Veniamin Kaverin. Dva kapitana (engl)
Veniamin Kaverin. Two captains
Translation from the Russian
Translated by Bernard Isaacs
/Abridged by Author/
V. KAVERIN
DVA KAPITANA
/v sokrashchenii avtora/
Na anglijskom yazyke
First edition 1945
Izdatel'stvo Literatury na Inostrannyh YAzykah
Istochnik: Russica Miscellanea http://home.freeuk.net/russica2/ ¡ http://home.freeuk.net/russica2/books.html
CONTENTS
Author's Preface
BOOK ONE
PART ONE. Childhood
CHAPTER ONE. The Letter. In Search of the Blue Crab
CHAPTER TWO. Father
CHAPTER THREE. ThePetition
CHAPTER FOUR. The Village
CHAPTER FIVE. Doctor Ivan Ivanovich. I Learn to Speak
CHAPTER SIX. Father's Death. I Refuse to Speak
CHAPTER SEVEN. Mother
CHAPTER EIGHT. Pyotr Skovorodnikov
CHAPTER NINE. Stroke, Stroke, Stroke, Five, Twenty, a Hundred
CHAPTER TEN. Aunt Dasha
CHAPTER ELEVEN. A Talk with Pyotr
CHAPTER TWEL VE. Scaramouch Joins the Death Battalion
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. Journey's End
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. We Run Away. I Pretend to Be Asleep
CHAPTER FIFTEEN. To Strive, to Seek, to Find and Not to Yield
CHAPTER SIXTEEN. My First Flight
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. Clay Modelling
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. Nikolai Antonich
PART TWO. Food for Thought
CHAPTER ONE. I Listen to Fairy-Tales
CHAPTER TWO. School
CHAPTER THREE. The Old Lady From Ensk
CHAPTER FOUR. More Food for Thought.
CHAPTER FIVE. Is There Salt in Snow?
CHAPTER SIX. I Go Visiting
CHAPTER SEVEN. The Tatarinovs
CHAPTER EIGHT. Korablev Proposes
CHAPTER NINE. The Rejected Suito
CHAPTER TEN. I Go Away
CHAPTER ELEVEN. A Serious Talk
CHAPTER TWELVE. I Start Thinking
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. The Silver Fifty-Kopeck Piece
PART THREE. Old Letters
CHAPTER ONE. Four Years
CHAPTER TWO. The Trial of Eugene Onegin
CHAPTER THREE. At the Skating-Rink
CHAPTER FOUR. Changes
CHAPTER FIVE. Katya's Father
CHAPTER SIX. More Changes
CHAPTER SEVEN. Marginal Notes
CHAPTER EIGHT. The Ball
CHAPTER NINE. My First Date. Insomnia
CHAPTER TEN. Troubles
CHAPTER ELEVEN. I Go to Ensk
CHAPTER TWEL VE. Home Again
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. The Old Letters
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. A Rendezvous in Cathedral Gardens. "Do Not Trust That
Man"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN. We Go for Walks. I Visit Mother's Grave. Day of
Departure
CHAPTER SIXTEEN. What Awaited Me in Moscow
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. I Burn My Boats
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. An Old Friend
CHAPTER NINETEEN. It Could All Have Been Different
CHAPTER TWENTY. Maria Vasilievna
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. In the Dead of Night
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. It Isn't Him
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. Slander
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. Our Last Meeting
PART FOUR. The North
HAPTER ONE. Flying School
CHAPTER TWO. Sanyo's Wedding
CHAPTER THREE. I Write to Doctor Ivan Ivanovich.
CHAPTER FOUR. I Receive a Reply.
CHAPTER FIVE. Three Years
CHAPTER SIX. I Meet the Doctor
CHAPTER SEVEN. I Read the Diaries.
CHAPTER NINE. Good Night!.
CHAPTER TEN. The Flight
CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Blizzard
CHAPTER TWELVE. What Is a Primus-Stove?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. The Old Boat-Hook
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. Vanokan
PART FIVE. For the Heart
CHAPTER ONE. I Meet Katya
CHAPTER TWO. Korablev's Anniversary
CHAPTER THREE. Without Title
CHAPTER FOUR. News Galore
CHAPTER FIVE. At the Theatre
CHAPTER SIX. Still More Comes to Light
CHAPTER SEVEN. "We Have a Visitor!"
CHAPTER EIGHT. True to a Memory
CHAPTER NINE. It Is Decided-She Goes Away.
CHAPTER TEN. Sivtsev- Vrazhek
CHAPTER ELEVEN. A Hectic Day
CHAPTER TWEL VE. Romashka
BOOK TWO
PART SIX. From the Diary of Katya Tatarinova YOUTH CONTINUES
PART SEVEN. From the Diary of Katya Tatarinova SEPARATION.
PART EIGHT. Told by Sanya Grigoriev. To Strive, to Seek
CHAPTER ONE. He
CHAPTER TWO. All We Could
CHAPTER THREE. "Is That You, Owl?"
CHAPTER FOUR. Old Scores
CHAPTER FIVE. In the Aspen Wood
CHAPTER SIX. Nobody Will Know
CHAPTER SEVEN. Alone
CHAPTER EIGHT. The Boys
CHAPTER NINE. Dealing with Love.
CHAPTER TEN. The Verdict
CHAPTER ELEVEN. I Look for Katya
CHAPTER TWELVE. I Meet Hydrographer R.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN. Decision.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN. Friends Who Were Not at Home
CHAPTER FIFTEEN. An Old Acquaintance. Katya's Portrait
CHAPTER SIXTEEN. "You Won't Kill Me"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. The Shadow
PART NINE. To Find and Not to Yield
CHAPTER ONE. This Is Not the End Yet.
CHAPTER TWO. The Doctor Serves in the Arctic
CHAPTER THREE. To Those at Sea
CHAPTER FOUR. Ranging Wide
CHAPTER FIVE. Back at Zapolarie
CHAPTER SIX. Victory
PART TEN. The Last Page
CHAPTER ONE. The Riddle Is Solved
CHAPTER TWO. The Unbelievable
CHAPTER THREE. It Was Katya
CHAPTER FOUR. The Farewell Letters
CHAPTER FIVE. The Last Page
CHAPTER SIX. The Homecoming
CHAPTER SEVEN. Two Conversations
CHAPTER EIGHT. My Paper
CHAPTER NINE. And the Last.
Epilogue
AUTHOR 'S PREFACE
I recall a spring day in 1921, when Maxim Gorky first invited to his
home a group of young Leningrad writers, myself among them. He lived in
Kronwerk Street and the windows of his flat overlooked Alexandrovsky Park.
We trooped in, so many of us that we took quite a time getting seated, the
bolder ones closer to the host, the more timid on the ottoman, from which it
was a job getting up afterwards-it was so soft and sagged almost to the
floor. I shall always remember that ottoman of Gorky's. When I lowered
myself on to it I saw my outstretched feet encased in shabby soldier's
boots. I couldn't hide them away. As for getting up-it was not to be thought
of. Those boots worried me until I noticed a pair just as bad, if not worse,
on Vsevolod Ivanov, who was sitting next to Gorky.
Alice in her wonderland underwent strange transformations on almost
every page of Carroll's book. At one moment she becomes so small that she
freely goes down a rabbit's hole, the next so tall that she can speak only
with birds living in the tree-tops. Something like that was happening to me
at Gorky's place. At one moment I thought I ought to put in a word of my own
in the conversation that had started between Gorky and my older companions,
a word so profound that it would make them all sit up. The next minute I
shrank so small on that low uncomfortable ottoman that I felt a sort of Tom
Thumb, not that brave little fellow we all know, but a somewhat timorous Tom
Thumb, at once timorous and proud.
Gorky began to speak with approval about Ivanov's latest short story
"The Brazier of Archangel Gabriel". It was this that started me on my
transformations. Ivanov's story was far removed from anything that
interested me in literature, and I took Gorky's high opinion of it as a
harsh verdict on all my hopes and dreams. Gorky read the story out aloud.
His face softened, his eyes grew tender and his gestures betrayed that
benign mood so familiar to everyone who had seen Gorky in moments of pure
rapture.
He dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief and began to speak about the
story. His admiration for it did not prevent him from seeing its
shortcomings. Some of his remarks applied even to the choice of words.
"What is the work of a writer?" he asked, and for the first time I
heard some very curious things. The work of a writer, it appeared, was
simply work, the daily, maybe hourly work of writing, writing on paper or in
one's mind. It meant piles of rough copies, dozens of crossed-out versions.
It meant patience, because talent imposed upon the writer a peculiar pattern
of life in which patience was the most important thing of all. It was the
life of Zola, who used to strap himself to his chair; of Goncharov, who took
about twenty years writing his novel Obryv (Precipice); of Jack London, who
died of fatigue, whatever his doctors may have said. It was hard life of
self-dedication, full of trials and disappointments. "Don't you believe
those who say that it is easy bread," Gorky said.
To describe a writer's work in all its diversity is no light task. I
may get nearest to doing this by simply answering the numerous letters I
have received in connection with my novel Two Captains and thus telling the
story of how this one novel at least came to be written.
The questions my correspondents ask chiefly concern the two heroes of
my novel-Sanya Grigoriev and Captain Tatarinov. Many of them ask whether it
was my own life that I described in Two Captains. Some want to know whether
the story of Captain Tatarinov was invented by me. Others search for the
name in books of geography and encyclopedias and are surprised to find that
the activities of Captain Tatarinov have left no visible traces in the
history of Arctic exploration. Some want to know where Sanya Grigoriev and
Katya Tatarinova are living at present and what rank Sanya was promoted to
after the war. Others ask the author's advice as to what job they should
devote their lives. The mother of a boy, known as the terror of the town,
whose pranks often verged on hooliganism, wrote me that after reading my
novel her son had become a different person, and shortly afterwards I
received a letter from Alexander Rokotov himself which showed that the boy
was intelligent and talented as well as mischievous. Some years have passed
since then, and student Rokotov of the Aviation Institute has acquired
expert knowledge in aircraft construction.
It took me about five years to write this novel. When the first book
was finished the war started, and it was not until 1944 that I returned to
my work. The idea of writing this novel originated in 1937, after I had met
a man whom I have portrayed in Two Captains under the name of Sanya
Grigoriev. This man told me the story of his life-a life filled with hard
work, self-dedication and love of his country.I made it a rule from the very
first page not to invent anything, or hardly anything. In fact, even such a
curious detail as the muteness of little Sanya has not been invented by me.
His mother and father, his sister and friends have been described exactly as
they first appeared to me in the narrative of my chance acquaintance, who
afterwards became my friend. Of some of the personages of my future book I
learned from him very little. Korablev, for example, was sketchily described
in his narrative as a man with a quick searching eye, which invariably made
the schoolchildren speak the truth; other characteristics were a moustache
and a walking stick and a habit of sitting over a book late into the night.
This outline had to be filled in by the author's imagination in order to
create a character study of a Soviet schoolteacher.
The story, as told to me, was really a very simple one. It was the
story of a boy who had had a cheerless childhood and was brought up by
Soviet society, by people who had taken the place of his dead parents and
had sustained in him the dream he had cherished in his ardent and honest
heart since early childhood.
Nearly all the circumstances of this boy's life, and later of his youth
and manhood, have been retained in the novel. His childhood years, however,
were spent on the Volga and his school years in Tashkent-places with which I
am not very familiar. I have therefore transferred the early scene of my
book to my own hometown, which I have named Ensk. No wonder my fellow
townsmen have so easily deciphered the town's real name. My school years
(the senior forms) were spent in Moscow, and I have been able to describe in
my book a Moscow school of the early twenties with greater authenticity than
I could have achieved with a Tashkent school.
I might mention another question which my correspondents ask me,
namely, to what extent the novel Two Captains is autobiographical. To a
considerable extent everything, from the first to the last page, that Sanya
Grigoriev has seen has been seen by the author with his own eyes. Our two
lives ran parallel, so to speak. But when Sanya Grigoriev's profession came
into the book I had to drop the "personal" material and make a study of the
life of pilots, of which I had known very little until then.
Invaluable assistance in studying aeronautics was given me by Senior
Lieutenant S. Y. Klebanov, who died the death of a hero in 1943. He was a
talented pilot, a brave officer and a fine, upright man. I was proud of his
friendship. During my work on the second volume I came across (among the
materials of the War Study Commission) testimonials of Klebanov's
brother-officers showing that my high opinion of him was shared by his
comrades.
It is difficult, well nigh impossible, to give any complete answer to
the question of how one or another character of a literary work is created,
especially if the narrative is in the first person. Apart from those
observations, reminiscences, and impressions which I have mentioned, my book
contains thousands of others which had no direct bearings on the story as
told to me and which served as the groundwork for Two Captains. Imagination,
as everyone knows, plays a tremendous role in a writer's work. And it is on
this that one must speak before passing to the story of my second principal
character Captain Tatarinov.
Don't look for his name in encyclopedias or handbooks. Don't try to
prove, as one pupil did at a geography lesson, that it was Tatarinov and not
Vilkitsky who discovered Novaya Zemlya. For the older of my two captains I
used the story of two brave explorers of the Arctic. One of them supplied me
with the courageous character of a man pure in thought and clear in
aim-qualities that bespeak a noble soul. This was Sedov. From the other I
took the actual story of his voyage. This was Brusilov. The drift of my St.
Maria repeats exactly the drift of Brusilov's St. Anne. The diaries of
Navigating Officer Klimov quoted in my novel are based on the diary of
Albanov, Navigating Officer of the St. Anne, one of the two surviving
members of that tragic expedition. The historical material alone, however,
did not seem enough to me. I knew that there lived in Leningrad a painter
and writer by the name of Nikolai Pinegin, a friend of Sedov's and one of
those who had brought his schooner the St. Phocas back to the mainland after
the death of Sedov. We met, and Pinegin not only told me a lot more about
Sedov and gave me a vivid picture of the man, but explained the tragedy of
his life, the life of a great explorer slandered and refused recognition by
reactionary circles of society in tsarist Russia. Incidentally, during one
of my meetings with Pinegin the latter treated me to some tinned food which
he had picked up at Cape Flora in 1914, and to my amazement I found it
excellent. I mention this trivial detail because it is characteristic of
Pinegin and of the range of interests into which I was drawn during my
visits to this "Arctic home".
Later, when the first volume had already appeared, Sedov's widow gave
me a lot of interesting information. The summer of 1941 found me working
hard on the second volume, in which I intended to make wide use of the story
of the famous airman Levanevsky. My plan was thought out, the materials were
studied and the first chapters written. V. Y. Vize, the well-known scientist
and Arctic explorer, approved the contents of the future "Arctic" chapters
and told me many interesting things about the work of search parties. But
the war broke out and I had to dismiss for a long time the very idea of
finishing the novel. I wrote front-line reportage, war sketches and short
stories. However, the hope of being able to take up the novel again
apparently did not leave me, otherwise I would not have found myself asking
the editor of Izves-tia to send me to the Northern Front. It was there,
among the airmen and submarines of the Northern Fleet that I realised that
the characters of my book would appear blurred and sketchy if I did not
describe how, together with all the Soviet people, they had borne the
dreadful ordeals of the war and won it.
I had known from books, reports and personal impressions what peacetime
life was like among those people, who had worked to turn the Northern
Country into a smiling hospitable land, who had tapped the incalculable
resources that lay within the Arctic Circle, who had built towns, docks,
mines and factories there. Now, during the war, I saw all this prodigious
energy dedicated to the defence of this land and of these gains. I might be
told that the same thing happened in every corner of our land. Of course it
did, but the severe conditions of the North gave to it a special, expressive
touch.
I don't think I have been able to answer all the questions of my
correspondents. Who served as the prototype of Nikolai Antonich? Where did I
get Nina Kapitonovna? What truth is there in the story of Sanya's and
Katya's love?
To answer these questions I would have to ascertain, if only
approximately, to what extent one or another figure was an actor in real
life. As regards Nikolai Antonich, for instance, no such effort on my part
would be needed. I have changed only a few outward features in my portrait
of the real headmaster of the Moscow school which I finished in 1919. The
same applies to Nina Kapitonovna, who could but recently be met in Sivtsev
Vrazhek, wearing the same green jacket and carrying the same shopping bag.
As for the love of Sanya and Katya, I had had only the youthful period of
this story told to me. Exercising the prerogative of the novelist, I drew
from this story my own conclusions, which seemed to me only natural for the
hero of my book.
One schoolboy, by the way, wrote telling me that exactly the same thing
had happened to him-he had fallen in love with a girl and kissed her in the
school grounds. "So that now that your book Two Captains is finished, you
can write about me," the boy suggested.
Here is another incident which, indirectly, answers the question as to
what truth there is in the love of Sanya and Katya. One day I received a
letter from Ordzhonikidze (Northern Caucasus) from a lady named Irina N. who
wrote, "After reading your novel I feel certain that you are the man I have
been looking for these last eighteen years. I am persuaded of this not only
by the details of my life given in the novel, which could be known to you
alone, but also by the places and even the dates of our meetings in
Triumfalnaya Square and outside the Bolshoi Theatre..." I replied that I had
never made any dates with my correspondent in Triumfalnaya Square or outside
the Bolshoi Theatre, and that I would have to make inquiries of the Arctic
pilot who had served as the prototype for my hero. But the war started and
this strange correspondence broke off.
Irina N.'s letter reminds me of another incident, which equated
literature, as it were, with real life. During the blockade of Leningrad, in
the grim, forever memorable days of late autumn of 1941, the Leningrad Radio
Broadcasting Committee asked me to convey a message to the young Communists
of the Baltic in the name of Sanya Grigoriev. I pointed out that although I
had portrayed in Sanya Grigoriev a definite person, a bomber pilot, who was
fighting at the time on the Central Front, he was nevertheless only a
literary character.
"So what of it," was the answer. "It makes no difference. Write as if
the name of your literary hero could be found in the telephone book."
I consented, of course. In the name of Sanya Grigoriev I wrote a
message to the Komsomol boys and girls of Leningrad and the Baltic, and in
response letters addressed to my literary hero came pouring in, expressing
confidence in victory.
I remember myself a boy of nine entering my first library; it was quite
a small one, but seemed very big to me then. Behind a tall barrier, under a
paraffin lamp, stood a smooth-haired woman in spectacles wearing a black
dress with a white collar. The barrier was so high-at least to me-and the
lady in black so forbidding that I all but turned tail. In a voice overioud
through shyness I reported that I had already turned nine and was therefore
entitled to become a card holder. The forbidding lady laughed and bending
over the barrier the better to see the new reader retorted that she had
heard of no such rule.
In the end, though, I managed to join the library, and the time flew so
quickly in reading that one day I discovered with surprise that the barrier
was not all that high, nor the lady as forbidding as I had first thought.
This was the first library in which I felt at home, and ever since then
I have always had this feeling when coming into a house, large or small, in
which there are bookshelves along the walls and people standing by them
thinking only one thing-that these books were there to be read. So it was in
childhood. And so it was in youth, with long hours spent in the vast
Shchedrin public library in Leningrad. Working in the Archives Department, I
penetrated into the very heart of the temple of temples. Raising my
eyes-tired, because reading manuscripts makes them tire quickly-I watched
the noiseless work of the librarians and experienced again and again a
feeling of gratitude. That feeling has remained for a lifetime. Wherever I
go, to whatever place fate brings me, I always ask first thing, "Is there a
library here?" And when I am told, "There is," that town or township, farm
or village, becomes closer, as if irradiating a warm, unexpected light.
In Schwarz's play "The Snow Queen", the privy councillor, a dour
individual who deals in ice, asks the storyteller whether there are any
children in the house, and on learning that there are, he shudders, because
at the sound of children's voices the ice of the blackest soul melts. So
does a house in which there are books differ from those in which there are
none.
The best writers can be compared to scouts into the future, to those
brave explorers of new and unknown spaces, of whom Fridt-jof Nansen, the
famous Norwegian explorer, wrote: "Let us follow the narrow tracks of the
sled runners and those little black dots laying a railway, as it were, into
the heart of the unknown. The wind howls and sweeps across these tracks
leading into the snowy wastes. Soon they will disappear, but a trail has
been blazed, we have acquired a new banner, and this deed will shine forever
through the ages."
V. Kaverin
PART ONE CHILDHOOD
CHAPTER ONE
THE LETTER. IN SEARCH OF THEBLUE CRAB
I remember the big dirty yard and the squat little houses with the
fence round them. The yard stood on the edge of the river, and in the
spring, when the flood-water subsided, it was littered with bits of wood and
shells, and sometimes with things far more interesting. On one occasion, for
instance, we found a postman's bag full of letters, and afterwards the
waters brought down the postman himself and deposited him carefully on the
bank. He was lying on his back, quite a young man, fair-haired, in postman's
uniform with shining buttons; he must have polished them up before setting
out on this last round.
A policeman took the bag, but Aunt Dasha kept the letters-they were
soaking wet and of no further use to anybody. Not all of them were soaked
though. The bag had been a new one, made of leather, and was closed tight.
Every evening Aunt Dasha used to read one of the letters out, sometimes to
me alone, sometimes to the whole yard. It was so interesting that even the
old women, who used to go to Skovorodnikov's to play cards, would drop the
game and join us. There was one letter which Aunt Dasha used to read more
often than any other, so often, in fact, that I soon got to know it by
heart. Many years have passed since then, but I can still remember it from
the first word to the last. "Dear Maria Vasilievna,
"I hasten to inform you that Ivan Lvovich is alive and well. Four
months ago, on his orders, I left the schooner along with thirteen of the
crew. I hope to see you soon, so I shall not describe our difficult journey
across the pack-ice to Franz Josef Land. We suffered terrible hardships and
privations. I will only say that I was the only one of our party to reach
Cape Flora safely (not counting a pair of frostbitten feet). I was picked up
by the St. Phocas, of Lieutenant Sedov's Expedition, and taken to Archangel.
Although I have survived, I have little reason to rejoice, as I shall soon
be undergoing an operation, after which I can only trust in God's mercy, for
God alone knows how I'm going to live without feet. What I have to tell you
is this.
The St. Maria became icebound in the Kara Sea and since October 1912
has been drifting steadily north with the Arctic icefields. When we left the
schooner she was in latitude 82° 5 5'. She is standing in the middle of an
icefield, or rather that was where she was from the autumn of 1912 until the
day I left her. She may be free of the ice this year, but I think this is
more likely to happen next year, when she will be round about the spot where
the Fram broke free. The men who have remained in her have enough victuals
to last until October or November of next year. In any case, I hasten to
assure you that we did not leave the ship because she was in a hopeless
plight. I had to carry out Captain's orders, of course, but I must admit
that they fell in with my own wishes. When I was leaving the ship with the
thirteen men, Ivan Lvovich gave me a packet addressed to the Head of the
Hydrographical Board-who has since died-and a letter for you. I dare not
risk mailing them, because, being the only survivor, I am anxious to
preserve all evidence of my honourable conduct. I therefore ask you to send
for them or come to Archangel yourself, as I shall be spending at least
three months in hospital.
"Awaiting your reply, I remain your obedient servant.
"/. Klimov, Navigating Officer."
The address had been washed away, but had obviously been written in the
same bold upright hand on the thick yellowed envelope.
This letter must have become for me something in the nature of a
prayer, for I used to repeat it every evening while waiting for my father to
come home.
He used to come in late from the wharf. The steamers arrived now every
day and took on cargoes, not of flax and grain as they used to do, but of
heavy cases containing cartridges and gun parts. Burly, thickset and
moustached, he used to come in wearing a cloth cap and tarpaulin trousers.
Mother would talk and talk, while he ate in silence, once in a while
clearing his throat or wiping his moustache. Then he would take us
children-my sister and me-and lie down to sleep. He smelt of hemp, sometimes
of apples or grain, and sometimes of rancid machine-oil, and I remember what
a depressing effect that smell had on me.
It must have been on one such cheerless evening, as I lay beside my
father, that I first became aware of my surroundings. The squalid little
room With its low ceiling, its walls pasted over with newspapers, and a big
crack under the window through which drew cold air and the tang of the
river-such was our home. The dark, beautiful woman with her hair let down,
sleeping on the floor on two sacks filled with straw, was my mother. The
little feet sticking out from under the patchwork quilt belonged to my
sister. The dark skinny boy in the outsize trousers who crept shivering out
of bed and stole into the yard was me.
A likely spot had been selected long ago, string had been prepared and
even dry twigs piled up at the Gap; all I needed now to go out after the
blue crabs was a piece of rotting meat. The bed of our river was all
different colours, and so were the crabs in it-black, green, and yellow.
These were baited with frogs and lured with a bonfire. But the blue crab, as
all of us boys firmly believed, could only be taken with rotting meat. The
day before I had had a stroke of luck at last: I had managed to steal a
piece of meat from Mother and kept it in the sun all day. It was putrid
now-one did not have to take it into one's hand to find that out.
I ran down to the Gap along the river bank: here brushwood had been
piled up for a fire. In the distance one could see the towers, Pokrovsky
Tower on one bank, Spassky on the other. When the war broke out they were
used as army leather goods depots. Pyotr Sko-vorodnikov used to say that
devils once dwelt in Spassky Tower and that he had actually seen them
ferrying over to our side, after which they had scuttled their boat and made
their home Pokrovsky Tower. He said the devils were fond of smoking and
drinking, they had bullet-heads, and many of them were lame, having hurt
themselves when they dropped from the sky. In Pokrovsky Tower they raised
families and in fine weather went down to the river to steal the tobacco
which the fishermen tied to their nets to appease the water-sprites.
So I was not really surprised when, as I was blowing up my little fire,
I saw a thin black shape in the gap of the old ramparts.
"What are you doing here, shaver?" the devil said, just like any
ordinary human being.
I couldn't have answered him even if I had wanted to. All I could do
was just stare and shake.
At that moment the moon sailed out from behind the clouds, and I could
make out the figure of the watchman across the river, walking round the
leather depot-a burly man with a rifle sticking up behind his back.
"Catching crabs?"
He sprang down lightly and squatted by the fire.
"What's the matter with you, swallowed your tongue, silly?"
N(), it wasn't a devil. It was a skinny hatless man with a walking
stick which he kept slapping against his leg. I couldn't make out his face,
but I noticed he had nothing on under his jacket and was wearing a scarf in
place of a shirt.
"Don't want to speak, you rascal, eh?" He prodded me with his stick.
"Come on, answer me! Answer! Or I'll-"
Without getting up, he grabbed my leg and pulled me towards him. I gave
a sort of croaky sound.
"Ah, you're a deaf mute, I see!"
He let go of me and sat there for quite a while, poking among the
embers with his stick.
"Fine town, this," he said disgustedly. "A dog in every blessed yard;
brutes of policemen. Damned crab-eaters!"
And he started to swear.
Had I known what was to happen within the hour, I should have tried to
remember what he said, although just the same I could not have repeated his
words to anybody. He went on swearing for quite a time, and even spat in the
fire and gnashed his teeth. Then he fell silent, his head thrown back and
knees clasped in his hands. I stole a glance at him and could have felt
sorry for him had he not been so unpleasant.
Suddenly the man sprang to his feet. In a few minutes he was on the
pontoon bridge, which the soldiers had recently put across the river, and I
caught a last glimpse of him on the opposite bank before he disappeared.
My fire had gone out, but even without it I could see clearly that
there wasn't a single blue crab among my catch, and a pretty good catch it
was. Just ordinary black crabs, none too big either-they went for a kopeck a
pair at the local pub.
A cold wind began to draw from somewhere behind me. My trousers
billowed out and I began to feel cold. It was time to go home. I was casting
my line, baited with meat, for the last time when I saw the watchman on the
opposite bank running down the slope. Spassky Tower stood high above the
river and the hillside leading down to the river bank was littered with
stones. There was no sign of anybody on the hillside, which was lit up
brightly by the moon, yet for some reason the watchman unslung this rifle as
he ran.
"Halt!"
He did not fire, but just clicked the bolt, and, at that very moment I
saw the man he was after on the pontoon bridge. I am choosing my words
carefully, because even now I am not quite certain it was the man, who, an
hour ago, had been sitting by my fire. But I can still see the scene before
my eyes: the quiet banks, the widening moon path on the water running
straight from where I was to the barges of the pontoon bridge, and on the
bridge the long shadows of two running figures.
The watchman ran heavily and once he even stopped to take breath. But
the one who was running ahead seemed to find the going still harder, for he
suddenly stopped and crouched down by the handrail. The watchman ran up to
him, shouting, then suddenly reeled back, as if he had been struck from
below. He hung on the handrail, slowly slipping down, while the murderer was
already disappearing behind the rampart.
I don't know why, but that night no one was guarding the pontoon
bridge. The sentry-box stood empty, and except for the watchman, who was
lying on his side with his arms stretched forward, there was not a soul in
sight. A large undressed hide lay beside him, and when, shaking with terror,
I went up to him, he started to yawn slowly. Years afterwards I learned that
many people yawn just before they die. Then he heaved a deep sigh, as though
with relief, and grew still.
Not knowing what to do, I bent over him, then ran to the
sentry-box-that was when I saw it was empty-and back again to the watchman.
I couldn't even shout, not only because I was a mute at the time, but from
sheer terror. Now voices could be heard from the bank, and I rushed back to
the place where I had been fishing for crabs. Never again in my life did I
run so fast; my heart hammered wildly and I could scarcely breathe. I had no
time to cover up the crabs with grass and I lost half of them by the time I
got home. But who cared about crabs then!
With a thumping heart I opened the door noiselessly. In the single room
of our home it was dark, all were fast asleep and no one had seen me go and
come. In a moment I was lying in my old place beside my father, but I could
not fall asleep for a long time. Before my eyes was the moonlit bridge and
on it the two long running shadows.
CHAPTER TWO FATHER
Two vexations awaited me the next morning. For one thing, Mother had
found the crabs and cooked them. There went my twenty kopeks and with them
the hope of new hooks and spoonbait for catching pike. Secondly, I had lost
my penknife. It was Father's knife, really, but as the blade was broken he
had given it to me. I searched for it everywhere, inside the house and in
the yard, but it seemed to have vanished into thin air.
The search kept me occupied till twelve o'clock when I had to go down
to the wharf with Father's lunch. This was my duty, and very proud of it I
was.
The men were still at work when I arrived. One wheelbarrow had got
stuck between the planks and all traffic between the ship's side and the
bank was stopped. The men behind were sliouting and swearing, and two men
were leaning their weight on a crowbar, trying to lift the barrow back into
the wheel-track. Father passed round them in his leisurely way. He bent over
and said something to them. That is how I have remembered him-a big man with
a round, moustached face, broad-shouldered, lifting the heavily-laden
wheelbarrow with ease. I was never to see him like that again.
He kept looking at me as he ate, as much as to say, "What's wrong,
Sanya?" when a stout police-officer and three policemen appeared at the
waterside. One of them shouted "Gaffer! "-that was what they called the
ganger-and said something to him. The ganger gasped and crossed himself, and
they all came towards us.
"Are you Ivan Grigoriev?" the officer asked, slipping his sword round
behind him.
"Yes."
"Take him!" the police-officer cried, reddening. "He's arrested."
Voices were raised in astonishment. Father stood up, and all fell silent.
"What for?" "None o' your lip! Grab him!"
The policemen went up to Father and laid hold of him. Father shook his
shoulder, and they fell back, one of them drawing his sword.
"What is this, sir?" Father said. "Why are you arresting me? I'm not
just anybody, everyone here knows me."
"Oh no they don't, my lad," the officer answered. "You're a criminal.
Grab him!"
Again the policemen stepped towards Father. "Don't wave that herring
about, you fool," Father said quietly through clenched teeth to the one who
had drawn his sword. "I'm a family man, sir," he said, addressing the
officer. "I've been working on this wharf for twenty years. What have I
done? You tell 'em all, so's they know what I'm being taken for. Otherwise
people will really think I am a criminal."
"Playing the saint, eh?" the officer shouted. "Don't I know your kind!
Come along!"
The policemen seemed to be hesitating. "Well?"
"Wait a minute, sir, I'll go myself," Father said. "Sanya," he bent
down to me, "run along to your mother and tell her-Oh, you can't, of course,
you're..."
He wanted to say that I was dumb, but checked himself. He never uttered
that word, as though he hoped that one day I'd start speaking. He looked
around in silence.
"I'll go with him, Ivan," said the ganger. "Don't worry." "Yes, do,
Uncle Misha. And another thing..." Father got three rubles out of his pocket
and handed them to the ganger. "Give them to her. Well, goodbye." They
answered him in chorus.
He patted me on the head, saying: "Don't cry, Sanya." I didn't even
know I was crying.
Even now I shudder at the memory of how Mother took on when she heard
that Father had been arrested. She did not cry, but as soon as the ganger
had gone, she sat down on the bed, and clenching her teeth, banged her head
violently against the wall. My sister and I started howling, but she did not
as much as glance at us. She kept beating her head against the wall,
muttering something to herself. Then she got up, put on her shawl and went
out.
Aunt Dasha managed the house for us all that day. We slept, or rather,
my sister slept while I lay with open eyes, thinking, first about my father,
how he had said goodbye to them all, then about the fat
police-officer, then about his little boy in a sailor suit whom I had
seen in the Governor's garden, then about the three-wheeler this boy had
been riding (if only I had one like that!) and finally about nothing at all
until mother came back. She looked dark and haggard, and Aunt Dasha ran up
to her.
I don't know why, but it suddenly occurred to me that the policemen had
hacked Father to pieces, and for several minutes I lay without stirring,
beside myself with grief, hearing nothing. Then I realised that I was wrong:
he was alive, but they wouldn't let Mother see him. Three times she repeated
that they had arrested him for murder-the watchman had