nd very soon,
and then those scum will hang all decent people on  the  first lamppost. But
I'm not such a fool as to sit here and  wait  for  it. I had enough with  my
Chernigov estate. You can all do as you like, but I shall go abroad. I shall
go,  and leave  a curse  on  this  country  with  its  Social-Democrats  and
factions,   and  resolutions,  and  strikes,  and  May  Day   meetings,  and
workers-of-the-world-unite! Take  my land and  run it  as  you please-if the
rabble are kind enough to give their permission, that is!"
     She was  no longer talking, she was screaming at the top of  her voice,
and Petya looked with mingled  terror and disgust  at her eyes,  rolling  in
frenzy.
     "Excuse me,"  she  said suddenly in her ordinary voice. "Will you be so
kind as to pay the second instalment on  your note of hand to my lawyer, and
he will forward it to me."
     Auntie  quickly  began  preparing  to  go, pulling  on  her  gloves and
straightening her hat. Madame Vasyutinskaya did not stop her. When they came
out of the  house, they noticed  open trunks in the little yard  ;and  coats
hung on  ropes  to air. Evidently Madame Vasyutinskaya really  did intend to
leave.



        WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!


     Soon afterwards, the Bachei family moved to their new home. Not  all at
once, however. Vastly Petrovich  went  first  to  take  possession and  have
everything in order before spring came.
     Auntie and the  boys were to  remain in town for a little while longer,
to sub-let the flat and store the furniture.
     The boys were still going to school, for the fees had been  paid at the
beginning  of the year. What they would  do the  next year  depended on  the
success of the new venture.
     Gavrik  often visited them  now.  He had taken and passed the exams for
three forms as  an  out-student;  Petya was coaching him for the  sixth-form
exam, but now he did not refuse the fifty kopeks a lesson.
     Gavrik was  still working in the  Odessa Leaflet  print-shop, not  as a
printer's  devil,  however;  he was  already an  apprentice type-setter  and
earning quite  good wages.  Sometimes  he  came  straight  from work  in the
evening, bringing with him the acrid,  alluring smell of the  print-shop. He
was very apt at his job and in some ways had already outstripped his master.
When he  came to the Bachei home,  he was no longer shy and awkward, he bore
himself confidently and one day even brought a half-pound of sweets for tea.
He  handed  the  little package  to Auntie, saying,  "Allow  me to make this
little  present. It's my  pay-day.  They're Abrikosov's caramels, I know you
like them."
     The misfortunes of the Bachei family -seemed to have brought Gavrik and
Petya closer  together. Gavrik not only sympathized with Petya-he understood
his situation,  which was much more important. Incidentally, from  beginning
to end of the whole affair he expressed his own very definite views about it
all quite freely.
     Vasily  Petrovich's dismissal  from  the  Faig  establishment, although
unpleasant, was something inevitable, for after all better to starve than to
work for  such a parasite, such a blood-sucker. Here,  Gavrik fully approved
of Vasily  Petrovich's action. But  to sell the piano for a  song and rent a
farm-this  was  another  matter;  he  could  not  believe that  a family  of
intellectuals would be able to till the soil with their own hands.
     "You don't know a thing  about it,  you'll get calluses and that's all.
Stolypin farmers!" he added with a smile.
     Petya  had  noticed  lately  that  Gavrik  linked  up  everything  with
politics.
     "Yes, but what was Father to do?" he asked with irritation.
     "What he'd  done  before. Give people learning. That's what a teacher's
job is."
     "But if he's not allowed?"
     "Eh, brother, they can't forbid anyone to teach folks."
     "But what folks? Where are they?"
     "He'd  find them if he looked for  them," said Gavrik evasively. "Well,
let's get on with the lesson."
     After their  lessons Petya would often walk part of  the way  home with
Gavrik, sometimes he even went as  far as Near Mills. There were many things
they  talked of on the way,  and  Gavrik was not so  secretive as  formerly.
Petya learned that there  was  a committee of  the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party  in the town. It consisted of Beks and Meks. The Beks  were the
Bolsheviks and the Meks-the Mensheviks. There was a clear line between them.
Terenty and all his friends belonged to the Beks.
     There  had been a  Party conference in Prague not  long  before, and at
this conference  Ulyanov, who was also called Lenin or Frey, the one who had
been  sent the letter by Petya, had defeated  the Meks, and now there was  a
real revolutionary party of the working class.
     "And  will  there be  a  revolution?" asked  Petya,  remembering Madame
Vasyutinskaya and her dreadful eyes that rolled like those of a madwoman.
     "All in good time," said Gavrik. "We've got to get our forces together.
Then we'll see."
     Once he  pulled  out  of his  pocket a  dirty canvas  bag  filled  with
something hard, and held it up before Petya's nose.
     "See that?" he winked.
     "What is it? Buttons for tiddly-winks?"  asked Petya, surprised. He had
never thought Gavrik could still go in for silly things like that.
     "Aha!"  said Gavrik.  "Like a game?" And his eyes sparkled slyly. Petya
held out his hand.
     "Let's see."
     "Hands off," said Gavrik sternly and hid the bag behind his back.
     Petya realized that this must be something very different from buttons.
     "I  suppose it's  the kind of buttons that nearly blew  up  our kitchen
that  time," he said, remembering how the pans had leaped  on the stove  and
the macaroni dangled from the ceiling.
     "Not quite, but  something  like it," said Gavrik, who evidently wanted
to show off  but could not  make up  his mind. "Guess again, you're  getting
nearer."
     "Show me!" Petya pleaded, burning with curiosity.
     "Not now."
     "When?"
     "Don't be so inquisitive," said Gavrik and pushed the bag deep into his
trouser pocket.
     Petya, offended, asked no more but sulked in silence.
     When the friends  drew level with  the depot, however, Gavrik led Petya
behind  a corner. He looked  round  carefully,  then pulled out the  bag and
unfastened the knotted  string with his teeth. He tipped something out on to
his palm  and held it under  Petya's eyes.  His palm was filled with  little
metal pieces that smelt strongly of printer's ink.
     "Type," he said mysteriously.
     Petya did not understand.
     "Type for printing. Letters."'
     Petya had never seen real  type. As a  child, it  is true, he had  been
given  a toy printing-set in a flat tin box. There  had  been  several dozen
rubber letters, a frame, a pad soaked with thick ink, and a pair of  pincers
for  handling the letters. You could set a number  of words in the frame and
then stamp them  on  paper, making printed lines  with black strips  between
them. But of course, real printing was something quite different.
     "And can you set type and print yourself?"
     "Of course!"
     "And will it be just as clear as in the newspaper?"
     "Just as clear."
     "Set something, show me."
     "Set something, eh?" Gavrik thought a  moment. "All right. But let's go
on a bit first."
     They  went  round the depot,  crawled under  trucks, ran down  from the
embankment and found  themselves in a  deep gully thick  with dry weeds from
last year.  There they sat down on the ground. From his pocket Gavrik took a
steel  thing  with  a  clip  which he called a  composing-stick and  started
quickly setting letter after letter of type in a long line.
     He then took a stump of pencil from his pocket and rubbed the lead over
the letters. Again he delved  into that bottomless  pocket, took out a scrap
of clean newsprint, laid the composing-stick on it and pressed down with his
hand.
     "Ready!" He held out the paper to Petya, but without letting go of it.
     "Workers  of the world, unite!"  Petya read these strange words faintly
but clearly printed in real newspaper lettering.
     "What's that?" he asked, admiring the  deft speed with which Gavrik had
done it all.
     "What we've been  talking about," said Gavrik; he  tore the  paper into
minute fragments and let the wind carry them away. "But remember!" He wagged
a finger smelling of kerosene under Petya's nose.
     "You needn't worry."
     Gavrik went up close to Petya  and breathed into his ear, "I've got out
fifteen bags of type like this."


        THE NEW HOME


     At the end of March  Auntie finally  managed to sublet the flat on good
terms.  Now  the furniture had  to be taken care  of,  and then  they  could
finally move. Gavrik talked it over with Terenty and then suggested that the
furniture be put  in  their shed  at Near  Mills to save storage  costs; and
Petya could live there too, until the end of the school exams.
     This  seemed ideal, and Auntie agreed gladly. She herself decided to go
and stay with an old school friend, taking Pavlik with her.
     So one fine  day two great flat carts called platforms, each drawn by a
pair of horses, drove  into the yard. And the Bachei furniture  was  carried
out.
     They  had  all  thought there  was  a great deal  of  furniture in  the
apartment, they had feared  two platforms  would not  hold it all. It turned
out, however, that the second platform was only half filled. And when tables
and chairs were stood  upside  down on  the platforms  and  fastened on with
thick ropes,  the  suites  which  to  Petya had  always looked  so  fine and
expensive,   especially  the   drawing-room   suite  with  its  golden  silk
upholstery, lost all their grandeur.
     The  bright   sunshine  seemed  to   bring  all  defects  into  glaring
prominence,   every  scratch,   crack  and  tear.  The   wash-stand   looked
particularly forlorn with its broken  pedal and  the  crack right across the
marble. The bronze dining-room lamp became insignificant with the  shade and
bronze ball removed and thrown down amid the supporting chains on the floor;
it  looked  a silly, old-fashioned thing that nobody in  their  senses would
want. Petya's most unpleasant surprise,  however, was the bookcase which had
always been  known  in  the Bachei  family as "Vasily  Petrovich's library."
Empty of books, lying  on its side, it looked miserably small, almost like a
toy,  and  all  the  books-the  famous Brockhaus  and  Efron  Encyclopaedia,
Karamzin's History of  the  State of  Russia,  Pushkin, Lermontov,  Tolstoi,
Gogol,    Turgenev,    Dostoyevsky,    Nekrasov,    Sheller-Mikhailov    and
Pomyalovsky-taken all together,  made up about  a dozen  piles strongly tied
with string. In fact, all these things as they were carried out did not look
like solid, dignified furniture at all, but just old junk.
     Petya climbed up  beside the driver of the first  platform to show  him
the way. Dunyasha, her nose swollen with crying, sat on  the second, holding
the mirror that reflected the street at a fantastic, dizzy angle.
     Auntie,  standing by  the  open gate with  Pavlik  beside her,  crossed
herself and for some reason waved her handkerchief.
     All  the way  Petya was  afraid he  might meet  some  of the  boys from
school. Although he  would never have admitted it  even to himself,  he  was
ashamed  of  their  furniture and  ashamed to  be taking it to  such  a poor
quarter  of the town as Near Mills. It was not so easy  to get accustomed to
the idea that now they too were "poor."
     Terenty and Gavrik were not at home, only the Chernoivanenko mother and
daughter  were there to meet him. Motya was more excited than  anyone  else,
she followed each article as it was carried across the front garden into the
shed, which had long been cleared for them.
     "Oh, Petya,  what  beautiful  chairs  you've got!" she cried in sincere
admiration, and touched the silk upholstery of an armchair,  rubbed down  in
places so that the white threads showed.
     Zhenka appeared with a crowd of  boys. They swarmed round the platforms
at  once, climbing with bare feet on to the wheels, feeling  the bronze ball
from the  lamp  and  turning  the  taps  of the wash-stand;  Zhenka  himself
actually  climbed  on  to the  box,  seized the  reins, assumed a  daredevil
expression and shouted, "Whoa there, damn you!"  A few  cuffs, however, soon
scattered  the whole gang and  they tore  down  the unpaved street,  raising
clouds of dust.
     When the furniture was stowed in the shed and the platforms drove away,
Dunyasha shouldered a bundle containing her clothes and icons and set off on
foot straight across the steppe to the cottage, which was not far from there
as the crow flies.
     "Well, so now you're  going to live  here with us at  Near Mills," said
Motya gaily,  then noticed Petya's downcast look and  added, "But whit's the
matter? Don't you like it here? You mustn't think it isn't nice, it is, it's
awfully nice. The snowdrops are  out  on the  steppe, just the other side of
the common, and there'll soon be violets in the gullies. We can go  and pick
them sometimes. Wouldn't you like it?"
     Gavrik soon came home from the print shop and stealthily  showed  Petya
another bag of type.
     "That's the sixteenth," he said with a wink.
     "Look out, one of these days you may get caught," said Petya.
     "Well, if I'm caught, I'm caught," sighed Gavrik. "Can't be helped."
     The  next  moment,  however, he was  gaily singing  a comic  song  very
popular on the outskirts of Odessa: "When they caught him, well, they socked
him-hey! hey! hey!"
     At first glance there might not seem to be much sense in the words, but
Petya always  felt  some hidden meaning, some daring,  fighting challenge in
that song.
     They arranged a nook for Petya  among the neatly  stacked  furniture in
the shed, with  bed, table, lamp and bookshelf. There was plenty of room, so
Gavrik brought his own bed in too, to live with Petya.
     Terenty came home from  work, nodded to  Petya and cast a business-like
look  round the shed. With \a dissatisfied grunt he rearranged the furniture
to occupy less room and put a brick under the  bookcase to stop it wobbling.
When he had finished there was even more space.
     "But mind you behave yourselves, no  fooling. I  know  you-you'll start
smoking,  or stop each  other studying." He turned to Petya. "You'll have to
work hard or they'll fail you, sure as I stand here. They won't forgive your
dad for Blizhensky. They're  all the same gang. You'll  see that I am right.
Well...."
     He slipped the bag of tools off his shoulder, threw off his oily jacket
and  went to the  bowl standing  on a bench by  the fence.  Motya gave him a
piece of  blue-veined washing soap, stepped up on  a low  stool  and  poured
water from a jug over his large, black hands. Then he bent his head for her,
and washed face, head and neck, spluttering, ridding  himself  of metal dust
and smoke. His washing took a long time,  he continued until he was as fresh
and pink as  a baby pig. Then  he  took the embroidered  towel hanging  over
Motya's shoulder and dried himself with the same gusto.
     Petya, meanwhile,  was digesting with alarm Terenty's final words which
he believed  without the faintest hesitation, particularly as he himself had
long felt something cold  and  threatening in the  faces of the director and
school inspector whenever he passed them.
     Petya was no longer  surprised to find Terenty so  well informed  about
all their circumstances, even  the incident with Blizhensky. He  had stopped
regarding  Terenty as  a  plain master  mechanic at  the railway  workshops,
earning  good wages, maybe, but still only a  workman. Petya understood well
that in Terenty's other, secret life,  which was called "Party work," he was
not only bigger and more important  than Vasily Petrovich, he  was much more
important than  the  school  director, than  Mr. Faig, than  the head of the
Education Department,  perhaps  even  more  important than  the Governor  of
Odessa, Tolmachov.
     They all had supper  together. Terenty's wife picked up the prongs  and
pulled an  iron  pot  out  of  the  stove,  country-style. The pot contained
cabbage soup without  meat.  It was followed by a  pan  of potatoes fried in
sunflower oil. Everything was eaten with  wooden  spoons. The rye bread  was
fresh and very fragrant. A head of  garlic and some pods of  red pepper were
on the table, but only  Terenty and Gavrik took any; they put the red pepper
in the cabbage soup and rubbed the garlic on the crust of bread.
     Petya, not to be outdone by his friend, also took a polished, fiery-red
pod of pepper, put it in his soup and mashed it.
     "Oh, don't!" said Motya in a frightened whisper.
     But Petya had already managed to swallow a mouthful of the soup and was
now sitting, tears in his  eyes, his tongue thrust out, feeling as though he
breathed fire.
     "Maybe you'd like some garlic too?" asked Gavrik innocently.
     "Go to hell!" said Petya  with  difficulty, wiping the tears  from  his
eyes.
     When  they rose from table,  Petya, like a well-brought-up boy, crossed
himself before the dark icon of St. Nicholas-the one he had seen as a boy in
Grandad Chernoivanenko's hut, bowed first to the mistress of the house, then
to the  master  and  said, "Thank you  most humbly."  To  which the mistress
answered kindly, "Good health go with it. Excuse the supper."
     That was how Petya's life in Near Mills began.
     They  rose at six in the morning  and washed in the yard, pouring  cold
water from the  well over  each other from a jug, ate a piece of black bread
spread with plum jelly and washed it down with tea.
     Then the  three men-Terenty,  Gavrik and Petya-set off  for  work. They
went out of  the gate together just as the factory whistles sounded from all
sides in a  long-drawn-out, imperative  yet indifferent wail.  The mist of a
March morning trembled from their monotonous chorus.
     Gates  creaked  and banged all over Near Mills  and  the streets filled
with men hurrying  to work. There were more and  more of them, they overtook
one another, greeted one another in passing, gathered into small groups.
     Terenty  walked quickly, in  silence,  his tools clanking softly in his
bag. Petya and Gavrik  could  hardly  keep up with him. Most  of the workers
greeted  Terenty  and he replied, mechanically  raising the  little cap like
cyclist's wear from  his  big,  round  head. Soon he  joined  a large  group
turning into a side-street while Petya and Gavrik went straight on together.
     They parted  company at the station, Petya turning right  to the school
while Gavrik, casually raising one large finger to the peak of a cap exactly
like Terenty's, went on through the town to the print-shop.
     All  the  time  he  was  at  school  Petya  had  a  strange feeling  of
awkwardness, timidity, alienation. He kept away  from  the other  boys. When
the  long recess  came, he  looked for  Pavlik, and the two brothers  walked
silently up  and down  the corridors, holding  each  other's bells. Pavlik's
face was very serious, even grim.
     On returning  to  Near Mills, Petya went into the shed and settled down
to  his  lessons,  working with desperate intensity as though preparing  for
battle.
     In the  evening Terenty and Gavrik came home  and they all  had supper.
After that  Petya  drilled  Gavrik  in Latin, and Gavrik in his turn drilled
Motya in all subjects-for she wanted to enter the fourth form at school.
     It was  eleven when they  finally went to bed. Petya and Gavrik put out
the  lamp and then lay talking in  the  dark. Although,  to be exact, it was
Petya who did most of the talking. Gavrik had little to say, only pushed his
head deeper into  the pillow. After the day's work  he  liked to have a good
sleep.


        SNOWDROPS


     More than  once  Petya tried to tell Gavrik about the  girl  he fell in
love with abroad; he would introduce it with a rapid description of Vesuvius
and the Blue Grotto in Capri with its magical underwater lighting that makes
hands  and  faces look as though made of blue glass;  but when  he  began to
speak in hints and half-sentences of that  wonderful  first meeting  at  the
station  in  Naples, he  found Gavrik  was already asleep,  even starting to
snore.
     Once, however, Petya did manage to tell Gavrik about his romance before
his friend finally dropped  off to sleep. "And  what  happened after  that?"
asked Gavrik, more from politeness than interest.
     "Nothing," sighed Petya. "We parted for ever."  "Well, that's very sad,
of course," said Gavrik, frankly yawning. "What was her name?"
     "Her name?"  said Petya  slowly and mysteriously; it was a very awkward
moment. With a shade of secret grief he said, "Ah, what does a name matter!"
     "Well, what was she like, at least-dark or fair?" asked Gavrik.
     "Neither dark nor fair,  more ... how can I explain? Her  hair was sort
of  chestnut,  or  better,  dark  chestnut,"  Petya  answered  with  painful
exactitude.
     "Uhuh, I understand," mumbled Gavrik. "Well, let's go to sleep."
     "No, wait a minute,"  said Petya, whose  imagination was only beginning
to get to work. "Don't go to sleep yet. I want you to advise me, as pal-what
ought I to do now?"
     "Write to her," said Gavrik. "You know her address, don't you?"
     "Ah, what would that help!" said Petya in grief-stricken accents.
     "But if you love her," said Gavrik judicially.
     "What's  love?" said  the  disillusioned Petya  and  quoted  Lermontov,
slightly out of place:

     But love is no solace-too fleeting it is,
     Unequal to life-long devotion.

     "In that  case, shut  up  and  let  me get to sleep,"  grunted  Gavrik,
turning round on the other side and pulling the pillow over his ear.
     Not another word could be got from him.
     But Petya lay awake for a long time.
     He could  see  the moon like a  greenish sickle peeping in through  the
tiny window. Time after time he heard  the gate creak. There was a murmur of
talk and more than once people came into the little yard and went out again.
     "Don't go  straight there, go round by the marshalling yard." The voice
was Terenty's, evidently he had had visitors again.
     Petya began thinking of  that girl, but somehow he  could no longer see
her clearly. The picture was hazy- a braid with a black ribbon,  a cinder in
his eye, the blizzard in  the  mountains-and that was all. It seemed that he
had simply forgotten her.
     It was rather chilly in the shed. Petya  took down his Swiss cape  from
the  wall  and spread  it over  his bed. Now he  saw himself  as the  lonely
traveller  in  a  poor shepherd's  hut.  There he lay, rolled  in his  cape,
forgotten by all, with a broken heart and a  tormented soul. And she whom he
so  loved, at  this very  moment  perhaps  she was....  Petya  made  a  last
desperate  effort to picture what she could be doing, but instead found  his
mind drifting to quite different thoughts-thoughts of the corning exams, the
new life waiting for him on the farm, and strangest thing of all-thoughts of
Motya. Really, it  wouldn't be such a  bad idea to go out to the steppe with
her sometime to pick snowdrops.
     It had never before  entered his head that Motya  could possibly be the
heroine of a romance. But now it seemed the most natural thing in the world,
he was surprised he had not  thought of it. After  all, she was pretty,  she
loved him-of that Petya had no doubt whatsoever, and most important  of all,
she was always there, at hand.
     These  thoughts induced a pleasant  excitement, and instead of going to
sleep in  tears, Petya drifted into slumber with  a Languid,  self-satisfied
smile and wakened with a feeling of something new and extremely pleasant.
     Instead of sitting down to his  lessons when he  came home from school,
he sought out Motya, who was helping her mother make potato cakes,  and went
straight to the point.
     "Well, how about it?" he said with a condescending smile.
     "How  about what?" asked  Motya, diffident  as  always  when talking to
Petya.
     "Have you forgotten?"
     "What?" Motya repeated even more diffidently, and glanced up at the boy
from under her brows with sweet, innocent eyes.
     "I thought you intended to go and pick snowdrops."
     She blushed and her fingers began crumbling the edge of a potato cake.
     "Do you mean it?"
     "Of course. But if you don't want to go, well, it doesn't matter."
     "Mummy, can  you manage without me?" asked  Motya. "I  promised to show
Petya where the snowdrops and violets grow."
     "Go  along,  children, go and gather  your  flowers,"  said  her mother
affectionately.
     Motya  ran  behind the curtain,  unfastening her apron as she went. She
put  on  her best goatskin  shoes and the  coat  she had rather grown out of
during the winter, and  flung her braid over her  shoulder. She was terribly
excited, and a faint dew of perspiration appeared on her neat nose.
     Meanwhile,  Petya,  deliberately unhurried, strode nonchalantly  to the
shed, put on his cloak, picked  up  his alpenstock  and presented himself to
Motya in his sombre glory-somewhat spoiled by the school cap.
     "Well, let's go,"  said Petya with all the  grand indifference he could
muster.
     "Yes, let's go," Motya answered in a very small  voice, her head  down,
and led the way to the gate, her new shoes squeaking loudly.
     While they  crossed the common where the cows  were  already grazing on
last  year's grass, Petya turned over the very  important  question of which
Motya  was  to  be- Olga or Tatyana? In  any  case he,  of course,  remained
Yevgeny  Onegin.  He selected the  old  version  of  Yevgeny Onegin  as  the
easiest,  to avoid  too  much  trouble.  Motya  was not worth anything  more
complicated.  Now  he  must  decide  quickly  whether she would  be  Olga or
Tatyana, and then make a beginning.
     In appearance  she was not  a bit like Tatyana,  she would make a  much
better Olga-if  it weren't for that  coat  with  its too  short sleeves,  of
course, and  those dreadful  squeaking shoes that could surely be  heard all
over Near Mills.
     Here  was  the end  of  the common, time to start. Petya quickly merged
Tatyana and Olga, getting quite a suitable hybrid whom he could preach to in
the best Onegin style:

     And, in some quiet place apart
     Instruct the lady of his heart. . .

     and yet whose hand he could tenderly press; and best of all there would
be  no need for  kissing, the very thought  of  which made  Petya thoroughly
uncomfortable.
     He would continue to be Onegin but with a faint touch  of Lensky which,
however, should not hamper him in following the great rule:

     A woman's love for us increases .
     The less we love her, sooth to say. . .

     It could become  a  splendid  romance.  It was  rather a  drawback,  of
course,  that he really did like Motya. That  was quite  out of  place if he
were  to be Onegin. But  Petya resolved to treat his feelings with contempt,
and as  soon as they  were out on the steppe  he said sternly,  "Motya, I've
something very serious to say to you."
     The girl's heart turned over and she halted, alarmed by his grim look.
     "Have you ever loved anyone?" asked Petya with still greater sternness.
     "Yes," answered Motya in a small voice.
     Petya's face showed an  involuntary smile of  self-satisfaction, but on
the instant he banished it and asked, looking straight into her eyes,
     "Who?"
     "A lot of people," answered Motya simply.
     Petya bit back  the word "fool,"  that  nearly slipped  out, and set to
work patiently explaining what love was, what it meant  in general and  what
it meant in particular. Motya understood and flushed crimson.
     "Well then?" Petya asked insistently.
     "You know  for yourself,"  Motya  whispered almost  inaudibly,  raising
happy, tear-filled eyes to his face.
     She  was so  sweet in that moment that Petya was ready to  fall in love
with her, very much  like Lensky with Olga, in spite  of the squeaking shoes
and  the coat bought on the market. But such a  very easy victory could  not
satisfy him, it was too commonplace.
     "So I can count on your friendship?" he asked.
     "Yes, of course," said Motya. "Always."
     "Then I  must tell you  my secret. Only  promise that  it shall  remain
between ourselves."
     "I give my word, I swear it by  the true Cross," said Motya and quickly
crossed herself several times. "May I die here on this  spot if I ever say a
word."
     "I have fallen in love," said Petya mournfully.
     He stood in silence for a moment,  then told Motya about  his  romance,
word for word as he had told it to Gavrik in the shed.
     Motya listened in silence, her  arms hanging despondently, and when  he
finished she asked in a voice unlike her own, "What is her name?"
     "What does a name matter!" Petya answered.
     "And you love her very, very much?" said Motya in lifeless tones.
     "That's just it," Petya answered.
     "I wish you all happiness," said Motya in a barely audible voice.
     "Yes, but I want your advice as a friend-what  ought I  to do now?  How
should I act?"
     "Write her a letter if you love her so much."
     "But what is love?  'Love is  no  solace-too fleeting it is, unequal to
life-long devotion,'" said Petya, in a. somewhat dramatic sing-song.
     "I wish you all happiness," said Motya. Her eyes suddenly narrowed like
a cat's, almost frightening Petya.  Then she turned and walked rapidly  back
the way they had come.
     "Stop,  where  are  you  going? What about the snowdrops?" Petya called
out.
     "I wish you all happiness," she said again, without turning.
     Petya ran  after  her, the  cape hampered him  but he overtook her. She
flung off the hand he put on her shoulder and quickened her steps.
     "Silly  girl, I was  only joking,  can't you understand  I  was joking?
Can't you take a joke?" Petya mumbled. "Why do you have to lose your  temper
like that?"
     Now that she was angry he liked her twice as much as before.
     Motya ran all the way across the  common and only slowed her pace  to a
walk when she reached the street.
     Petya walked beside her, protesting:
     "I was only joking. Can't you understand that? Silly girl, to lose your
temper this way!"
     "I've not lost my temper," she said quietly.
     The storm of jealousy had passed, she was the old Motya again.
     "Let's make up, then," Petya proposed.
     "But I  haven't quarrelled with you," she  answered.  She even forced a
faint  smile  because she did not want people to see them quarrelling in the
street.
     Petya was embarrassed but inwardly triumphant.  Taken  all round it had
been an excellent love scene.
     It  was  Zhenya who  spoiled it  all.  He had long  been watching them,
together with his  faithful  followers.  And  now  the  whole  gang  of boys
followed  them  at a cautious distance chanting in chorus,  "Spoony, spoony,
krssy-kissy-coo!"


        THE LENA MASSACRE


     One day at the beginning of April  Gavrik came home from the print-shop
much later than usual. Petya was in the shed going over his geometry.
     "Soldiers  have fired  on the workers at the Lena gold-fields,"  Gavrik
said before  he  was  properly inside,  and without removing his cap crossed
over and sat down on the edge of his bed.
     Petya already knew from the talk he had heard in  Near  Mills that  far
away  in  Siberia,  in  the  dense  taiga  by  the Lena  River,  there  were
gold-fields where workers lived in horrible conditions. He also knew that at
one  of  the  worst of these,  the  workers  had been on strike  ever  since
February and  had even  sent deputations to the other fields. The strike was
led by the Beks, while the Meks were trying to persuade the  workers to call
off the strike and make peace with the management. But the workers would not
listen to the Meks and  the strike spread. Over six thousand were out.  That
was the last  news which had  come by devious routes from the banks  of  the
Lena.
     Now Gavrik sat, his hands between his knees, staring at the green shade
of the lamp that was reflected in his fixed eyes. His breathing was slow but
deep,  like  a  succession of  sighs-evidently he had  hurried home from the
print-shop.
     At first Petya did not take in the full significance of Gavrik's words.
It had been said so simply, almost without expression: "Soldiers have  fired
on the workers." He looked again at Gavrik, at his frozen, haggard face, and
realization flooded his mind.
     "How-how did  they  fire?"  he  asked,  feeling  his face stiffen  like
Gavrik's.
     "Just like  that.  Quite  simple,"  said Gavrik roughly. "From  rifles.
Company, aim! Fire!"
     "How do you know?"
     "I  set the  dispatch  myself. Nonpareil, six point. It came  in  three
hours ago. It's  to be in today's issue- if they don't  take it out. You can
expect any dirt from them. Well, I'm off," he said, rising with a jerk.
     "Where are you going?"
     "To  Terenty  at  the workshops.  Seems  he's  doing  overtime  on  the
night-shift."
     With that Gavrik turned and went.
     Petya felt he could not  bear it alone in the shed, he ran after Gavrik
and  overtook him by the  gate.  Silently they  walked together  through the
transparent darkness of the April night. The first apple blossom was  out in
the gardens, but in Siberia  it  was still winter with hard  frost,  and the
Lena River lay ice-bound under its covering of snow.
     Petya had  come out without a coat and soon felt  chilly. He thrust his
hands into the sleeves of his school jacket and huddled his elbows to him as
he walked  beside  Gavrik.  A church clock  somewhere struck  eleven. In the
houses everyone was asleep and the  windows were dark; the only lamp was the
electric  light  at  the gates  of  the  railway  workshops,  that cast  its
reflection  on the  lines.  The  watchman  was  dozing,  the  bottom  of his
sheepskin peeped through the open door of his shelter.
     Petya and Gavrik went round the locomotive shop, and peered through the
dusty glass, broken here and there. Petya could  see the flickering light of
a furnace,  and the great bulk of an engine  slung in chains  from the roof.
Workers walked about beneath it. Petya  at once recognized Terenty, carrying
an  oily steel  connecting-rod on his  shoulder, one hand steadying  an  end
wrapped in a black rag.
     A railway engineer in a  uniform cap  and  a tunic with shoulder-straps
stood, feet astride,  at  one side, holding  a large blueprint as  though it
were a newspaper he was reading.
     All  this  Petya  had  seen many  times  before, it  contained  nothing
unusual, still  less menacing. But now a  chill  of fear ran through him. He
felt that any moment those chains  might  snap and the pendant  engine crash
down with all its  giant weight  upon  the men  standing  underneath. For an
instant the picture was so real before him that he shut his eyes.
     But at that moment Gavrik  put two fingers into his mouth and whistled.
Terenty  turned and  looked at  the dark  glass of  the  window  that  dimly
reflected the electric lights in the shop. Then with a smooth heavy movement
of  his  great  body  he slid  the  rod  from his shoulder and carried it on
outstretched arms away  to the side.  Soon after that he appeared round  the
corner and came up to the boys.
     "What's the matter?" he asked Gavrik, but looked at Petya.
     "Soldiers have  fired  on the workers  at  the Lena gold-fields,"  said
Gavrik in a low  voice. "A dispatch came from Irkutsk today. I ran off eight
copies just in case." He handed Terenty a sheet of fresh proofs.
     Terenty  turned his  back to the lighted window and read the  dispatch.
Petya could not see the expression of his face but felt it must be dreadful.
Suddenly Terenty  bent, snatched up a piece of clinker from  the  ground and
flung it against the wall with such force that it shattered to fragments.
     For some  time he  stood breathing heavily, mastering himself, then  he
led Gavrik aside and they talked quickly for a moment.
     On the  way  back Gavrik several times left Petya and disappeared for a
little  while.  Once Petya saw him go to somebody's gate  and thrust a white
paper into the crack. He guessed that this was a copy of the dispatch.
     They returned to their shed, put out the  light and went to bed, but it
was a  long time before the boys could  sleep. Petya found himself listening
fearfully to  the  sounds of the  night.  He had the feeling that  something
terrible was going to begin.  Shouting crowds would run  down  the street, a
fire  would  break  out  somewhere,  there  would  be  revolver  shots.  But
everything was quiet.
     The  pointsman's horn sounded  from the  railway crossing; then a goods
train passed.  A cart rattled along the uneven road a long way off, he could
hear  an  empty  bucket banging  under  it.  Then came the third  cock-crow,
prolonged and sleepy, caught up  by bird  after bird throughout  Near Mills.
That was followed by the factory whistles and then the creaking of gates.
     The day passed as usual. At recess, however, Petya  noticed some of the
big boys  reading a  newspaper under the  stairs, and  heard  the  whispered
words, "There's trouble at the Lena gold-fields."
     Gavrik came home even later than  the previous  day-  he had waited for
the latest news-and brought a big bundle  of proofs with  him. They were  of
dispatches giving the details of the Lena massacre. Five  hundred killed and
wounded. Petya went cold with horror.
     Night came.  Terenty said a few  words  to  Gavrik, then they both went
out.  Petya  wanted to go too,  but they refused to take him. Left alone, he
went to  bed,  pulled his cape right  over  his  head and fell asleep. Soon,
however, he was awake again.
     Everything was very  quiet. Petya lay on his back, eyes open, trying to
picture five hundred killed and wounded. But  it  was impossible,  no matter
how he strained his imagination.  All he could see was an indistinct picture
of a snow-covered field  strewn  with the dark forms of  dead  workers.  The
meaning of the picture  was  immeasurably worse  than the picture itself and
this inconsistency tormented Petya, and would let him think of nothing else.
     Suddenly  it occurred  to him that five hundred was  just the number of
pupils and teachers at his school. He  pictured  the corridors,  staircases,
class-rooms, gym  and the assembly hall full of dead and  wounded pupils and
teachers, the  pools of blood  on the tile floors,  the screams, the groans,
the confusion....
     A shudder ran through him.
     But still it was not  the same, because this was only fancy  while that
had been real. Those  bodies were real, not  imaginary, and Petya started to
remember all the dead bodies he had seen.
     He  remembered  Mother  in  her coffin, looking like a bride, her  lips
blackened from medicine and a strip of  paper on her forehead. He remembered
Uncle Misha in his frock-coat, his arms with  their bony white hands crossed
on his  breast.  He remembered Vitya Seroshevsky,  one  of  the boys in  the
fourth  form who had  died of diphtheria, looking like a large  doll in  his
blue  uniform. Grandad- Mother's father-with  his  bald head  reflecting the
light of the candles. An infantry general who  had been taken past the house
in an open coffin on a gun-carriage, with all  his decorations carried  on a
velvet cushion in front.
     But none of these had been killed, they had died  a natural death, they
were taken to  the cemetery  with wreaths  and incense and music and singing
and lanterns  on  crape-swathed  staffs. However dreadful  they might  look,
these  motionless  forms  still bore  human semblance  amid all the funereal
trappings, and they could not give Petya any idea of those  hundreds who lay
prone in the snow, and his torment continued.
     Suddenly he saw again what had long been thrust away into the very back
of  his memory  and hardly ever came to the surface,  because it was so much
more terrible than anything else.
     Petya remembered  1905, Terenty's  bandaged head with  blood  trickling
down his  temple, he remembered the room with its smashed  furniture full of
the smoke  of  gunfire,  and the  man with the indifferent waxen  face and a
black hole above the open  eye who lay so  uncomfortably on the floor  among
empty  cartridge clips and cartridge  eases. He remembered the  two Cossacks
galloping past,  dragging after  them  on a  rope the  corpse of a man Petya
knew, Joseph Karlovich, wh