our."
     "Make it half an hour, Ivan Pavlovich!" He  smiled-a sad,  good-natured
smile.
     I came back  to find  Korablev sitting on the sofa, smoking. The shaggy
green  service jacket, which he always wore  when he felt out of sorts,  was
thrown over his shoulders and the soft collar of his shirt was undone.
     "Well, old chap, you shouldn't have asked me to phone them,"  he  said.
"Now I know all your secrets." "What secrets?"
     He looked at me as though he were seeing me for the first time. "You've
got  to be able  to  keep them," he  went on.  "And you're no good  at that.
Today,  for instance, you're courting someone and tomorrow the  whole school
gets to know about it. It wouldn't be so bad if it were only the school."
     I must have looked pretty sheepish, because Korablev smiled in spite of
himself, just the ghost of a smile. At least twenty  thoughts raced  through
my head all at once: "Who's  done this? Romashka! I'll kill him!  That's why
Katya didn't come. That's why the old lady snubbed me."
     "I love her, Ivan Pavlovich," I said firmly. He spread his hands.
     "I  don't  care  whether the whole school talks about it  or not!" "The
school maybe," Korablev  said. "But don't you care what Maria Vasilievna and
Nina  Kapitonovna may  say about  it?" "No I don't!" I protested hotly. "But
weren't you shown the door at their house?" "What house? It isn't her house.
She dreams of the day she'll finish school and leave that house."
     "Just  a  minute... Do  you  mean to say you  intend to marry  her?"  I
collected myself somewhat. "That's nobody's business!"
     "Of  course  not," Korablev hastily put  in. "I'm  afraid  it's not  so
simple  though.  You'll have  to  ask  Katya,  after all. Perhaps  she isn't
planning to  get  married yet. In any case you'll have to wait till she gets
back from Ensk."
     "Ah," I said  very calmly. "So they've  sent her  away? Fine." Korablev
looked at me again, this time with unconcealed curiosity.
     "Her aunt has fallen ill and she's gone to visit her," he said. "She'll
be away several days and will be back  for the  beginning of  the term. That
shouldn't worry you."
     "I'm not worrying, Ivan Pavlovich. As for Likho, I'll apologise to him,
if  you  wish.  But  let  him take  back  his  statement about  my being  an
idealist."
     Then, for fifteen minutes, as  though nothing had  happened,  as though
Katya had not been sent away, as though I had not decided to  kill  Romaska,
we sat  calmly discussing  my homework. Then I  took my leave, after getting
permission to call again the next day.


     CHAPTER ELEVEN
     <I>I GO TO ENSK</I>
     That Romashka! I did not doubt for a moment that it was  his doing. Who
else could it be? He had been in the classroom and seen me kiss Katya.
     I stared with hatred at  his cot and  the bedside table and waited  for
him  in the  dormitory  for half an hour. Then I wrote  a  note demanding an
explanation and threatening that if I did not get it I would denounce him as
a cad in front of the  whole school. Then I tore the note up and went to see
Valya at the Zoo.
     He was with his rodents,  of  course.  In a dirty  lab  coat,  a pencil
behind his ear and a big  notebook under his arm, he was standing  by a cage
and feeding bats, who were  eating  out of his hand. He was feeding worms to
them, looking mightily pleased.
     I hailed him. He looked round and I asked: "Have you got any money?"
     "Twenty-seven rubles," Valya said proudly.
     "Let's have 'em."
     This was cruel, as I  knew that Valya was saving up to buy  some snakes
or other. But what  could I do? I  had only seventeen rubles,  and  the fare
cost that much more.
     Valya blinked, then looked at me gravely and got out the money.
     "I'm going away."
     "Where to?"
     "To Ensk."
     "What for?"
     "Tell you when I get back. Meanwhile, let me tell you-Romashka's a cad.
You're chummy with him, because you  don't know what a cad he is. And if you
do know, then you're a cad yourself. That's all. So long."
     I had  one foot outside the door when Valya called me back, and in such
a queer voice that I spun round.
     "Sanya," he muttered, "I'm not chummy with him. Besides..."
     He fell silent.
     "It's my  fault,"  he went on  with an air of decision.  "I should have
warned you. You remember that business about Korablev, don't you?"
     "I should say so!"
     "Well, it was him!"
     "What about him?"
     "He went to Nikolai Antonich and told him everything."
     "No!"
     In  a  flash I  recollected that evening when,  on  returning from  the
Tatarinovs, I had told Valya about the conspiracy they were hatching against
Korablev.
     "But I only told you about it."
     "Yes, but Romashka was eavesdropping."
     "Why didn't you tell me?"
     Valya hung his head.
     "He  made  me  give  my  word of  honour,"  he muttered.  "Besides,  he
threatened that he'd look at me at night. You know I hate being looked at at
night. It's silly, I know. It started  with me  waking up once  to find  him
looking at me."
     "You're simply a fool, that's all."
     "He writes everything down  in  a  book  and  then snitches  to Nikolai
Antonich," Valya went on miserably. "He makes life hell for me. He narks  on
people  and then  tells  me  all about  it. I stop my ears,  but  he goes on
telling."
     "You're a poor yap, you are!" I said. "I've no time to talk to you now,
but I think you ought to write to the Komsomol group about that little  book
of his. I never  thought he'd bully you like that. How  many words of honour
did you give him?"
     "I don't remember," Valya mumbled.
     "We'll count 'em up."
     He looked at me mournfully.
     From the Zoo I went to the railway station to  book my ticket, and from
there back to school. I  had a good case  of drawing instruments and decided
to take it with me to sell if I was up against it.
     And now to all the  follies I had  committed  was added another one-one
that I had to pay for with interest.
     When  I entered the dormitory there were about ten people there,  among
them Tania Velichko,  a  girl  from  my form.  They were all engaged in some
occupation, some reading and others talking. Nobody was paying any attention
to Romashka, who was kneeling by my bed and rummaging in my box.
     This new act  of treachery was  the last straw. The blood rushed  to my
head and I went over  to him  with an even tread and  said to him in an even
voice: "What are you looking for, Romashka?"
     He looked up at me  with startled eyes, and worked up  as I was at that
moment, I could  not help  noticing his striking resemblance to an  owl-with
that white face of his and those big red ears.
     "Katya's  letters?"  I  went  on. "Want  to hand them  over  to Nikolai
Antonich? Here they are. Take 'em."
     And I kicked him hard in the face.
     I  had spoken in a quiet voice, so nobody expected  that I was going to
hit him. I believe I  gave him  two or three more kicks. I would have killed
him but for Tania  Velichko.  While the boys  stood open-mouthed, she rushed
between us, grabbed hold of me and pushed me away with such force that I sat
down on the bed.
     "You're crazy."
     As if  through a mist I saw  her face and realised that she was looking
at me with abhorrence. I recollected myself.
     "I'll explain everything, boys," I said shakily.
     They  were all silent. Romashka lay  on  the floor with his head thrown
back. There was a blue bruise on his cheek. I took my box and went out.
     I wandered  heavy-hearted  about the railway  station for  nearly three
hours.  I felt  beastly  as I read the newspaper, studied the timetable, and
drank  tea  in the  third-class  buffet. I  was hungry, but  the  tea seemed
tasteless  and the  sandwiches wouldn't  go  down  my throat. I somehow felt
sullied after that  scene in the  dormitory. Ah, well, I didn't  have  to go
back  to school anyway. But the instrument  case? Who the hell needed it? As
if I couldn't get the money for my return fare from Aunt Dasha!"
     CHAPTER TWELVE <I>HOME AGAIN</I>
     One  impression has  remained  with  me  after that journey through the
places where Pyotr Skovorodnikov and I  used to ramble, stealing and begging
- an impression of incomparable freedom.
     For the first time in my life I was travelling by rail with a ticket. I
could  sit at the window, chat with my  fellow-passengers,  or  smoke, had I
been  a  smoker.  I  did  not  have  to  crawl  under   the  seat  when  the
ticket-collector  came  round.  I handed him my  ticket with a  casual  air,
without interrupting my conversation.  It  was an extraordinary  sensation-a
feeling of  spaciousness, though the carriage was pretty crowded. I found it
amusing, and I was thinking now about Ensk- about my sister, Aunt Dasha, and
how I would spring a surprise on them and they would not recognise me.
     With  this   thought   I  fell  asleep  and  slept   so  long  that  my
fellow-passengers began to wonder whether I was alive or not.
     How good  it is to return to one's home town after  an absence of eight
years!  Everything  is  so  familiar  yet  unfamiliar.  Could  that  be  the
governor's house? I had thought  it so  huge once. Could that be  Zastennaya
Street? Was it so narrow and  crooked? And is it Lopu-khinsky Boulevard? The
boulevard  gladdened me,  though: all down the main avenue, behind the  lime
trees,  stretched  a line  of splendid new  buildings. The black lime  trees
looked like a pencil drawing on  a white background  and their black shadows
lay aslant on the white snow- it made a beautiful picture.
     I walked  fast, and at every  step I kept recognising old  landmarks or
viewing new ones with surprise. There was the  orphanage in which Aunt Dasha
had been going  to put my sister and me; it was now a green colour and a big
marble plaque had  appeared on the wall  with gold lettering on  it. I could
not believe  my eyes-it said: "Alexander Pushkin  stayed  in  this house  in
1824". Well I never! In that house! What airs the orphanage kids  would have
given themselves had they known this!
     And here were the "Chambers", where Mother and I  had once handed  in a
petition. The place  did not look half as imposing now. The old  low grating
had been removed from the windows and at the gate hung a  signboard  saying:
Cultural Centre.
     And there were the ramparts. My heart beat faster at the sight of them.
A granite embankment stretched  before me, and I hardly recognised  our poor
old shelving river bank. But what astonished me  more  than  anything was to
find our houses gone and  in  their  place a public garden had been laid out
and on the seats sat nannies holding infants wrapped up like little mummies.
I had expected anything but this. I stood for a  long  time  on the ramparts
surveying  with  amazement  the  garden,  the  granite  embankment  and  the
boulevard, on which we used to play tipcat.  On  the site of the common back
of  the small grocery  and  oil shops there now stood a tall grey  building,
outside  which  a  guard in  a huge sheepskin coat  strode  up  and  down. I
accosted him.
     "The town power station," he answered importantly,  when  I  pointed to
the building and asked what it was.
     "Do you happen to know where Skovorodnikov lives?"
     "The judge?"
     "No."
     "Then I don't know. We have only one man here by that name-
     the judge."
     I walked away. Could it be that old Skovorodnikov had become a judge? I
turned  round to have another look at the fine tall building erected on  the
site of our wretched old houses, and decided that it could be.
     "What does the judge look like? Is he tall?"
     "Yes."
     "With whiskers?"
     "No, he has no whiskers," the guard said.  He  sounded sort of offended
for old Skovorodnikov.
     H'm, no whiskers. Not much hope.
     "Where does that judge live?"
     "In Gogolevsky Street, in what used to be Marcouse's house.
     I  knew the  house, one of  the best in the town, with  lions' heads on
either side of  the entrance. Again I was nonplussed. There was  nothing for
it but to go down  to Gogolevsky Street,  and I went, little hoping that old
Skovorodnikov  had  shaved  off his moustache, become a  judge and  taken up
residence in such a posh house.
     In less than half an hour I  was  in Gogolevsky Street  at the Marcouse
house.  The  lions'  heads were  eight years  older,  but as  impressive and
fearsome as  ever. I stood irresolute at  the  wide covered  entrance  door.
Should I ring or not? Or  should I ask a policeman where  the Address Bureau
was?
     Muslin curtains in  Aunt  Dasha's taste  hung  in the windows  and that
decided me. I rang the bell.
     The door was opened by a girl of about sixteen in a blue flannel dress,
her  smoothly  brushed  hair  parted  in  the  middle.  She  was  of a  dark
complexion, and that puzzled me. "Do the Skovorodnikovs live here?" "Yes."
     "And is ... er ... Darya Gavrilovna at home?" I said, giving Aunt Dasha
her full title.
     "She'll soon  be  in," the girl  said, smiling  and regarding  me  with
curiosity. She smiled just like Sanya, but Sanya was fair and had curly hair
and blue eyes. No, this wasn't Sanya. "May I wait?" "Certainly."
     I  took my  coat off  in  the hall  and she  showed  me  into  a  large
well-furnished room. The  place of honour  in  it was  occupied  by a  grand
piano. This did not look much like Aunt Dasha.
     I was gazing about me  with what must  have  been a rather sheepish and
happy  expression, because the girl was staring at me with all her eyes. All
of a  sudden  she tilted her head  and cocked up an eyebrow exactly  the way
Mother  used  to  do. I  realised that it  was  Sanya after all. "Sanya?"  I
queried, somewhat uncertainly. She looked surprised. "Yes."
     "But you were fair," I went on in a shaky voice. "How comes it? When we
lived in the village you were quite fair. But now you're  all on the darkish
side."
     She was dumbfounded, even her mouth fell open. "What village?"
     "When Father died!" I said,  and laughed. "Don't say you've forgotten !
Don't you remember me?"
     I  felt choky  in the throat.  After all I had loved her very  much and
hadn't seen her for eight years, and she looking so much like Mother.
     "Sanya," she brought out at last. "My God! Why, we had given you up for
dead long ago." She embraced me.
     "Sanya, Sanya! Is it really you!  But sit down,  why are  you standing?
Where have you come from? When did you arrive?"
     We  sat  down side by side, but she  jumped up the  next moment and ran
into the hall to get my box.
     "Wait a minute! Don't  go  away. Tell me  how you're getting  on. How's
Aunt Dasha?"
     "How  about  yourself? Why didn't you write to us? We've been searching
for  you. We even  put notices in the papers."  "I didn't see  them," I said
remorsefully.
     Only  now  did  I  fully  realise  how beastly  I  had  behaved.  Fancy
forgetting  that  I  had such a sister. And such a wonderful Aunt Dasha, who
couldn't even be told that I had come back, because she was likely to die of
joy, as Sanya explained to me.
     "And Pyotr's been looking  for you  too,"  she  went on.  "He  wrote to
Tashkent not long ago. He thought maybe you were living in Tashkent."
     "Pyotr?"
     "Why, yes."
     "Skovorodnikov?"
     "Who else?"
     "Where is he?"
     "In Moscow," Sanya said.
     I was amazed.
     "Has he been there long?"
     "Ever since you two ran away."
     Pyotr in Moscow! I couldn't believe my ears.
     "But, Sanya, I live in Moscow myself!"
     ^'No?"
     "Yes, really. How is he, what's he doing?"
     "He's all right. He's finishing school this year."
     "The devil he is! I'm finishing too. Have you got any photos of him?"
     I thought  Sanya was somewhat  embarrassed  when I asked for a photo of
him. She said:  "In a minute" and went out, returning almost immediately, as
if she had taken Pyotr's photo out of her pocket.
     "My, isn't he handsome," I said and started laughing. "Ginger?"
     "Yes."
     "Gee, isn't it grand! And the old man? How's the old man? Is it true?"
     "Is what true?"
     "That he's a judge?"
     "Why, he's been a judge these last five years."
     We  kept  asking questions  and interrupting each other and asking more
questions. We started the samovar going and made up  the stove, and then the
bell tinkled in the hall.
     "Aunt Dasha!"
     "You stay here," Sanya whispered.  "I'll break the news to her. She has
a heart condition, you know."
     She went out and I heard the following conversation in the next room.
     "Now  don't get excited,  Aunt Dasha, please. I  have very good news so
there's no need to be upset."
     "Well, out with it then!"
     "You decided not to bake any pies today,  Aunt  Dasha, but  you'll have
to."
     "Pyotr has arrived?"
     "That would be nice too, but no, it's not Pyotr. You won't get excited,
Aunt Dasha, will you?"
     "I won't."
     "Honestly?"
     "Drat the girl! Honestly."
     "That's who's come!" Sanya announced, throwing open the kitchen door.
     The remarkable thing is that Aunt Dasha recognised me at first glance.
     "Sanya," she said quietly.
     She  embraced me.  Then she sat  down and closed her eyes. I  took  her
hand.
     "My darling boy! Alive?  Where  have you been? We've been searching the
world for you."
     "I know, Aunt Dasha. It's all my fault."
     "His  fault!  Good heavens! He  comes back  and talks  about his fault!
Dear, dear boy. What a bonny lad you've grown! And so handsome!"
     Aunt Dasha had always thought me a good looker.
     Then the judge came in. The guard had been right-the old man had shaved
off  his  moustache.  He looked  ten years  younger  and it  was now hard to
believe that he had once boiled skin-glue and built such hopes upon it.
     He knew that I had come back, as Sanya had telephoned him.
     "Well, prodigal son," he said, hugging me. "Aren't you afraid I'll have
your head off, you rascal, you?"
     What could I say for myself? I only grunted penitently.
     Later that  night he and I  were left alone. The old man wanted to know
what I had  been doing and how I had been living since I had left  the town.
Like the judge he was,  he questioned  me  rigorously about  all my affairs,
school and private.
     I  told  him I  wanted to  be an airman,  and he gazed  at me long  and
steadily from under his bushy eyebrows.
     "The air force?"
     "An Arctic pilot. In the air force, if necessary."
     "A dangerous, but interesting job," he said after a pause.
     One thing I didn't tell him, though that I had come to Ensk in the wake
of  Katya. I couldn't bring  myself to tell  him that if it hadn't been  for
Katya it would very  likely  be a long time before  I came back  to  my home
town, to my home.

     CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     <I>THE OLD LETTERS</I>
     I slept until eleven. Sanya had gone a long time ago,  the old  man was
at work and Aunt Dasha had already put the dinner on, as she informed me.
     While I drank my tea she kept making horrified comments on how little I
was eating.
     "So  that's how  they feed you!"  she  said tartly. "The gypsy fed  his
horse better, and that croaked."
     "You know,  Aunt Dasha,  I  was looking  for you  at the old place. The
houses have been pulled down I see?"
     "Yes," Aunt Dasha said with a sigh.
     "Aunt Dasha, do you know the Bubenchikovs?"
     The Bubenchikovs were relations of Nina Kapitonovna, and I had no doubt
that Katya had gone to them.
     "The people who were pronounced? Who doesn't know them?"
     "Pronounced?"
     "The priest pronounced  the  ban on them,"  said Aunt Dasha. "They sent
him  packing,  so  he pronounced 'em. That was a long time  ago, before  the
Revolution. You were a little boy then. Why do you ask?"
     "People in Moscow asked me to give them their regards," I lied.
     Aunt Dasha shook her head doubtfully.
     "Ah, I see..."
     I asked Aunt Dasha for an envelope and some paper and sat down to write
a letter. "I'll write to Katya and Sanya will deliver it."
     "Katya," I wrote. "As you see, I am back in Ensk,  and I'm dying to see
you. Come down to Cathedral  Gardens at four. This note will be delivered to
you-guess by whom? By my sister. A. Grigoriev."
     "Aunt Dasha, Pyotr used to have some interesting books. Where are they?
Where do you keep books, anyway?"
     Pyotr's books were discovered in  Sanya's room, on a bric-a-brac stand.
Evidently  no great store was set by them, because  they stood on the bottom
shelf among all sorts of junk. I felt a bit sad when I picked up <i>The Ghastly
Night or  the  Most Marvellous Adventures of  a Don Cossack in  the Caucasus
Mountains.</i> Dammit, what a wretch of a little fellow I was then!
     A package wrapped in  a yellowed  newspaper dropped on the floor during
my energetic search for <i>A Guide  To Letter  Writing.</i> It was the batch of old
letters. I recognised them immediately. They  were  letters which  the river
had one  day  washed up into  our yard  in  a post  bag. Those  long  winter
evenings, when Aunt Dasha  used  to read them to us,  came back  to me.  How
wonderful, how delightful those readings had seemed to me!
     Other people's letters! And who knows where these people now were? This
letter, for instance, in its thick yellowed envelope. Maybe somebody had not
slept nights, waiting for it?
     Mechanically I opened the envelope and read several lines:
     "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 read on  and  could  not  believe my eyes.  It was  the letter of the
navigating officer, which I used to know by heart and which I had recited on
the trains on my way to Moscow! But it was not this that struck me.
     "The  <i>St. Maria,"</i> I read on, "became icebound in the Kara Sea and since
October 1912 has been drifting steadily north with the Arctic icefields."
     The <i>St. Maria'.</i> Why, that was the name of Captain Tatarinov's schooner!
I turned back the sheet and read the letter again.
     "Dear Maria Vasilievna"-Maria Vasilievna!  I hasten to  inform you that
Ivan  Lvovich..."  Ivan  Lvovich! Katya  was  called  Katerina  Ivanovna-the
patronimic was from the name Ivan!
     Aunt Dasha decided  that I had gone crazy, because I suddenly emitted a
yell and started frantically to search among the old letters.
     I knew what I was after, though. Aunt Dasha had once read to me another
of those letters describing the life amid the icefloes and  about the sailor
who had fallen to his  death and how they  had to chop  the ice  away in the
cabins.
     "Aunt Dasha, are they all here?" "Goodness gracious, what's happened?"
     "Nothing,  Aunt Dasha. There  should be one particular letter  here." I
didn't  hear myself speak. Ah, here it was! "My darling, my  own dear, sweet
Maria,
     "It's  nearly now  two  years  since I sent  you a  letter through  the
telegraph dispatch  office on Yugorsky Shar.  And what  a lot of  changes  '
there  have  been  since then, I  can't  tell you!  To begin  with,  we were
standing on a straight set course, but since October 1912 have been drifting
slowly  north with the  Arctic  ice. Willy-nilly,  we  had  to  abandon  our
original plan of making  Vladivostok along  the  coast of  Siberia. But this
proved to be a blessing  in  disguise. It has  given me quite a  new idea. I
hope it does  not strike you, as it does some of my  companions, as childish
or foolhardy..."
     The  first sheet  ended here. I  turned  it  over,  but could  make out
nothing except a few disconnected words which stood out amid the smudges and
stains.
     The second sheet started with a description of the schooner:
     "...in  some  places  reaching a  considerable  depth.  Amid  one  such
icefield stands our <i>St. Maria</i> snowed up to  the gunwale. At times  a garland
of hoarfrost breaks off the rigging  and  comes down  with  a  soft swishing
sound.  As you see, dear Maria,  I've become  a poet. We have a real poet on
board, though-our cook Kolpakov. A cheerful soul! He goes about all day long
singing his poem. Here are four lines from it for a keepsake:
     <i>Under the flag of Mother Russia, In the good ship</i> Saint Maria, <i>We shall
sail the Siberian coast along With our Captain brave and strong.</i>
     "I read this endless  letter of mine over and over again, and find that
I am simply gossiping when I have so many important things to tell you. I am
sending  with  Klimov  a packet addressed  to the head of the Hydrographical
Board,  containing my observations, official letters and a report giving the
story  of  our  drift.  Just  in  case,  I  am writing  you, too,  about our
discovery: north of the Taimyr Peninsula the map shows no land whatever. But
situated in latitude 79°35', between meridians 86 and 87 east of  Greenwich,
we observed  a  sharply  defined silvery strip, slightly convex, running out
from the very horizon.  On April  3rd  this strip became  an opaque patch of
moonlight, and the next  day we saw clouds of a very queer shape, resembling
a  mist enveloping distant  mountains.  I  am convinced  that this is  land.
Unfortunately, I  couldn't  leave the ship in her present plight in order to
explore  it. But its turn will come. Meantime, I have named it after you, so
now you will find on every map a heartfelt greeting from your..."
     Here ended the  reverse side of the second sheet.  I laid it  aside and
started on the third. The first few lines were washed away. Then came:
     "It's  galling  to  think   that  everything  could  have   turned  out
differently.  I know he will try to put himself right  with  you, perhaps he
will even persuade you that it is  all my own/fault. One thing I beg of you:
do not  trust  that  man. It can  positively be  said that  we  owe  all our
misfortunes to him alone. Suffice it to say that most of  the sixty dogs  he
sold to us at Archangel had to be shot while we were still at Novaya Zemlya.
That's  the  price we had to  pay for that good office. Not I alone, but the
whole expedition send him our  curses. We were taking a chance, we knew that
we were running a risk, but we did not expect such a blow. It remains for us
to do  all we can. What a lot  I  could tell you  about our  voyage! Stories
enough to last Katya a whole winter. But what  a price we are having to pay,
good God! I don't  want you to think that our plight is hopeless. Still, you
shouldn't look forward too much..."
     Like  a  flash  of  lightning  in  a  forest  that  suddenly  illumines
everything around  and  transforms the dark scene so that you can  even make
out the leaves on a tree which a moment before had worn the shape of a beast
or a giant, the whole thing dawned on me as I read these lines. Even trivial
details which I never thought I could remember came back to me.
     I understood  Nikolai  Antonich's hypocritical speeches about his "poor
cousin".  I understood that  false  solemnity  of expression  he  wore  when
speaking about his cousin, the pucker between  his brows deepening as though
you, too, were partly to  blame for what had happened. The full depth of the
man's baseness, the show  he made of being  proud of his own nobility,  were
brought home to me. He had not been named in the letter, but  that it was he
who was meant I did not have the slightest doubt.
     My throat went dry through  excitement and I was talking  to myself  so
loudly that Aunt Dasha was seriously alarmed. "Sanya, what's the matter with
you?"
     "Nothing, Aunt Dasha. Where do you keep the rest of these old letters?"
     "They're all there."
     "That can't be! Don't you  remember reading me this letter once? It was
a long one, on eight sheets."
     "I don't remember, dear."
     I  found nothing more in the packet-only these three sheets  out of the
eight. But they were enough!
     I changed the "come at four" in Katya's letter to "come at three", then
to "come at two". But as  it was already two  o'clock I changed  it  back to
three.

     CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     <I>A RENDEZVOUS IN CATHEDRAL GARDENS.
     "DO NOT TRUST THA T MAN"</I>
     I had been to Cathedral Gardens  a thousand times as a  boy, but it had
never struck me then  as  being  such a beautiful  place. It stood high on a
hill  overlooking  the  confluence  of  two  rivers-the Pes-chinka  and  the
Tikhaya,  and was surrounded by the old ramparts. These were in an excellent
state of preservation, but the towers seemed to  have shrunk since Pyotr and
I had last met there to take the "blood-oath of friendship".
     At  last  they  came-Katya  and  Sanya.  I  saw  Sanya, wrapped  in  an
old-womanish, yellow sheepskin coat, wave her hand around as much as to say,
"this  is  Cathedral  Gardens",  and  immediately  take  her  leave  with  a
mysterious nod of the head. "Katya!"Icried. She started, saw me and laughed.
     We spent half an hour scolding each other: I her for not having told me
she was going  away, and she me, for not having waited for her letter before
coming. Then we both recollected that we had not spoken to  each other about
the most important thing of all. It appeared that Nikolai Antonich had had a
talk with Katya. "In the name of my poor cousin" he had forbidden her to see
me. He had delivered a long speech and wept.
     "Believe me or not, Sanya," Katya said gravely,  "but I saw it with  my
own eyes, honestly!"
     "Well, well," I said and placed my hand on my chest.
     There, in my breast pocket, wrapped in  a piece of lint which I had got
from Aunt Dasha, lay Captain Tatarinov's letter.
     "Listen, Katya," I began on a firm  note, "I want to  tell you a story.
It's like  this. Imagine that you're living on the  bank of  a river and one
fine day  a postman's bag turns up on this  bank. It hasn't dropped from the
skies, of course, it's been washed up by the water. The postman drowned. And
his bag falls into the hands of a woman who's very fond of reading. And this
woman has a  boy of eight among her neighbours who's very fond of listening.
So one day she reads him a letter which begins 'Dear Maria Vasilievna'."
     Katya looked up at me, startled.
     " 'I hasten to inform you that Ivan Lvovich is alive and  well," I went
on quickly. "Four months ago, on his orders...' " :.
     I recited the  letter of  the navigating officer  in a single breath. I
did not stop  once, though Katya  clutched my sleeve several times in horror
and amazement.
     "Did you see this letter?" she asked, her face white.  "He  was writing
about Father?" she asked again, as though there could be any doubt about it.
     "Yes. But that's not all."
     And I  told her how  Aunt  Dasha had one  day  come upon another letter
describing life aboard an icebound ship which was slowly drifting north.
     "  'My  darling, my own  dear, sweet Maria,'  "  I began  reciting from
memory, then stopped.
     A cold shiver ran up my spine and a choking sensation gripped my throat
as I suddenly saw before me, as in a dream, the bleak, prematurely aged face
of  Maria Vasilievna, her brows puckered in  gloom. She had been  about  the
same age as Katya was now when he wrote her  that  letter,  and  Katya was a
little  girl always waiting for  "a letter from Daddy". That letter had come
at last!
     "Here  it is," I  said, drawing it from my breast pocket wrapped  up in
the piece of lint. "Sit  down  and read it. I'll go away and  come back when
you've finished."
     Needless to say, I didn't go anywhere. I stood under the  tower of  St.
Martin and  watched  Katya all the time while she  was reading.  I felt very
sorry for her and warm inside whenever I thought about her, but  cold when I
thought how dreadful  it  must be  for her to read those  letters. I saw her
push her hair back with  an unconscious  gesture when it got into  her eyes,
then stand up as  if trying to make out  some difficult word.  I wasn't sure
till then  whether it  was a joy or sorrow  to get  a  letter like that. But
looking at  her now,  I realised what  grief, what terrible grief  it was. I
realised that she had never given up hope. Thirteen years ago her father had
disappeared in the icy wastes  of the Arctic, a thing  that could  only mean
death from cold and starvation. But for her he had died only that day!
     When I went back to her, Katya's eyes were  red and she was  sitting on
the garden seat with her hands in her lap, holding the letters.
     "Not feeling cold?" I asked, at a loss for words.
     "I haven't been able to make out some words... Here: 'I beg of
     you...
     "Ah, that! It reads: 'I beg of you, do not trust that man.' "
     Katya called on us  that evening, but  we did not speak about  the  old
letters-we  had agreed  on that beforehand. Katya was very sad. Everyone was
nice to her, especially Sanya, who had become attached to her immediately as
only girls know how. Afterwards Sanya and I saw her home.
     The  old  folks  were  still up when  we got back. The judge,  somewhat
belatedly, was  scolding  Aunt Dasha for not having delivered  that mail-"at
least  those letters where  the  address could be made out"-  and could find
only one  extenuating circumstance: that it had happened ten years ago. Aunt
Dasha was talking about Katya. My fate, she thought, was decided.
     "I think  she's very  nice," she  said,  sighing.  "Beautiful  and sad.
Healthy girl."
     I asked  Sanya for the map of the Soviet North and showed her the route
which Captain  Tatarinov was  to have  taken from Leningrad to  Vladivostok.
Only  then did I remind myself of  his  discovery.  What land  could that be
lying north of the  Taimyr  Peninsula? "Why, that must be Severnaya Zemlya!"
Sanya  said.  What  the  devil! It  was  Severnaya  Zemlya  (Northern  Land)
discovered in 1913 by Lieutenant  Vilkitsky. Latitude 79°35,' between 86 and
87 longitude. Very strange!
     "Hold on!" I  said,  and must have gone a  bit pale, because Aunt Dasha
looked  at me anxiously.  "I've got it! First it was a silvery strip running
out from the very horizon. On April 3rd the  strip  became an opaque  patch.
April 3rd!"
     "Sanya," Aunt Dasha began in alarm.
     "Hold on! April 3rd. Now Vilkitsky discovered Severnaya  Zemlya in  the
autumn,  I don't remember when,  but  it  was  in  the autumn, some  time in
September  or October.  In the autumn, six months later!  That's  to say  he
discovered nothing at all, dammit, because it had already been discovered."
     "Sanya!" It was the judge speaking now.
     "Discovered and named after Maria  Vasilievna," I  went on, pressing my
finger hard on Severnaya  Zemlya as  though afraid there might be some other
mistake about it. "Named  after  Maria Vasilievna. Maria  Land, or something
like that. Now sit down and I'll explain it all to you."
     Talk about  sleep after a day like that! I drank water and studied  the
map. The dining-room was hung with pictures of the town, and I studied them,
too, for a long time without realising that  they were Sanya's paintings and
that she was studying painting and dreamt of going to the Academy of Arts. I
looked  at the map again. I recollected that the name  Severnaya  Zemlya had
been given to these islands only recently and that  Vilkitsky had named them
Nicholas II Land.
     Poor Captain  Tatarinov!  He  had  been  surprisingly,  extraordinarily
unlucky.  There was not a single mention  of  him in any geography book  and
nobody in the world knew what he had done.
     I felt a cold shiver of pity and rapture,  and went to  bed,  as it had
gone  five and from outside in the  street came  the  sounds of  a  sweeping
broom. But I couldn't fall  asleep. Disjointed  phrases from  the  Captain's
letter haunted me, and  I  could  hear Aunt Dasha's voice reading the letter
and  see  her  peering  over  her  spectacles,  sighing  and  faltering.   I
recollected a scene,  which had  once  presented  itself to my imagination-a
scene of white tents in the snow, huskies harnessed to sledges, a giant of a
man in fur  boots and a tall fur cap-and I wished that this had all happened
to me, that  I  had been  on board that ship which  was slowly moving to her
doom with the drifting  ice and that I had been  the Captain who  wrote that
farewell letter to his wife, and could not finish it. "I have named it after
you, so now you will find on every map a heartfelt greeting from your..."
     I  wondered  how that  sentence  ended? Then  something  slowly  passed
through my head, very slowly, almost reluctantly, and I sat' up in bed, half
incredulous,  feeling  that in  another  minute  I  would  go  mad.  Go  mad
remembering this: "greeting from your Mongotimo Hawk's Claw, as you used  to
call me. God, how long ago that was! I am not complaining , though..."
     "I  am not  complaining, though,"  I repeated, muttering, fumbling  and
groping among my memories  for some missing word. "I  am not complaining. We
shall  see  each other again  and  all will be well.  But  one  thought, one
thought torments me!"
     I jumped up, switched  on the light  and rushed over  to the  table  on
which lay the pencils and maps.
     "It's galling to think,"  I was now  writing on one of the maps,  "that
everything could have turned out differently. Misfortunes dogged us, but our
main misfortune  was the mistake for which  we are now  having to  pay every
hour, every minute  of the  day-the mistake I made in entrusting the fitting
out of our expedition to Nikolai." Nikolai? Was it Nikolai? Yes, it was!
     I paused at this point; beyond it there was a sort of gap in my memory,
and  after that  there  had  come  something-I  remembered  that  now  quite
clearly-something  about a sailor  named Skachkov,  who  had fallen  into  a
crevasse and been crushed to death. But this was not the thing. This was the
general context of the letter, not the actual text, of which I  could recall
nothing more, except a few disconnected words.
     I got  no sleep at all. The judge was up at eight and got a fright when
he saw me sitting in my  underwear over a map of the North, from which I had
managed  to read all  the details of the ill-fated voyage  of the <i>St. Maria-</i>
details  which  would  have  astonished  Captain  Tatarinov  himself  had he
returned.
     We had arranged the previous evening to go  to the town's museum. Sanya
was keen on  showing  us  this museum, which was  the pride of Ensk. It  was
housed in an  old mansion,  once  the residence  of a rich  merchant. On the
second  floor was an exhibition of paintings by Sanya's  teacher, the artist
Tuva,  and  she took us to see these first of all. The  artist was  there in
person-a genial little man in a velvet blouse a la Tolstoy and with a mop of
black hair in which gleamed thick grey strands. His paintings were  not bad,
though rather monotonous-all Ensk  and Ensk. Ensk  by day  and by night,  in
moonlight and  sunlight, the  old  town  and the  new town.  We praised them
fulsomely, though-this Tuva was such a nice man and Sanya gazed at him  with
such adoration.
     She must  have guessed that Katya and I wanted to  have a talk, because
she suddenly  excused  herself  and stayed  behind on some trifling pretext,
while we  went  downstairs into a  large  hall  in  which stood  knights  in
chain-mail, which stuck out from under their breastplates like a shirt under
a man's waistcoat.
     Naturally,  I  was  all eagerness  to  tell  Katya  about my  nocturnal
discoveries.  She  saved  me  the  trouble of starting  the conversation  by
starting it herself.
     "Sanya," she  said,  when we  stopped  in front  of  a  Stephen Bathori
man-at-arms, who somehow reminded  me of Korablev. "I've been thinking about
who he meant in that phrase: 'Don't trust that man.' "
     "Well?"
     "I've come to the conclusion that it ... it's not him."
     We were silent. She stared fixedly at the man-at-arms.
     "But it <i>was</i> about him," I  retorted  grimly. "By  the way, your  father
dicovered  Severnaya  Zemlya.  It was  he, and not  Vilkitsky  at  all. I've
established the fact."
     This news,  which a few years later was to create a sensation among all
the world's geographers, produced no effect whatever on Katya.
     "What makes  you think,"  she went on,  speaking with  an effort, "that
it's he ... Nikolai Antonich? The letter doesn't say so, does it?"
     "Oh, yes  it does," I said,  feeling  that I was  beginning  to lose my
temper. "For one thing, take  those  dogs. Who  had boasted a thousand times
that he had bought excellent dogs for the expedition? Secondly-"
     "Secondly what?"
     "Secondly,  last  night I recollect