coat  with  golden buttons decorated  with
anchors, and a  sailor hat with a red pompon,  French  style), the  girl who
remained on deck turned out to be singularly capricious, and a cry-baby. She
quarrelled endlessly with her father, a tall, extremely phlegmatic gentleman
with side-whiskers, who wore a flowing cape. He was  the very  image of Lord
Glenarvan from Captain Grant's Children.
     Father and daughter were carrying on the following conversation:
     "I'm thirsty, Daddy."
     "Never   mind,   you'll   get   over   it,"   Lord   Glenarvan  replied
phlegmatically, without taking his eyes from his binoculars.
     The girl stamped her foot. "I'm  thirsty," she  repeated,  raising  her
voice.
     "Never mind, you'll get over it," her father replied, calmer than ever.
     The  girl chanted with stubborn  fury, "Daddy, I'm  thirsty. Daddy, I'm
thirsty. Daddy, I'm thirsty."
     Bubbles frothed on her angry  lips. In a nagging drawl that would  have
tried  the   patience  of   an   angel,  she  continued,   "Da-aad-dy,   I'm
thir-ir-ir-sty. I'm thir-ir-ir-sty."
     To  which  Lord   Glenarvan  leisurely  replied,   with  even   greater
indifference and  without raising his voice,  "Never  mind, you'll get  over
it."
     This strange duel between the two obstinate creatures had been going on
practically all the way since Akkerman.
     Naturally, striking up  an acquaintance  with  her was quite out of the
question.
     Then Petya found a fascinating occupation: he followed in the footsteps
of one of the passengers. Everywhere the passenger went, Petya went too.
     That was really interesting,  especially since Petya  had  long noticed
something strange about the passenger's behaviour.
     Other   passengers,   perhaps,  had   not   noticed   one   astonishing
circumstance, but Petya had, and he was greatly struck by it.
     This man did not have a ticket, and the mate was very well aware of it.
     But for some reason he had said nothing to the strange passenger. More,
he had given him permission-not in  so many words,  of course-to go wherever
he wished, even into the first-class cabins.
     Petya clearly saw what had passed when the mate  approached the strange
passenger with his wire cash-box.
     "Your ticket?"
     The passenger whispered something in  the  mate's ear. The mate nodded.
"Right you are."
     After that, no one disturbed the strange passenger. He walked about the
whole ship, looking into every corner: into the cabins, the engine-room, the
refreshment bar, the lavatory, the hold.
     Now who could he be?
     A landowner? No. Landowners did not dress that way and did not act that
way.
     A Bessarabian landowner always wore a heavy linen dust coat and a white
travelling  cap, and the visor  of  the  cap was covered with  finger marks.
Next,  he would have  a drooping corn-coloured moustache, and a small wicker
basket with a padlock on it. In the basket there were always a box of smoked
mackerel,  some  tomatoes and some Brinza cheese, and two or three quarts of
new white wine in a green bottle.
     Landowners  travelled  second  class,  for  economy's  sake; they  kept
together,  never came out  of their cabins, and were always either eating or
playing cards.
     Petya had not seen the strange passenger in their company.
     He wore a summer cap, true enough, but he had neither a dust coat nor a
wicker basket.
     No, decidedly, he was not a landowner.
     Then perhaps he was a postal official, or a schoolmaster?
     Hardly.
     Although under his jacket he did wear a pongee shirt with a turned-down
collar, and  instead  of a  tie  a  cord with little pompons,  his curled-up
moustache which  was  as  black as boot-polish  and his  smooth-shaven  chin
obviously did not fit in with that.
     And as for the smoked  pince-nez-uncommonly large ones they were-on the
coarse fleshy nose  with hairy  nostrils,  they did not fit any category  of
passenger whatsoever.
     Besides, there  were those  pinstripe  trousers  and those sandals over
thick white socks.
     Yes, something was definitely fishy here.
     Petya shoved his hands in his  pockets (which, by the way, was strictly
forbidden)  and  strolled along with a  most  independent air, following the
strange passenger all over the ship.
     At  first  the passenger  stood  for a while in  the narrow passage-way
between the engine-room and the galley.
     The galley gave off the  sour, smoky reek of an eating-house, and  from
the open  ventilators of the engine-room there came a hot  wind smelling  of
superheated steam, iron, boiling water and oil.
     The engine-room  skylight was raised,  and Petya could  look down  into
it-which he did with delight.
     He knew the engine from A to Z, yet he went into  raptures each time he
saw it. He could stand there watching it for hours.
     As everybody knew, the  engine was outdated and good for nothing and so
on, but it was incredibly powerful and astonishing all the same.
     The steel connecting rods covered with thick green grease slid back and
forth with amazing ease, considering they weighed a ton.
     The pistons pumped furiously. The  cast-iron cranks twirled. The  brass
discs of the cams rubbed quickly and nervously against one another, exerting
a mysterious influence on the painstaking work  of the modest but  important
slide valves.
     And over all this swirling chaos reigned an immensely huge flywheel. At
first glance it seemed to be turning slowly, but when one took a closer look
one saw that it was going at a tremendous speed and was raising a steady hot
wind.
     It  was nerve-racking to watch the  mechanic as  he walked about  among
those inexorably moving joints and bent over to apply the long nozzle of his
oil can to them.
     But the most amazing  thing in the whole engine-room was the ship's one
and only electric lamp.
     It hung in a wire muzzle, under a tin plate. (And what a far cry it was
from the blindingly bright electric lamps of today!)
     Inside  its  blackened glass there was a  dimly  glowing red-hot little
loop of wire which quivered at every vibration of the ship.
     But  it  seemed  a  miracle. It  was associated  with  the  magic  word
"Edison", which in the  boy's  mind had long since lost meaning as a surname
and had  taken  on  mysterious  meaning as  a  phenomenon  of  Nature,  like
"magnetism", or "electricity".
     After that the strange man walked unhurriedly round the lower decks.
     Petya  had  the impression he  was  making  a secret but very attentive
study of the passengers who were sitting on their bundles and baskets at the
mast, near the rails, and beside the cargo.
     He was ready to bet (betting, by the  way, was also strictly forbidden)
that the man was secretly searching for someone.
     The  stranger  stepped unceremoniously  over  sleeping  Moldavians.  He
squeezed his  way  through  groups  of  Jews  who  were  eating  olives.  He
cautiously raised  the edges  of a  tarpaulin stretched over some crates  of
tomatoes.
     Asleep  on the bare boards of the deck lay a man with his cap  over his
cheek and  his  head  nestling in  one of the rope fenders which are lowered
over the  side  to soften the ship's impact against the wharf. His arms were
spread out and his legs were drawn up, just as a child sleeps.
     Petya gave a casual glance at the man's legs and  then stood petrified:
the  trousers had pulled up,  and he saw the well-remembered navy boots with
the rust-coloured tops.
     There could be no doubt about it. They were the very same  boots he had
seen under the seat in the coach that morning.
     And even if that was a mere coincidence, there was something  else that
most  certainly  was  not.  On the sleeping  man's  hand, in  the  very same
place-the fleshy triangle beneath the thumb and forefinger-Petya clearly saw
a small blue anchor.
     He almost cried out in surprise.
     He  controlled  himself because he  noticed that the  sleeping man  had
attracted the attention of the moustached passenger too.
     Moustaches walked past  the sleeper several times, trying to peer under
the cap covering  his face. But he did not  succeed.  Then he walked by once
again and stepped on the sleeping man's hand, as if by accident.
     "Sorry!"
     The  other gave  a start. He  sat up and  looked round  in fright  with
sleepy, uncomprehending eyes.
     "Eh? What's up? Where to?"  he muttered  disjointedly as  he rubbed the
coral imprint of the rope on his cheek.
     It was he, the very same sailor!
     Petya hid behind the hatchway and watched with bated breath to see what
would happen next.
     But nothing special happened. After excusing himself again,  Moustaches
went on his way, and the sailor turned over on his other side. He did not go
back to sleep, however, but kept looking round in alarm  and-so it seemed to
Petya-impatient annoyance.
     What should he do? Run to Father? Or tell the whole story to the mate?
     No, no!
     Petya clearly remembered Father's behaviour in the coach. Evidently the
whole business was something about which  he should neither speak to anybody
nor ask any questions, but simply hold his  tongue and make believe  he knew
nothing.
     At this  point  he  decided to hunt up  Moustaches and  see what he was
doing.
     He found him on the  first-class  deck, which was practically deserted.
He was leaning against a life-boat with a canvas tightly roped over it.
     Under  the deck-house  the invisible  wheel was  pounding away at water
almost black and covered with a coarse lace of foam. It was  making the kind
of noise you heard at a watermill. The ship's shadow, now a rather long one,
slid quickly  over the bright  waves, which turned a darker and darker  blue
the farther away they were.
     At the stern waved the white,  blue  and  red merchant navy flag,  shot
through by the sun.
     Behind  her the  ship left a  broad  wake;  it  widened and  melted and
stretched  far  into  the  distance,  like   a  well-swept  sleigh  road  at
Shrovetide.
     On the left ran the high clay shore of Novorossia.
     As for Moustaches, he was furtively examining something  he held in his
hand.
     Petya stole up to him from behind, stood on tiptoe, and saw  it. It was
a small, passport-size photograph of a sailor  in  full uniform; his cap was
tilted at a swaggerish angle, and on its band was the inscription:

        KNYAZ POTEMKIN TAVRICHESKY

     That was the very same sailor, the one with the anchor on his hand.
     And  here Petya suddenly realised,  in  a  flash of  insight, what  was
strange  about  Moustaches'  appearance:  like  the  man  with  the  anchor,
Moustaches was in disguise.

        8
     "MAN OVERBOARD!"

     A fair wind was  blowing.  To help the engine along and to  make up for
the time lost during loading, the captain ordered a sail to be set.
     Not a single holiday  celebration,  not  a  single present, could  have
thrown Petya into such raptures as did that trifle.
     On second thought, a fine trifle!
     An engine and a sail at one and the same time on one and the same ship!
A packet-boat and frigate combined!
     I dare say that you, comrades, would also be delighted  if you suddenly
had the good fortune to make  a sea voyage on a real steamer  that was under
sail into the bargain.
     Even in those days  sails were set only on the oldest  steamers, and on
the rarest occasions at that. Nowadays it is never done at all.
     So you can easily imagine how Petya felt about it.
     Naturally, Moustaches and the  runaway flew out of his mind at once. He
stood  in the  bow,  gazing in a  trance at  the barefoot deck-hand  who was
pulling, rather lazily, a neatly folded sail out of the hatchway.
     Petya knew perfectly well that this was  a jib. All the same he went up
to the mate, who, because there were no other seamen, was helping to set the
sail.
     "I say there, tell me please, is that a jib?"
     "It is."
     The  mate's  tone  was  decidedly gruff, but  Petya  was not the  least
offended. He knew very well  that a  real  sea dog was bound to  be somewhat
gruff. Otherwise what kind of sea-faring man was he?
     Petya  looked at the  passengers with  a restrained  superior smile and
again addressed  the  mate,  casually, as man to man: "Now tell me,  please,
what other kinds of sails are there? How about the mainsail and foresail?"
     "Get out of the way," the mate said, with the expression of a man whose
tooth has suddenly begun to ache. "Run along to your Mama in the cabin."
     "My Mama's dead," Petya told  the  rude  fellow  with sad pride. "We're
travelling with Father."
     To that the mate made no reply, and the conversation ended.
     Finally the jib was set.
     The little ship ploughed on  faster than ever. Odessa  was now tangibly
near. The white spit of the Sukhoi Liman came into sight ahead.
     The shallow water of this estuary was such a dense and  dark blue  that
it gave off a reddish glow.
     Then the  slate  roofs of  Lustdorf, the German  quarter, and  the tall
rough-hewn church with the weather-vane on its spire appeared.
     And after that came  the villas, orchards, vegetable  gardens,  bathing
beaches, towers, lighthouses.
     First there was the famous Kovalevsky tower, a tower with a legend.
     A rich man by the name of Kovalevsky decided to build, at his own risk,
a water-supply system for  the city. It would  have brought him vast profit.
For every  drink of water they took, people would have to pay Mr. Kovalevsky
as much as he wanted. You see, the only source of  good drinking  water near
Odessa was on Mr.Kovalevsky's  land. But the water lay very deep, and to get
it a  tremendous water tower  had  to be built. That was a big  job for •  a
single man to handle. But  since Mr.  Kovalevsky did  not want to share  his
future profits with anyone, he began to build the tower on his own. The work
turned out to cost  much more  than  he had thought it would.  His relatives
pleaded with  him to give up  his mad idea,  but  he had already put so much
money into it that he would not back out. He went on with the work. When the
tower was three-quarters built he ran out  of money.  But by mortgaging  all
his  houses  and his lands, he managed to finish the  tower.  It was a  huge
thing,  and it  looked like a chessboard castle enlarged thousands of times.
On Sundays  whole families used to  come from Odessa to look at  the wonder.
But  the tower alone was not enough, of  course. Machines had  to be ordered
from abroad;  holes had to be drilled, mains had  to be laid. Mr. Kovalevsky
grew desperate. He ran to the merchants and bankers of Odessa for a loan. He
offered a fabulous rate of interest. He promised them dividends such as they
had never dreamed of. He begged, he went down on his knees, he wept. But the
rich merchants and bankers  would not forgive him for having refused to take
them in as partners from  the beginning. They were deaf to his  pleas. Not a
kopek did he get  from anybody. He  was completely ruined, broken,  crushed.
The water-main became an obsession with him.  All  day long he used to pace,
like  a madman,  round and round the  tower which had  swallowed  his  whole
fortune, racking  his brains for  a way to raise  money. Little by little he
went out  of  his mind. One fine  day  he climbed to  the very  top  of  the
accursed tower and jumped down. That had happened about fifty years earlier,
but the  tower, blackened with age,  still stood overlooking the sea not far
from the rich commercial city, as a  grim warning and a ghastly monument  to
insatiable human greed.
     Then the new white lighthouse appeared,  and after it  the old one, now
no longer in service.
     Lit  up  by  the pink sun  setting  into  the golden chain of  suburban
acacias, they  looked so  distinct, so near- and, above all, so  familiar-as
they towered over the bluffs, that  Petya was ready  to blow into the jib as
hard as he could, if only that would make the ship arrive sooner.
     From here on he knew  every inch  of the coast.  Bolshoi Fontan, Sredny
Fontan, Maly Fontan, the high, steep shore overgrown with scratch weed, wild
rose, lilac, and hawthorn.
     The big  rocks standing in the water in the shadow of the bluffs, rocks
green with slime halfway up their sides, and on  them  the swimmers and  the
anglers with their bamboo poles.
     And here was Arcadia, the restaurant on piles, with its band-stand-from
a distance so small,  no bigger than a prompter's  box-its brightly-coloured
sunshades, and the  table-cloths  across which  the cool wind was scurrying.
Each  new detail which  met the boy's eyes was  fresher and more interesting
than  the  one before.  They  had  not been  forgotten.  No! They  could  be
forgotten no more than he could forget his own name! They had somehow merely
slipped from his memory for a time. Now they were suddenly rushing back, the
way a boy rushes home after having gone out without permission.
     They  came  racing  back, more  and more  of  them all  the  time,  one
overtaking the other.
     They seemed to be shouting to him, in eager rivalry:
     "Greetings, Petya! So you're back at last! How  we've missed you!  Come
now, don't you recognise us?  Take  a good look: this is  me, your favourite
summer resort, Marazli. How  you loved to  walk  over  my splendidly clipped
emerald lawns, strictly forbidden though that was!  How you loved to examine
my   marble   statues,   over    which   big   snails   with   four   little
horns-'lavriks-pavliks',  you called them-used  to  crawl,  leaving behind a
slimy  trail!  Look  how  I've grown during the summer!  Look  how thick  my
chestnut trees have become! What gorgeous  dahlias and peonies  are in bloom
in my flower-beds!  What magnificent August butterflies you'll see alighting
in the dark shadows of my garden walks!"
     "And here am I, Otrada! Surely  you haven't forgotten my bathing beach,
my  shooting gallery, my skittle-alley!  Look  at me: while you were gone we
put up a  wonderful  merry-go-round, with boats and  horses. And  a  stone's
throw away lives your old friend Gavrik. He's counting  the hours until your
return. So hurry, hurry!"'
     "I'm here too, Petya! How do you do? Don't you recognise Langeron? Look
at all the flat-bottomed fishing boats pulled up on my beach, and at all the
fishing  nets drying on crossed oars! Wasn't it  here, in my sand, that last
year you found two kopeks and then  drank four whole glasses-it was  so much
you actually had to force it down -of  sour kvass,  and it tickled your nose
and nipped your tongue? Don't you recognise the kvass stand? Why, here it is
at the edge of the bluff, as large as life, amidst the weeds that have grown
so high during the summer! You don't even need binoculars to see it!"
     "And here am I! I'm here too! Hello, Petya! Ah, if you only knew what's
been going on here in Odessa while you were away! Hello! Hello!"
     As they approached the city the wind grew quieter and warmer.
     Now the sun had disappeared altogether. Only  the  top of the mast  and
the tiny red  peak of  the weather-vane still glowed in the absolutely clear
pink sky.
     The jib was taken in.
     The pounding of the ship's engine raised a loud echo  among the  bluffs
and crags of the shore. Up the mast crept the pale-yellow top lantern.
     In thought Petya was already ashore, in Odessa.
     Had anybody told him that only a short while before, that very morning,
in  fact,  he had almost  cried when bidding farewell to  the farm, he never
would have believed it.
     The farm? Which  farm? He had  already forgotten it. It  had  ceased to
exist for him-until the next summer.
     Quick, quick!  To the cabin, to  hurry  Daddy  and  to put their things
together!
     Petya spun about, ready to run. But then he froze in horror. The sailor
with the anchor on his hand was sitting on the steps of  the bow-ladder, and
Moustaches was walking  directly towards him, hands in  pockets, without his
pince-nez, his sandals squeaking.
     He came up to the sailor, leaned over him, and said, in a voice neither
loud nor soft, "Zhukov?"
     "What about  Zhukov?"  the sailor  said in  a low,  strained  voice. He
turned visibly pale and stood up.
     "Sit down. Be quiet. Sit down, I tell you."
     The sailor  continued  to  stand. A faint smile  trembled on his  ashen
lips.
     Moustaches frowned. "From the  Potemkin? How  do you do, my dear  chap.
You might at least have changed  your boots. And us waiting for you all this
long time.  Well,  what  have  you to say for  yourself,  Rodion Zhukov? The
game's up, eh?"
     With these words Moustaches gripped the sailor by the sleeve.
     The sailor's face contorted.
     "Hands off!" he cried in a  terrible  voice. He shifted  his weight and
slammed his fist into Moustaches' chest with all his might. "Keep your hands
off a sick man!"
     The sleeve ripped.
     "Stop!"
     But it was too late.
     The sailor had torn himself free and was running down the deck, weaving
in and out among the baskets, crates,  and passengers. Moustaches  ran after
him.
     An onlooker might have thought these two grown men were playing tag.
     They  dived, one  after  the other, into  the  passage-way next to  the
engine-room and  then bobbed up on the other  side. They  ran up the ladder,
their soles drumming and sliding on the slippery brass steps.
     "Stop! Grab him!" cried Moustaches, wheezing heavily.
     The sailor now carried  a  batten which he  had torn loose somewhere on
the way.
     "Grab him! Grab him!"
     The  passengers, frightened and curious,  gathered in a cluster  on the
deck. There was a piercing blast from a policeman's whistle.
     The sailor cleared a high hatchway in  one leap. He  dodged Moustaches,
who  had run round the hatchway,  jumped back over  it, and then hopped on a
bench. From the  bench he  sprang to the rail, grasped the ensign staff, and
struck Moustaches across the face  with the batten as hard as he could. Then
he jumped into the sea.
     Spray showered up over the stern.
     "Oh!"
     The passengers, every single one of them, reeled back  as if a gust  of
wind had caught them.
     Moustaches ran back and  forth in front of the rail. "Catch him!  He'll
get away!" he cried hoarsely, holding  his hands to his  face.  "Catch  him!
He'll get away!"
     The mate ran up the ladder three steps at a time with a life-belt.
     "Man overboard!"
     The  passengers reeled forward  towards  the rail,  as if now a gust of
wind had caught them from behind.
     Petya squeezed  through to the rail. Amid the whipped  egg-white of the
foam, the sailor's head bobbed  up and  down with the waves like a float. He
was already a good way off, and he was swimming.
     Not  towards the ship, but  away from it,  working his arms and legs as
fast as he could. After every three  or four strokes he turned back a tense,
angry face.
     The  mate saw that the  man who  was overboard  had  not the  slightest
desire to be "saved". On the contrary,  he was plainly trying to put as much
distance as possible  between himself and  his saviours. Besides, he was  an
excellent swimmer and the shore was relatively near.
     And so, everything was in order.
     There was no cause for worry.
     In  vain did Moustaches tug at the mate's sleeve, make fierce eyes, and
demand that the ship be stopped and a boat lowered.
     "He's a political criminal. You'll answer for this!"
     The  mate  shrugged his  shoulders  phlegmatically. "It's  none  of  my
business. I have no orders. Speak to the captain."
     The captain merely waved his hand.  "We're  late as it is.  It's out of
the question,  my good man. Why  should we? We'll be mooring in half an hour
and then you can go and catch your political chappie. This steamship line is
a  private  company.  It  doesn't  go  in  for  politics,  and  we  have  no
instructions on that score."
     Swearing  under his breath,  Moustaches, his face battered,  headed for
the place where the gangway would be set, forcing his  way through the crowd
of third-class passengers preparing to disembark.
     He roughly pushed aside the frightened people; he stepped on their feet
and kicked their baskets,  and  finally reached the rail  so  as to  get off
first, the moment the ship moored.
     By now the sailor's head  could barely be seen  in  the  waves amid the
markers swaying above the fishing nets.

        9
     ODESSA BY NIGHT

     The  shore darkened quickly; it turned a light blue,  then a deep blue,
then purple. On land, evening had already come. At  sea it was still  light.
The glossy swell  reflected a  clear sky. But here,  too, evening was making
itself felt.
     The signal lanterns on the  paddle-boxes had been lit without the boy's
noticing it, and their bulging glass sides, in the daytime so dark and thick
one could never guess their colour, now gleamed green and red; they did  not
throw any light as yet, but they definitely glowed.
     All at once the dark-blue city, with its cupola-shaped theatre roof and
the colonnade of the Vorontsov Palace, loomed in front of them, shutting out
half the horizon.
     The watery  stars  of  the wharf  lamps  were palely  reflected  in the
light-coloured, absolutely  motionless lake of the  harbour. It was into the
harbour  that the Turgenev now  turned, closely skirting  the thick tower of
the  lighthouse-really not  a very  big one at  all-which  had a bell  and a
ladder.
     Down in the engine-room  the captain's bell ting-a-linged for  the last
time.
     "Slow!"
     The  narrow  little  steamer  slid  quickly  and  noiselessly past  the
three-storey bows of the ocean-going  ships of the Dobrovolny  Merchant Line
standing  in a row  inside the breakwater. Petya  had to  crane his  neck in
order to study their monstrous anchors.
     Those were ships!
     "Stop!"
     Without slowing down, carried along by  her  momentum, the Turgenev cut
obliquely  across the  harbour,  in complete silence; she  bore  down on the
wharf as if she would crash into it any minute.
     Two long creases stretched back from her sharp bow, making stripes like
a mackerel's in the water.
     Along the sides the water gurgled softly.
     Heat poured from the advancing city as from an oven.
     All of a  sudden Petya saw a funnel and  two masts sticking out of  the
mirror-like surface.  They floated by  as  close to the ship's side as could
be-black, frightful, dead.
     The passengers crowding at the rail gave a gasp.
     "They scuttled her," someone said in a low voice.
     "Who?" the  boy wanted to ask, horror-struck. But just  then  he saw an
even  more gruesome  sight: the  charred  iron skeleton  of  a  ship leaning
against a charred wharf.
     "They burned her," the same voice said, more softly than before.
     Now the wharf was upon them.
     "Astern!"
     The  paddle-wheels  began to clatter again,  revolving in  the opposite
direction. Little whirlpools scurried across the water.
     The  wharf  drifted  away  and somehow shifted about,  and  then,  very
slowly, it approached again, but from the other side.
     Over  the  heads of the  passengers shot a coiled rope, unwinding as it
flew.
     Petya felt a slight jolt; it had been softened by the rope fender.
     The gangway was shoved up from the wharf. The first to run down  it was
Moustaches. He immediately disappeared in the crowd.
     Our  travellers waited  their turn,  and  before  long they were slowly
walking down the gangway to the wharf.
     Petya was surprised  to see a policeman and  several civilians standing
at the foot  of the gangway. They  were looking  closely, very  closely,  at
everyone coming down. They looked at Father, who thrust forward a  quivering
beard and mechanically  buttoned his coat. He tightened his grip on Pavlik's
hand, and his face took on exactly  the same unpleasant expression as it had
in the coach that morning when he was talking to the soldier.
     They took a  cab.  Pavlik was put on the folding seat in  front,  while
Petya sat next to Father on the main seat, quite like a grown-up.
     As  they  drove  out  they  saw   a  sentry  with  a  rifle  and   with
cartridge-pouches at his  belt standing  by the  gate.  That  was  something
altogether new.
     "Why is a sentry standing there, Daddy?" Petya asked in a whisper.
     "For God's sake!" Father said irritably, with a jerk of  his neck. "All
you do is ask questions. How should I know? If he's standing  there it means
he's standing there. And you're to sit quiet."
     Petya  saw that  no questions were to be asked, and also that there was
no call to take offence at Father's irritability.
     But when, at the railway crossing, he saw the trestle bridge burned  to
the ground, the mounds of charred sleepers, the twisted rails hanging in the
air,  and the wheels of overturned railway  carriages-when he saw that scene
of frozen chaos  he cried out  breathlessly, "Oh, what's that?  Look! I  say
there, cabby, what's that?"
     "Set  fire to it, they did," the  cab-driver said mysteriously, shaking
his head  in the  firm beaver-cloth  hat,  but  whether  in condemnation  or
approval was not clear.
     They drove past the famous Odessa Stairway.
     Up at the top of its  triangle, in the space between the silhouettes of
the two  semi-circular  symmetrical palaces, the small figure of  the Due de
Richelieu stood  outlined against the light  evening sky, his  arm stretched
out in antique mode towards the sea.
     The  three-armed  street  lamps along  the  boulevard gleamed. From the
terrace of an open-air restaurant came the strains  of music. The first pale
star  trembled  in  the sky over the  chestnut trees  and the  gravel of the
boulevard.
     Somewhere up above, Petya knew, beyond the Nikolayev Boulevard, lay the
bright,  noisy, luring, unapproachable, intangible place which was  referred
to in the Batchei family circle with contemptuous respect as "the Centre".
     In  the Centre  lived "the  rich", those  special beings who  travelled
first  class, who could go  to the theatre every day, who for  some  strange
reason  had  their dinner  at seven o'clock in the  evening, who kept a chef
instead of  a cook  and a bonne instead of a nursemaid, and often even "kept
their own horses"-something indeed beyond human imagination.
     The Batcheis, of course, did not live in "the Centre".
     The droshky  rumbled over the cobblestones of  Karantinnaya Street  and
then, turning right, drove up the hill to the city proper.
     Petya was unaccustomed to the city after his summer's absence.
     He was deafened by the clang of horseshoes, which  drew sparks from the
cobbles, by the clatter of  wheels, by the jangle of the horse-trams, by the
squeaking of  shoes and the  firm tapping of walking sticks on the dark-blue
slabs of the pavement.
     The crisp sadness of autumn's tints had long ago  gilded the farm,  the
harvested fields, the  wide-open steppe. But here, in the city, summer still
reigned, rich and luxuriant.
     The  languid  heat  of evening  hung  in  the  breathless  air  of  the
acacia-lined streets.
     Through  the  open  doors of  grocers' shops Petya could see the little
yellow  tongues  of oil  lamps  throwing  their  light  on jars of  coloured
sugar-plums.
     Right  on   the  pavement,   under  the  acacias,   lay   mountains  of
water-melons-glossy greenish-black  Tumans with  waxy  bald  spots, and long
bright Monasteries with striped sides.
     Every now and then there appeared the gleaming vision of a corner fruit
shop. In the dazzling glare of the new incandescent  lamps,  a Persian could
be  seen   fanning  magnificent  Crimean   fruit  with  rustling  plumes  of
tissue-paper. There were large  purple plums covered with a turquoise bloom,
and those very expensive luscious brown Beurre Alexander pears.
     They drove  past mansions, and,  through  the  ironwork fences entwined
with wild vines,  Petya  could see, in the light pouring  from the  windows,
beds  of luxurious  dahlias,  begonias and  nasturtiums,  with  plump  moths
fluttering above them.
     From the railway station came the whistle of steam-engines.
     Then they passed the familiar chemist's shop.
     Behind  the large  plate-glass  window  with  its  gilded glass letters
gleamed two crystal pears, one full of a bright violet liquid and  the other
a green  liquid.  Petya was  convinced they were  poison.  It was  from this
chemist's the horrible oxygen pillows had been brought to Mummy when she was
dying.   What  a  frightful  snoring   sound  they  had  made  near  Mummy's
medicine-blackened lips!
     Pavlik  was fast asleep. Father  took him  in  his arms.  Pavlik's head
swayed and bobbed up and down.  His heavy little bare legs kept slipping off
Father's  lap. But his fingers  tightly gripped  the  bag with the treasured
moneybox.
     In that  state he was handed over into the arms of Dunya, the cook, who
was waiting in the street for her  masters when the cab finally pulled up at
the gate with the triangular little lantern in which the house number glowed
dimly.
     "Welcome home! Welcome home!"
     Petya, still feeling the roll of  the deck under his feet, ran into the
entrance-way.
     What a huge, deserted staircase!
     Bright and echoing. How many lamps! At every landing a paraffin lamp in
a cast-iron fixture, and  over each lamp a little hood  swaying  lazily in a
circle of light.
     Brightly polished brass plates on the doors. Coconut fibre  doormats. A
pram.
     Petya had  completely  forgotten  these  things, and they now  appeared
before his wondering eyes in all their original novelty.
     He would have to get used to them again.
     From somewhere above there came the  sharp resounding  click of  a key,
followed  by  the  slamming  of  a  door  and  then  by  quick voices.  Each
exclamation rang out like a pistol shot.
     The gay bravura notes of  a grand piano came, muffled, through  a wall.
With compelling chords, music was reminding the boy of its existence.
     And then-goodness me! Who was that?
     A forgotten  but  frightfully familiar  lady in  a dark-blue silk dress
with a lace collar and  lace cuffs came running out  through the  door.  Her
eyes  were  red from tears,  excited,  happy;  her  lips  were stretched  in
laughter.  Her chin  trembled, but  whether  from laughing or  crying  Petya
couldn't quite be sure.
     "Pavlik!"
     She tore him from the cook's arms.
     "Good gracious! How heavy you've become!"
     Pavlik opened eyes turned absolutely black  from sleep and remarked, in
surprise, but with profound indifference, "Ah, Auntie?"
     Then he fell asleep again.
     Why, of course, this was Auntie Tatyana! Dear, precious Auntie Tatyana,
whom he knew so well but who had simply slipped out of his memory. How could
he have failed to recognise her?
     "Petya? How huge you are!"
     "Do you  know  what  happened to  us,  Auntie?" Petya  began  at  once.
"Auntie, you don't know anything  about it! But Auntie, only listen  to what
happened  to us.  Why,  Auntie, you're  not  listening!  Auntie,  you're not
listening!"
     "Very well, very well. Wait  a  minute. Go inside first. Where's Vasili
Petrovich?" "Here I am." Father was coming up the stairs.
     "Well, here we are. How do you do, Tatyana Ivanovna."
     "Welcome home, welcome home! Come in. Were you seasick?"
     "Not  a  bit. We had an excellent  trip. Have you any small change? The
driver can't change a three-ruble note."
     "I'll take care of that. Don't worry about it. Petya, don't trip me up.
You'll  tell  me later.  Dunya, be  a dear  and run down  and pay the cabby.
You'll find some money on my dressing-table."
     The hall into which Petya walked seemed spacious and dim and so strange
that at first he failed to recognise even the tall swarthy  boy in the straw
hat who had suddenly appeared, as if from  nowhere, inside  the walnut frame
of the  forgotten  but  familiar  pier-glass lit  up  by  the forgotten  but
familiar lamp.
     But Petya, of all  people, should  have recognised him  instantly,  for
that boy was himself.
     10
     AT HOME
     On  the farm there had been a  little room with  whitewashed  walls and
three camp-beds covered with light cotton counterpanes.
     An iron washstand. A pine  table. A  chair.  A candle in a glass shade.
Green latticed shutters. Floorboards bare of paint from constant scrubbing.
     How  nice and  cool it had been, after  eating his fill of clotted milk
and  grey whole-meal bread, to fall  asleep in  that sad, empty room  to the
soothing noise of the sea! Here everything was different.
     Here  there was a big flat  with papered walls and rooms  crowded  with
furniture in loose-covers.
     The wallpaper was  old, and in each room it had a different design; the
furniture was different in each room too.
     The bouquets and lozenges on the wallpaper made the rooms seem smaller.
The furniture  here  was  called  "suites",  and  it  muffled  the sound  of
footsteps  and voices. Here, lamps  were  carried from room to  room. In the
parlour stood rubber plants with stiff, waxy leaves. Their  new shoots stuck
out like sharp little daggers sheathed in saffian covers.
     When  the  lamps  were  moved  their  light  passed from  one mirror to
another. The vase on top of the piano shook every time  a droshky drove down
the street. The clatter of the wheels connected the house with the city.
     Petya wanted to finish his tea as quickly as possible.  He was dying to
run out into the courtyard, for at least a minute, to see the boys and learn
the news.
     But  it was already very late-after nine.  All the  boys were  probably
asleep long ago.
     He was anxious  to tell Auntie  Tatyana,  or at least Dunya, about  the
runaway  sailor.  But they were  busy; they  were making the beds,  fluffing
pillows, taking heavy, slippery sheets out of the chest of drawers, carrying
lamps from room to room.
     Petya  followed  Auntie Tatyana  about.  "Why  won't you  listen to me,
Auntie?" he pleaded, stepping on her train. "Please listen."
     "You can see I'm busy."
     "But Auntie, it won't take long."
     "You'll tell me tomorrow."
     "Oh, Auntie, don't be so mean! Please let me tell you. Please, Auntie."
     "Don't get in my way, Petya. Go and tell it to Dunya."
     Petya  shambled off glumly to the kitchen, where green onions grew in a
wooden box on the windowsill.
     Dunya was hastily  pressing a  pillow-case on  an ironing-board covered
with a  strip  of coarse woollen cloth  from an army greatcoat. Thick  steam
rose from the iron.
     "Dunya,  listen to what  happened to us," Petya  began  in a  plaintive
voice, gazing at the taut glossy skin on Dunya's bare forearm.
     "Don't stand so  near, Master Petya. God knows I don't want to burn you
with this hot iron."
     "But all you have to do is listen."
     "Go and tell it to your aunt."
     "Auntie  doesn't  want  to  listen.  I'll  tell  you instead.  Du-unya,
please."
     "Tell it to the Master."
     "Oh, how stupid you are! Father knows all about it."
     "Tomorrow, Master Petya, tomorrow."
     "But I want to tell you today."
     "Please get away from my  elbow. Aren't there enough rooms in the house
for you? Why do you have to poke your nose into the kitchen?"
     "I'll only  tell you about it, Dunya dear, and then I'll go right away.
Word of honour. By the true and holy Cross."
     "What a trial you are! Everything was so quiet until you came back!"
     Dunya  planked  the  iron  down  on  the  stove,  caught up  the ironed
pillow-case and ran into  the next room so impetuously that a  breeze passed
through the kitchen.
     Petya sadly rubbed  his eyes with his fists. Suddenly he was taken with
such  a fit of yawning that he barely  managed to drag  himself to  his bed,
where, powerless to unglue his eyes,  he pulled off his sailor blouse like a
blind man.
     The  instant his  hot  cheek  touched the pillow he dropped  off into a
sleep so sound that he did not feel Father's beard when  he came, as was his
custom, to kiss him goodnight.
     Pavlik, however, caused a good deal of bother.  He had fallen into such
a  deep  sleep in the  cab that  Father and  Auntie Tatyana had quite  a job
undressing him.
     But  the moment they  put the  child to  bed he opened eyes  that  were
absolutely fresh and looked round in astonishment.
     "Have we got there yet?"
     Auntie Tatyana kissed him tenderly on his hot crimson cheek.
     "Yes, my pet. Sleep."
     But Pavlik, it appeared, had had a good sleep, and now he was in a mood
for talking.
     "Is that you, Auntie?"
     "Yes, my chick. Go to sleep."
     Pavli