inaudibly, raising
happy, tear-filled eyes to his face.
She was so sweet in that moment that Petya was ready to fall in love
with her, very much like Lensky with Olga, in spite of the squeaking shoes
and the coat bought on the market. But such a very easy victory could not
satisfy him, it was too commonplace.
"So I can count on your friendship?" he asked.
"Yes, of course," said Motya. "Always."
"Then I must tell you my secret. Only promise that it shall remain
between ourselves."
"I give my word, I swear it by the true Cross," said Motya and quickly
crossed herself several times. "May I die here on this spot if I ever say a
word."
"I have fallen in love," said Petya mournfully.
He stood in silence for a moment, then told Motya about his romance,
word for word as he had told it to Gavrik in the shed.
Motya listened in silence, her arms hanging despondently, and when he
finished she asked in a voice unlike her own, "What is her name?"
"What does a name matter!" Petya answered.
"And you love her very, very much?" said Motya in lifeless tones.
"That's just it," Petya answered.
"I wish you all happiness," said Motya in a barely audible voice.
"Yes, but I want your advice as a friend-what ought I to do now? How
should I act?"
"Write her a letter if you love her so much."
"But what is love? 'Love is no solace-too fleeting it is, unequal to
life-long devotion,'" said Petya, in a. somewhat dramatic sing-song.
"I wish you all happiness," said Motya. Her eyes suddenly narrowed like
a cat's, almost frightening Petya. Then she turned and walked rapidly back
the way they had come.
"Stop, where are you going? What about the snowdrops?" Petya called
out.
"I wish you all happiness," she said again, without turning.
Petya ran after her, the cape hampered him but he overtook her. She
flung off the hand he put on her shoulder and quickened her steps.
"Silly girl, I was only joking, can't you understand I was joking?
Can't you take a joke?" Petya mumbled. "Why do you have to lose your temper
like that?"
Now that she was angry he liked her twice as much as before.
Motya ran all the way across the common and only slowed her pace to a
walk when she reached the street.
Petya walked beside her, protesting:
"I was only joking. Can't you understand that? Silly girl, to lose your
temper this way!"
"I've not lost my temper," she said quietly.
The storm of jealousy had passed, she was the old Motya again.
"Let's make up, then," Petya proposed.
"But I haven't quarrelled with you," she answered. She even forced a
faint smile because she did not want people to see them quarrelling in the
street.
Petya was embarrassed but inwardly triumphant. Taken all round it had
been an excellent love scene.
It was Zhenya who spoiled it all. He had long been watching them,
together with his faithful followers. And now the whole gang of boys
followed them at a cautious distance chanting in chorus, "Spoony, spoony,
krssy-kissy-coo!"
One day at the beginning of April Gavrik came home from the print-shop
much later than usual. Petya was in the shed going over his geometry.
"Soldiers have fired on the workers at the Lena gold-fields," Gavrik
said before he was properly inside, and without removing his cap crossed
over and sat down on the edge of his bed.
Petya already knew from the talk he had heard in Near Mills that far
away in Siberia, in the dense taiga by the Lena River, there were
gold-fields where workers lived in horrible conditions. He also knew that at
one of the worst of these, the workers had been on strike ever since
February and had even sent deputations to the other fields. The strike was
led by the Beks, while the Meks were trying to persuade the workers to call
off the strike and make peace with the management. But the workers would not
listen to the Meks and the strike spread. Over six thousand were out. That
was the last news which had come by devious routes from the banks of the
Lena.
Now Gavrik sat, his hands between his knees, staring at the green shade
of the lamp that was reflected in his fixed eyes. His breathing was slow but
deep, like a succession of sighs-evidently he had hurried home from the
print-shop.
At first Petya did not take in the full significance of Gavrik's words.
It had been said so simply, almost without expression: "Soldiers have fired
on the workers." He looked again at Gavrik, at his frozen, haggard face, and
realization flooded his mind.
"How-how did they fire?" he asked, feeling his face stiffen like
Gavrik's.
"Just like that. Quite simple," said Gavrik roughly. "From rifles.
Company, aim! Fire!"
"How do you know?"
"I set the dispatch myself. Nonpareil, six point. It came in three
hours ago. It's to be in today's issue- if they don't take it out. You can
expect any dirt from them. Well, I'm off," he said, rising with a jerk.
"Where are you going?"
"To Terenty at the workshops. Seems he's doing overtime on the
night-shift."
With that Gavrik turned and went.
Petya felt he could not bear it alone in the shed, he ran after Gavrik
and overtook him by the gate. Silently they walked together through the
transparent darkness of the April night. The first apple blossom was out in
the gardens, but in Siberia it was still winter with hard frost, and the
Lena River lay ice-bound under its covering of snow.
Petya had come out without a coat and soon felt chilly. He thrust his
hands into the sleeves of his school jacket and huddled his elbows to him as
he walked beside Gavrik. A church clock somewhere struck eleven. In the
houses everyone was asleep and the windows were dark; the only lamp was the
electric light at the gates of the railway workshops, that cast its
reflection on the lines. The watchman was dozing, the bottom of his
sheepskin peeped through the open door of his shelter.
Petya and Gavrik went round the locomotive shop, and peered through the
dusty glass, broken here and there. Petya could see the flickering light of
a furnace, and the great bulk of an engine slung in chains from the roof.
Workers walked about beneath it. Petya at once recognized Terenty, carrying
an oily steel connecting-rod on his shoulder, one hand steadying an end
wrapped in a black rag.
A railway engineer in a uniform cap and a tunic with shoulder-straps
stood, feet astride, at one side, holding a large blueprint as though it
were a newspaper he was reading.
All this Petya had seen many times before, it contained nothing
unusual, still less menacing. But now a chill of fear ran through him. He
felt that any moment those chains might snap and the pendant engine crash
down with all its giant weight upon the men standing underneath. For an
instant the picture was so real before him that he shut his eyes.
But at that moment Gavrik put two fingers into his mouth and whistled.
Terenty turned and looked at the dark glass of the window that dimly
reflected the electric lights in the shop. Then with a smooth heavy movement
of his great body he slid the rod from his shoulder and carried it on
outstretched arms away to the side. Soon after that he appeared round the
corner and came up to the boys.
"What's the matter?" he asked Gavrik, but looked at Petya.
"Soldiers have fired on the workers at the Lena gold-fields," said
Gavrik in a low voice. "A dispatch came from Irkutsk today. I ran off eight
copies just in case." He handed Terenty a sheet of fresh proofs.
Terenty turned his back to the lighted window and read the dispatch.
Petya could not see the expression of his face but felt it must be dreadful.
Suddenly Terenty bent, snatched up a piece of clinker from the ground and
flung it against the wall with such force that it shattered to fragments.
For some time he stood breathing heavily, mastering himself, then he
led Gavrik aside and they talked quickly for a moment.
On the way back Gavrik several times left Petya and disappeared for a
little while. Once Petya saw him go to somebody's gate and thrust a white
paper into the crack. He guessed that this was a copy of the dispatch.
They returned to their shed, put out the light and went to bed, but it
was a long time before the boys could sleep. Petya found himself listening
fearfully to the sounds of the night. He had the feeling that something
terrible was going to begin. Shouting crowds would run down the street, a
fire would break out somewhere, there would be revolver shots. But
everything was quiet.
The pointsman's horn sounded from the railway crossing; then a goods
train passed. A cart rattled along the uneven road a long way off, he could
hear an empty bucket banging under it. Then came the third cock-crow,
prolonged and sleepy, caught up by bird after bird throughout Near Mills.
That was followed by the factory whistles and then the creaking of gates.
The day passed as usual. At recess, however, Petya noticed some of the
big boys reading a newspaper under the stairs, and heard the whispered
words, "There's trouble at the Lena gold-fields."
Gavrik came home even later than the previous day- he had waited for
the latest news-and brought a big bundle of proofs with him. They were of
dispatches giving the details of the Lena massacre. Five hundred killed and
wounded. Petya went cold with horror.
Night came. Terenty said a few words to Gavrik, then they both went
out. Petya wanted to go too, but they refused to take him. Left alone, he
went to bed, pulled his cape right over his head and fell asleep. Soon,
however, he was awake again.
Everything was very quiet. Petya lay on his back, eyes open, trying to
picture five hundred killed and wounded. But it was impossible, no matter
how he strained his imagination. All he could see was an indistinct picture
of a snow-covered field strewn with the dark forms of dead workers. The
meaning of the picture was immeasurably worse than the picture itself and
this inconsistency tormented Petya, and would let him think of nothing else.
Suddenly it occurred to him that five hundred was just the number of
pupils and teachers at his school. He pictured the corridors, staircases,
class-rooms, gym and the assembly hall full of dead and wounded pupils and
teachers, the pools of blood on the tile floors, the screams, the groans,
the confusion....
A shudder ran through him.
But still it was not the same, because this was only fancy while that
had been real. Those bodies were real, not imaginary, and Petya started to
remember all the dead bodies he had seen.
He remembered Mother in her coffin, looking like a bride, her lips
blackened from medicine and a strip of paper on her forehead. He remembered
Uncle Misha in his frock-coat, his arms with their bony white hands crossed
on his breast. He remembered Vitya Seroshevsky, one of the boys in the
fourth form who had died of diphtheria, looking like a large doll in his
blue uniform. Grandad- Mother's father-with his bald head reflecting the
light of the candles. An infantry general who had been taken past the house
in an open coffin on a gun-carriage, with all his decorations carried on a
velvet cushion in front.
But none of these had been killed, they had died a natural death, they
were taken to the cemetery with wreaths and incense and music and singing
and lanterns on crape-swathed staffs. However dreadful they might look,
these motionless forms still bore human semblance amid all the funereal
trappings, and they could not give Petya any idea of those hundreds who lay
prone in the snow, and his torment continued.
Suddenly he saw again what had long been thrust away into the very back
of his memory and hardly ever came to the surface, because it was so much
more terrible than anything else.
Petya remembered 1905, Terenty's bandaged head with blood trickling
down his temple, he remembered the room with its smashed furniture full of
the smoke of gunfire, and the man with the indifferent waxen face and a
black hole above the open eye who lay so uncomfortably on the floor among
empty cartridge clips and cartridge eases. He remembered the two Cossacks
galloping past, dragging after them on a rope the corpse of a man Petya
knew, Joseph Karlovich, who owned the shooting-gallery, and leaving a long,
strangely bright trail of red on the grey, dusty road.
Again Petya saw the snow-covered field and the dead bodies. But it no
longer tormented him with unreality, for now he understood the meaning it
held. What it meant was that some people killed others because those others
did not want to be slaves.
Rage flooded Petya. He bit the pillow to hold back tears. But they came
nevertheless. In the morning he rose, weary from a sleepless night, with
dark circles under his eyes, haggard and sombre.
Gavrik and Terenty had not yet come home. Motya, a grey knitted shawl
round her head and shoulders, silently gave him a mug of tea and a hunk of
bread and jam. She 'had not yet combed her hair, she stole fearful looks at
the boy and shivered in the chill of early morning-probably she had not
slept all night either. Her mother was washing clothes out in the yard, with
iridescent soap-bubbles rising from her tub. She mournfully wished Petya
good morning.
On this day Petya set off for school alone. The streets looked just as
they always did. Workers walked in groups on their way to the morning-shift.
They seemed to go faster than usual. Groups knotted together and in some
places formed crowds. Passing them, Petya could feel hostile looks cast at
his cap with its badge, his bright buttons and belt with the uniform buckle.
Although the early sunshine filled the street with warm, rosy light and
the air was clear and fresh with the scents of April, although the little
shunters whistled gaily to one another as usual, an invisible funereal
shadow seemed to lie over everything.
Petya saw the elderly local policeman pacing his beat down the street.
But at the cross-roads he saw another policeman, one he did not know. Petya
greeted the old policeman as usual with a courteous lift of his cap and
passed the stranger with head down; but he could feel the man examining him
from head to foot with fierce eyes in a young, soldierly face.
News-boys were running about the town shouting, "Lena events, full
report, five hundred killed and wounded!"
It was strangely quiet at the school, both at lessons and during
recess. On his way home, before he got to Near Mills, Petya heard a factory
whistle, then another, and a third, until their chorus made the air vibrate.
At the cross-roads where the strange policeman had stood in the
morning, Petya found a thick crowd that swelled with every minute as people
joined it singly or in groups, running out from all the nearby streets,
gardens and waste lots.
He realized that this was a strike, and the men in this crowd were the
workers from various mills and factories who had just downed tools.
He wanted to turn back and go another way, but a fresh crowd swelled up
behind him, carrying him along with it. The two masses of people joined and
Petya found himself in the middle, hemmed in on all sides. He tried to get
out but his satchel hindered him. One strap broke and the satchel slipped
down. With an effort Petya twisted round, slid it off his shoulder and held
it in front of him, pushing away the backs and elbows that pressed against
him.
Petya was too small to see what was going on in front, all he knew was
that he was being carried along somewhere, that the crowd had some definite
objective and that somebody was guiding its movement. He began to feel a
little calmer and with the corner of his satchel straightened the cap that
had been pushed to one side.
The people moved very slowly. There was nothing menacing in their
movement, as Petya had thought at first, rather it was resolute, tense and
business-like.
The factory whistles which had drowned out every other sound gradually
died away, and he could hear the hum of voices.
At last everyone stopped. Petya saw the long roofs of the repair
workshops and felt railway lines under his feet-he stumbled and would have
fallen but for somebody's big, strong hand. Then there was a general move
forward again, and frantic police whistles.
The crowd separated into groups and Petya saw the familiar gates of the
workshops. They were closed and before them the policeman with the fierce