that they chose the badge, a beautiful thing of
silver. It consisted of two thorny branches, crossed, with "O. 5 G.", the
monogram of the Odessa Fifth Gymnasium, between them.
The badge they chose was the largest and the cheapest. It cost fifteen
kopeks.
With an awl the clerk punched two holes in the stiff blue beaver-cloth
band of the cap and attached the badge, bending back the brass tabs on the
inside.
At home the cap and badge caused a furore. Everyone wanted to handle
it, but this Petya would not allow. They could look all they wanted, but
hands off!
Everyone-Father, Dunya, Pavlik-kept asking, "What did it cost?" As if
that was what mattered!
"A ruble forty-five, and fifteen kopeks for the badge," he said,
fuming. "But that's nothing! You should have seen how I passed the exam!"
Pavlik stared at the cap with envious eyes and snuffled, ready at any
moment to burst into tears.
Then Petya ran downstairs to the shop to show his cap to Nusya Kogan.
But Nusya had again gone off to the bay on a visit. What luck!
However, Nusya's father, the shopkeeper, nicknamed Izzy the Dizzy,
showed great interest in the cap.
He put on his spectacles and examined it a long time from all sides,
saying ts-ts-ts all the while, until finally he came out with, "What did it
cost?"
After making the round of all his acquaintances in the house Petya went
out into the field and showed his cap to the soldiers. They also asked how
much it had cost. Now not even half the day was over, and there was no one
else to show the cap to!
Petya was in despair.
All at once he caught sight of Gavrik walking past the fence of the
maternity hospital. He ran to him, filling the air with shouts and waving
his cap.
But good God! What had happened to Gavrik? There were brown circles
under his eyes-angry eyes in a thin, unwashed face. His shirt was in shreds.
One ear was swollen and purplish-red. It was the first thing that struck the
eye, and it looked so horrible and unreal that Petya felt frightened.
"You should have seen me in the exam!" he wanted to shout but the words
died on his lips.
Instead he whispered, "Oh! You've been in a fight? Who gave you that
ear?"
Gavrik lowered his eyes and smiled grimly.
"Let's see it," he said, stretching out his hand for the cap. "What did
it cost?"
Although the idea of anyone handling the cap was agonising, Petya
(true, with a wrench of his heart) gave it to Gavrik.
"But don't mess it up."
"No fear."
The boys sat down beside a bush near the rubbish-heap and proceeded to
give the cap a thorough examination.
Gavrik at once discovered that it had dozens of secrets and
possibilities which had escaped Petya's notice.
In the first place, it appeared that the thin steel hoop which
stretched the top could be taken out. The hoop was pasted over with
rust-stained paper, and once pulled out of the cap it had independent value.
It would be the easiest thing in the world to break the hoop into a
great number of little pieces of steel which, if no good for anything else,
could be put on the rails in front of a suburban train-simply to see what
would happen.
In the second place, there was a black sateen lining with the
inscription "Guralnik Bros." stamped in gold. All one had to do was rip open
the edge, and then all kinds of things could be hidden inside where nobody
would ever find them.
In the third place, the black varnish on the leather peak could be made
still more shiny by a good rubbing with the green pods of what was known
among boys as the "varnish-tree".
As to the badge, it immediately had to be bent back according to the
fashion, and its branches clipped a bit.
The boys set to work without losing a moment's time. They kept at it
industriously until they had squeezed out all the enjoyment the cap was
capable of giving.
This distracted Gavrik for a time.
But when the cap no longer resembled anything under the sun and had
lost its attractions, Gavrik again grew glum.
"Listen, Petya, fetch me some bread and a couple of lumps of sugar," he
said suddenly, making his voice gruff. "I'll take it to Grandpa."
"But why? Where is he?"
"In the police station."
Petya stared at his friend with wide, uncomprehending eyes.
Gavrik smiled grimly and spat on the ground.
"Come on, what are you gaping for? Wasn't that clear enough for you?
What are you, a baby? They took Grandpa to the police station yesterday.
I've got to bring him something to eat."
Still Petya did not understand.
He had heard that drunkards, brawlers, thieves and tramps were locked
up in the police station. But Gavrik's Grandpa? That was more than he could
grasp.
Petya knew the old man very well, for he had often visited Gavrik at
the beach.
How many times had Grandpa taken him out together with Gavrik to catch
bullheads! How many times had he treated Petya to his very special,
fragrant, smoky tea, always apologising, "But there's no sugar!" How many
times had he made a sinker for Petya and shown him how to attach it to his
fishing line!
What funny Ukrainian proverbs he knew-proverbs to fit every possible
occasion-how many stories about the Turkish war, how many soldiers' jokes!
He would sit there with his legs crossed under him like a Turk, mending
his nets with a wooden needle especially whittled for that purpose, and tell
stories without end. The boys would laugh so hard their insides ached. He
would tell the story of the soldier who boiled his axe, and of the
bombardier who went to heaven, and of the orderly who so cleverly tricked
his drunken officer.
Never in his life had Petya known such a delightful host, one who was
always glad to tell a story but who could listen to others with pleasure
too.
When Petya let his imagination run wild and, waving his arms, told such
a tall story that a person's ears began to tingle, Grandpa never turned a
hair. He would sit there, nodding gravely, and remark, "All quite possible.
Might very easily have happened."
And a man like that had been locked up! It was unbelievable!
"But why? What for?"
"Because."
Gavrik gave a deep, grown-up sigh. He was silent for a while. Then he
quickly leaned close to his friend. "Listen," he whispered mysteriously.
He proceeded to tell Petya what had happened the night before.
To be sure, he did not tell the whole story. He said not a .word about
the sailor or Terenti. The way he told it, three strange men who were
running away from the police had come into their hut at night to hide. The
rest of the story was the truth.
"Then that snake grabbed me by the ear, and I'll say he twisted it!"
"Oh, I'd have given it to him! I'd have shown him!" Petya shouted, his
eyes flashing. "I'd have given him a good lesson!"
"Oh, shut up!" Gavrik said glumly. He took a firm grip on the peak of
Petya's cap and yanked it down over his face so that his ears jutted out.
This accomplished, Gavrik went on with his story. Petya listened in
horror.
"But who were they?" he asked when Gavrik had finished. "Robbers?"
" 'Course not. I told you they were just ordinary men. Committee men."
"What kind you say?"
"Might as well talk to a post as tell you something! Committee men, I
tell you. From the Committee."
Gavrik leaned still closer and said in a whisper that brought a smell
of onions to Petya's nostrils:
"The ones who make strikes. From the Party. See?"
"But why did the policemen beat Grandpa and lock him up?"
Gavrik smiled scornfully.
"Because he hid them, stupid! Where are your brains? They'd have taken
me too only they can't because I'm a kid. You know what you get for hiding
somebody? It's terrible! But-"
Gavrik glanced round and said in a whisper so low that Petya could
hardly make it out:
"But you wait and see-he won't stay there more than a week. Soon
they'll go through the whole city raiding the police stations. They'll throw
every single one of those snakes into the Black Sea. May I never see a happy
day in all my life! By the true and holy Cross!"
Gavrik again spat on the ground. "Well, how about it?" he said in a
businesslike tone.
Petya raced home. Two minutes later he returned with six lumps of sugar
in his pocket and half of a wheaten loaf inside his sailor blouse.
"That'll do," Gavrik said, counting the lumps and weighing the bread in
his hand. "Coming to the police station with me?"
The police station, it goes without saying, was definitely out of
bounds, near though it was. As luck would have it, Petya was suddenly filled
with such a desire to go to the police station that to describe it would be
impossible.
Again there was a fierce struggle with his conscience, a struggle that
lasted all the way to the police station.
Conscience finally won out, but too late, for the boys were already
there.
When Petya was with Gavrik, things and conceptions always lost their
usual aspect and revealed no end of qualities that previously had been
hidden from him. Near Mills was transformed from a sad abode of widows and
orphans into a workers' settlement with purple irises in the front gardens;
a policeman became a snake; a cap turned out to have a steel hoop in it.
And now the police station.
What had it been in Petya's mind up until now? A big government
building on the corner of Richelieu and Novorybnaya streets, opposite the
St. Panteleimon Church. Many was the time he had ridden past it on the
horse-tram.
The most important part of that building was its tall square tower with
the little fireman up at the top. Day and night the fireman, in a sheepskin
coat, walked round the mast on the small balcony, gazing out over the city.
Every time Petya looked at the mast, which had a crossbar, it reminded him
of a pair of scales or a trapeze. There were always several ominous-looking
black balls hanging from it, and their number showed in which section of the
city there was a fire. The city was so big that there was certain to be a
fire somewhere.
At the foot of the tower stood the headquarters of the Odessa fire
brigade. It consisted of a row of huge wrought -iron gates.
To the blare of bugles, teams of four wild dapple-greys would fly
through the gates one after the other, their snow-white manes and tails
streaming.
The red fire-engines, sinister and yet somehow toy-like, sped down the
street accompanied by the steady jangle of the bell. They left behind them
in the air orange tongues of flame from the torches, whose light was
reflected in the firemen's brass helmets. The spectre of misfortune would
rise to haunt the careless city.
Apart from that, the police station was in no way remarkable in Petya's
eyes.
But the minute Gavrik came near, it turned about, as though by the
touch of a magic wand, and showed the barred windows of a prison looking out
into an alley.
The police station, it appeared, was simply a prison.
"Wait here," said Gavrik.
He ran across the damp pavement and slipped through the gate unnoticed
by the policeman. Here, too, it appeared, Gavrik knew his way about.
Petya remained alone in a small crowd opposite the police station. The
people were relatives, and they were talking across the street with the men
in the jail.
Petya had never thought so many people could be sitting in the jail.
There were at least a hundred of them.
But they were hardly "sitting". Some stood on the windowsills, clinging
to the bars of the open windows; others looked out from behind them, waving
their hands; still others jumped up and down trying to see the street over
the heads and the shoulders.
To Petya's amazement there were neither thieves nor drunkards nor
tramps among them. Just the opposite: plain, ordinary and quite respectable
people, like those to be seen every day near the station, in Langeron, in
Alexandrovsky Park, or riding in the horse-tram. There were even a few
university students. One of them stood out especially because of the black
Caucasian felt cloak he wore over a white tunic with gold buttons. Cupping
his hands close to his haggard cheeks, he shouted to someone in the crowd in
a deafening, guttural voice: "Tell the association that last night Comrades
Lordkipanidze, Krasikov, and Burevoi were summoned from their cells and told
to take their belongings with them. Lordkipanidze, Krasikov, and Burevoi!
Last night! Organise a public protest! Regards to the comrades!"
From another window a man who reminded Petya of Terenti, in a jacket
and a Russian blouse with the collar unfastened, shouted: "Tell Seryozha to
go to the office and collect my pay!"
Other voices rang out, interrupting one another:
"Don't trust Afanasyev! Do you hear? Don't trust Afanasyev!"
"Kolka's in the Bulvarny jail!"
"In a box behind the wardrobe at Pavel Ivanich's!"
"Wednesday at the latest!"
The relatives shouted too, raising packages and children over their
heads.
One of the women held up a girl with earrings just like Motya's.
"Don't worry about us!" she cried. "People are helping us out! We have
enough to eat! See how healthy our Verochka looks."
Now and then the policeman approached the crowd, gripping the scabbard
of his sword with both hands.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you are asked not to stand opposite the windows
and not to talk to the prisoners."
His words would immediately be followed by deafening cat-calls,
unbelievable swearing and roars from the windows. Water-melon rinds,
corn-cobs and cucumbers would fly at the policeman.
"You snake!"
"Gendarme!"
"Go and fight the Japs!"
With his sword under his arm the policeman would stroll unhurriedly
back to the gate, pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
No, things in the world were definitely not going as smoothly as they
might seem at first glance!
Gavrik returned downcast and angry.
"Did you see Grandpa?"
Gavrik did not reply. The boys walked away. Near the railway station
Gavrik halted.
"They beat him every day," he said in a hollow voice, wiping his eyes
with his ragged sleeve. "See you later."
He turned away.
"Where are you going?"
"To Near Mills."
Petya made his way home across Kulikovo Field. The wind whipped up
clouds of dry and dreary dust.
The boy's heart was so heavy that even the flattened cartridge-case he
found on the way brought him no joy.
30
THE PREPARATORY CLASS
Autumn came.
Petya was now attending the Gymnasium. The school uniform had
transformed him from a tall, sunburned, long-legged boy in lisle stockings
into a small, crop-haired, lop-eared preparatory class pupil-in Gymnasium
slang, a "greenie".
The long trousers and uniform jacket, bought for thirty-six rubles at
Landesman's Clothing Establishment, were baggy and highly uncomfortable. The
coarse collar chafed his tender neck accustomed to the freedom of a sailor
blouse.
Even the belt, a real Gymnasium belt with a German silver buckle, which
had come after the cap in Petya's dreams, fell short of expectations. It
kept creeping up towards his armpits, the buckle slipped to one side, and
the free end dangled like a tongue.
The belt did not give his figure the manliness on which he had so
strongly counted. It was nothing more than a constant source of humiliation,
calling forth rude laughter from the grown-ups.
On the other hand, a joy as great as it was unexpected came during the
buying of the copybooks, textbooks and writing materials.
What a difference between the quiet, serious book shop and the
light-minded, silly shops in Richelieu Street or the Arcade! It was probably
an even more serious shop than the chemist's. At any rate, it was much more
intellectual.
The sign alone, a narrow, modest sign which said
EDUCATION
was enough to inspire the deepest respect.
It was on a dark autumn evening that Petya's father took him to the
"Education" shop.
They entered a drowsy realm of book-backs which in the light of the gas
jets had a greenish tinge and a sort of university flavour. On top of them
stood the painted heads of members of the four human races: the Red, the
Yellow, the Black, and the White.
The first three heads conformed exactly to the races they were supposed
to represent. The Indian was as red as could be. The Chinese as yellow as a
lemon. The Negro blacker than pitch. The only one not entirely true to his
name was the specimen of the "master race": he was not white but a delicate
pink, with a long blond beard. Petya stared enchanted at the blue globes
with their brass meridians, the black star charts, and the terrifying,
startlingly bright anatomical charts.
All the wisdom of .the universe was concentrated in this shop, and it
seemed to penetrate into the very pores of the customer. Petya, for one,
felt remarkably well educated as he came home in the horse-tram, although
they had spent no more than ten minutes in the shop and had bought five
little books in all, the thickest costing only forty-two kopeks.
They had also bought a real satchel of calf-leather with the fur on the
outside and a small lunch basket.
Then they had chosen a wonderful pencil-case with a transfer picture on
its sliding lacquered top. The top fit so tightly that when it was opened it
squeaked like a wooden peasant toybox. Petya put a great deal of care and
taste into filling all the sections of the case with the proper articles,
making a point of it that none remained empty.
All kinds of nibs went into the case: blue nibs with three holes in
them, "Cossodo", "Rondo", "No. 86", "Pushkin" nibs with the curly head of
the famous poet on them, and many others.
Then there was an india-rubber with an elephant drawn on it, a crayon,
two pencils, one for writing and the other for drawing, a penknife with a
mother-of-pear] handle, an expensive penholder (it cost 20 kopeks), and
coloured pasting tabs, drawing pins, pins and pictures.
And all these small, elegant implements of study were so absolutely
new, so shiny, and smelled so delightfully!
The whole evening Petya industriously covered his books and copybooks
with special blue paper, pasting down the edges with tabs.
He pasted lacy pictures in the corners of his blotters; glossy bouquets
and angels firmy held silk ribbons in place.
On all the copybooks he neatly printed:
This Copybook Is the Property
of P. BATCHEI
Preparatory Class Pupil, 0. 5 G.
He could hardly wait for morning to come. It was still almost dark and
the lamp was burning at home when the boy ran off to the Gymnasium equipped
from head to foot as if off to the wars.
Now not a single department of learning would be able to withstand
Petya's onslaught! Three weeks of incredible patience, both at home and at
the Gymnasium, went into improving his scholastic equipment. Time and again
he repasted his pictures, replaced the covers on his textbooks and changed
the nibs in his pencil-case, striving for the height of beauty and
perfection.
And when Auntie Tatyana remarked, "Hadn't you better do your lessons?"
Petya would groan in despair, "Oh, Auntie Tatyana, don't talk such nonsense!
How can I study when nothing is properly ready?"
In a word, things were going splendidly.
There was only one cloud to darken the joy of learning: not once had
Petya been called upon to recite, and there was not a single mark in his
report-book. Nearly all the boys in the class had been marked, but not
Petya.
Each Saturday he sorrowfully brought home his unmarked report-book,
sumptuously wrapped in pink paper, pasted over with gold and silver stars
and seals, and decorated with coloured book-marks. But then came the
Saturday when Petya dashed into the dining-room, his coat still on, his face
aglow. He waved his handsome report-book in the air, shouting at the top of
his lungs, "Auntie Tatyana! Pavlik! Dunya! Come quick! I've got marks! Oh,
what a pity Daddy's still at school!"
Triumphantly he tossed his report-book on the table and then stepped
away in modest pride, so as not to interfere with their contemplation of his
marks.
"Well, well!" exclaimed Auntie, running into the dining-room with a
dress-pattern in her hand. "Let's see your marks."
She picked up the report-book and quickly scanned it.
"Religion-Poor; Russian-Poor; arithmetic-Unsatisfactory;
attention-Satisfactory; diligence-Fair," she read in surprise. She shook her
head reproachfully. "I don't see what you're so happy about. Nothing but
Poors here."
Petya stamped his foot in annoyance.
"I knew it!" he cried, fairly weeping from resentment. "Why can't you
understand, Auntie Tatyana? The important thing is that there are marks!
Marks, don't you see?
But you simply don't want to understand! It's always that way!"
Petya angrily snatched up his treasured report-book and ran outside to
show his marks to the boys.
With this ended the first stage of Petya's studies-the festive period.
It was followed by cheerless, humdrum days of cramming.
Gavrik stopped coming to see him, and Petya, busy with his Gymnasium
studies, almost forgot his existence.
For a time, Gavrik, too, forgot Petya's existence. He was living at
Near Mills now, with Terenti.
Grandpa was still in prison. He was kept part of the time in the
Alexandrovsky jail and the other part in the Secret Police Department, to
which he was often driven at night by carriage. It was evident that the old
man knew how to hold his tongue, for the police were not disturbing Terenti.
Exactly where the sailor was Gavrik did not know, and he did not think
it necessary to ask Terenti. Certain signs, however, led him to conclude
that the sailor was in safe hiding somewhere in the vicinity.
For were there not nooks and corners aplenty in Near Mills where a man
might lie low, might vanish as in thin air? And were there not numbers of
men who were lying low for the time being in the Near Mills district?
But Gavrik made it a rule never to stick his nose into other people's
affairs. Besides, he had enough troubles of his own.
Terenti's family was having a hard time making ends meet. The railway
workers were on strike almost all the time. Terenti made a little money by
doing odd locksmith's jobs at home, but there were not many of those jobs
and, besides, a good deal of his time was taken up by urgent matters which
were only hinted at in the family circle.
Terenti did not seem to belong to himself. Men would come for him in
the middle of the night, and without saying a word he would dress and go
off, sometimes for days.
People were always arriving at the house. The teakettle had to be put
on for them and gruel prepared. There were always muddy tracks in the
passage those autumn days; the room was filled with clouds of cheap tobacco
smoke.
Gavrik's conscience would not allow him to be a burden on his brother,
who had a family to provide for, and so he had to make his own living. After
all, he wasn't a child! Besides, he had to have food to take to Grandpa in
jail. Fishing, of course, was out of the question without Grandpa. Then,
too, the weather had turned bad, with storms blowing every other day.
Gavrik went down to the beach, hauled the boat over to a neighbour's,
and hung the padlock on the door of the hut.
From morning to night he now wandered about the city in Terenti's old
boots, looking for ways of earning his daily bread. Begging would of course
have been the easiest way out. But Gavrik was ready to die rather than
stretch out a hand for alms. The very thought of it made his fisherman's
blood boil.
No! He was accustomed to earning his bread by working. He carried
cooks' baskets home from the market for two kopeks. He helped the loaders at
the Odessa Goods Station. He would run to the spirits shop to get vodka for
coachmen who, under penalty of a fine, were not allowed to leave their
horses.
When he was hungry and unable to find work of any kind, he would go to
the cemetery chapel and wait for a burial, in order to receive in his cap a
handful of kolevo, that funeral dish of cooked rice sprinkled with powdered
sugar and decorated with lilac-coloured sweets.
The distribution of kolevo at funeral was an old custom, and the
cemetery beggars took advantage of it. Some of them even grew fat on it. But
since kolevo was eaten not only by the beggars but by all who attended the
funeral, Gavrik did not feel it beneath him to take advantage of so
convenient a custom. The more so since the sweets he came by could be taken
to Terenti's children as gifts-and without gifts Gavrik did not feel it
proper to return home for the night.
Sometimes Terenti asked him to take a parcel to an address that had to
be learned by heart and could under no circumstances be put down on paper.
Gavrik liked these errands very much, for they clearly had some connection
with the affairs that kept Terenti so busy.
The parcel, usually a roll of papers, Gavrik would thrust deep down in
his pocket and then press flat so that it did not show. He knew that if he
was caught he was to say he had found it.
After finding the person for whom it was intended he had to be sure to
say at first, "How do you do? Sophia Ivanovna sends you her regards." The
person would reply, "How is Sophia Ivanovna's health?" Only then could he
hand over the parcel. Very often the person, after taking the parcel, would
give him a whole ten-kopek piece "for tram fare".
How much terror and fun there was in those errands!
Finally, Gavrik earned money by playing "lugs", a game that had
recently come into fashion not only among children but among adults as well.
Lugs was the name given to the buttons from uniforms worn by government
employees, with the links bent in.
In broad outline, the game went as follows: the players put their lugs
on the ground, wrong side up, and then, one after the other, threw their
king-lug at them, the object being to make the lugs turn right side up.
Every time a player managed to turn over a lug it became his.
Lugs was neither more difficult nor more interesting than any other
street game, but it had a devilish attraction all its own: the lugs cost
money. They could always be bought and sold, and they were quoted at
definite rates on the street exchange.
Gavrik played a brilliant game of lugs. His throw was firm and
accurate, and his eye was keen. He soon became famous as a champion player.
His pouch was always filled with superior, expensive lugs. When affairs took
an especially bad turn he would sell a part of his supply.
But his pouch never remained empty. The very next day he would win even
more lugs than he had sold.
What to others was an amusement thus became, for Gavrik, a profitable
trade. There was no other way out. One had to make a living somehow.
31
THE BOX ON THE GUN CARRIAGE
Big events were approaching. Seemingly at a snail's pace, but actually
with the terrifying speed of an express train.
How well did Gavrik, a resident of Near Mills, know that feeling of
awaiting the flying express train!
. . .The train is still far away, neither to be seen nor heard, but the
steady tinkling of the signal bell at the Odessa Goods Station announced its
approach. The line is clear. The arm of the semaphore is raised. The rails
are shiny and immobile. There is not a sound. But everyone now knows that
the train is coming and that no power on earth can stop it.
At the crossing, the barrier slowly drops. The boys scramble up on the
station fence. A flock of birds takes off from the trees in alarm and
circles above the water tower. From up there they can probably see the train
already.
Out of the distance comes the faint sound of a pointsman's horn. And
now into the silence there trickles the faintest of noises. No, not a noise
but rather its presentiment, a delicate quivering of the rails as they fill
with inaudible sound. There is this quivering, then a sound, and then a
noise.
Now the train can clearly be heard: it is slowly breathing out steam,
and each breath is louder than the one before it.
All the same, it is hard to believe that the express will be flying
past in another minute. But then suddenly, unexpectedly, the engine,
enveloped in a cloud of steam, comes into sight ahead. It seems to be
standing still at the end of the avenue of green trees.
Yes, it must have stopped.
But if so, why is it growing so enormously bigger with each instant?
However, now there is no longer time to answer the question.
Belching steam sidewise, the express flies past in a dizzying whirlwind
of wheels, windows, doors, steps, couplings, buffers. . . .
Gavrik, who spent his days roaming through the city, could not but be
aware of the approach of events. They were still somewhere on the
way-halfway between St. Petersburg and Odessa, perhaps-but into the silence
of expectation there was already trickling the sound of irresistible
movement, not so much heard as sensed.
Swaying on their new crutches, the wounded, their faces overgrown with
beards, hobbled along the streets. They wore shaggy Manchurian fur caps and
the St. George Cross was pinned to the army coats slung over their
shoulders.
Factory workers who arrived from Central Russia brought rumours of a
general strike. In the crowds near the police stations there was talk of
violence. In the crowds near the university and the women's college there
was talk of freedom. In the crowds near the Ghen factory there was talk of
an armed uprising.
On a day in late September a big white ship steamed into the harbour
carrying the body of General Kondratenko, who had been killed at Port
Arthur.
For almost a year the huge box, containing a leaden coffin and weighing
nearly a ton, had travelled foreign lands and seas before it finally reached
its homeland.
In the port it was placed on a gun carriage and driven along the broad
avenues of Odessa to the railway station.
Gavrik watched the sombre procession. The pale September sun fell on
the funeral vestments of the priests, on the cavalry, the police in white
gloves, the crepe ribbons on the street gas lamps.
Torch-bearers in black three-cornered hats edged with silver carried
glass lanterns on poles, and the pale flames of the candles could scarcely
be seen in the daylight.
Army bands played uninterruptedly but with painful slowness, their
music mingling with the chanting of the cathedral choir.
Harmonious but so insufferably high as to be almost shrill, the
melancholy children's voices floated up tremulously to the arches of wilted
acacia trees. Pale sunshine filtered through the lilac clouds of incense.
Slowly-oh, so slowly!-the gun carriage, and the huge black box covered with
wreaths and ribbons high on top of it, moved down the middle of Pushkin
Street between lines of soldiers towards the railway station.
As the procession came level with the garden in front of the station a
university student sprang up on the iron fence. Waving above his shaggy head
a faded student cap with a band that had once been blue, he shouted:
"Comrades!"
In that vast silent crowd his voice seemed weak, scarcely audible. But
the word he had shouted-"Comrades"-was so incredible, so unfamiliar, so
challenging that it was heard by all, and every single head turned in the
direction of the little figure clinging to the massive fence.
"Comrades! Remember Port Arthur! Remember Tsushima! Remember the
bloodshed of January the 9th. The Tsar and his underlings have brought
Russia to unbelievable shame, to unprecedented ruin and poverty! But the
great Russian people carry on and will continue to carry on! Down with the
autocracy!"
Policemen had already laid hands on the student but he clung to the
fence and, waving his cap, shouted quickly, frenziedly, determined to finish
his speech:
"Down with the autocracy! Long live liberty! Long live the re-"
Gavrik saw him dragged down and led away. The tolling of bells floated
over the city. The hoofs of the cavalry horses clattered on the pavement.
General Kondratenko's coffin was placed in a funeral carriage of the
St. Petersburg train. The bands crashed into their final notes. "Pre-sent
a-a-arms!" The train pulled out.
Slowly the funeral carriage sailed past the fence of gleaming bayonets
held at attention, carrying the black box with the cross on the lid past the
Odessa Goods Station, past the suburbs sprinkled with motionless crowds,
past the silent stations and flag-stations-moving across the whole of
Russia, northwards to St. Petersburg. Together with this train of sorrow,
the spectre of the lost war moved across Russia.
During those few days it seemed to Petya as if there had been a death
in the house. Everyone walked about softly. No one spoke much. A crumpled
handkerchief lay on Auntie Tatyana's toilet table. Immediately after dinner
Father silently put a green shade over the lamp and sat correcting copybooks
until late at night, every now and then dropping his pince-nez and polishing
the lenses with the lining of his jacket.
Petya became a quiet lad. Instead of the circles and cones of his
homework he sketched in his drawing-book the Battle of Turenchen and the
sharp-nosed cruiser Retvizan surrounded by fountains of water from exploding
Japanese mines. Pavlik alone was irrepressible. He would harness Kudlatka to
a chair turned upside down and, blowing furiously on a painted tin horn,
drag "Kondratenko's funeral" up and down the passage.
As he was getting ready for bed one night, Petya heard the voices of
Father and Auntie Tatyana from the dining-room.
"Life is unbearable, simply unbearable!" Auntie Tatyana was saying
through her nose, as though she had a cold, although Petya knew very well
she didn't.
He paused to listen.
"It's literally impossible to breathe!" Auntie Tatyana went on, tears
in her voice. "Really, don't you feel it, Vasili Petrovich? In their place
I'd be ashamed to look people in the face. But they-my God!-they act as if
everything were as it should be. I was walking down the French Boulevard and
I couldn't believe my eyes. A gorgeous turnout: dapple-grey trotters, a
landau driven by a soldier wearing white gloves. All glitter and dazzle. In
the carriage sat two ladies in white nurses' caps with red crosses, in
velvet and sable cloaks, with diamonds this size on their fingers, and
lorgnettes, and painted eyebrows, and eyes shining from belladonna. Opposite
them were two elegant adjutants, their swords like mirrors, and with
cigarette holders between their glistening white teeth. And oh how gay and
merry! Now, who do you think they were? Madam Caulbars and her daughter
driving out to Arcadia with their admirers, while all Russia is literally
drenched in blood and tears! What do you say to that? Just think of
it-diamonds that size! And where did they get them? They stole and robbed,
and stuffed their pockets! Ugh, how I hate all that-forgive my frankness-all
that scum! While three-quarters of the country are starving; while entire
districts are dying out.
I can't stand it any longer! I haven't the strength! Can't you see?"
Petya heard passionate sobbing.
"Calm yourself, Tatyana Ivanovna. But what can we do? What can we do?"
"How should I know? Protest, demand, shout, go into the streets-"
"I beg you-I understand-but tell me, what can we do?"
"What can we do?" Auntie Tatyana exclaimed suddenly in a high, clear
voice. "Everything! If we only want to and aren't afraid. We can tell the
scoundrel to his face that he is a scoundrel, the thief that he is a thief,
the coward that he is a coward. But instead we stay at home and keep silent.
My God, my God, it's horrible to think of what unfortunate Russia has come
to! Stupid generals, stupid ministers, a stupid Tsar."
"Please, Tatyana Ivanovna, the children will hear!"
"Splendid! Let them know the kind of country they live in. They'll
thank us for it later. Let them know that their Tsar is a fool and a
drunkard, who's been beaten over the head with a bamboo cane, besides. A
degenerate! And the finest men in the country, the most honest, the most
educated, the cleverest, are rotting in prison, in penal servitude-"
Father tiptoed into the nursery to see if the boys were asleep. Petya
closed his eyes and breathed deeply and evenly. Father bent over him, kissed
him on the cheek with trembling lips, and tiptoed out of the room, closing
the door tight behind him.
But the voices filtered in from the dining-room for a long time.
Petya could not fall asleep. Back and forth across the ceiling moved
bars of light from the street. Hoofs clattered. The windows rattled faintly.
It seemed to the boy that the glittering landau of Madam Caulbars, the
woman who had stolen so much money and so many diamonds from the treasury
(the treasury was a wrought-iron box on wheels), was driving back and forth
beneath the window.
32
FOG
That evening, many things Petya had never before suspected were
revealed to him.
Before, there had been certain conceptions so well known and so
indisputable that there was never any reason to think about them.
For example, Russia. It had always been perfectly clear and
indisputable that Russia was the best, the strongest, and the most beautiful
country in the world. How, otherwise, could one explain the fact that they
lived in Russia?
Or Father. Father was the cleverest, the kindest, the most manly, and
the most educated person in the world.
Or the Tsar. The Tsar was the Tsar. It went without saying that the
Tsar was the wisest, the richest, and the most powerful man in the world.
How, otherwise, could one explain the fact that Russia belonged to him and
not to some other tsar or king, say the French king?
And then, of course, there was God. About him absolutely nothing had to
be said because everything was so clear.
But now? It suddenly turned out that Russia was unfortunate, that
besides Father there were others who were the finest men in the country and
were rotting in penal servitude, that the Tsar was a fool and a drunkard
and, besides, had been beaten over the head with a bamboo cane. On top of
all that, the ministers were stupid, the generals were stupid, and it turned
out that Russia had not defeated Japan-although up until now there had not
been the slightest doubt that it had-but just the opposite.
But the main thing was that it was Father and Auntie Tatyana who had
been talking about all this. Lately, though, Petya had begun to suspect a
thing or two himself.
Decent, sober folk were put in jail. The police had even locked up a
wonderful old man like Gavrik's grandfather, and were beating him, what's
more. The sailor had jumped off the ship. Soldiers had stopped the coach.
There were guards posted at the port. The trestle bridge had burnt down. A
battleship had shelled the city.
No, it was quite obvious that life was not at all the gay, pleasant,
carefree thing it had been just the very shortest while ago.
Petya was dying to ask Auntie Tatyana who had beaten the Tsar over the
head with a bamboo cane, and why. Especially, why with a bamboo cane? But he
already understood that there were things better not spoken of, that