e Palermo!" Pavlik answered not without pride. "How many times have I told you not to gamble, you wretch!" "Well, what about you? Who yanked all the buttons off Daddy's uniform?" "That was when I was small." "Well, I'm small now," Pavlik reasoned. "Yes, and what a rat you are," Petya said angrily. "Just wait. I'll tell Daddy all about it!" "And you'll be a telltale till you die!" Pavlik shouted triumphantly. "Gelato! Gelato! Gelato!" a heavenly Italian tenor sang out. The boys saw an ice-cream vendor wheeling along the same kind of green box the Odessa ice-cream vendors had; the only difference was that this one was much longer, it was decorated with scenes of Naples, and had four wheels instead of two. The boys' eyes met, and at that moment peace was restored as well as a feeling of deep affection, all based on a passionate desire to disregard Father's iron rule; never to buy anything in the street and never, never to eat anything without permission. They read the same burning question in each other's eyes at that instant: what was to be done if there were no one to give permission? The most natural solution was: if there is no one about, we'll have to eat without permission. Petya, the linguist, stepped forward and opened his mouth to say something that started with the words, "Prego, signor..." But the handsome young ice-cream vendor, with a hat resembling a red stocking on his curly locks, was a bright fellow. He opened the long box, and the boys were astounded to see a huge chunk of ice instead of the two familiar copper containers with tin lids. The ice-cream man took out a little steel plane and started planing the ice log. Then he packed two glasses full of ice shavings and poured an artificially bright-green liquid from a bottle over them. The boys were fascinated. For some reason, though, it was not at all sweet, and they soon felt as if they had eaten melted water-colours. The vendor was not wasting time. He soon had another two glasses ready; this time he poured something so dazzlingly pink over them that Pavlik turned green at the memory of the rahat-lakoum he had had in Constantinople. Petya refused the proffered ices. Using Vasily Petrovich's firm gesture, he said "Basta!" in faultless Italian, paid the man ten centesimos, and hauled Pavlik off without another word. The bad taste of the strange ices was forgotten the moment the boys came to a booth snuggling against an old stone wall from which a stream of spring water flowed. There was a basket of enormous Neapolitan lemons on the counter next to some jars of powdered sugar and tall glasses. In a twinkling of an eye the man at the counter had sliced two lemons in half, put them through a squeezer, and caught the juice in two glasses. He added powdered sugar to the juice and deftly placed the glasses under the stream of water. They filled up with something breath-takingly pearly and foaming at the rims, and the glasses became dimmed. The boys were entranced the moment their parched lips touched the wonderful beverage. The sun was setting. A round purple-pink evening cloud hung over the white square and the fountain. It was so vast that the people, the houses, and even the church spires seemed tiny beneath it. There was something awe-inspiring about the beautiful scene. The boys turned left, as Max had told them, and ran homewards, but the weird light cast by the cloud made the city still more alien and unfamiliar. They could not recognize a single street. Night was falling rapidly, although the cloud still glowed in the now purple sky. Whichever way the boys turned, it followed them, its round crimson edges peeping out from behind the roof-tops. The narrow streets were fast becoming crowded with people out for a walk, as is the custom in southern cities towards evening. The air was full of the sound of scuffing feet on the stone pavements. The heat of the day was replaced by the heat of the evening, not so dry perhaps, but more stifling. Streaks of light fell on the pavements from the open doorways of the cafes and bars. The tinkling of mandolins drifted down from balconies. The mingled smells of hot coffee, gas, anisette, oysters, fried fish, and lemons seemed twice as strong. Women fanned their faces, and the ice-cream vendors and news-boys sang out louder and more melodiously. Coral-sellers mysteriously appeared in doorways. Petya felt there was something in the highest degree dangerous and sinful about their bowlers, shoved down over their sinister eyes, their sugary smiles beneath the dyed moustaches, their velvet vests and morning coats, their dark bejewelled fingers, and about the wide, flat boxes hanging round their necks on stout belts which they supported in front of them while they silently displayed their treasures to passing ladies: they held out blood-red corals, strings of smaller corals, and pale-pink ones that seemed almost white and were as big and smooth as beans; they displayed mounted Pompeii cameos and clusters of translucent gems. Set out on black velvet and illuminated by the deathly glare of the gas-lamps, the little stones gave Petya a strange impression of being tiny inanimate creatures from another planet. Pavlik was more worried by the hostile eyes of the vendors; he thrust his hand inside his blouse, clenching his fist tightly over the small Italian coins there. One of the side-streets seemed vaguely familiar. The boys turned the corner and ran along the flagstones up the hill. Suddenly, the houses ended and they saw Vesuvius. They had apparently approached it from another side, as it was quite different now: it had only one peak and was gigantic. They were almost alongside it. The volcano was bathed in the last rays of the dying sunset, a monstrous cap of sulphurous smoke hung over the peak, seething with the scorching heat of molten iron, and it seemed as if Vesuvius was ready to erupt at any minute. The boys ever, thought they heard an underground tremor. They were so panic-stricken that they rushed madly downhill and bumped right into their dishevelled father, who had been searching the streets for them for the past three hours. He was so relieved at seeing them he even forgot to scold them. They were all so exhausted after the day that they flopped on to their beds the minute they got back and did not even bother to wash up. They slept like logs, despite the impossible heat, the droning mosquitoes, and the noises and music coming from the street all night long. A CINDER Next morning marked the beginning of an exciting and delightful life which swept them up and whirled them through cities and hotels until, a month and a half later, utterly worn out, the travellers recrossed the Russian border and found themselves home once more. Although they had followed a well-planned route, whenever Petya looked back on that journey it always seemed to him to have been a mad jumble of unrelated travelling impressions, of beautiful scenery, palaces, fountains, squares and, of course, museums. The Bacheis had too little money to allow themselves the luxury of stopping somewhere along the route for an extra day to rest up, look around, and gather their thoughts and impressions. For instance, they spent only three days in Naples, but into those three days they crammed: a boat trip to the Isle of Capri to see the famous Blue Grotto and, on the way hack, a walk round Sorrento and Castellamrnare; a visit to the site of the excavations at Pompeii and to Vesuvius, climbing nearly as high as the crater; they went to practically every museum, art gallery, and church in Naples, including the famous Aquarium, where the boys beheld the magic of the submarine world behind the glass cases, illuminated from above like the stage of a unique theatre. There, in the Mediterranean Sea water, among the white coral trees and polyps which resembled blue and red chrysanthemums, giant lobsters crawled over lovely sea-shells and fish swam up and down like interplanetary dirigibles that had reached Mars from the Earth. As they sat in the stuffy railway carriage, about ready to leave Naples for Rome, Vasily Petrovich looked out of the window and said with some uncertainty: "If I'm not mistaken, that's Alexei Maximovich Gorky." He adjusted his pince-nez, leaned out of the window, and began to scrutinize someone. "Gorky!" he exclaimed confidently. Petya stuck his head out under his father's arm. A rather large group of people were strolling down the platform. They were carrying travelling bags and speaking loudly in Russian. Petya immediately singled out the tall, slightly stooped figure of the man who had recently bandaged Pavlik's knee. Now he knew why the man had seemed so familiar, for he had often seen his photographs in magazines and on postcards. It was Gorky, the famous writer. Petya also spotted the sailor carrying a cheap suitcase. A woman in mourning passed, accompanied by a girl of about thirteen, evidently her daughter. He caught a glimpse of a small face with serious eyes and lips pressed tightly together in grief, a dark chestnut braid tied with a black ribbon and thrown over a thin shoulder. Then the train pulled out, and the group on the platform slipped backward. Petya had a last glimpse of Gorky, the sailor, the woman, and the girl. They were standing beside a train at the other side of the platform. Apparently, some of the party were leaving, and the others were seeing them off. "Gorky! Gorky!" Petya yelled, waving his hat. The girl turned and looked at Petya. Their eyes met. At that instant a cloud of acrid smoke enveloped him. Petya shut his eyes, but he was not quick enough, for a tiny cinder flew into1 his eye and became lodged under the upper lid. The subsequent torment killed all the pleasure of the journey from Naples to Rome. A nail in your shoe or a cinder in your eye! We have all suffered from these evils at one time or other. It starts as a slightly unpleasant feeling and gradually drives the victim frantic with pain. At first Petya was just uncomfortable from the alien body lodged in his eye. The eye was watery and he was certain the tears would wash the cinder out and bring a feeling of blessed relief. But the tears kept streaming down his face, while the cinder stayed put. It was lodged way up under the lid and scratched and irritated the eyeball at the slightest movement. Blinded by tears and feeling that his eye was on fire, Petya rushed up and down the stuffy carriage, not knowing what to do. In his agony he bumped into the other passengers. He bruised his knee, but the new pain could not eliminate the old one. Father insisted he sit quietly and not rub his eye under any circumstances, for then the cinder would wash out by itself. But it did not. Petya began to rub his eye again; the pain became unbearable. He moaned, screamed, and in his despair beat out a tattoo on the floor with his heels. With shaking hands Father tried to raise the eyelid and get at the cinder with the tip of his handkerchief. Petya would not let him. He kept running back and forth to the wash-room, where he would pour some tepid water from the wash-basin into his cupped palm and bathe his eye in it. Nothing helped. It was infinitely worse than a toothache. In the rare moments when the pain subsided, Petya saw dry, barren hills, white dust on the highway, level crossings and little huts of the trackmen behind rickety fences made of old sleepers and surrounded by sunflowers, hollyhocks, and dirty pigs; all these flashed by the carriage windows in the glare of the Italian noon. Were it not for the groves of lovely Italian pines, their spreading branches and almost black needles, one would think the train was approaching a town in the Ukraine instead of Rome. All this was bleary and flitting, there was but one impression, one scene that remained constant: the railway platform in Naples, the group of people, the woman in mourning, and the girl with the black ribbon in her chestnut hair. She was embedded in his mind as the cinder in his eye. All things eventually come to an end. Petya's torment ended too. An old Italian woman with a coral cross on her wrinkled neck sat at the far end of the carriage. FOT baggage she had a wicker basket with ducks' heads poking through the top; she had been reading her prayer-book throughout the journey, but she had missed nothing of what was going on in the carriage. When Petya for the tenth time rushed to the wash-room to bathe his eye, she suddenly reached out and grabbed him with her strong, knotty hands, forced him down on the bench, got hold of his head, and drew it towards her dark, hairy, witch-like face. Without a word she raised his eyelid with nimble fingers, opened her hot mouth, stuck out her long tongue, and licked the cinder that had been rubbed into the mucous membrane. Petya instantly felt a wave of relief. The old woman picked the cinder off her tongue, held it triumphantly between two fingers for all to see, and said something in Italian; the sentence was greeted with applause, making the ducks quack boisterously. Then she kissed Petya on the head, crossed him from left to right, and returned to her prayer-book. THE ETERNAL CITY The train pulled into Rome. Three wandering musicians-a mandolin, guitar, and violin - played their last piece. Thus, to the strains of "Santa Lucia" and the grating of brakes, they came to a stop. Again the Bacheis were surrounded by a noisy crowd of agents and guides as they made their way to an ancient phaeton. The driver cracked his long whip over the nags, turned the handle of a Large meter attached to the side of the box, and they jogged off over the sun-scorched squares of Rome, past spouting fountains that left greenish strips on the paving stones and, like the needles of a compass, pointed in the direction of the prevailing south wind. After his recent torture Petya sat back and took his fill of the sights. It seemed as if his eyesight had improved threefold. He kept turning this way and that, so as not. to miss a single detail of the famous city. The lean driver in a squashed black felt hat smothered them in clouds of foul smoke from his long cigar. Instead of taking the shortest route to the hotel, he zigzagged through every street in the city. The centesimos in the window of the meter mounted, rapidly turning into lire; to distract their attention from the meter, the driver, with a theatrical gesture, called out the sights. They passed the Caracalla thermae, St. Angel's Castle, the Tiber, the Forum, St. Peter's, and the Coliseum. Father spread out a map of Rome on his lap. One would think he could not believe his eyes and was seeking a theoretical confirmation of the obvious fact of the existence of the city of Rome and all its famous landmarks, so well known from paintings and photographs. The real Rome was not as magnificent as the descriptions and paintings. Monotonously lighted by the sun, wilted from the heat, it lay spread out on its ancient hills beneath the pale-blue sky and seemed much simpler and more beautiful than one had imagined. The summer streets were deserted. Papal guards stood watch at the entrance to Vatican City. They wore uniforms of the Middle Ages and were armed with halberds. Pavlik, who had been to the Opera with Auntie during the previous winter, now shouted at the top of his voice: "Look! Look! Huguenots!" Before Petya could clap his hand over his brother's mouth he shrilled still louder, bubbling over with joy and surprise: "Donbasilios! Look, Donbasilios!" True enough, two Catholic priests were making their way through the colonnade of St. Peter's. They wore black soutanes and long hats with the brims rolled up, and carried umbrellas under their arms; no two men could have looked more like Don Basilio from The 'Barber of Seville than they. Several monks crossed the square. A barefoot Franciscan went by, wearing a crude hair-shirt tied with a cord, for all the world like an ancient prophet. Plump, jolly Benedictines strolled along, telling their beads, and the sun shone on their tonsures. Black-robed nuns passed with lowered heads; they had weird-looking, huge, snow-white, firmly-starched, light-as-a-feather batiste head-dresses. A little grey donkey pulled a cart. The cart was at least eight feel high and had solid wooden wheels that creaked as loudly as the first primitive carts must have creaked, bringing to Petya's mind a picture of Hannibal's baggage train, moving through the dust at the golden gates of Rome. Just then a carriage on springs, harnessed tandem with four black horses, flew out of a side-street. The spokes of the wheels spun round, flashing like lightning in the sun. A behatted cardinal reclined on the leather cushions. Petya caught a glimpse of his bluish cheeks, heavy eyebrows, and haughty, cruel eyes, pencilled like an actor's. The cardinal surveyed the Bachei family and the old driver, who had whipped the hat off his bald head and folded his hands piously. There was no telling just what it was the prince of the church thought, but he smiled cordially, freed his thin rosary-entwined hand from his lace cuff and, without drawing his fingers together, by an imperceptible movement of his palm, blessed the travellers. His purple robe flashed past and the carriage vanished, leaving a faint odour of incense in its wake. Two weeks later, having crossed and recrossed Italy from one end to the other, the tourists found themselves in Switzerland, strictly in keeping with Vasily Petrovich's plan. They decided to stop and rest for a bit before setting out once more. To tell the truth, they had had enough of changing trains and being on the go all the time, but it was almost impossible to stop now, for Father had been tempted to buy some very reasonable special tickets from a travel agency in Milan, that entitled them to travel without extra cost on any railway in Switzerland they cared to within a period of sixty days. Sixty days was too much as far as the Bacheis were concerned, since the summer holidays would be over in a month and a half. However, the tickets were valid for sixty days, and what they lost in time they made up on Pavlik, as they had given his age as seven and bought only two full-fare third-class tickets for the three of them. It was cheating, even if petty, and before Vasily Petrovich agreed to go through with it he stood for a long time wiping the glasses of his pince-nez in embarrassment and twisting his neck from side to side. But in the end the tickets were bought and stamped with the date of purchase, thus marking the beginning of a strange, restless period when they felt that every day not spent in a railway carriage was ruinous to their finances. However, they just had to stop for a rest. ON THE SHORES OF LAKE GENEVA Here they were, sitting in wicker chairs on the open terrace of a small, inexpensive boarding-house in Ouchy on the shore of Lake Geneva. Tiers of hotels, parks, and church spires rose on a slant to the rear of them and disappeared into the clear sky over Lausanne. A strip of sky-blue water, dotted with winged sails and gulls, shone through the pleasant green of the gardens and vineyards. Savoy lay before them across the lake, veiled in a haze of sunshine; there were velvety meadows, gorges, and valleys adorned by tiny picturesque villages, and above it all, the wild mountain range that stretched right across the horizon. Mont Blanc was supposed to be somewhere in the vicinity, but Vasily Petrovich tried in vain to locate it through his little opera-glasses, for the outline of the range was obscured by clouds. This was all the more disappointing since their room was one "with a view of Mont Blanc." A middle-aged chamber-maid wished the travellers ban matin and set a tray-the complet-on the table. It consisted of a tea-set, a straw basked of tiny bits of toast, butter curls, jam and honey; there was also a sugar-bowl with midget dominoes of sugar so brittle they had to be picked up gingerly with sugar tongs, as they crumbled at the slightest pressure. Vasily Petrovich put on his pince-nez and examined the strange, yellowish sugar closely. Then he picked up a cube, smelled it, tasted it, and announced that this was real cane-sugar. Cane-sugar! The discovery astounded the boys. Petya was especially excited, for he visualized Auntie's amazement and his friends' jealousy when they found out that he had seen real cane-sugar with his own eyes and had even had some in his tea, while sitting on a terrace "with a view of Mont Blanc." That was worth writing about. He pulled out his stationery box, but the Swiss morning was so heavenly, the stillness so breath-taking, and the bees hung over the honey pot so motionlessly, that Petya suddenly found he could not move a finger, let alone begin writing. He now realized how dead tired he was and how badly he needed a rest. Scenes of Italy kept flashing through his mind chaotically. He saw St. Mark's and the lion with its paw on a stone Bible sharply outlined against the intensely blue sky, and that was Venice. Then light-blue double-decked tram-cars rounded the beautiful square and the white marble lace-like cathedral, adorned by two thousand Gothic statues, and that was Milan. He saw himself in a cloud of dry white dust passing the marble quarries of Carrara where huge marble panels, cubes, slabs, and chunks that had just been sawn lay in piles ready for shipment; finally, the many-tiered graceful Tower of Pisa leaning motionlessly to one side. Once their train had stopped at a remote siding in the middle of a hot, beautiful valley, and they could see the cloudy purple mountain range on the horizon and feel the slight breath of chill Alpine air. Suddenly, they dived into the Simplon tunnel, twenty-two miles through the heart of a mountain; there was a sudden darkness, the stale smell of coal, the deafening clamour of steel, and the black mirrored surfaces of the locked carriage windows which reflected the sinister, ghastly dimness of the flickering electric lights in the carriages. And then, after an endless half-hour of depressing, motionless, headlong movement, when it seemed as if there was no air left to breathe and there would never be an end to the infernal darkness pressing in on every side on the train and the two exhausted engines, then, suddenly, there came the dazzling rush of daylight, the clatter of falling window-sashes, the refreshing breeze that tore through the carriages from the Rhone Valley and blew away the stale smells of the tunnel. Mountains. Glaciers. Valleys. Wooden chalets with huge round cheeses on the roofs. Herds of red and black Swiss cows and the melodious clack, instead of tinkle, of the flat wooden bells in the sunny calm of the station, the white cross on the red Swiss flag, and a St. Bernard on a huge poster advertising Suchard Chocolate. Petya was now in a new country, a lovely, toy country. The voices of people arguing drifted up to them from the terrace below. They were speaking Russian. At the sound of his native tongue Petya sat up and listened. "You cannot ignore the main thesis adopted unanimously at the January meeting of the Central Committee," a woman said in a shrill voice, stressing the words "ignore" and "meeting." "I'm not ignoring it, but..." a man's voice objected softly, with a veiled note of irony in the clear baritone. "You're wrong, sir. You are either ignoring it or pretending not to ignore it." "Where's your proof?" "The January meeting was absolutely clear as to the true nature of Social-Democratic work," a second male voice suddenly joined in. It was the deep, angry voice of an old smoker who was constantly clearing his throat and spitting. "Now, now," the sarcastic baritone said. The woman's voice became shriller: "Denial of the illegal Social-Democratic party, belittling its role and its meaning, attempts to shorten the programme, tactical aims and slogans of revolutionary Social-Democracy testify to the influence of the bourgeoisie on the proletariat." Vasily Petrovich jumped at the words "revolutionary Social-Democracy" and "proletariat" which had been spoken so loudly that they carried across the garden. He looked at the children anxiously. The woman's voice persisted: "There are people who discard such basic slogans of revolutionary Marxism as the hegemony of the working class in the fight for socialism and a democratic revolution!" "Does that mean me?" "Yes, it does. You and those like you." "God knows what's going on here!" Vasily Petrovich mumbled, and his nose became white from excitement. "Children, go inside this minute!" But Petya, burning with curiosity, was hanging over the balustrade, trying to see what was going on on the terrace below. Through the green ivy-covered lattice he saw a table with a pitcher of milk on it and several people sitting around in wicker chairs: an angry-faced woman in a black jacket who looked like a school-teacher, a consumptive young man in a cotton shirt and a worn coat, and a good-looking gentleman in a tussore jacket, with a shiny, steel-rimmed pince-nez on his fleshy Roman nose, through which, at that very moment, the words "now, now," were being forced sarcastically. "You and those like you are the backers of Stolypin's 'workers' party' and exponents of bourgeois influence on the proletariat, with your call for a so-called legal or open workers' party!" the woman continued, rapping the table sharply with her knuckles. "That's right. Exponents of genuine bourgeois influence," the consumptive young man rattled off in a hollow voice, as he choked in a fit of coughing and spat, then struck a match with shaking hands. "And your 'open' workers' party while Stolypin is running things simply means desertion on the part of those who have renounced the aims of the revolutionary struggle of the masses against autocracy, the Third Duma, and all that Stolypin stands for!" This was too much for Vasily Petrovich. He grabbed Petya by the shoulders and shoved him into the room, saying: "Never listen to such things! Stay right here! Pavlik, come in at once! My God, why must we suffer this! Politics, politics everywhere!" , When the boys were settled in the room, Vasily Petrovich went out on the terrace and shouted to the people below in a voice that trembled with rage: "I would ask you to choose your words more carefully! At least, you can refrain from shouting. Remember, there are children here." The people down below stopped talking. Then a nasal voice staid: "Comrades, we are being spied upon." His words were followed by a scraping of chairs, and the woman's voice said: "There's your 'open' party for you! Why, we aren't safe from the tsar's spies even in free Switzerland!" "I say!" Vasily Petrovich shouted threateningly, and he flushed an angry red. However, the glass door downstairs was slammed demonstratively; a confused Vasily Petrovich muttered, "A fine state of affairs, this!" went into his room, and slammed his door just as demonstratively. "Daddy, they're Russians, aren't they?" Pavlik whispered. "Are they anarchists?" "Don't be silly, they're Social-Democrats!" Petya said. "I didn't ask you. Daddy, what are they doing here?" "Stop asking stupid questions!" Father said impatiently. "And stop worrying about things that don't concern you," he added, looking straight at Petya. "But, Daddy," Pavlik persisted, "they're Russians, like us, aren't they?" "Yes, yes, they're Russians all right, but they're emigres. Let's have no more of this," he concluded dryly. "What are emigres? Are they people who are against the tsar?" "That's enough!" Father barked resolutely. And so, the political discussion was ended. That was the last they saw of the emigres on the floor below. EMIGRES AND TOURISTS The episode made a big impression on Petya. Again his thoughts turned to that strange phenomenon known as "the Russian revolution." His thoughts were of Russia and the Russians. Until then he had taken it for granted that all Russians-no matter whether they were rich or poor, peasants or workers, officials or merchants, officers or soldiers-were loyal subjects of His Majesty, the Emperor. It was a concept that was as natural to him as the fact that the Black Sea was a large mass of salt water or that the sky was a mass of blue air. But the familiar concept received a jolt during their travels when, to Petya's surprise, they began to encounter not a few Russians. He noticed that all Russians abroad were divided into two categories: tourists and emigres. The tourists were wealthy, very wealthy, and the Bachei family never really came in contact with them, because they travelled first-class on the railways and -ships, stayed at fabulously expensive hotels, dined on the terraces of fashionable restaurants and, for their outings, they hired the best carriages, thoroughbred riding horses, and automobiles that were far more elegant than the one owned by the Ptashnikov brothers, which, until then, Petya had considered a miracle, the pinnacle of wealth and luxury. No matter where these Russian tourists appeared, they were always surrounded, in Petya's eyes, by an aura of wealth and luxury. They travelled in families, with well-dressed children, accompanied by governesses, companions, travel agents and guides that were as pompous and impressive as ministers. The males were well-groomed, the females squeamish, there were young girls and young gallants, women whose age told and elegant old gentlemen who smelled of strange perfumes and expensive cigars. Sometimes, in the cool semi-darkness of an art gallery or among the scorching ruins of an ancient theatre, the Bacheis would find themselves standing next to these people, but even here an invisible wall separated them and made closer contact entirely out of the question. In their presence Petya smarted under the humiliating feeling of shame, if not for his family's poverty, then, at all events, for their lack of worldly things. Secretly, he was mortified by his father's shabby suit, his down-at-heel shoes, cheap straw hat, and celluloid collar and cuffs which Father carefully cleaned every night and then washed in soap suds. Petya hated himself for this feeling of shame, but he could not overcome it. He felt all the more humiliated because he knew his father was secretly just as ashamed as he was. In the presence of the wealthy tourists, Father's face took on a strained expression of indifference, his beard twitched and his hands made imperceptible movements, so that the edges of his cuffs crawled up out of sight into his coat sleeves. But most humiliating of all was that the wealthy Russians seemed never to notice the presence of the Bacheis. They would simply stop talking Russian and switch casually to another language - French, Italian, or English - and continue their conversation as naturally and easily as if they had been speaking Russian. The pictures of the great masters, which Vasily Petrovich regarded with bowed head and tears in his eyes, they examined from various angles through lorgnettes and from under their hands, commenting knowingly and admiring them in a dignified manner. They beheld the ruins of an ancient theatre with such looks on their faces as if they expected a Greek chorus to appear and ancient actors in masks to stage a tragedy for their benefit. It seemed as if everything there belonged to them, on the basis of some ancient immutable law. And Petya felt that they were truly the masters of everything. The whole world was theirs, or, at least, belonged to their kind, and as for Russia-it certainly was theirs. That is why the second category of Russians abroad, the emigres, seemed all the more a strange group to him. They were the exact opposite of the tourists. These were poor, shabbily dressed intellectuals. They travelled third-class, went on foot, and lived in the smallest, cheapest boarding-houses. Thus, the Bacheis were in constant contact with them, and Petya was soon able to form a very definite opinion of them. These were men and women like those the Bacheis encountered at the boarding-house in Ouchy. They were preoccupied with politics. Petya often heard them say various "political" words rather loudly, much to Vasily Petrovich's dismay. They were for ever arguing, heedless of their surroundings: at the railway station when seeing friends off, in the mountains near a waterfall that covered the trembling ferns with fine spray, at dinner, in a museum while examining hollow boulders sawed in half and full of gleaming purple crystals of amethyst. The emigres, in Petya's opinion, were all possessed by a single idea. Petya understood that it was a matter of politics, but could only guess vaguely at what exactly it was all about. He knew that they were "against the autocracy." And if they were constantly on the go, it was not because they were touring, but because they had to go, in the interests of their "common cause." Once, in Geneva, the Bacheis came upon a rather large group of emigres on a little island, near the Rousseau monument. Black swans swam on the lake, and the bronze Rousseau, an old man with a haggard, passionate face, sat in his bronze chair watching them as they plunged their graceful necks under the water and snatched savagely at the pieces of bread thrown to them from the daintily painted boats. While Vasily Petrovich was standing, bare-headed, before the statue of the writer and philosopher whom he had worshipped since student days, Petya heard the loud voices of the emigres. They were sitting in the shade of the willows, targuing as usual. Suddenly, Petya heard a familiar name: Ulyanov. "Ulyanov-Lenin is in Paris now, isn't he?" "Yes, he lives in Longjumeau." "There is a Party school there, I believe?" "Yes. Lenin lectures to Party workers there on political economy, the agrarian question, and the theory and practice of socialism." "What's his attitude towards the Capri school?" "Utterly irreconcilable, of course." "After his resolution on the situation in the Party-it was adopted at the meeting of the Paris second group for assistance to the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party-you can be sure he will never agree to any compromise." "I haven't read the resolution." "It's at the printer's already." "What about Plekhanov?" "Well, Plekhanov will always be Plekhanov." "So you think-" "I always thought and think now that there is only one line of action open to the Russian revolution, and that is Lenin's line. And the sooner all of us realize this, the sooner the Russian revolution will become a reality." Petya suddenly felt that the emigres, whom until then he had always regarded as a bunch of eccentrics, forced into exile after the unsuccessful revolution of 1905, were a force to be taken seriously. Why, they had Party schools, central committees, assistance groups, and held special meetings. They even printed their resolutions. Apparently, far from giving in after the defeat of the 1905 Revolution, many of them were now working hard preparing for another revolution. They had a leader too - Lenin-Ulyanov, probably the one Gavrik's letter was for. Petya had heard the name Ulyanov several times already. He tried to picture this man who lived in a place called Longjumeau, near Paris, preparing a new revolution in Russia. Now, whenever Petya saw Russian emigres in a railway carriage or at a station, he was certain they were going to Paris, to Ulyanov's Party school. Of course, that was where the emigres Gorky was seeing off at the station in Naples were going, including the woman in mourning and the girl who had looked at Petya so severely at the very moment the train had pulled out of the station and the cinder had flown into his eye. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT Petya could not get the girl out of his mind. Strange as it might seem, he often thought of her with a bitter feeling of loneliness, and in his heart he reproached her for appearing so suddenly and as suddenly disappearing, as if she were to blame. He exaggerated the meaning of the look that had passed between them. He had already read Turgenev, Lermontov's A Hero of Our Times, Tolstoi's War and Peace, and, it goes without saying, Pushkin's Yevgeny Onegin, and most of Goncharov. Although Vasily Petrovich, who chose the books his boys read, had emphasized the social significance of these classical works, Petya was captivated by an entirely different aspect, namely: romance. He literally devoured the pages devoted to love, and leafed through the rest, which were full of "social significance," or, as Vasily Petrovich put it, "the gist of the book." For Petya the gist of the book were the love scenes. He was a sensitive boy, given to day-dreaming, and the exalted love in the Russian novels held him in thrall. However, that was theory, and it did not seem to have its counterpart in reality. "Love at first sight" or "cold indifference," when applied to a girl from the fourth form in a black school pinafore and a felt hat with a green school bow, and carrying an oilcloth satchel in her small hands, was a hopeless occupation, since the girl would but smile coyly at his efforts, unable to appreciate what it was all about. Nevertheless, Petya often drifted off into a day-dream, and then he would become Pechorin or Onegin or Mark Volokhov, although, actually, he was really much more like Grushnitsky, Lensky, or Raisky. Needless to say, all the girls he knew would then be transformed into Marys, Tatyanas, and Veras, all of them lovely and all unhappy, a fact which fed his vanity. However, the girls concerned rarely had any idea of what was going on in his head and looked on him as a queer and conceited boy. At first, their travelling impressions had been so all-consuming- that Petya had had no time to think of love. But then, a tiny cinder had flown in his eyes, marking the beginning of a new romance. It was "love at first sight." Petya had no doubt about that, although he had yet to make up his mind who she was and who he himself was. Since the thing had taken place in a foreign country, Turgenev would be the closest parallel. She might be Asya, or, stretching the point a bit, Gemma from Spring Torrents. There were several pros to these selections, as Petya, in the role of the main hero, was the object of their ardent and devoted love. Petya's intuition told him that actually she was neither Gemma nor Asya. In fact, she was more the Tatyana type. But he rejected Tatyana, for then he would have to be Onegin, and that in no way satisfied his need for mutual love. Nor would Princess Mary or Bela do, simply because Petya was tired of being Pechorin, a role he had abused considerably in recent times. Vera, the heroine of Goncharov's The Precipice, was best suited. There was something mysterious and wil